The Ranger’s Path: Van Shaw and Becoming an Army Ranger

In my new book MERCY RIVER, former US Army Ranger Van Shaw travels to a remote Oregon town to help a friend accused of murder, only to find that the town is playing host to hundreds of Special Operations veterans like himself.  The former and active Rangers have gathered for a huge charity drive and—not coincidentally—the kind of party that threatens to destroy property and people alike.  

While previous Van Shaw novels have touched on his service in the 75th Ranger Regiment, this was the first book with flashbacks to Van’s path to becoming a Ranger.  MERCY RIVER shines a light on his experiences during the pair of intense training programs for this unique branch: the Ranger Assessment and Selection Program (RASP), and Ranger School.  These two programs are often confused, and I’m not a veteran, so I relied on research and contacts within the Ranger community to ensure Van’s adventures were accurate, clear, and especially exciting for new readers.

First, a bit about the Rangers themselves.  Rangers are a branch of the United States Special Operations Forces, which includes among others the Navy SEALs, Army Special Forces (Green Berets), and Marine Force Recon.  The Rangers’ mission is that of a light infantry strike force: Ready to travel anywhere in the world within eighteen hours, typically dropped in by parachute or helicopter to accomplish a specific objective, then ex-filtrating before the enemy can respond.  As a friend and Special Forces veteran of mine put it: “Knocking down doors and blowing stuff up”.  Exactly the kind of work that would appeal to Van Shaw at age nineteen.

As such, Ranger selection focuses heavily on the requirements of expert infantry: fitness, marksmanship, tactical execution, medical training, and related skills. The RASP program is the entry point for any soldier who wishes to serve in the 75th Regiment.  The program is eight weeks long and designed to push candidates to their mental and physical limits.  Wind sprints, marches and runs with heavily-loaded rucksacks, and almost constant drills combine with a deluge of information and tactical instruction that candidates must master if they are to serve.  

It is not uncommon for half of the initial RASP candidates to have dropped—voluntarily or literally—by the end of the first two weeks. The objective of the trainers is to identify those few candidates whose minds and bodies can adapt to the pressure, soldiers who refuse to quit even under the toughest of circumstances.  Those who make the grade and graduate from RASP don the tan beret of the Rangers and are awarded the Regimental Scroll, which is the shoulder patch that identifies the new Ranger’s battalion within the 75th. A regimental motto is that the Scroll must be earned every day; the standards for remaining an active Ranger are as uncompromising as RASP itself.

Ranger School is something different, though no less arduous. A leadership course, the School welcomes students from all branches of the US Armed Forces, and some allied forces as well.  It’s common for active Rangers in the 75th Regiment to have a deployment or two under their belts before applying for Ranger School.  

The sixty-one days of Ranger School are divided into three phases: Benning (named for the fort which is home to the 75th), Mountain, and Florida.  Much like at RASP, the Benning Phase weeds out those students who cannot maintain a brutal pace.  Benning is where students become acquainted with the infamous Darby Queen, an obstacle course more than two miles long; students must work in teams to overcome the hazards. Mountain Phase focuses on leading missions in tough terrain and even harsher conditions.  Food and sleep are at a premium during all weeks of Ranger School, and students lose weight at a shocking rate due to the non-stop activity. Finally, the Florida Phase, also known as Swamp, expands on mission and assault skills and has students lead training operations directly, working through their exhaustion to complete the objective.  Students are evaluated constantly by both their instructors and their peers – the ultimate test of whether they can be counted upon in a crisis. 

Graduation rates for Ranger School vary by class, but numbers below fifty percent are typical.  The physical demands are such that most students require an adjustment period to regain their full health and a regular diet following the course.  All graduates earn the Ranger Tab, a simple patch that denotes the graduate as Ranger-qualified regardless of their branch of service.  Many graduates consider receiving the Tab as the most rewarding moment of their careers.

My research into Ranger service has given me tremendous respect for the men and women—both RASP and Ranger School have opened to women candidates during the last few years, with successful graduates from both courses—who can conquer the trials of these programs and who serve accordingly. I’m proud that Van Shaw is a Ranger, however fictional.  He too can be counted on to lead the way through the toughest of challenges. 

