The Forgotten Men

Set in 1987, the waning days of the cold war, this action-packed thriller centers around an actual, tragic historical event. It is a secret that has been closely guarded for 40 years by the dying Soviet regime, which will stop at nothing to ensure it never becomes public. Retired American O.S.S. officer Leonard Galloway is one of the few who knows the horrible truth. At the end of World War II, the Soviet army kidnapped thousands of liberated American prisoners of war and shipped them to the USSR to serve as slave labor. Most of them died in the camps, but now, forty years later, 100 Americans remain alive in the Gulags. Galloway and his ally, Soviet defector Sergei Novikov, set in motion an elaborate plan to secure the remaining prisoners' release. Their efforts focus on mysterious Polish scientist Stanislaw Padereweski, who holds the key to the men's freedom. But the plan is derailed when ruthless K.G.B. Major Yuri Andreyev intervenes. Denny Goodwin, Galloway's young friend and business associate, inadvertently stumbles onto the plot and becomes the centerpiece of the efforts to free the prisoners. He and his rival-turned-love interest, Megan Sumerford, find their lives in constant danger as they are pursued by the K.G.B. and the F.B.I. It is a race against time, and Denny knows that he is the only hope for the Americans long forgotten in the Soviet Gulags ... This fast-paced thriller leads the reader from the small hamlet of Midlothian, Texas, through Dallas and all the way to Washington D.C., Edinburgh, Scotland, and the heart of the Soviet Gulag. Meticulously researched with supporting documentation from the National Archives, its gripping climax involves a confrontation between President Ronald Reagan and General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev at their pivotal December 1987 Washington summit.