[about the project]
Simon Drake is an up-and-coming young FBI hotshot, an agent with a personal track record so outstanding that it borders on unbelievable. Not yet thirty, he's already the leader of his own special ops team; a ragtag bunch of talented but nigh-uncontrollable lunatics, it's true, but under Simon's inspired leadership they're a force to be reckoned with, a team with an unparalleled success rate, a team with an almost unblemished record--until now.

Jeremy Archer is the brilliant and unpredictable scion of a long line of international art thieves, simultaneously a phenomenally wealthy English socialite and one of the most infamous criminals in the world. At twenty-seven years old he's already wanted on nearly every continent for thefts totalling more than ninety-one million dollars, and yet no one has ever come close to catching him--until now.

Now?

May the best man win.

This wasn't supposed to happen. I'll just say that right now and get it out of the way. In hindsight, I blame Lyn. It's all her fault. She started it.

All we wanted was to make up silly slashy stories over AIM. We made up a couple of really fun characters and started playing with them, and somehow our characters got surrounded with a bunch of other characters, and eventually we'd fangirled up the vague plots of four novels and a bunch of random short stories. Lyn, smart girl, was able to make herself stop there.

I, however, lost my mind.

I actually lost my mind in several steps: first, I drew a bunch of random sketches of the characters. (Those are in the gallery.) Then I wrote a handful of short stories and porn (which are in the short stories section). Then I wrote a single random chapter out of Book Three. Then I wrote a bit more of Book Three. Then I said to myself, "Self, you cannot build a pyramid from the top down. If you're going to actually do this crazy thing, do it all. Go back and start at the beginning, write Book One, and do it all in order."

And I did.

At this point in time, all four novels are complete and on the site, bringing Shadow of the Templar to its official conclusion. Four years ago I set out to discover whether or not I had what it takes to write novel-length fiction. I think I've found my answer. (As to whether it's good novel-length fiction, or publishable novel-length fiction, I couldn't tell you. But it exists, and I'll be content with that for now.)

A huge round of thanks to everyone who came along for the ride, and to everyone who hops on in the future! I'm grateful that you took the time to read my work, and I hope that you enjoyed it.

[disclaimer]
I'm a hack writer. I'm nothing special. Never have been. Furthermore, this is the first original writing of any length I have ever attempted, and as such, it's nothing special either. If I wasn't publishing these novels on the web, they probably wouldn't get published at all. However, I like them enough to go ahead and slap them up on the web.

These manuscripts are doubtless riddled with factual errors, false assumptions, anachronistic tech, blatantly poor research, and grammatical errors of the insidiously subtle sort.

(I did as much research as the web allows, but in many cases, that's not much. Please note that most of the FBI procedure is totally made up off the top of my shiny little head. I've read a whole bunch of novels with FBI agents in them and a couple of personal accounts written by FBI agents, and that's about it. As far as these novels are concerned, 'FBI' stands for 'Fangirl Bureau of Innuendo'. S'okay? S'allright.

... mostly, it's just that I'm lazy and don't have any plans to get these actually published. And also I have a vague paranoid fear of real, actual FBI agents showing up at my door demanding to know why I was nosing around their organization, and I don't think 'so I could write GAY FBI PORN' would go over very well.)

[about me]
I'm thirty-something, I live in Seattle, I write under a pseudonym, and I'm apparently insane.

[faq]
When's the next bit going to go up?
Next bit? What next bit? All four novels are complete and online, bringing the main narrative to a close. Go, me!
Of course, short stories and artwork will continue to appear whenever I have something new to show. The books may be done, but I've still got a few ideas rattling around inside the giant empty space that is my brain. (Har, har.)

Hey, did you know you made a mistake...?
Possibly. I know I probably made a lot of factual errors. I tended to err on the side of 'fun to write and internally consistant', much to the dismay of 'technically correct'.
That being said, if you find a mistake that's bugging the hell out of you... well, you can write and let me know. But I probably won't do much beyond go 'oops'. By the time something makes it onto the site, it's not going to change again. (However, if you know of a nifty-keen web resource or collection of first-person accounts that I should check out, by all means, let me know.)

Why caper novels? Why not fantasy or SF or something?
Don't get me wrong: I love fantasy and SF. I read fantasy and SF voraciously. I squeal with glee whenever I find a new fantasy or SF writer worth following, and I will defend to the death your right to read and write fantasy or SF. Whatever turns you on, go for it.
However, for some reason, I don't find it as fulfilling to write fantasy and SF as I do to read it. I like the idea of these people actually existing in my own personal world. I like the idea of them obeying the same laws of physics that I do. I like them to struggle with real problems without having magic or futuretech to help them. I really like the idea that some day I may go to Washington DC and pass one or another of those characters on the street and not even know it.