Mercy River by Glen Erik Hamilton (Published by Faber & Faber) Out Now

Helping a fellow veteran accused of murder, Van Shaw is drawn into a dangerous labyrinth involving smuggled opioids, ruthless mercenaries, and deadly family secrets that will challenge his notions of brotherhood and justice.  When his friend Leo Pak is arrested on suspicion of murder and armed robbery, Van Shaw journeys to a remote Oregon county to help his fellow Ranger. Van had been Leo's sergeant when they served with the 75th Regiment in Afghanistan, and back in the States, Leo had helped Van when he needed it most.  Arriving in the isolated town of Mercy River, Van learns that his troubled friend had planned to join a raucous three-day party that dominates the place for one weekend each year. Attended by hundreds of former and active Rangers, the event is more than just a reunion; it's the central celebration of a growing support network called the Rally, founded and led by a highly decorated Special Operations general named Macomber.  But there's more going on in Mercy River than just a bunch of Army hard cases blowing off steam. The murder victim--the owner of a local gun shop where Leo worked part time--was dealing in stolen heroin-grade opiates. Worse, the town has a dark history with a community of white supremacists, growing in strength and threatening to turn Mercy River into their private enclave.  The cops have damning evidence linking Leo to the murder, and Van knows that backwaters like Mercy River are notorious for protecting their own. His quest to clear Leo's name will stir up old grudges and dark secrets beneath the surface of this secretive small town, pit his criminal instincts against his loyalties to his brothers in arms, and force him to question his own belief in putting justice above the letter of the law.

Books to Look Forward to from Faber and Faber

January 2019

The second book in the Rebekah Roberts series - a taut mystery and a brilliant exploration of the demons we inherit... Aviva Kagan was just a teenager when she left her Hasidic Jewish

life in Brooklyn for a fling with a smiling college boy from Florida. A few months later she was pregnant, engaged to be married and trapped in a life she never imagined. So, shortly after the birth of her daughter she disappeared. Twenty-three years later, the child she walked away from, NYC tabloid reporter Rebekah Roberts, wants nothing to do with her. But when a man from the ultra-Orthodox enclave of Roseville, NY contacts Rebekah about his young wife's mysterious death, she is drawn into Aviva's old world, and a hidden culture full of dangerous secrets and frustrations.   Run You Down is by Julia Dahl.

February 2019

In a hard-boiled city of crooks, grifts and rackets lurk a pair of toughs: Box and _____. They're the kind of men capable of extracting apologies and reparations, of teaching you a chilling lesson. They seldom think twice, and ask very few questions. Until one night over the poker table, they encounter a pulp writer with wild ideas and an unscrupulous private detective, leading them into what is either a classic mystery, a senseless maze of corpses, or an inextricable fever dream . . . Drunk on cinematic and literary influence, Muscle is a slice of noir fiction in collapse, a ceaselessly imaginative story of violence, boredom and madness.  Muscle is by Alan Trotter

The Elegant Lie is by Sam Eastland. The year is 1949. In the bombed-out ruins of Cologne, Hanno Dasch is king. Director of the most successful black market operation in post-war Germany, Dasch has kept his clients supplied with goods so extravagant and rare that they were almost impossible to find even at the height of Germany's conquests. Nobody but Dasch, his enigmatic daughter and the war criminal he keeps as his bodyguard know how he

does it. None of this has escaped the attention of Allied Intelligence, who face not only the systemic corruption of a country where everything is in short supply, but the growing threat of Stalin's KGB. Fearing that Dasch will soon expand his business to include dealings with Russia, and invite the further meddling of Russian agents in the west, the CIA sets in motion an undercover operation to infiltrate and, ultimately, destroy Dasch's empire. A disgraced American Army officer, Nathan Carter, is recruited to approach Dasch and to ingratiate himself with promises of stolen army supplies. As Carter moves further and further into the labyrinth of Dasch's world, it soon becomes clear that the black market ring has already been compromised, but by someone even more dangerous than the Russians. Carter stumbles upon a counterfeiting ring, with whom Dasch has unwittingly gone into business, which seems to have been created with the sole purpose of destroying the Soviet economy, something it could easily do with the superlative quality of the forged bills it is producing. With Carter caught in the middle, and facing the danger that his cover might be blown at any moment, a race begins between the Russian and American spy agencies to uncover who is responsible, before the situation escalates to war.

