Jack English Stories
Let the adventure begin.
Who is Jack English?
That seems like as good a place as any to start an About page.
Jack English the character, is featured in the novels: The Newest Babylon, Target Error, Drugged, Down at the Stern, Desert Song, Hacked to Death, Worthless Paper and Shady Lady.
Jack English went to Atlantic City High School. He went to college at Rutgers University in Camden where he majored in… frat parties.
After college he joined the Army where he earned a commission. There, he found he had a special talent for boxing and was the Division champ two years in a row. After the Army he taught at Atlantic City High School and was their boxing coach while going to Rutgers School of Law Camden.
THEN, there is Jack English, the writer. Don’t confuse the two even though there are similarities.
Like Jack English, the character, Jack English, the writer, went to Rutgers in Camden, but he majored in physics and only minored in frat parties. Jack English, the character, and Jack English, the writer, both practiced law in Atlantic City. But, there are differences too. Jack English, the writer, was in the Navy not the Army. Jack English, the writer, never boxed. His official Navy records indicate he was a programmer. Right.
Of course, Jack English is the writer’s pen name. Think of Jack English as a brand and a style of writing that cuts across the novels and short stories discussed here.
Confused? Someone once said, “The mark of an educated mind is being able to entertain two ideas at once.”
Jack English, the character, is like a perfectly cooked steak. But, even the greatest steak lover wants barbeque once in a while. That’s why Jack English, the writer, has other novels centered on other characters.
His Sci-Fi novels, Maker of Worlds, Maker of Suns, and Maker of Men revolve around an atmospheric physicist named Alexander Stoneheart.
The principal characters in Archimedes Principle are Buckley Mills Forrester, an auditor, and Becker, a spikey-haired, tattooed woman with a Ph.D. in mathematics from Berkeley. She is twice as smart as everyone around her.
The principal characters in Crime Watch are Wilson Kiley, an investigative radio reporter, Stephanie Turlow, a woman good with power tools, and a mystery woman who refuses to reveal her name.
Matthew St. Augustine is the principal character in Fedwire. He counterfeited $10 billion of electronic money using the Federal Reserve's computers. But did he get away with it?
And so it goes. Jack English the character isn’t in every novel or short story, but the writing sensibility, the pace, and the narrative form of Jack English, the writer, cuts across all the writing in the Jack English novels and stories.
Contact me at: jack[dot]english[dot]blog[at]gmail[dot]com
I would like to give credit to some of my proofreaders. Margot MacKay proofread Maker of Worlds, Desert Song, Shady Lady and Worthless Paper. Michael Delguercio is an English teacher and man of letters. He knows his Shakespeare. “If this be madness, yet there is method in it.” Hamlet, Act 2, Scene 2. He proofread Target Error, Fedwire, Maker of Men and Hacked to Death. Melanie Grunwald, trading as Elegant Editing, proofread Crime Watch and Archimedes Principle.