Press release for Hot Times in Panamá

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

March 14, 2012

Tucsonan writes spy thriller of U. S. counterintelligence in Panama.

Tucson, AZ – Hot Times in Panama features Frank Blake, once a Missouri farm boy, now a CIC agent practicing skills he hadn’t expected to learn. Buried in the novel is the story of Julia who keeps turning up when the shooting starts – a mystery that takes Blake 45 years to unravel.

Author Frank Babb spent much of his life in Chicago and Washington DC as a mergers and acquisitions corporate lawyer. But this is not the only life he has lived. Before attending Harvard Law School, he was part of the world of spies and counter-intelligence.

Babb was in Panama during the Cold War, serving with the Army Counter Intelligence Corps. This was a time when the Korean Conflict’s stand-off and the growing Cold War with the Soviets provided ample opportunities for deadly conflicts between spies and their counterintelligence enemies. Panama was a good place to settle the score with the Czechs for killing a CIC agent in Vienna, and agents hustled to complete a regime change in Guatemala in time for the six o’clock news.

Babb has written a novel of espionage and intrigue that sheds light on that deadly era and on the geopolitical forces at work in America’s backyard. This story reads true as it tells of happenings in the backwaters of Central America that seldom made the front pages.

"We were recent college graduates who didn't consider ourselves "real" soldiers," Babb says. "But we were committed to carrying out our assignments and accomplishing our missions with the same lethal competence of our Office of Strategic Services (OSS) predecessors we so admired and strove to emulate."

Hot Times in Panama is available from Ingram Book Company, Wheatmark, and online at Amazon.com.

For further information, contact:                          

Frank Babb at 520-250-5585

frankebabb.blogspot.com

National Service Program

In his January 30, 2012,  column “The Great Divorce” (he was not referring to matrimony but the great divide between the rich and the poor in the U S today), David Brooks said: “We need a program [National Service Program] that would force members of the upper tribe[the rich] and the lower tribe [the poor] to live together, if only for a few years. We need a program in which people from both tribes work together to spread out the values, practices and institutions that lead to achievement.”  I agree with Brooks on his proposal.  It’s what I was  talking about in my earlier posting.

Excerpt from my book

Hello everyone - I'm interested in getting your input on how I started Hot Times in Panama. The following is an excerpt of the beginning of the first chapter. Please comment on my blog (not on Facebook) and let me know what you think.  Don't hesitate to be critcal.

A Night at the Hotel Central

Wednesday, February 15, 1956, 8:30 pm

I stared through the crack of the utility closet door, my eyes focused on room 313 at the end of the corridor. Our team on the third floor of the Hotel Central, Panamá City, had been in place for thirty-two minutes. No one had entered or left the room nor had there been any sounds—laughter from Julia or the Czech or bouncy Panamanian music from the radio. But we knew they were there because Fernando, another of our agents, posing as a room service waiter, had brought them a bottle of cheap Scotch at 7:41.

Check out my blog

Hey everyone! I'd love it if you would take a look at my new blog, become a follower, and give feedback!