March 2019

'

They had a secret, the two of them, and there was no better way to start a friendship than with a secret.' When Hen and Lloyd move into their new house in West Dartford, Mass., they're relieved to meet, at their first block party, the only other seemingly-childless couple in their neighbourhood, Matthew and Mira Dolamore. Turns out they live in the Dutch Colonial immediately next door. When they're invited over for dinner, however, things take a sinister turn when Hen thinks she sees something suspicious in Matthew's study. Could this charming, mild-mannered College Professor really be hiding a dark secret, one that only Hen, whose been battling her own problems with depression and medication, could know about? Lloyd certainly doesn't seem to believe her, and so, forced together, Hen and Matthew start to form an unlikely bond. But who, if anyone, is really in danger?   Before She Knew Him is by Peter Swanson.

Former Broadway star Tommy Jump isn't getting the roles he once did; as his final run as Sancho Ponza draws to a close, Tommy is getting ready to give up the stage, find a steady paycheck, and settle down with his fiancee. Cue Special Agent Danny Ruiz. An old school friend of Tommy's, now with the FBI, Ruiz makes Tommy an offer that sounds too good to refuse. All Tommy has to do is spend six months in prison, acting as failed bank robber 'Pete Goodrich'. Inside, he must find and befriend Mitchell Dupree, who has hidden a secret cache of documents incriminating enough to take down New Colima, one of Mexico's largest drug cartels. If Tommy can get Dupree to reveal where the documents are hidden, the FBI will give him $300,000. More than enough to jumpstart a new life. But does he have what it takes to pull off this one final role?  The Last Act is by Brad Parks.

April 2019

A Good Enough Mother is by Bev Thomas.  The hardest lies to spot are the ones we tell ourselves. Dr Ruth Hartland rises to difficult tasks. She is the director of a highly respected trauma therapy unit. She is confident, capable and excellent at her job. Today she is preoccupied by her son Tom's disappearance. So when a new patient arrives at the unit - a young man who looks shockingly like Tom - she is floored. As a therapist, Ruth knows exactly what she should do in the best interests of her client, but as a mother she makes a very different choice - a decision that will have profound consequences.

The Better Sister is by Alafair Burke.  For a while, it seemed like both Taylor sisters had found happiness. Chloe landed a coveted publishing job in New York City. Nicky got married to a promising young attorney named Adam McIntosh and became a mother to a baby boy named Ethan. But now, fourteen years later, it is Chloe who is married to Adam. When he is murdered at the couple's beach house, she has no choice but to welcome her estranged sister - her teenage stepson's biological mother - back into her life. When the police begin to treat Ethan as a suspect, the sisters are forced to confront the truth behind family secrets they both tried to leave behind in order to protect the boy they love, whatever the cost.

Mercy River is by Glen Erik Hamilton. When Van Shaw receives a distress call from his fellow Afghan War veteran, Leo Pak, he has to leave the urban hazards of Seattle to head far south to a town called Broken Ridge, deep in the wild heart of rural Oregon. Leo faces charges of murdering a local gun dealer, and while Van doesn't doubt his friend's innocence, he knows he faces conviction. As Van starts his own covert investigations, the small town is suddenly awash with Army Ranger veterans, converging for a raucous annual Rally. Was it only this reunion that brought Leo to town? Or is someone at the Rally setting Leo up to cover for their own dark designs?

May 2019

Phoebe stands on Pulteney Bridge, tights gashed from toe to thigh. The shock of mangled metal and blood-stained walls flashes through her mind as she tries to cover her face so she won't be recognised. It wouldn't do to be spotted looking like this. She's missing a shoe. She feels sick. Phoebe thought murder and murder happened. Thoughts are just thoughts, they said. Now she knows they were wrong. At home, Phoebe arranges the scissors and knives so they point toward her mother's room. She is exhausted, making sure there's no trace of herself - not a single hair, not even her scent - left anywhere in the house. She must not let her thoughts unravel, because if they do, there's no telling who might be caught in the crossfire, and Phoebe will have to live with the consequences.  Crush is by Kate Hamer

The Paris Diversion is by Chris Pavone.  Kate Moore - a mother with an interesting past - is living the quiet life in another European city, or trying to. On her way to drop her children off at school in the city centre, the cafes and streets of Paris start to come alive around her. Kate's husband Dex, meanwhile, charged with finding a particular present for their son's birthday, is struggling to focus on the job in hand as a financial matter at work seems to be playing on his mind. As worrying reports begin to circulate from key locations around the city, and the sound of wailing sirens becomes increasingly hard to ignore, could their day and, indeed, their lives be about to change forever?

