Have you met the men and women of Mahoney & Squire, my high-stakes, high-octane military action adventure series? Let me introduce you!
Captain Kathryn “Kate” Mahoney, USN
Call Sign “Scarlett”
Ambitious, strong-willed, patriotic, and assertive, Kate Mahoney is often derided as a “bitch” by the old school naval aviation community. She struggled through dysfunctional relationships, culminating in her past toxic marriage to Marine Corps Major Luke Walker. Kate escaped him thirteen years ago after a bitter confrontation. She took with her their only child, Patrick. Avoiding serious entanglements ever since, Kate’s life seems forever torn between the self-generated demands of a promising Navy career and the responsibilities of single parenthood.
Following a successful tour in command of a fighter/attack jet squadron, Kate arrives at her new position as Seventh Fleet Deputy Chief of Staff and Director of Operations—burdened by professional and personal baggage yet determined to succeed on all fronts. She rolls hot into her new role and designs a bold plan to thwart a naval conflict off Korea.
But “Scarlett” doesn’t see her past demons encroach on the horizon.
Patrick Walker
Son of Kate Mahoney and Luke Walker. His mother and father divorced after an acrimonious physical confrontation when Patrick was one year old. By his mother’s choice, he never knew his father, nor anything about the man’s history. The void in his heritage remains a vexing mystery, shrouded in his mother’s denial and her refusal to talk about past painful events.
Patrick has no insight into his deep-seated psychological angst and abandonment fear, much less his smoldering anger at his mother for forcing his father away, and then often being gone herself in pursuit of her naval career.
Now an emerging teenager confused and seething, Patrick is vulnerable to nefarious influence.
Colonel Preston Davis III, USMC
Born into a family of proud military heritage, Colonel Davis dedicated his life to honor the memory of his father who died a hero in the early days of the Vietnam war. (Preston was two years old.) Now at the pinnacle of an illustrious military career, “Press” is a respected warrior and an expert on theater security and East Asia affairs. The keystone of the Seventh Fleet staff, he is trusted confidante to the chief of staff and admiral. Self-assured, poised, handsome, and fit, Preston Davis is the quintessential Marine; a future general.
Behind that hardened facade, Preston suffers in silence from PTSD resulting from an attack on forces he led during the early days of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Fearing the career cost of seeking professional help, he resorts to self-medication to ease his psychic pain.
Luke Walker, Major (retired), USMC
Kate’s ex-husband, who suffered permanent physical and psychic trauma from their bitter breakup. No longer deluded by visions of greatness as a Marine aviator, and robbed of his child by a “spiteful” ex-wife, he disappeared from Kate’s life.
Luke’s specter remains just off stage, watching and waiting.
Captain Leo LeBlanc, USN
Leo LeBlanc has devoted his life to the United States Navy. A Naval Academy graduate with a stellar record of academic and athletic prowess, he’s used to winning. In the offspring-devouring surface warfare community, Leo earned his ascendency through the ranks to land the plum job as Chief of Staff to the Commander, US Seventh Fleet.
He expects someday to wear four stars and command the entire Pacific Fleet, maybe the entire US Navy.
Old school and steeped in naval tradition, Leo has little patience for and less understanding of the “softer” direction of the new Navy. A woman in charge of operations as his deputy chief of staff constitutes a direct threat to his masculinity and his career aspirations.
Leo LeBlanc must eliminate the threat he sees in Kate Mahoney.
Lieutenant Commander Jessica Squire, USN
Call Sign: “Cricket”
Junior naval aviator who pilots the P-3 Orion and the new P-8 Poseidon. In HER PACIFIC SHOWDOWN, she reluctantly joins the fleet staff on temporary assignment as maritime surveillance liaison officer.
Self-assured and intense, Jess travels a lifestyle path divergent from the stereotyped aviator, even from pioneering women like Kate Mahoney.
When the South China Sea theater of operations heats up from multiple military threats, Cricket flies an ill-fated mission that becomes a lightning rod of international confrontation among major powers. She finds herself thrust into a situation that will try her soul and test her true mettle.
Colleagues, politicians, and loved ones over a vast geography anxiously await the outcome.