The first copies of Oxpatch and the Hill - Dixieland Memories are shipping this week. We didn't make it in time for Christmas, but at least we got them out during 2007. This book has been a long time in the making. I think I first started making notes about it fifteen or twenty years ago. When it did come together, it wasn't without a lot of help. I won't review the acknowledgements here--they're all in the front of the book--but I am grateful to a lot of people.

Now, I'm on with more projects. Eagle Behind the Curtain is a novel I wrote back in 1995, but didn't publish. It's a story about a retired super-spy, now in business, who embarks on a mission into Soviet Russian in a stealth airplane to bring out a doctor who has discovered a remarkable and effective cure for cancer. The story explores Soviet culture during the last days of communism. It has plenty of suspense and some good flying stuff if you're into aviation.

I'm also redoing my 1996 novel, The Jesus Nut, with a more palatable title, better artwork for the cover and some cleanup to the writing. The plot and characters aren't changed, but hopefully, this one will get read by people who were too embarrassed by the name of Jesus to pick up a book with His name in the title. Also, I'm going for the commercial market. The new book will be called Beyond Binh Thuy.

Two more books are in early stages of development. One is The Drug Store Air Force. This is a non-fiction book about the way we used aviation to help build an industry back in the 1970s. What I hope will make it interesting is not just the stuff about aviation, but the way I describe the dramatic development in computers during the era. It is about a time when I was learning about computers and they were evolving in leaps and bounds.

The second book is called Delta Dustoff. It's a non-fiction account of my tour in Vietnam near the end of the war. Some of the stories are in Highways in the Sky, but there's a lot more to Delta Dustoff than just those few flying stories. Some of the stories are posted on the Delta Dustoff website, but only the flying stuff. The book will have a lot more about relationships and behind the scenes stuff.