Find out more about the writers whose books are published by Double Dagger.

Chief Warrant Officer (Retired) John Barnes, MMM, MSM, CD served in the Canadian Forces as an infantryman for thirty-six years, primarily in the Royal Canadian Regiment. He served in Germany, Cyprus, the Former Yugoslavia, Qatar and Afghanistan. READ MORE.

Necole Belanger is a retired Command Chief Warrant Officer of the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF), who joined at the tail end of the LGBTQ Purge, which saw more than 9000 members of the RCMP, CAF, and Federal Public Service employees have their lives and careers destroyed because of a government-sanctioned practice to label them as threats to national security. CCWO (Ret’d) Belanger managed to hide in plain sight and completed 35 years of service to her country. READ MORE.

Sean Claxton grew up in Norfolk, England before moving to London to work for the Imperial War Museum in 1993. Eleven years later he moved to Normandy to start work as a battlefield guide and researcher. Since 2019 he has conducted regular lectures on the Battle of Normandy and World War Two. READ MORE.

Michael A. Dorosh, CD is a graduate of the University of Calgary, holding bachelor of arts degrees in history and communications. He joined the Canadian Forces as a reservist in 1987 and has served continuously with The Calgary Highlanders since then. READ MORE.

Charles Estep is an Active-Duty Air Force Officer currently undergoing rotary wing pilot training at Ft. Rucker, Alabama. He is a 2019 graduate of the United States Air Force Academy with a B.S. in History and Political Science. In 2020, Charles earned his Master’s in History from the University of Calgary with a focus on West African Military History. READ MORE.

Michael Goodspeed has had a lengthy career as an Army officer as well as having been a video producer and worked in the telecommunications industry. He has degrees in English Literature and History, Business Administration, and Strategic Studies. He has lived and worked across the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. READ MORE

David Grebstad was born in Dryden, Ontario and has served as an officer in the Royal Regiment of Canadian Artillery for over thirty years with operational tours of duty in Afghanistan, Italy and Egypt. READ MORE

Phil Gurski is the President and CEO of Borealis Threat and Risk Consulting Ltd. and a Distinguished Fellow in National Security at the University of Ottawa’s Professional Development Institute (PDI). He worked as a senior strategic analyst at CSIS (Canadian Security Intelligence Service) from 2001-2015, specializing in violent Islamist-inspired homegrown terrorism and radicalisation. READ MORE.

Matt Hardman is a retired U.S. Navy Chief Petty Officer who currently works as a marine engineering consultant to the Navy’s DDG 51 Shipbuilding Program Office. While on active duty, he served onboard a submarine, two aircraft carriers, two amphibious transports, one submarine tender, and one destroyer. During his final tour of duty, he served as the Engineering Department Chief, or “Top Snipe,” for the USS James E. Williams (DDG 95). READ MORE.

Colonel (Retired) Bernd Horn, OMM, MSM, CD, PhD is a former infantry officer who has held key command and staff appointments in the Canadian Armed Forces, including Deputy Commander of Canadian Special Operations Forces Command (CANSOFCOM), Commanding Officer of the 1st Battalion, The Royal Canadian Regiment and Officer Commanding 3 Commando, the Canadian Airborne Regiment. READ MORE.

Benjamin Inks is a Purple Heart recipient who served three years in the Army and has worked an odd array of jobs—private investigator, personal trainer, security supervisor at a senior community. So far, the highlight of his résumé has been teaching literature as a grad student at George Mason University. READ MORE.

Captain Luca Lazzara is a 737 pilot for a major European airline based in Italy and he has a passion for making connections between people and stories. With over 10,000 hours and more than 200 different airports in his logbook, spread across two decades in the aviation industry, Luca loves flying passengers across Europe, North Africa and the Middle East, something he dreamed of since he was a child. READ MORE.

Christopher Lyke is an American writer and teacher living in Chicago. He served in Afghanistan and Africa as an enlisted infantryman in the U.S. Army. Chris co-founded and edits Line of Advance, a literary blog for veterans, as well as overseeing the annual Colonel Darron L. Wright Memorial Writing Awards. READ MORE

Gerry Madigan is a retired Canadian Armed Forces logistician. His career spanned 28 Years as a finance officer. His notable postings included time served at National Defence Headquarters, CFB Europe, Maritime Canada with tours in Cyprus and the First Gulf War, Qatar. READ MORE.

