We are pleased to present this year’s collection of new books by members of the Foreign Service community.

MEMOIRS

An American Diplomat: How It Happened

Ralph Milton Buck, SB Publications, 2025, $14.95/paperback, e-book available, 326 pages.

This memoir revisits the author’s experiences abroad starting with the war in Vietnam through Afghanistan in 2005. It covers the 1979 attack on the U.S. embassy in Iran, murders of U.S. ambassadors, the Panama Canal treaties and rise of Noriega, economic crises in South America in the 1980s and 1990s, and anti-narcotics work overseas. Each chapter includes an analysis of lessons learned and offers some surprising conclusions.

Ralph Milton Buck was a Foreign Service officer for 33 years. He worked in nine different bureaus in the State Department and served in eight countries (Vietnam, Canada, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Panama, Bolivia, Brazil, and Afghanistan). He served in two wars, survived at least one revolution, and was evacuated out of Iran in 1979. Buck graduated from the University of Florida, did graduate work at the University of North Carolina, and has a master’s degree in economics from Georgetown University.

Dark Agent: Global Service & Sacrifice, the Memoirs of L.W. Kwakou Casselle

L.W. Kwakou Casselle, independently published, 2025, $25.99/hardcover, e-book available, 234 pages.

This is the story of a Black kid from Las Vegas who was destined to become a high school dropout—until he was sent 1,500 miles from home to learn service and discipline at a military school in Missouri. He would go on to launch a new life, earning an ROTC scholarship to attend Hampton University before getting his commission as an Army officer and leading infantry soldiers in the 1st Cavalry Division.

This nonstop adventure takes you across some of the world’s most dangerous cities, where the “Dark Agent” rescues Americans, provides aid to the wounded, and captures fugitives, all while raising a young family. His journey takes him from the inner city to the White House and beyond as he follows a family tradition of service and sacrifice.

L.W. Kwakou Casselle is a retired Senior Foreign Service specialist with 22 years of service as a Diplomatic Security Service (DSS) special agent. Casselle served as director of counterterrorism at the White House and chief of staff for DSS. Overseas he served in Abu Dhabi, Iraq, Belize, and Afghanistan.

Ramón Ramirez’s Dog: Reflections on Then and Now

David Dunford, independently published, 2024, $8.95/paperback, e-book available, 277 pages.

Ramón Ramirez’s Dog is a collection of essays written over the years about the adventures and misadventures that happen mostly outside but occasionally inside the diplomatic career of a U.S. ambassador. Common threads weaving the stories together are desiring a life well lived, balancing career with family and friends, keeping physically fit, and appreciating the natural world around us.

David Dunford is a retired FSO who served in Quito, Helsinki, Cairo, Riyadh, and as ambassador in Muscat. He has written about policy issues, including as an essayist for one of last year’s featured books, American Global Leadership: Ailing US Diplomacy and Solutions for the Twenty-First Century.

PCMO: Memoir of a Peace Corps Medical Officer

Ty W.K. Flewelling, independently published, 2025, $24.00/paperback, e-book available, 203 pages.

This book details the life of a Peace Corps medical officer, Dr. Ty Flewelling, who served in Turkmenistan from 1995 to 1998. The memoir covers Flewelling’s experiences beginning with the orientation process and continuing through three years of service with the Peace Corps, where he worked with the State Department to create a joint medical unit. He also describes his work at the International Medical Clinic in Ashgabat caring for people from other diplomatic missions.

Ty W.K. Flewelling, DMSc, PA-C, is a career member of the Senior Foreign Service class of Minister Counselor and a retired senior medical attaché at the State Department. He is a physician associate, board-certified in primary care and surgery, and holds a doctorate in medical science–global health. He was last posted in Bangui. He retired on June 30, 2025, after a 30-year Foreign Service career.

Middle East Crises: Expeditionary Diplomacy with the Bush, Obama, and Trump Teams

James Franklin Jeffrey, The Book Publishing Pros, 2025, $16.99/paperback, e-book available, 285 pages.

Part memoir and part analysis, Middle East Crises reveals the realities of diplomacy, war, and American power in one of the world’s most complex regions.

Ambassador James Jeffrey offers a firsthand account of U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East from 2004 to 2020. He describes the behind-the-scenes action in critical hot spots including Iraq, Türkiye, and Syria. He examines the early challenges of the Iraq War, the emergence of ISIS, and the complexities of dealing with leaders like Turkish President Erdogan and Russia’s Putin while reflecting on the broader principles guiding U.S. foreign policy, the challenges of maintaining alliances, and the personal sacrifices of those on the ground.

James Franklin Jeffrey spent 35 years in the Foreign Service, retiring in 2012 with the rank of Career Ambassador. He served as ambassador to Iraq, Albania, and Türkiye; deputy national security adviser; and deputy chief of mission in Baghdad, Ankara, and Kuwait City. In 2018 Jeffrey was recalled from retirement to serve as chief of mission in Syria and special envoy to the Defeat ISIS Coalition.

Uncommon Company: Dissidents and Diplomats, Enemies and Artists

William H. Luers, Rodin Books, 2024, $35.00/hardcover, e-book available, 472 pages.

In Uncommon Company, William “Bill” Luers shares stories of his career as a U.S. diplomat in Europe and Latin America, where he introduced art and culture to forge common ground and community, improving the lives of citizens in many countries closed to Western ideas.

From touring the Soviet Union with playwright Edward Albee in the 1960s to bringing such famous writers and artists as John Updike, Arthur Miller, Francine du Plessix Gray, and Frank Stella to Caracas and Prague during his ambassadorships in Venezuela and Czechoslovakia, Bill Luers practiced cultural diplomacy. His unique ability to wield “soft power” strengthened relationships wherever he served.

After more than 30 years with the State Department, Luers brought his art expertise to New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. Serving as its president, he secured the Met’s Annenberg Collection of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist works by such masters as Van Gogh, Picasso, and Cézanne.

Bill Luers died in 2025. For more on his career, see the September-October FSJ.

Fifty Years Among Nomads and Cowboys: Roamin’ the Range and Mountains

Daniel Miller, Blurb, 2025, $15.99/paperback, digital available, 184 pages.

In Fifty Years Among Nomads and Cowboys, Daniel Miller offers 50 extraordinary images from his work and journeys in Nepal, Bhutan, Tibet, India, Southeast Asia, Mongolia, and the American West.

