In 1942, Major Ray Hawkins must assemble a unit of civilians and military to keep the Nazis from releasing a desert djinn against the Allied forces in North Africa. They will have to employ conventional warfare and unconventional witchcraft to accomplish the mission.
Devil in the Desert
Office of Supernatural Directives Book 1
by Russell James
Genre: Historical Horror
It is 1942 and a secret group within the Nazi SS is on the hunt for objects of the occult, hoping to harvest their power for wonder weapons to win the war. Its leader, Gruppenfuhrer Karl Weitz, has more than military might behind him. He has recruited the Ochre Witch, an Eastern European sorceress capable of adapting what they seize to serve the Reich’s needs.
Only one team can stop the Axis powers from winning World War II.
Army Major Ray Hawkins is tasked with creating the Office of Supernatural Directives to stop these fanatics. He assembles a team that includes a female WASP pilot, an enlisted man with a passion for language and puzzles, a mysterious American ex-pat from the French Foreign Legion, and a young Romany woman who will need to embrace the mystic Gypsy teachings she’s spent her life despising.
Their first mission unfolds in Tunisia, where Weitz and the Ocher Witch plan to release a djinn the locals call the Devil in the Desert. It wields the power to spread debilitating fear. If Major Hawkins and his band cannot stop the djinn, it will sow panic among the Americans and Rommel’s Afrika Korps will crush the invasion force. But Hawkins’ new team has many weaknesses, and Weitz and the Ocher Witch will exploit every one of them to win.
Russell R. James was raised on Long Island, New York and spent too much time watching Chiller, Kolchak: The Night Stalker, and Dark Shadows, despite his parents’ warnings. Bookshelves full of Stephen King and Edgar Allan Poe didn’t make things better. He graduated from Cornell University and the University of Central Florida.
After flying helicopters with the U.S. Army and a career as a technical writer, he now spins twisted tales best read in daylight, including horror thrillers Dark Inspiration, Q Island, and The Playing Card Killer. He authored the Grant Coleman Adventures series starting with Cavern of the Damned and the Ranger Kathy West series starting with Claws. He resides in sunny Florida. His wife reads his work, rolls her eyes, and says “There is something seriously wrong with you.”
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