Author:S. Alexander O'Keefe

Phantom Money

Prodigious amounts of illegal drugs are transported across the USA’s southern border by cartels despite the best efforts of law enforcement. These shipments generate hundreds of millions in cash profits – profits the cartels would like to reinvest in legitimate business ventures on this side...

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A Writer’s Path

Time is the toll extracted by the vagaries of fate that plague our daily existence - bad weather, lines, traffic jams, and the host of demands imposed upon us by our fellow travelers on the road of life. Since writing is a time-consuming endeavor (I...

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The Art of The Villain

Most people have no reason, thankfully, to set a trap or ambuscade in the course of their daily affairs. A trial lawyer, in contrast, lays traps all the time as part of his or her trial strategy. Such stratagems are often necessary to extract the...

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The Homeric Legacy

Homer's Iliad and Odyssey are two of my favorite books. As a child, I was mesmerized by the heroic and tragic tales woven together in these great works. As an adult and a history buff, I was intrigued by the possibility that some of these...

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The Siege Within

I am writing a scene where a city in Celtic Briton is under siege by the invading Saxons. Since I have never experienced such a horrific event, even in the smallest measure (and surely have no desire to), I am drawing upon my history books...

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What if?

In the 2002 movie “Time Machine” the Uber Moorlock says to Alexander, the protagonist: "You're a man haunted by those two most terrible words: What if?” I suspect we all are. Who has not considered what the present would be like had a different path been...

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My Kingdom For A Laptop

If I had a dollar for every time I heard the admonition “follow your heart” – a favorite of graduation speakers – I would be a wealthy man. It’s not bad advice. Who can argue with the proposition that one should pursue his or her...

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Sisyphean Endeavors

Writing “The Return of Sir Percival: Book I – Guinevere’s Prayer” was a labor of love, but also a formidable and often frustrating task. When I began the endeavor, the characters were already traveling the byroads of my mind, as if my imagination were their...

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Walls and Invaders

  (Warning: This post is not about the present-day arguments over this subject matter, but rather the importance of walls in medieval society, and, in my humble estimation, why they will always be necessary.) When I was eighteen years old, I toured colleges throughout the country, including...

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