Spanning from 1974 to 2024, the principal images are complemented by 91 other photographs and text describing the lives of nomads and cowboys, the livestock they care for, the festivals they participate in, and the rangelands and mountains they call home. Part memoir and part ethnographic portrait, the book is a unique record of little-known landscapes and cultures by a former cowboy, rangeland ecologist, and international development specialist.

Daniel Miller was a Peace Corps volunteer in Nepal in the mid-1970s. As a USAID agriculture officer from 2003 to 2017, he served in Washington, D.C., Afghanistan, India, the Philippines, Papua New Guinea, Mongolia, and Pakistan. After retiring, he worked on livestock development projects in Mongolia. He currently resides in Buffalo, Wyoming.

Sketches: Brander Street and Beyond: The Grandpa Chronicles

Peter Molberg, independently published, 2025, $12.00/paperback, print only, 214 pages.

The author, a doctor who spent a decade in the Foreign Service, calls these vignettes of his life “word sketches” that are “open to anyone but especially intended for [his] grandchildren.”

Beginning in his North Dakota birthplace, they include bits about his family and childhood, his educational path from the North Dakota School of Forestry through Harvard and Stanford, his time in the Peace Corps, his experiences practicing medicine and learning to fish in small-town Oregon, teaching in two residencies, and, finally, his years overseas in the Foreign Service. He describes pain, pathos, and pleasure encountered along the way in this book designed to record but also to entertain.

Peter Molberg was a regional medical officer in the Foreign Service from 2001 to 2012. His posts included Mali, India, Bangladesh, Türkiye, and Washington, D.C.

Dealing with Dragons, Bears, and Some Nice People Too: A Diplomatic Chronicle

B. Lynn Pascoe, New Academia Publishing, 2024, $35.00/paperback, print only, 542 pages.

This volume in the ADST-DACOR Diplomats and Diplomacy series offers a candid insider’s take on 45 years of change in China, the Soviet Union/Russia, and Southeast Asia, along with an inside look at the work of the United Nations to manage conflicts around the world.

B. Lynn Pascoe covers Kissinger’s China diplomacy, the later establishment of formal diplomatic ties, and the fallout from the brutal 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. He analyzes U.S.-Soviet conflicts in the 1980s and the transformation of the relationship after Gorbachev’s rise to power. He writes of his role in U.S. civilian and military work after a monstrous tsunami killed more than 170,000 people in Indonesia’s Aceh province. And he outlines his successes and failures during five years as under-secretary-general for political affairs at the United Nations.

During almost four decades in the Foreign Service, B. Lynn Pascoe served as ambassador to both Indonesia and Malaysia and worked in various positions dealing with China and the former Soviet Union.

Attaché Case: Backstage at the Embassy

Todd Pierce, New Texture, 2024, $14.95/paperback, e-book available, 268 pages.

Every diplomat knows that the gap between the realities of diplomatic life and the way it is portrayed in the media is wide. But, at least according to Todd Pierce, the reality is often more interesting, and stranger than the fantasy. He wrote Attaché Case to demystify the inner workings of an embassy the way Anthony Bourdain demystified the restaurant kitchen. And, he explains: “I wanted the humor in there, along with my personality—specifically my ADHD, gaffe-prone, very gay personality.”

This comic memoir is about American power and what it felt like to represent the U.S. as a working-level diplomat from the end of the Cold War through the first Trump administration.

Todd Pierce joined the U.S. Information Agency (USIA) in 1992 and later transitioned to State. He served in Athens, Ankara, Tirana, Rangoon, Geneva, Accra, and Washington, D.C. After retiring in 2018, he now works as a college counselor based in Florida and Greece.

Boundaries Borders Crossings: One Lesbian Life 2.0

Jill P. Strachan, Combray House, 2025, $20.00/paperback, e-book available, 227 pages.

In Boundaries Borders Crossings, the author writes of her experiences as a lesbian, the shared realities of Third Culture Kids, and the enduring impact of a world perspective. She tackles themes of universal social concern and social change with passion and wit. Using archival letters and journals, she chronicles her early years as a Foreign Service child, coming out as lesbian in the 1970s, and coping with the AIDS crisis in the United States.

Jill P. Strachan grew up overseas as the daughter of Foreign Service Officer D. Alan Strachan and Evelyn B. Strachan. The Strachans were posted to Athens (1947-1952), Lahore (1959-1962), and Cairo (1962-1965). She also visited her parents in Sri Lanka for extended periods from 1966 to 1968.

Destined: A Story of Resilience and Beating the Odds

Aminata Sy, Aminata Sy Enterprises, 2025, $21.99/paperback, e-book available, 216 pages.

Could you create opportunity from adversity and transform your life?

Perseverance, patience, generosity, resilience: Aminata Sy learned these values from her aunt while growing up in Dakar. Her childhood was riddled with broken bonds and poverty that threatened to derail her life.

In Destined, Sy shares her journey, offering an intimate look at her life as a mother juggling school and work in pursuit of a rewarding career and a better life for her family. An immigrant with little education, Sy earned multiple degrees and became one of the few Senegalese Americans to serve as a U.S. diplomat.

Narrated with humility and candor, Destined is intended as an inspirational memoir, reminding us that each challenge makes us stronger, each goal makes us wiser, and no dream is too far out of reach.

Aminata Sy joined the Foreign Service in 2021 and has served in Brazil and Kenya.

Embassy Kid: An American Foreign Service Family Memoir

J.K. Amerson López, Westphalia Press, 2025, $18.22/paperback, e-book available, 324 pages.

Embassy Kid offers a poignant, intimate look at what it means to grow up in the shadows of diplomacy. As the child of a U.S. Foreign Service officer, J.K. Amerson López navigated a world of cultural shifts, political upheavals, and personal identity struggles—all set against the backdrop of American embassies and international communities in Europe and Latin America during the Cold War.

Through vivid storytelling and candid reflections, the book transports readers to the front lines of a global upbringing, from navigating life in foreign capitals to the complex emotions of belonging everywhere and nowhere at once. With humor, honesty, and keen insight, the author presents a unique perspective on history, home, and the human connections that shape us.

Embassy Kid is a volume in the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training’s Memoirs and Occasional Papers series.

J.K. Amerson López, a writer and motivational speaker, is the eldest daughter of Foreign Service Officer Robert C. Amerson, who served with the U.S. Information Agency from 1955 to 1979, in Caracas, Milan, Bologna (SAIS), Rome, Bogotá, Washington, D.C., and Madrid, and as the Murrow Fellow at the Fletcher School at Tufts University.