Books to Look Forward to From Faber and Faber

July 2017

In Wild Thyme, Pennsylvania, Officer Henry Farrell's life is getting complicated. Widowed and more traumatised than he cares to admit, he is caught up in an affair with a local woman, and with helping out his friend's barn construction job - on which the clock is ticking. When a troubled old acquaintance of theirs becomes the prime suspect in the disappearance of his girlfriend, it becomes increasingly clear that something seriously dark is at large in the woods that surround them. Against this old and strange landscape - where silence rules - a fascinating and troubling case ensues, as Henry struggles for his very survival. Fateful Mornings is by Tom Bouman.

Walk in Silence is by John Gordon Sinclair.  Find the boy. Bring him home. Keep him safe. Keira Lynch is a lawyer who's used to trouble, but she's only just landed in Albania, and already, she's neck deep. She thought money would help her find the boy, in an underworld where bribes are as common as bent cops, but his kidnappers want something else. They want the freedom of one of their gang members. A man Keira is about to help bring to trial back in the UK; a man who once put three bullets in her chest. Can she stay silent, and save the boy? Or will she have to play the game in a brutal world where anything can be bartered - trust, loyalty, even lives?

What really happened to Sarah Cook? A beautiful blonde teenager, Sarah Cook disappeared fifteen years ago, the same night her parents were brutally murdered in their suburban Ohio home. Her boyfriend Brad Stockton - black and from the wrong side of the tracks - was convicted of the murders and sits on death row, though he always maintained his innocence. As his execution nears, his devoted sister, insisting she has spotted Sarah at a local gas station, hires PI Roxane Weary to look at this cold case. Reeling from the recent death of her cop father, Roxane is drawn to the story of Sarah's disappearance, especially when she suspects a link between it and one of her father's unsolved murder cases. Despite her self-destructive tendencies, Roxane starts to hope that she can save Brad's life and her own. The Last Place You Look is by Kristen Lepionka.

Kitty Peck and the Daughter of Sorrow is by Kate Griffin.  Summer 1881: the streets of Limehouse are thick with opium...and menace. At eighteen Kitty Peck has inherited Paradise, a sprawling criminal empire on the banks of the Thames. Determined to do things differently to her fearsome grandmother, she now realises that the past casts a long and treacherous shadow. Haunted by a terrible secret and stalked by a criminal cabal intent on humiliation and destruction, Kitty must fight for the future of everyone she cares for...

August 2017

The Girl in Green is by Derek B Miller and takes us deep into modern Iraq, where British journalist Thomas Benton and relief worker Marta Strom are persuaded by ex-US soldier Arwood Hobbes to embark on what may be a fools' errand in a last-chance effort to atone for their failure to save a local girl more than twenty years previously, following Operation Desert Storm. Set against the shattered landscape and broken heart of Iraq. 

Former Army Ranger Van Shaw is recently single, out of money, and struggling to keep on the straight and narrow. So when an old contact, Mick O’Hassan, shows up on his doorstep, fresh out of prison and claiming to know the whereabouts of a hidden stash of gold, Van feels the powerful pull of his past. The trouble is, some things are too good to be true, and before they know it Van and O’Hassan are trapped in a game with few rules and too many deadly players. Turns out, the only easy part of a life of crime is getting sucked back in . . .  Every Day Above Ground is by Glen Erik Hamilton.

September 2017

A Patient Fury is by Sarah Ward.  When Detective Constable Connie Childs is dragged from her bed to the fire-wrecked property on Cross Farm Lane she knows as she steps from the car that this house contains death. Three bodies discovered - a family obliterated - their deaths all seem to point to one conclusion: One mother, one murderer. But D.C. Childs, determined as ever to discover the truth behind the tragedy, realises it is the fourth body - the one they cannot find - that holds the key to the mystery at Cross Farm Lane. What Connie Childs fails to spot is that her determination to unmask the real murderer might cost her more than her health - this time she could lose the thing she cares about most: her career.

October 2017

Nine Lessons is by Nicola Upson.  In the years before the Great War, M. R. James told ghost stories by candlelight to a handful of friends and scholars. Now, twenty-five years later, those men are dying, killed off one by one . . . In contemporary Cambridge, the people of the town are gripped by fear and suspicion as a serial rapist stalks the streets. In the shadow of King’s College Chapel, Detective Chief Inspector Archie Penrose faces some of the most horrific and audacious murders of his career.

