In April of 2020, as businesses were shutting down across the country due to COVID-19, I wanted to do something to drive traffic to local independent bookstores at a time when most people were sequestered in their homes. My small gesture of support came in the form of limited-edition SAVAGE SON bookplates available only through independent bookstores. I published the list of participating bookstores with contact information on my website and they sold out immediately. In April of 2021, in an effort to continue supporting the local independent bookstores I love so much, I replicated the campaign for the publication of THE DEVIL’S HAND. Those also sold out immediately. For the publication of IN THE BLOOD, a sniper-centric novel of violent resolutions, it was time to move things to the next level and send a bullet through title pages that are bound into the book, those bullets making each novel a one-of-a-kind edition. Once again, they sold out immediately. In 2023 I continued the tradition for the publication of ONLY THE DEAD, a novel of truth and consequences, using a clone of an Iraqi Tabuk AK built by the legendary Jim Fuller of Fuller Phoenix. In 2024, for the release of RED SKY MOURNING, I used a Flux Defense Raider X with 9mm SIG, a MODX-9 suppressor, Aimpoint T2, on a Scalarworks mount, SureFire X300T, Ferro Concepts single point sling, with Speer Gold Dot G29mm 147 grain ammo which all fit nicely in a Vertx Ardennes Valet Bag – a setup as close as I could get to what is used in the novel.

The Colt Automatic Rifle-15, or XM177E2. The preferred carbine of MACV-SOG. A compact and reliable 5.56 carbine that modified the M16 platform with an 11.5-inch barrel, muzzle “moderator,” and aluminum two-position collapsing stock. Five hundred and ten units would be manufactured for SOG, and SOG operators would be the first military unit fully outfitted with the rifle.