HISTORY & BIOGRAPHY

New York’s Secret Subway: The Underground Genius of Alfred Beach and the Origins of Mass Transit

Matthew Algeo, Island Press, 2025, $35.00/hardcover, e-book available, 288 pages.

In the nineteenth century, Manhattan’s streets were so choked with pedestrians, horses, vehicles, and vendors that a trip from City Hall to Central Park could take hours. Alfred Beach had the perfect solution: build a giant pneumatic tube underneath Broadway from the Battery to Harlem. Air pressure would shoot passengers up and down the island in clean, quiet carriages. But Beach was up against the operators of the horse-drawn streetcars and the politicians in their pay, including William M. Tweed, the notorious “Boss” of Tammany Hall.

In New York’s Secret Subway, Matthew Algeo tells a classic story of good versus evil, pitting the mild-mannered Beach against the oafish tyrant Tweed, the exemplar of corruption in the Gilded Age. It also tells the story of one of the most astonishing feats of engineering in American history.

Matthew Algeo is the spouse of Allyson Algeo, who recently retired after a 20-year Foreign Service career that took the couple to Bamako, Rome, Ulaanbaatar, Maputo, Sarajevo, and Gaborone. They now live in Lawrence, Kansas, where Algeo hosts NPR’s Morning Edition on Kansas Public Radio.

Operation Làm Quen: Motorcycling Rural Vietnam, One Landing Zone at a Time

Stephen F. Berlinguette, Royal King Dynasty Press, 2025, $14.99/paperback, e-book available, 340 pages.

On a solo motorbike journey through Vietnam, Stephen Berlinguette seeks out the forgotten front lines of the Vietnam War—crumbling firebases, overgrown airstrips, and jungle-claimed bunkers—tracing what remains of America and Vietnam’s shared past. Along the way, he trades stories with local veterans, drinks roadside beer, and navigates the quiet hum of rural life.

Both travelogue and historical investigation, Operation Làm Quen explores a Vietnam where memory clings to the soil and silence says more than monuments. With dry wit and clear-eyed reflection, the author confronts his own uneasy fascination with war ruins, the allure of dark tourism, and the distance between then and now. This story of rust, ghosts, and the road is a must-read for war history buffs, veterans, off-map travelers, and lovers of the long ride.

Stephen Berlinguette was a USAID Foreign Service officer for 15 years, managing teams and economic growth programs in Rwanda, Liberia, Vietnam, Pakistan, and Morocco until the agency’s dismantling in 2025. He also served with the Department of Commerce for more than three years.

No Use of Force—The End of the Marxist Era in Mongolia: The Memoirs of Jambyn Batmönkh

D. Tsedev, translator, Michael Allen Lake and Joseph E. Lake, editors, Mongolia Society, 2024, $50.00/paperback, print only, 277 pages.

In 1984, at the urging of members of the Soviet Politburo led by Mikhail Gorbachev, Jambyn Batmönkh replaced Yumjaagiin Tsedenbal as leader of the Mongolian People’s Republic, the world’s second-oldest Marxist country. Over the next six years, Mongolia attempted to maintain its socialist identity as Gorbachev’s perestroika reforms and the unraveling of the Soviet Union were taking place next door.

Edited and translated for the first time, No Use of Force is Batmönkh’s own account of his attempt to balance what was best for his country against the pressures generated by Gorbachev’s reforms in Moscow and the collapse of the Soviet empire. It offers a rare glimpse into the perspective of the leadership of a Soviet satellite state in the closing days of the Cold War.

Michael Allen Lake is the son of retired Foreign Service Officer Joseph E. Lake. He was born in Taiwan and raised in Nigeria, Bulgaria, and Northern Virginia. He worked for one year at U.S. Embassy Ulaanbaatar when his father was the first resident ambassador to Mongolia.

Berlin: A Spy’s Guide to Its Cold War History in Story and Image

James Stejskal, Double Dagger Books, 2025, $29.99/paperback, e-book available, 172 pages.

Divided, occupied, and deeply contested, post-WWII Berlin became home to the world’s most elite intelligence operatives. American, Soviet, British, French, and East and West German services turned the city into a vast chessboard of espionage, deception, and covert operations.

In Berlin, former Green Beret and intelligence officer James Stejskal delivers a gripping, photo-rich guide to the key players, locations, missions, and betrayals that defined Cold War Berlin. Part travelogue, part historical dossier, this book is your gateway to understanding how the Cold War was fought—and why Berlin remains the most spy-saturated city on earth.

James Stejskal is a military historian and author of 13 books. He served in the U.S. Army and in the CIA. He has been married to Ambassador (ret.) Wanda Nesbitt since 1997; the couple lived and served in Zaire, Rwanda, Tanzania, Madagascar, Côte d’Ivoire, and Namibia.

Son Tay 1970: The Operation Ivory Coast POW Rescue Mission

Justin W. Williamson, Osprey Publishing, 2024, $23.00/paperback, e-book available, 80 pages.

Son Tay 1970 details the planning, preparation, execution, and aftermath of the heroic attempt by U.S. Special Forces to rescue 61 American POWs held in Son Tay, Vietnam, just 23 miles from Hanoi, in November 1970. The raid involved dozens of U.S. Army and Air Force aircraft and helicopters. To draw North Vietnamese attention away from the mission, the U.S. Navy conducted the largest air operation of the war. In the ensuing battle, U.S. raiders engaged in close combat with North Vietnamese and Chinese forces, while aircraft provided close air support, bridge demolition, air defenses, and enemy ground forces.

The mission was widely hailed as an overwhelming success except for one problem: The POWs were not there.

Justin Williamson has been in the Foreign Service for 18 years and has served in Mexico, Iraq, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sudan, Spain, and Fiji.

POLICY & ISSUES

Ukraine: Putin’s War for Russia’s “Near Abroad”

John J. Maresca with Ida Manton, ibidem Press, 2024, $23.00/paperback, e-book available, 210 pages.

During a 28-year Foreign Service career, John Maresca served in numerous high-level positions across Europe and played a pivotal role in ending the Cold War following the collapse of the USSR. In Ukraine, he and Ida Manton offer a firsthand account of the long set of negotiations that culminated in Paris in 1990. They recount the past situation in the region, explaining how it led to today’s war in Ukraine.

John Maresca joined the Foreign Service in 1966. He served as chief of staff for two secretaries general of NATO and began negotiating with the USSR in Helsinki in 1972. He served as U.S. ambassador to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) from 1989 to 1992. After serving as U.S. special envoy to the newly independent states, he became a roving American conflict mediator, seeking to resolve local conflicts in Cyprus, Nagorno-Karabakh, and regions of former Yugoslavia before retiring in 1994.