Robyn May was born in Sudbury, Ontario in June 1962 and lived there until joining the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) as a Vehicle Technician. After two years of service, she remustered to become an Aero-Engine Technician and worked most of her career in Search and Rescue squadrons across Canada. Her service took her from British Columbia to Newfoundland and everywhere in between. READ MORE.

A.E. Merrick is a Toronto-based dilettante who has experimented with a number of different identities, occupations, and pastimes. They are uncomfortable with publicly searchable databases of personal information. They write truth rather than fiction. READ MORE

Inspired by the voices of extraordinary people in extreme situations, Dr. Bev Morris writes through listening to stories told by survivors. From women survivors of abuse to soldiers at war, from people to places, she is drawn to experiences that question the very nature of humans and our impact on the world and each other. She seeks out the fragments of trauma that lodge themselves deep inside ordinary people, changing them forever, sometimes for the better. Often for the worse. READ MORE

Tom Mykytiuk is a veteran of the Canadian Army. His service has taken him to many parts of the globe not advertised in tourist brochures. He includes John Le Carre, Steven King, and Nikos Kazantikus among his literary influences. Tom enjoys writing about his favorite people-soldiers and ex-soldiers- and his personal experiences often find their way into his novels. READ MORE.

Ted Nurse was born in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan in 1941 and raised in St John’s, Newfoundland, Lachine, Quebec and Hamilton, Ontario. He joined the Royal Hamilton Light Infantry in 1959 and the regular force in 1962 He was a career officer in the Royal Canadian Armour Corps and retired in 1997. His second career was in security management and consulting. READ MORE.

Colonel (Retired) Chuck Oliviero, CD, PhD is an internationally recognized expert in simulation supported training and has twice been the Keynote Speaker at international training conferences and fora. He has over four decades’ experience as an educator and trainer. His career included command of Canada’s then only tank regiment, The 8th Canadian Hussars (Princess Louise’s). READ MORE.

Gordon Semple is at heart a teller of stories. After twenty-five years of being actively involved in living history (French and Indian War, American Revolution, and the War of 1812), Gordon now feels it time to commit some the act of guiding the not yet initiated into “The Hobby”, and he plans to leave the naughty bits in. READ MORE.

John Sliz was born and raised in Toronto, Canada and has been reading about World War II since he was a young boy. His first book was published by Service Publications in 2006 and three years later Vanwell Publishing published the Storm Boat Kings, which tells the story of the evacuation of the British airborne from Arnhem. READ MORE.

John Thompson was born to an RCAF family and largely raised in Ottawa. He spent 13 years in the Canadian Army (mostly with the Queen’s York Rangers), and over 30 years with defence and security related resarch instiitutes. Decades of prediliction for adventure now means he lives quietly in Alberta and studies the behaviours of Magpies, Jack Rabbits and Coyotes. READ MORE.

Ron Thompson was born and raised on the Canadian prairies. After serving in the army reserve and as a naval officer, he backpacked across Europe, then spent two years as a development worker on the margins of the Kalahari. He subsequently pursued a career in Canada and internationally as an economist, investment banker, and consultant. READ MORE

Amber Topp is a serving member of the Canadian Armed Forces, as well as a military spouse of almost twenty years. She currently resides in Ontario with her husband and children. She is a graduate of the Loyalist College, Protection, Security, and Investigations program, in Belleville, ON, and studied at St Thomas University in Fredericton, NB. READ MORE

A serving Army officer, John Vintar has more than thirty years of Reserve and Regular Force service in the Canadian Armed Forces, with NATO or UN deployments to Bosnia, Sudan, South Sudan, and Mali. He was awarded two Command Commendations during these overseas missions – the first in 2006 for his actions in evacuating United Nations and civilian personnel during a firefight between rival factions in Sudan, and his second was awarded for his role in extracting United Nations peacekeepers forcibly detained by Opposition forces in South Sudan in 2015. READ MORE

Burbank California-based Marc Phillip Yablonka is the author of four books on the Vietnam War. He also filed as a military journalist for Vietnam magazine; Military Heritage; Soldier of Fortune; American Veteran; the US Military’s Stars and Stripes; and Army Times. From 2001 to 2008, Marc served as a Public Affairs Officer with the rank Chief Warrant Officer-2 in the California State Guard. READ MORE