I’m working on the third novel in my spy series, “The Secret Lives of Jessie Monroe.” But in case you missed reading them, here’s info on the first two.

Background – After I retired from software and technology and had published my first book about my Silicon Valley start-up adventure (It Starts with an Idea), I started writing more books. Some of my favorite books are my spy novel series (The Secret Lives of Jessie Monroe).

The First in the Series: Alias Juno Wolfe

In the first novel, Alias Juno Wolfe, we meet Jessie, one of the young twins whose parents’ brutal murder sends them both into shock and reclusion. Living with their uncle, they are home-schooled and self-isolated but extremely smart and technical. Besides technology, they discover a love of the martial arts and, since their uncle works at the CIA, they find a niche for their talents as spies.

On one of her first under-cover assignments as Celeste, she infiltrates a Central America drug lord’s inner circle. She is successful, but ends up being shot and paralyzed and retires for a while from spy work. Although having obtained multiple technical degrees, those were done using tutors and remote learning so now she takes the opportunity to attend MIT in-person and learns about their fascinating, advanced Multics computer with it’s multi-ring security. She is software-brilliant and easily hacks the never-before-hacked system, gaining the attention of the school and the head of the Multics Department. With hard work, she recovers her ability to walk. But that part of her life once again ends in tragedy. She once again returns to under-cover work to find meaning to her life and an escape from her sadness.

Jessie goes under cover as Juno Wolfe, software security guru specializing in drone management and tracking software. She uncovers a plot to cause mass destruction that Juno and her young programmer friend, Truman, must unravel before the countdown ends.

It was fun to write because I have a background in software security – from working at Ford Aerospace on Orange Book multi-level security which we then applied to our start-up product. Our product, ProChannel, was an early internet-based application with users worldwide with different access needs: From manager users within a semiconductor company with all rights to see all data, to sales users working for the company with less privilege to see each others commissions and company-confidential pricing algorithms, to distributors who carried competing semiconductor companies’ lines so needed a much more restricted view. That took robust multi-level security. Add to that the fact that this information was going over the internet, believe me, companies like Cypress Semiconductor, Maxim, and Linear Technology Systems would not allow systems that contain their price lists to be accessible via the internet. My lessons learned show up incorporated into the plot.

In addition, that was the timeframe in real life when Amazon was starting to announce their future plans for drone delivery systems. The two companies Jessie works under cover for are developing the latest technology applications – delivering packages and products via drone. What could go wrong?

Available from Amazon

An introduction to the 2nd book in the series will be the subject of the next post … stay tuned …