Ida Manton is a scholar and lecturer in international relations and diplomacy, with a focus on negotiations and conflict resolution. She has coordinated OSCE’s oral history project, through which negotiators share their recollections of how milestone agreements were created.

Overcoming Information Chaos: A Guide to Cultivating Peaceful Communities in the Digital Age

Danielle M. Reiff, editor, Upriver Press, 2025, $29.95/paperback (presale), e-book available, 450 pages.

Written by 14 media scholars and practitioners, legal experts, democracy specialists, and peacebuilders, Overcoming Information Chaos provides expert guidance about how to defend against false information, mitigate the spread of information disorder, and cultivate community and constructive civic engagement across our traditional divides.

Media literacy is a new and essential element of peacebuilding in the digital age. This books helps us to understand how the media ecosystem has changed since the digital transition. In the digital age, peacebuilding starts with learning to use the media responsibly. Ultimately, it’s up to each of us to slow down and be savvier in our interactions with information and each other.

Danielle Reiff is a peacebuilder, writer, and editor. As a USAID Foreign Service officer for 20 years, Reiff specialized in supporting democratic transitions and peacebuilding processes in Kampala, Juba, Bogotá, Tbilisi, and Colombo. Retiring in 2024, she founded the nonpartisan Peacebuilders Initiative.

FICTION

Degrees of Intelligence

Miranda Armstadt, independently published, 2025, $18.95/paperback, e-book available, 350 pages.

This geopolitical thriller—inspired by Miranda Armstadt’s own father’s experience with the State Department in 1950s Cold War Europe—takes readers behind the scenes in the early years of the CIA, as America fought communism after World War II. Characters include the beautiful daughter of a TV news pioneer, a dashing British viscount, and a teenage Holocaust survivor who lost his entire family to the Nazis.

Armstadt uses family letters as well as CIA, State Department, and military memos and documents to weave a vivid tableau of U.S. and British intelligence operations from World War II through the Kennedy administration of the 1960s, along the way showing how a life of secrecy affects everyone it touches.

Miranda Armstadt’s father, an FSO from 1952 to 1958, was posted to Belgrade; Salzburg; and Bad Godesberg, Germany. Degrees of Intelligence won a gold medal in the 2025 Historical Fiction category from the Military Writers Society of America.

Run

Matthew Becker, Aethon Books, 2024, $12.99/paperback, e-book available, 342 pages.

When congressional staffer Ben Walsh receives a cryptic text from his wife, Veronica, he doesn’t think much of it. But while waiting to hear from her again, Ben discovers that the text came an hour before a shooting that occurred along her daily running route. She isn’t picking up her phone, and when she doesn’t return home, he knows she is somehow involved. But if she isn’t one of the victims, then what could have happened?

When the police name Veronica as their main suspect, Ben questions what he really knows about her. His best chance at saving Veronica is to find her and the truth before the police—or the real killer—do. But what if the truth is more deadly than he could imagine?

Run is the first in a three-book series by Matthew Becker, whose wife, Sarah, is a political officer. The Beckers have been posted in Tashkent and Managua. The other two books in the series are Don’t Look Down and Face the Storm.

October Surprise

Gary Clements, independently published, 2025, $16.95/paperback, e-book available, 220 pages.

Rex Avalon, second in charge at the U.S. embassy in the tiny (fictional) European kingdom of Morovia, is invited by its foreign minister to lead the nation’s transition from dictatorship to democracy. But Rex’s efforts are complicated by the competing plans of an expatriate leader, the machinations of the U.S. president, and Morovia’s history of intertribal conflict.

Rex also must decide whether the beautiful young Moravian queen is friend, foe, or something altogether different. Like Clements’ first novel, Darwin Speaks! (2024), October Surprise uses satire to explore some of our weightiest contemporary challenges.

Gary Clements is a retired economic officer who served tours in London, Quito, Santo Domingo, Rennes, and Managua. He currently lives in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, where he writes novels in between rounds of golf.

What We Were Making

Peter Cloutier, Mindstir Media, 2023, $15.95/paperback, e-book available, 334 pages.

What We Were Making follows Jane, a British diplomat assigned to Jakarta to work on an intertwined computing and conservation endeavor in the region’s outer islands. She meets Bill, an American expat teacher on one of the grant-recipient islands, and the two bond over the course of her visits as she is exposed to the island life he has come to understand.

But when a natural disaster exposes a plot to undermine the foreign aid provided, each protagonist faces the prospect that their values, duties, and ethics may have compromised the community they were supposed to support. Every assignment ends. Every visa expires. The show must go on.

Peter Cloutier is a retired USAID FSO who spent 21 years in Kabul, Maputo, Luanda, Dili, and Bangkok.

The Russian Diplomat’s Wife

Kenneth Dekleva, independently published, 2025, $11.99/paperback, e-book available, 290 pages.

Vienna, Austria—the city of spies. A deep-cover U.S. intelligence officer code-named Copernicus has a chance encounter with a Russian woman while viewing a Klimt painting in a museum. The encounter—a perfect spy recruitment—leads to mystery, romance, and tragedy. But when Copernicus’ agents begin dying in Western Europe, Russia, and North Korea, his meetings with the Russian woman draw the attention of the CIA and Russia’s GRU. A deep-cover Mossad officer offers enticements of his own, leading to a deeply moving denouement.

Kenneth Dekleva, a member of the Senior Foreign Service, was a regional medical officer/psychiatrist from 2002 to 2016. He served in Moscow, New Delhi, Mexico City, Vienna, London, and Washington, D.C. He is the founder and CEO of Blackwood Advisory Solutions LLC, a boutique global telepsychiatry and business intelligence consulting firm.

closer to home

Robert Richard Downes, Longhornbar Books, 2025, $14.95/paperback, e-book available, 220 pages.

The sequel to 2024’s and far away of the Man series, closer to home follows a retired intelligence officer who is frequently asked to undertake special projects even though he really just wants to relax at home in New England with his books and his cats. After completing a dangerous assignment in Europe, the Man is recuperating from an injury when he begins to suspect an international crime syndicate is abducting and trafficking young people in Boston. He feels compelled to hunt down that group and end its operations.

Robert Richard Downes is a retired Senior Foreign Service officer with 37 years of federal service, the majority with the State Department. He joined the department in 1981 and served in Australia, Germany, Mexico, Nicaragua, Thailand, and Venezuela. He now lives in his native Texas, where he kayaks, writes, and volunteers for local charities and international organizations. He is the author of five books including Hello to a River, a 2024 book on kayaking in Texas.

