46 NOVEMBER-DECEMBER 2026 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL Ian MacKenzie is an active-duty FSO with 17 years in the Foreign Service. He is currently the deputy political and economic counselor in Maputo and has previously served in Ethiopia, Brazil, Myanmar, and in the Bureau of African Affairs. Night Witches in the West: An All-Woman Insurgency Cassandra Mae, independently published, 2025, $21.99/paperback, e-book available, 352 pages. When America fell, oligarchs stripped it for parts and corporate interests bought what was left. Now they’re coming for everything: nuclear bases, national parks, natural resources, women’s rights, prison labor. The Night Witches, though, are taking something back. A decentralized all-women insurgency operating across the former United States, they run honeypot intelligence operations, coordinate prison breaks, infiltrate billionaire gatherings, and move women across the Canadian border through an underground network. Inspired by the Soviet World War II pilots who terrorized Nazi forces through stealth and precision, Night Witches in the West grounds its resistance in operational reality—asymmetric tactics, gendered power, and the actual mechanics of organized insurgency. This dystopian resistance fiction has the political urgency of Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale and the tactical grounding of Butler’s Parable of the Sower. This is the first novel in a series. Cassandra Mae (a pseudonym) is a career crisis response and counterinsurgency professional who joined the Foreign Service in 2014. Daily American Douglas E. Morris, Lulu Press, 2025, $12.99/paperback, e-book available, 372 pages. Set in 1970s Italy, this atmospheric thriller is based on actual events and revolves around a newly transplanted American reporter who discovers that the English-language newspaper he is working for is actually a CIA front. Once this subterfuge is discovered, he becomes entangled in a web of intrigue, espionage, and political extremism. Taking great risk along the way to expose the truth, he shows how an ordinary individual imbued with the courage of their convictions can make a difference in the world. Former FS family member Douglas Morris served with his partner, retired FSO Kelly Degnan, in Ankara, Brussels, Pristina, Rome, Naples, Tbilisi, and Washington, D.C. Jim Beckwourth: Mountain Man: Trailblazer Charles Ray, DS Productions, 2026, $9.99/paperback, e-book available, 114 pages. Enslaved at birth, James P. Beckwourth joined the Rocky Mountain Fur Company after being freed and went west as a trapper in the 1830s, carving out a reputation as a master scout, trapper, fighter, and adventurer. Throughout his six-plus decades of life, he was involved in many pivotal events in U.S. history, from the California Gold Rush to the Seminole Wars. For many years, James lived among the Crow Nation, becoming a noted war chief and blazing a trail through the mountains from Nevada Territory to California that today bears his name. 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 U.S. ambassador to Cambodia and Zimbabwe. Other recent books include The Fugitive from Texas: Adventures of Marshal Boone Collins (2026), Precious Cargo: The Adventures of Deputy U.S. Marshal Bass Reeves (2026), and Caleb Johnson Mountain Man: Trouble in the Tall Timber (2025). Escape from the Culling Box TJ Relk, Dystopian Dreams Press, 2025, $14.99/paperback, e-book available, 199 pages. In 2028 a tech billionaire is elected president as part of global conspiracy to replace governments with an AI network of control and deception. A U.S. soldier, David, returns from the forever war to a twisted shadow of the country and family he left decades ago. David’s faith in family, nation, and truth itself is shattered, and he must rediscover who he is as he tries to decide if this new world is worth saving. Ruling network elites must also
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