Intelligence pro writes Dark Thrillers

J.T. Patten has written two commercially published series in the military / espionage book (spy novel) genre, and will be starting a third thriller series of short stories in Tactical Life magazine, The Lone Woolf Stories (Based on character, Drake Woolf, the man from Orange). 

The first series, Safe Havens, centers on CIA NOC agent / contracted field intelligence operator, Sean Havens, and was initially Independently published. The second series, the Task Force Orange novels, focuses on an elite special operations soldier, Drake Woolf, who had worked for the highly secretive Joint Special Operations (JSOC) unit, the Intelligence Support Activity otherwise known as "the Activity" or "Orange," and is published by Kensington Book's imprint Lyrical Press and distributed by Penguin. His latest, Lone Woolf, builds from the others with SIGINT (intelligence operator) Drake as the main character.  Both initial  series' converge in Safe Havens: Presidential Retreat when Sean Havens and Drake Woolf first meet. Later, in the Task Force Orange series, Sean Havens becomes a mentor to the younger and highly volatile, Drake Woolf, who gradually evolves into an anti-hero role. In the third series, the saga continues but with a new publisher and in a series of episodic short stories.

Each book in the series can be described as having multi-layer plots that are character driven with a running theme of moral ambiguity in achieving the objectives of either the United States, as the "good guy" or the foreign actors as "bad guys." Within the gray morass are double crosses on all sides, and due to the shadowy nature of the activities, oversight and ethics fall by the wayside in exchange for bottom line "wins."

While the stories are fictional, they are based on possibilities that could happen in today's world from the depths of disavowed Special Access Programs, which are in "Blacker than Black," according to the late best selling author and veteran Dalton Fury.

Patten's trillers blend aspects of the fast-paced high body count of the traditional military thriller but also cross into the heavy dialogue and details of a modern day espionage book. Due to the high tech gadgetry in today's battle space, J.T. Patten's novels are considered hybrid sub-genres falling into Spy-Fi. 

J.T. Patten's thriller influencers are Tom Clancy, Mark Greaney, and Vince Flynn on the military side, Robert Ludlum,  John le Carre, and Forsyth for espionage, and Stephen King, Clive Barker, and Thomas Harris for dark suspenseful twists.