Counter Narrative

Gordon K. Duguid, DS Productions, 2025, $17.99/paperback, e-book available, 346 pages.

The African island nation of Kitega is descending into chaos, torn apart by ethnic rivalries and escalating violence. Armed militias assassinate high-ranking government officials while insurgents clash with the military in a blood-soaked power struggle.

Desperate to avert disaster, the United States dispatches H. McFadden Hightower as its special envoy. His mission: prevent mass atrocities at all costs. But Hightower’s intervention sparks tension with Phil Bardo, a seasoned diplomat stationed in Kitega, who believes Hightower’s heavy-handed tactics risk worsening the conflict.

Their ideological clash opens the door for manipulative Kitegan factions to exploit the chaos for their own ends. As violence spirals out of control, the question becomes not just who will prevail but at what cost—and whether doing the right thing will save lives or destroy them.

Gordon Duguid is a retired FSO who served with USIA and the State Department from 1990 to 2020 in Washington, D.C., the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Zambia, Burundi, NATO, India, the Organization of American States, Serbia, and the National Intelligence University. Counter Narrative is his first novel.

Pigeon Falls

Jeff Elzinga, Water’s Edge Press, 2025, $24.00/paperback, e-book available, 278 pages.

Pigeon Falls follows surveyor Tom Bishop and his small band of coworkers, a traveling crew of wind turbine builders, to an out-of-the-way corner of Wisconsin’s Driftless Area for one final project of the season before winter arrives. Soon, however, unforeseen challenges test the crew’s character and threaten to pry the team apart.

Caught up in the ordeals are a pig farmer hell-bent on reversing generations of family failure and a young newlywed with an abusive husband. Tom Bishop must also face his own health issues as he considers what legacy a childless, divorced man can hope to leave behind.

As an FSO with the State Department, Jeff Elzinga served in Tunisia and Malawi. He then spent more than 20 years as a college instructor, retiring in 2018 as emeritus professor of writing at Lakeland University in Wisconsin. His debut novel, The Distance Between Stars (2020), was a finalist for the Midwest Book Award.

Diplomatic Tangle

Tim Enright, Birch Forest Publishing, 2024, $18.95/paperback, e-book available, 398 pages.

As the U.S. prepares for high-stakes nuclear negotiations with Iran, diplomat Ben Brownwell finds himself navigating a labyrinth of political ambition and betrayal. A leak from within his own ranks threatens to undermine the fragile talks. For British intelligence officer Kate Sinclair, the stakes are both personal and professional. Her investigation into Iranian sleeper cells in Europe reveals a chilling connection to a broader plot. Ben and Kate must work together to prevent the negotiations from ending in disaster.

With the clock ticking down, a U.S. senator becomes a target, and the balance of power teeters on the edge. In a world where secrets are weapons and alliances are fragile, Ben and Kate must confront not only their adversaries but the limits of their own principles.

Tim Enright joined the State Department as a Foreign Service officer in 2005 and has served in Iraq, Russia, the UAE, Afghanistan, Nigeria, and Albania. He is currently studying Mandarin and preparing to move to Guangzhou in 2026. He is also the author of Proportional Response (2021).

Black Sun Rising

Otho Eskin, Meridian Editions, 2025, $19.95/paperback, e-book available, 296 pages.

When Washington, D.C., homicide detective Marko Zorn’s partner is murdered, his search for justice leads him to Black Sun, a violent neo-Nazi movement built from the ruins of World War II. Their goal: unleash a catastrophic attack that will plunge the nation into chaos. To stop them, Marko must outwit a woman known as the Bride of the Apocalypse, navigate the treacherous ambitions of two of the world’s richest and most ruthless men, and confront a conspiracy stretching from Washington’s corridors of power to the city’s shadowy underworld. Can Marko save the country from annihilation?

Otho Eskin joined the Foreign Service in 1961 and retired in 1982. He served in Damascus, Belgrade, Reykjavík, Berlin, and Washington, D.C. This is the fourth book in his well-received Marko Zorn series (though each can also be read alone), including The Reflecting Pool (2020), Head Shot (2021), and Firetrap (2024). Also a playwright, Eskin has had work professionally produced in Washington, New York, and Europe.

Becoming Virginia

Tatiana Gfoeller-Volkoff, Outskirts Press, 2024, $47.95/hardcover, e-book available, 260 pages.

Brilliant young psychiatrist Jane, traumatized by a sexual assault, is following the trail of a young man, Gerald, who died mysteriously. She crisscrosses the United States looking for his relatives and friends, searching for clues to his personality and the reason for his sudden demise. The aftermath of the Vietnam War, class and race relations in the Deep South, drug addiction, and patriotism all provide useful hints. As Jane searches, she delves into her complicated relationship with her own mother and her anguish over not being able to conceive a child.

Tatiana Gfoeller-Volkoff served for 33 years in the Foreign Service, with assignments in Poland, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the Soviet Union, Belgium, Russia, Turkmenistan, and as ambassador to Kyrgyzstan. She has taught at Georgetown University and is the author of another novel, A Simple Love (2021).

Only Now We Are: A Novel

Nathan Kato-Wallace, independently published, 2025, $17.99/paperback, e-book available, 377 pages.

The Omicron is feeling lost, and not even the reverence of his followers distracts him from the sense he’s left something behind. His best friend, the Mouth, convinces him to retrace the steps that led to his elevation as the supreme leader of this new society. He recalls being rejected, squatting in an abandoned factory, and shivering through a winter of privation. He remembers sowing barren ground, watching the community grow, and harvesting seemingly infinite free money. He remembers longing, jealousy, violence, and deceit as their utopia turned profane. Soon he may remember why he chose to forget in the first place.

Only Now We Are is an exploration of memory and loss, idealism and human nature, and the hazards of living your own truth.

Nathan Kato-Wallace has been a Foreign Service officer at the State Department for 13 years. He served in Guangzhou, Praia, Washington, D.C., and Paris. He is currently serving in Dakar, where he is also AFSA’s post representative. Only Now We Are is his first novel.

Speak the Devil’s Name

Brandon Kelley, independently published, 2025, $12.99/paperback, e-book available, 396 pages.

When a top-secret Joint Special Operations Command surveillance and reconnaissance mission goes sideways deep in Afghanistan’s unforgiving Hindu Kush Mountains, Nick Mandias is thrust into a deadly game of survival against a formidable foe he did not expect—a rogue CIA paramilitary officer who has launched an unsanctioned covert operation behind enemy lines.

