Rising Aces
An Edwin Hoff Thriller
Legendary entrepreneur and genius mathematician Edwin Hoff is presumed dead. But when American forces kill the head of a global terrorist group, the commando Edwin Hoff emerges from deep cover to stop the man trained to take over in 48 hours. When Edwin’s drones spot Ali Hamini, Edwin must strike and disappear, without being seen, in a world where someone is always watching.
Is Ali’s sudden, brief appearance a hard clue? Or is it a trap?
Once, Edwin had Ali in his grasp. But Edwin was preoccupied with the pleasures of his cover life. Under his nose, Ali financed a biological attack and escaped. Now Ali wants the role he has trained for all his life. Two people from his past cover lives know the secret that could take it all away: Ali’s former boss, Edwin Hoff, and Ali’s college love, Camille Henderson, now a CIA operative.
In 48 hours, Ali must make sure they can never tell what he did.
In 48 hours, Edwin must alert Camille and stop Ali once and for all.
In 48 hours, one will end as the hunter and the other, as the prey.
Chasing Ali across England, Greece, and France, Edwin uses his unique ability to transform ordinary people into heroes. And when he does, he risks the unthinkable.
Author’s note: The character Edwin Hoff is inspired by a real person. The plot is fiction, but his unique talents were true.
The First Secret of Edwin Hoff
The First Secret of Edwin Hoff is a Batman-meets-Bourne thriller about an elite commando living the unexpectedly public life of a billionaire tech entrepreneur. But when Edwin is called to stop a bio-attack planned to release from a 9/11 plane, he does what a Seal Team 6 fighter would do for his next act, and more. Under deep cover, he protects the world from terror while turning the folks he meets into heroes.
Edwin Hoff is a fiction inspired by a real person: Danny Lewin was a Counter Terror Captain in Israel’s equivalent of Seal Team 6. He trained to rescue hostages and kill terrorists with his bare hands. Later he went to MIT for his masters in math and founded Akamai Technologies, becoming a billionaire overnight. The author worked for him there for two years until, on September 11, Danny went to visit customers in California. He boarded AA Flight 11. Amid the horrifying tragedy, Danny left behind this puzzle:
On September 10, he packed up his office. No one knows why.
“Mark Zuckerberg meets James Bond… Bourne deftly juggles the action with informed yet accessible writing about the dot-com boom and subsequent bust while advancing the story through the perspectives of a gallery of vividly drawn supporting characters… it handily delivers the genre goods.”
—Kirkus
“The First Secret of Edwin Hoff is a compelling thriller and an imaginative reflection on our times—but it’s also a meditation on what it means to be a mentor and to pass along ways of moving in the world. The life lessons here will stir the reader as powerfully as the plot twists.”
—Eric Liu, author of Guiding Lights: How to Mentor and Find Life’s Purpose
“Like Quentin Tarantino’s revisionist WWII film ‘Inglourious Basterds,’ this absorbing—and, ultimately, inspiring—novel re-imagines events on September 11, 2001, when al Qaeda terrorists highjacked planes, among them American Airlines Flight 11 from Boston, and deliberately crashed them into the World Trade Center in New York City. In The First Secret of Edwin Hoff, A.B. Bourne devises a plot as rigorously logical and gloriously complex as an Escher drawing. The book’s multitude of characters are diverse and fully, colorfully drawn as the plot unravels and the stakes escalate. Edwin Hoff, in particular, is terrific: A morally unambiguous hero’s hero, he must be one of the very few characters in fiction to hold a Ph.D. and a weapon with equal elan.”
—Jack Dougherty, author of Corporate America: A Novel
“Thumbs up… a knock-down, drag-out, action adventure thriller.”
―Wilderness House Literary Review
“A terrific thriller, with a strong theme of redemptive and hope. A friend recommended this to me on Friday; I was finished by Sunday. I.Could.Not.Put.It.Down.”
—Whitney Johnson, author of Disrupt Yourself: Putting the Power of Disruptive Innovation to Work