Anthony Award Nominations

BEST NOVEL
 Night Tremors by Matt Coyle [Oceanview]
 The Killing Kind by Chris Holm [Mulholland]
 The Child Garden by Catriona McPherson [Midnight Ink]
 The Nature of the Beast by Louise Penny [Minotaur/Sphere]
 What You See by Hank Phillippi Ryan [Forge]

BEST FIRST NOVEL
 Concrete Angel by Patricia Abbott [Polis]
 Past Crimes by Glen Erik Hamilton [William Morrow]
 New Yorked by Rob Hart [Polis]
 Bull Mountain by Brian Panowich [G.P. Putnam's Sons/Head of Zeus]
 On the Road with Del & Louise by Art Taylor [Henery]

BEST PAPERBACK ORIGINAL
 The Long and Faraway Gone by Lou Berney [William Morrow]
 Gun Street Girl by Adrian McKinty [Seventh Street/Serpent's Tail]
 Little Pretty Things by Lori Rader-Day [Seventh Street]
 Young Americans by Josh Stallings [Heist]
 Stone Cold Dead by James W. Ziskin [Seventh Street]

BEST CRITICAL OR NONFICTION BOOK
 The Golden Age of Murder: The Mystery of the Writers Who Invented the Modern Detective Story by Martin Edwards [HarperCollins]
Meanwhile There Are Letters: The Correspondence of Eudora Welty and Ross Macdonald by Suzanne Marrs & Tom Nolan, editors [Arcade]
Forensics: What Bugs, Burns, Prints, DNA, and More Tell Us About Crime by Val McDermid [Grove]
The Lost Detective: Becoming Dashiell Hammett by Nathan Ward [Bloomsbury USA]
The Mystery Writers of America Cookbook: Wickedly Good Meals and Desserts to Die For by Kate White, editor [Quirk]

BEST SHORT STORY
"The Little Men: A Bibliomystery" by Megan Abbott [MysteriousPress.com/Open Road]
"The Siege" in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, Dec 2015 by Hilary Davidson [Dell]
"Feliz Navidead" in Thuglit Presents: Cruel Yule by Brace Godfrey/Johnny Shaw [CreateSpace]
"Old Hands" in Dark City Lights by Erin Mitchell [Three Rooms]
 "Quack and Dwight" in Jewish Noir by Travis Richardson [PM]
 "Don’t Fear the Ripper" in Protectors 2: Heroes by Holly West [Goombah Gumbo]

BEST ANTHOLOGY OR COLLECTION
 Safe Inside the Violence by Christopher Irvin [280 Steps]
 Protectors 2: Heroes-Stories to Benefit PROTECT by Thomas Pluck, editor [Goombah

Gumbo]
 Thuglit Presents: Cruel Yule: Holiday Tales of Crime for People on the Naughty List by Todd Robinson, editor [CreateSpace]
 Murder Under the Oaks: Bouchercon Anthology 2015 by Art Taylor, editor [Down & Out]
 Jewish Noir: Contemporary Tales of Crime and Other Dark Deeds by Kenneth Wishnia, editor [PM]

BEST YOUNG ADULT NOVEL
 Need by Joelle Charbonneau [HMH Books for Young Readers]
 How to Win at High School by Owen Matthews [HarperTeen]
 A Madness So Discreet by Mindy McGinnis [Katherine Tegen]
 The Sin Eater’s Daughter by Melinda Salisbury [Scholastic]
 Fighting Chance by B.K. Stevens [The Poisoned Pencil]
 Ask the Dark by Henry Turner [Clarion]

BEST CRIME FICTION AUDIOBOOK
 Dark Waters by Chris Goff - Assaf Cohen, narrator [Blackstone Audio]
 The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins - Clare Corbett, Louise Brealey & India Fisher, narrators [Penguin Audio/Random House Audiobooks]
Causing Chaos by Deborah J. Ledford - Christina Cox, narrator [IOF Productions]
The Nature of the Beast by Louise Penny - Robert Bathurst, narrator [Macmillan Audio]
Young Americans by Josh Stallings - Em Eldridge, narrator [Josh Stallings]