Half a world away, in the sweltering shadows of Southeast Asia, a young CIA case officer is pulled into the most critical assignment of his career. As he learns about the U.S. government’s penetration of the People’s Republic of China, he must navigate a dangerous web of loyalty, sacrifice, and high-stakes espionage.

Brandon Kelley joined the State Department after service in the U.S. Army and completion of a master’s degree in international studies from the University of Central Florida. A Foreign Service officer since 2014, he has served in Shanghai, Kuala Lumpur, and Washington, D.C. His first novel, Call Me Milt (2022), was a modern pirate tale set in the Caribbean.

Tipping Point: Action 2100 (Book II)

George Alfred Kennedy, SETAF Publishing, 2025, $20.00/paperback, e-book available, 337 pages.

After successfully establishing her London-based Hinton Foundation, American climatologist Dr. Tracie Hinton launched a campaign for the presidential nomination. Hinton stunned the political establishment when a wave of discontent over the failure of U.S. leadership to preserve the health of planet Earth swept her and her new political party—ACTION 2100—into the White House in January 2053.

The complete surprise and scope of Hinton’s victory stunned the political establishment and portends the likelihood of a permanent shift in American attitudes and political preferences. The two major political parties must now seek a temporary and unlikely alliance to preserve their historical primacy. This is the second volume in the author’s Tipping Point series, following Tipping Point: The World in 2050 (2024).

George Alfred Kennedy spent 35 years in the State Department, retiring as a Senior Foreign Service officer after assignments in seven countries, including as consul general in Toronto, deputy assistant secretary, and senior adviser to Ronald Brown, the first Black secretary of Commerce. He currently lives in Arizona.

Spirit of Brooklyn: A Story of Love and Heroism During World War II

John Eric Lundin, independently published, 2025, $16.95/paperback, e-book available, 334 pages.

Spirit of Brooklyn is a historical novel that begins in 1941 in Brooklyn, New York, where two college students meet. As they fall in love, Japan bombs Pearl Harbor, and their future and that of their generation is changed forever.

The story follows Nils through Army Air Corps pilot training and then to piloting a B-17 bomber flying out of England. “Spirit of Brooklyn” is the name Nils and his crew give to their plane. Marie must return to England with her father, a senior British Foreign Office official, where her life takes an unforeseen turn, and the story moves to Occupied France, where both Nils and Marie find themselves working with the Resistance.

The fictional characters in this story are woven into an accurate historical portrayal of places, events, tactics, and technical information, whether in the air or on the ground, based on extensive research. The book highlights the role of women during World War II.

John Eric Lundin is a retired Foreign Service officer, having served from 1971 to 2001. He started his career with the U.S. Information Agency and served overseas, mainly in public affairs positions, in Taiwan, Denmark, China, and Japan, in addition to assignments in Washington, D.C.

Chief Gati and the Talking Wind and Other Short Stories

Martin Muganga, Page Publishing, 2024, $13.95/paperback, e-book available, 60 pages.

This collection of 10 short stories offers African folktales filled with magic, bravery, and intelligence. The stories highlight the importance of environmental conservation, community-building, and defying the odds, making this book an entertaining and educational read for all ages. The stories bring together villagers and foreigners who work together to overcome an epidemic, along the way offering insight into African culture and traditions. The gods Mawiko, Kaga, and the magical talking Wind are also recurring characters.

Martin Muganga’s spouse joined the Foreign Service in 2022. Their first tour was in Porto Alegre, Brazil, where Muganga worked as a security escort and administrative rover. Their next assignment will take them to Maseru, Lesotho.

Dog’s Breakfast

Tom Navratil, Willow River Press, 2025, $19.99/paperback, e-book available, 328 pages.

Deputy Chief of Mission Andy Pulano is fed up with being treated with less respect than his ambassador’s prized Labrador retriever. He sets out to undermine his boss and advance his own career by instigating a crisis at post in the fictional Vodania, which hardly needs any outside help in falling apart.

After someone attempts to poison the Labrador, Andy assigns Tara Zadani, a newly arrived second-tour officer, to investigate. Tara suspects she’s been set up to fail, but she soon makes a discovery that puts Andy’s entire scheme—and his fevered hopes for a promotion—at risk. (See the full review in the September-October 2025 FSJ.)

A State Department FSO for 29 years, Tom Navratil served in Santo Domingo, Tokyo (twice), Moscow, and as deputy chief of mission in Skopje. His humor writing has appeared in Points in Case, Weekly Humorist, Slackjaw, and other publications. Dog’s Breakfast is his debut novel.

Red’s Law

Cheryl Rebecca Nugent, Palmetto Publishing, 2025, $19.99/paperback, e-book available, 454 pages.

Gardenia Hill, a South Carolina animal sanctuary, was founded by Katherine “Red” Sutter and has been run by her niece, Greer, since Red’s death. The never-ending challenges the sanctuary faces include saving victims of dog fighting, puppy mills, hoarding, and abject cruelty.

When Special Agent Adam Grant visits Gardenia Hill, he’s looking for anything to support his hunch that a serial killer is targeting animal abusers. But Greer and Adam find they have a lot in common, and his visits become more than work, especially when he connects with Polly, a shy Husky rescued from a puppy mill.

Will there be romance? Is there really a serial killer?

Cheryl Rebecca Nugent is the spouse of retired Foreign Service Officer Allen Nugent. She and her husband were posted to Rangoon, Asunción, Guangzhou, Canberra, Bangkok, and Koror. Red’s Law is Nugent’s fourth novel, inspired by her own years of work in animal welfare in the U.S. and overseas. She lives and writes in South Carolina.

The Nubian Queen

Charles Ray, DS Productions, 2025, $0.99/e-book, digital only, 91 pages.

After Octavian defeated Cleopatra and Mark Antony at the Battle of Actium and seized control of Egypt, he returned to Rome in triumph, made himself emperor, changed his name to Augustus, and set his sights on the gold-rich Nubian lands of the Upper Nile.

But the people of Kush refused to surrender to Rome. Nubia, known as Ta-Seti to the Egyptians and Kush to those who lived there, was a kingdom of warriors. When its king was killed in an early battle with the Romans, his queen, a warrior who had lost an eye in the same battle, took the throne. Rome may have finally met its match.

