 Code Name Missa 72 follows, time wise, on Code Name Willow Bay and is a very exciting story from a military history viewpoint and one never before revealed as far as I know. What happens in this book is that Angelique Dawson, accompanied by her two star operatives, Foxtrot & Geelslang, have to rescue a double agent from certain death as he is betrayed and needs to get out. It is a classic undercover smuggling mission of a high level source out of a hostile environment, in this instance Zimbabwe. Interestingly though, the source, a high ranking Zimbabwe Intelligence Officer, Lieutenant General Mark Sithole, has a connection with Geelslang and Foxtrot they forgot about and never reported officially.
The story flash back to their top secret mission in Manica Province, Mozambique in 1987, something mentioned in passing in previous books but not in detail. GMJ readers will know Geelslang and Foxtrot were there, behind enemy lines for months, training and commanding RENAMO, the anti-communist resistance movement originally started by the Rhodesians. It is an open secret that South African Special Forces were deployed there but exactly what they did is not known. From the Truth & Reconciliation hearings we learned the weapons captured by RENAMO were smuggled south under Operation Marion with the intention to arm the Zulu Inkatha Freedom Party. What is not known in general is what else happened and this is where Code Name Missa 72 comes in, the story is way more interesting than what most are acquainted with. Zimbabwe frequently attacked RENAMO inside Mozambique during the 1980s and at times occupied parts large of Mozambique trying desperately to keep the pipelines and roads open as to avoid dealing with South Africa. And RENAMO, under men like Geelslang and Foxtrot, South African Special Forces, attacked and conducted numerous operations against Zimbabwe to destabilize her and at times, attacked Zimbabwe territory directly. It is during such an attack where history is changed and Geelslang finds himself inside Zimbabwe at the Katiyo Tea Estate in the Honde Valley (inside Zimbabwe) and that is as far as I am willing to reveal the plot. You can read the rest. The action is nonstop, the suspense terrible and physically from Lake Kariba to the Honde Valley and back with a rampant Angelique Dawson in command causing Foxtrot all sorts of problems being born “otherwise.” The cover is great, it shows a PBY Catalina flying boat, as used in the story, on Lake Kariba, thank you to Sulet. Code Name Missa 72 is a great story and based on fact as is all GMJ Books. It is also the longest at 301 pages and will be available in paper besides the normal e-publishing formats. See the GMJ website where you can download it, it is very much worth reading. If you wish to read about covert and Special Forces operations in Sub Saharan Africa the GMJ Books are the place to start. Code Name Missa 72 is the thirteenth book in the popular GMJ Series.
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 There is a saying that unless your books are in paper you are not an author. You are an “Indie Author” and your books not worth reading! I can tell you from a legal and a business view I found paper publishers to be something very close to scammers and authors falling for their shenanigans rather confused or the object of bad legal advice. How it worked, before we got e-publishing, was that you write your manuscript and some takes years to do this (why I would not know but I respect that nonetheless). Then when you have a complete manuscript you go to the publishing houses and they will now reject you or not, depending on criteria only they and God understands because I don’t.
Sadly, most authors were rejected and you have to wonder, looking at some of the crap actually published through the decades (I have been reading for 43 years now) on what possible criteria they make their decisions. And they make serious blunders, many famous books, from Harry Potter to whatever, were rejected at first and it gave the publishing house a god-like idea of themselves and something I dislike intently (I need to mention, I was never rejected). They still have that idea, they are god and will decide what the public read, another form of censorship I don’t like. Unfortunately, it does not end here. The business model is entirely one sided for them to check and almost rewrite the manuscript and with that I have one hell of a big problem with. I wrote the book in a certain way and style and I will never allow a wanker pony tail who wrote nothing in his or her life to tell me how to change it. Unless he or she is an author I admire, I will reject their advice. A book, I can tell you, is like a child for the author. An editor looks at spelling and grammar and nothing else and certainly not the storyline. That is my view and I don’t take kindly to anything else. And yet it still happens, I turned down a US publishing house on the GMJ Books because they wanted more sex in the story. Now I don’t write such filth and what should be private between man and wife in my books. And yes sex sells, I know that. Look at the sudden influx of “Fifty Shades of Filth” books in the last years. My word, what nonsenses to follow slavishly what was done before. You cannot copy another author, you will always look second hand. I don’t get that way of thinking. I write books because I want to share the story with you, to get you to smile and frown and be expectant on what will come out next. That to me is the crux and it must be accurate, there is an enormous amount of research in each. I am proud of my books, I want them reread and be available in a few years yet. That to me is the real test and you get such authors, Alistair MacLean, Jack Higgin, Wilbur Smith etc. I can read their books time and time again. I want the same with GMJ Books, to be read again and again. The new way of publishing is not to beg someone to print your book (I am not good at begging to begin with) and to pay them an enormous fee to check it and then to print it and then to run marketing campaigns (in every second magazine under the cover of an “exclusive” which is crap, it is paid ads and the reader not that stupid, really). And then if your lumps of paper don’t sell quickly enough, you as the author will carry the loss financially. From a legal and business sense, unless you are already famous, it makes zero sense and I always stayed away from that and leaving my books in the modern format, e-publishing. However, this system also opened the door for less than good books, pathetic ones really and a total oversupply as anyone can now publish. Yet it is the best way and I predict as do most, paper will disappear in the next twenty odd years. The era of the rejection notes are gone and so is censorship in that sense. But on the other hand, I have hundreds of paper books and the smell of such a book, the excitement of turning a page is still there for many of us. And I know a paper book is a damn sight better gift than an electronic file. So I got the GMJ Books into paper now without financial risk to me. How it works is what is known as “print on demand” and the printing is done by CreateSpace, an Amazon company. You order your book via them and it is printed and delivered to you a day or three later. I understand you also pay for the delivery costs and you pay by credit card. If you are unhappy with the printing quality (it is as good as any other book) you may return it to CreateSpace but be sure to read their terms and conditions, this is not in my hands. This gives you the option to get the book in print or electronic and yes it is vastly more expensive in print but it is not more than what any other such book will cost. Interestingly, the longer the book, the less I get which is less than 40% of what you pay. The delivery fees may make it expensive in South Africa and outside the US and Canada, I cannot help that, it is a US company printing them. The books are anyway not Mickey Mouse books, the shortest are 226 pages and the longest 301, the averages is about 245 pages in print, that is good value for money in my eyes. I hope you enjoy this moment with me, I am proud of my books. GMJ |
George M James is a pseudo name for the author and used for security reasons. He is an expert on counter-terrorism and counterinsurgency operations in sub-Saharan Africa, a military historian and published author of more than 50 books. In the GMJ Series, you will learn about Covert Operations, Special Forces techniques, current political analyses and military history not known outside the select few. Every GMJ Book is based on historical fact and often what is revealed in a GMJ Book is published by the mainstream media a short while later. Many of the GMJ Books are used as training material by Police Forces (SWAT) across the world. Note please that GMJ does not claim to have served in South African Army or Police Special Forces.Archives
June 2018
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