Charles Ray was an FSO from 1982 to 2012, with assignments in China, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Sierra Leone, and Zimbabwe. He was the first U.S. consul general in Ho Chi Minh City and was ambassador to Cambodia and Zimbabwe. Other books he has authored include Rusty Rhodes Bounty Hunter, Adventures of Marshal Boone Collins, and Caleb Johnson Mountain Man.

Drinking from the Stream

Richard Scott Sacks, Koehler Books, 2025, $20.95/paperback, e-book available, 326 pages.

Drinking from the Stream is set in the early 1970s during the violent upheaval of the Vietnam War and the Chinese Cultural Revolution. The action in this coming-of-age tale leapfrogs from Louisiana to London, Paris, and East Africa.

Jake Ries, a 22-year-old Nebraska farm boy turned oil roughneck, becomes a fugitive when he unintentionally kills a homicidal white supremacist on an oil platform in the Gulf of Mexico. On the run, he meets Karl, a restless Oxford dropout and former anti-war activist struggling with his own personal demons. Together they plunge into the Ethiopian and East African hinterland, where they discover that dictatorship and mass murder are facts of life.

Richard Scott Sacks was a State Department FSO from 1989 to 2014 with postings in Mexico City, Casablanca, Hanoi, Seoul, Panama City, and Islamabad. He has also worked as a reporter with The Miami Herald, the Associated Press, and The Middlesex News in Framingham, Massachusetts. Drinking from the Stream is his first novel.

The Silversmith’s Secret

Stephen A. Seche, Koehler Books, 2025, $18.95/paperback, e-book available, 260 pages.

In April 1949, shortly after landing at Lod Airport in Tel Aviv, gifted silversmith Moishe Azani presses a note into the hands of the American pilot who has just delivered hundreds of Yemeni Jews like himself to the Promised Land of Israel.

For more than 60 years, the note sits untranslated and unread, until it comes into the possession of Hank Amato, the pilot’s grandson. Unemployed and aimless, Hank seizes the opportunity to travel to Yemen and retrieve the jewelry Moishe was forced to leave behind, a decision that leads him—in the company of a charming female journalist—to a corner of the globe where poverty, corruption, and terrorism have taken root. Hank finds himself caught up in a terrorist scheme, but he may also find the makings of a fresh start.

Stephen Seche served as U.S. ambassador to Yemen from 2007 to 2010. Other postings over the course of a 35-year career with USIA and the State Department included Syria, India, Canada, Bolivia, Peru, and Guatemala.

Istanbul Crossing

Timothy Jay Smith, Leapfrog Press, 2024, $16.99/paperback, e-book available, 256 pages.

Syrian refugee Ahdaf earns a meager living in Istanbul helping others make the crossing to Greece—a perilous line of work. But it’s no riskier than what he would face if ISIS discovered the truth of his sexuality.

When both the CIA and ISIS approach Ahdaf about transporting high-profile individuals and serving as a double agent for their causes, his life is thrown into turmoil. As his feelings for one of his clients come to light and a possible relationship grows, the decision is taken out of his hands.

A new choice lies before him, between two men and two different futures—assuming Ahdaf lives to see either of them. Istanbul Crossing is the story of adversity, love, and the courage of an ordinary man who must brave impossible situations to survive.

Timothy Jay Smith is married to Michael S. Honegger, a former Foreign Service Reserve officer and retired Peace Corps chief financial officer. The pair have held multiple short- and long-term assignments in Thailand, Poland, and Albania.

Esperanza: Daring to Dream Beyond Borders

Irving Tragen, Arlington Hall Press, 2024, $25.99/paperback, e-book available, 371 pages.

This second book of a trilogy dealing with El Salvador in the mid-20th century, and the obstacles to its political and socioeconomic development, follows Esperanza, a girl born in a poverty-ridden rural village. She completes the eighth grade before tragedy strikes, and she decides there is no future for her in her village. Esperanza, her mother, and her infant brother set out for the capital, where she finds work as a cook in the households of American officials and works to build a better life.

Irving Tragen, the 103-year-old author, worked at the State Department and USAID for 33 years and spent another 14 at the Organization of American States, including nearly a decade as the executive director of the Inter-American Drug Abuse Control Commission. During his career, Tragen worked in all 33 Latin American and Caribbean countries. His autobiography, Two Lifetimes as One: Ele and Me and the Foreign Service, was spotlighted in The Foreign Service Journal in October 2019. Book One of this series, Mañana Is Yesterday, was published in 2023.

The author thanks the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training (ADST) for its support in publishing this book. Arlington Hall Press is an ADST imprint.

Tuscan Bloodline: A Rick Montoya Italian Mystery

David Wagner, Kindle Direct Publishing, 2025, $14.99/paperback, e-book available, 257 pages.

In this ninth book in the Rick Montoya Italian Mystery series, our interpreter and amateur sleuth is asked to help a college buddy, Rocco Monti, search for his Tuscan roots. Rocco wants to cut through the family lore and find out why his great-grandfather left Italy in a hurry a century earlier. Was he in some kind of trouble? Was a young lady involved? Could there have been a murder? Montoya flies in from the U.S., and the two friends head to the walled village of Lucignano; but as they dig into the past in search of the truth, Rocco learns more about his Italian family than he expected.

David Wagner is a retired Foreign Service officer who spent nine years with the U.S. Information Service (USIS) in Italy, never realizing that he was researching his future mystery novels. Other diplomatic assignments included Brazil, Ecuador, Uruguay, and Washington, D.C. He and his wife, Mary, live in Pueblo, Colorado.

Falling Seven Times

Mark G. Wentling, Archway Publishing, 2024, $24.99/paperback, e-book available, 318 pages.

Desperate to provide for her family, Alya leaves her home in Ethiopia in search of work abroad. Her journey is fraught with physical and emotional challenges—difficult work conditions, language barriers, and cultural clashes—as she works to secure a better future for herself and her loved ones. Falling Seven Times illustrates the resilience and courage that labor migrants must summon each day as they face uncertainty while holding on to the hope of rising again. Readers will begin to understand the personal toll of labor migration.

Mark Wentling was born in Wichita, Kansas. In 1967 he went to Honduras as a Peace Corps volunteer, and in 1970 he joined Peace Corps/Togo. He began his career with USAID in 1977 and served as principal officer in six African countries. He has visited all 54 countries in Africa. Now retired, he resides in Lubbock, Texas.

FOR CHILDREN & YOUNG ADULTS

Seeing Things: The Boogieman

Ryan K. Abdelaziz, independently published, 2024, $8.99/paperback, e-book available, 47 pages.

This first book of an expected trilogy follows James, an ordinary young man with an extraordinary secret—he can see things others can’t, including a terrifying creature who haunts his dreams. Discovering he is a Seer, James finds himself thrust into a clandestine battle of good versus evil. Guided by his mentor, George, James learns to harness his powers as he confronts the sinister creatures of his relentless nightmares. As he battles dark forces and uncovers hidden truths, he discovers the weight of destiny on his shoulders.

Ryan Abdelaziz is a 9-year-old Foreign Service kid (yes, you read that right) who lives in Virginia with his little brother, Luca, and his Foreign Service parents, Gabi and Khalid. The family has been posted in Nassau, Riyadh, and Recife.

POETRY

Novice

Nida Sophasarun, LSU Press, 2025, $20.95/paperback, e-book available, 78 pages.

How close can a person come to home when their family has deserted it? Guided by this question, the poems in Nida Sophasarun’s Novice traverse natural, animal, and dream worlds, seeking intimacy in a snake coming in from the rain, a mother’s body imagined as a house, and the moon serving as both the missing piece and the linchpin in a night sky.

Organized by tropical seasons and unfolding in Asia and the American South, Novice proposes that home is monumental and ruined, remembered and forgotten, local and diffuse, peopled and haunted. The themes in this book of poetry draw on the author’s nearly 25 years in a Foreign Service family and experiences in Thailand, Burma, Japan, China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Bulgaria.

Nida Sophasarun is from Atlanta and holds degrees from Wellesley College and Johns Hopkins. Her husband is Foreign Service Officer Josh Huck.

GUIDEBOOKS / SELF-HELP

Preserving with Purpose: Reimagining Buildings for Community Benefit

Amy Hetletvedt, Island Press, 2025, $40.00/paperback (presale), e-book available, 216 pages.

While prominent buildings like Notre Dame in Paris rise from the ashes, historic buildings in disinvested communities are lost at an alarming rate. The resulting holes signify a loss of not only structures but also the stories and the embedded possibilities that the buildings represent.

In Preserving with Purpose, architect Amy Hetletvedt unveils a revolutionary but simple vision for rethinking building conservation in vulnerable communities. She explores ways to repurpose existing buildings, explains why these buildings matter, and shows what communities and professionals can make of them—together.

With nearly 200 images that visually support the concepts discussed, the book is an accessible, engaging resource for a broad audience including artists, activists, and those simply interested in the why of vacant, abandoned, and distressed buildings.

Amy Hetletvedt is a licensed architect, preservationist, and educator. She and her FSO husband have served in The Hague, Lomé, Prague, Tunis, and Ottawa. Hetletvedt also spent four years in an Expanded Professional Associates Program (EPAP) position concentrating on facility planning and historic building stewardship.

A Bilingual Guide to the Birds of the U.S. Consulate General Tijuana

David Lawler, independently published, 2025, $10.00/paperback, print only, 80 pages.

From hummingbirds to hawks and from sparrows to swallows, this book is a photographic guide highlighting 30 species of birds that can be seen in and around the grounds of U.S. Consulate General Tijuana. Through 75 photos taken by the author, and through descriptive text, readers can learn about these birds and how to easily identify and name them individually.

Additionally, the book describes how readers can be ethical bird watchers, what they can do in their daily lives to help protect birds and nature, and where else in Baja California and California they can go birdwatching. The book is written in both English and Spanish and conveys the same information in both languages.

David Lawler, an award-winning photographer, has been a Foreign Service officer since 2014. He has served overseas in Tijuana, Hong Kong, and Ciudad Juarez, and domestically with State’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research and at the Foreign Service Institute in the National Foreign Affairs Training Center. He also served as Peace Corps volunteer in both Honduras and Panama.

For a copy, contact the author at davidsongbai@gmail.com.

US Foreign Service Officer Recruitment: Persistence Pays, Mid-Career Advantage and the Long Game

Thomas John Moran, Carrollton Polymath, 2024, $19.99/e-book, digital only, 38 pages.

Author Thomas Moran explains the Foreign Service hiring process and outlines how it differs from private-sector recruitment. He offers tips to better position an application to maximize hiring advantage, particularly for the midcareer recruit.

Thomas Moran is a retired Foreign Service information management specialist who served in Saudi Arabia, Iceland, Afghanistan (twice), Egypt, Pakistan, Russia, and China.

Rome Made Easy: The Insider Guide to Authentic Rome

Douglas Morris, Lulu, 2025, $19.99/paperback, e-book available, 271 pages.

Author Douglas Morris has lived overseas for 30 years, 15 of which were spent in Italy. In Rome Made Easy, he offers a local’s insight into one of the most captivating cities in the world, compiling his in-depth knowledge into a comprehensive travel guide that offers up-to-date insider tips and expert advice to make a visit to Rome enjoyable, rewarding, and, best of all, easy.

When sated with the splendor of ancient ruins, stunning art and architecture, vibrant markets, and guided walking tours through thriving local neighborhoods, find authentic places to eat and drink, including colorful enoteche, small family-owned trattorie, charming cafés, restaurants, gelaterie, and pizzerias. The author also recommends quality accommodations with reasonable prices.

Douglas Morris is the author of 16 books and numerous articles. His partner, Kelly Degnan, was a Foreign Service officer who served in Ankara, Khost, Brussels, Pristina, Rome, Tbilisi, and Washington, D.C. His other books include Florence Made Easy (2006) and Venice Made Easy (2013).

Discipline by Subtraction: The Art of Strategic Laziness

James Snoddy, Amazon KDP, 2025, $14.99/paperback, e-book available, 205 pages.

Discipline by Subtraction is a field manual for people who are tired of optimizing systems that shouldn’t exist. Written by a combat-tested infantry officer turned entrepreneur, diplomat, and systems strategist, the book introduces a ruthless framework for reclaiming time and clarity by deleting the unnecessary.

Rather than glorifying hustle, this book elevates discernment—teaching readers how to prioritize actions based on return on investment. Through a fusion of military decisiveness, diplomatic triage, and entrepreneurial iteration, it equips readers to do more by doing less.

This isn’t about doing nothing. It’s about doing fewer things on purpose, with leverage, and without apology. If you’re already operating at a high level but feel outnumbered by your obligations, this is your new doctrine.

James Snoddy is an FSO with the Department of State. During 11 years in the Foreign Service, he has served in India, Latvia, and Trinidad and Tobago, in addition to assignments in New York and Washington, D.C. He is currently posted in the State Department’s Bureau of Cyberspace and Digital Policy.