Jonathan Dyer

Jonathan Dyer joined the U.S. Army’s intelligence branch in 1981. He studied Russian at the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California, before receiving additional training at the National Security Agency at Ft. Meade, Maryland. Dyer was then shipped overseas for three years of active duty at Field Station Berlin where his job was to keep tabs on the Soviet Army from NSA’s listening post on Teufelsberg in West Berlin. After his honorable discharge he attended law school and practiced law for ten years. In 1999 he left the practice of law to teach American History and Government. Mr. Dyer and his wife now live in California’s wine country.

The Shadow Chamber: A Nick Temple File

Cold War Espionage Thriller

1966. Intelligence agencies on the other side of the Iron Curtain learn of a top-secret database that details every covert CIA operation in Europe stored near the Austrian-West German border. A refugee from Yugoslavia, a compromised U.S. Army officer, the KGB, and Stasi are circling, waiting for the right moment to grab what could be the Cold War’s biggest prize. Nick Temple has no choice; he has to stop them. And this time, it’s personal!

Switchback: A Nick Temple File

Cold War Espionage Thriller

America’s intelligence gathering community is under siege at the height of the Cold War. Agents from Berlin to Istanbul are being assassinated at an alarming rate. The CIA turns to Nick Temple, a charter member of the Agency who’s been putting his life on the line for his country since his days in the OSS. Follow Nick to Russian-occupied Berlin as his action-packed secret operation unfolds. An alluring double agent, a high ranking traitor, a ruthless KGB operative, the men and women who are fighting the Cold War in virtual anonymity, and Nick Temple play a deadly high-stakes game of intrigue and betrayal. Will the country Nick defends leave him in the hands of the KGB?

The Heraklion Gambit: A Nick Temple File

Cold War Espionage Thriller

In this prequel to Switchback, Nick Temple, CIA Station Chief for Berlin, uncovers a plan for a daring gamble by the Soviet Union to overthrow the government of Crete in the Eastern Mediterranean. A centuries-old Russian ambition to have a warm-water port is within the Soviets' grasp unless Nick, and a small band of committed Cold War warriors, can thwart the deadly strike of an elite force of Russian commandos. Step back into the hottest years of the Cold War with Jonathan Dyer’s latest spy thriller offering in the Nick Temple File series. The Heraklion Gambit bristles with historic detail, introduces a host of memorable characters, and keeps you turning the pages with expertly-drawn action scenes that leave you wanting more. 
                       
                                     Sample The Heraklion Gambit

Silent Vector: A Nick Temple File

Cold War Espionage Thriller

While vacationing in the Virgin Islands in early 1962, Nick Temple stumbles across a plot by the Soviet Union to develop and deploy a vaccine-resistant strain of polio in the American heartland. As the entire American government concentrates on the simultaneous threat of nuclear arms being deployed in Cuba, Nick and his small team of dedicated agents are left to thwart the worst biological attack in the history of mankind on their own.

The Flemish Coil: A Nick Temple File

Thriller, Espionage

Two Cold War spies are assassinated during a midnight exchange on the Glienicke Bridge in Berlin. A Holocaust survivor is murdered in Miami, Florida. The United States escalates the war in Vietnam. Three seemingly unrelated events are slowly revealed as pieces to a puzzle that involves betrayal, murder, and treason in The Flemish Coil. Nick Temple, charter member of the CIA, is relaxing at the Ilikai Hotel in Honolulu high above Waikiki beach when he learns that an asset he used to run when he was the station chief in Berlin has been assassinated during a botched spy exchange at the height of the Cold War. Temple is en route from South Vietnam, preparing to deliver a scathing report to the Pentagon about America’s prospects for success in another proxy war in Asia. Upon his return to Langley, Temple is charged with finding out what the hell went wrong in Berlin. The hunt is on, a hunt that ends up being a race to stop a Cold War confrontation that could easily explode into World War III.

Judging Paradise

Existentialism, Novella, Literature

A relentless, haunting mix of the brutal honesty of Camus and the tangible tragedy of Conrad - a postmodern existential triumph." Judging Paradise chronicles a single chaotic day in the life of Frank Walker on the fictional Caribbean island of Santa Clara. Using Thanksgiving day as his backdrop, Dyer sends his protagonist on a strange 24-hour odyssey of violence, envy, and betrayal. The heat steadily rises culminating in a deadly conflagration “that seemed to spew forth from a hot fissure in the earth.” Dyer’s tightly packed novella, rich in descriptive detail, captures the inescapable effects of modernity’s corrosive stimuli on a host of characters drawn with unflinching precision, giving the reader an unvarnished look at the contradictory natural and human impulses we display and confront on a daily basis.

Sample Judging Paradise

Let Me Explain

Coming of Age; Literary Novel

The story of a young man’s journey into adulthood. Harry Taft is a junior at a New England prep school. The book starts with the insane goings on at his boarding school as Harry finds his first love, Dana Carlton. Trouble lies ahead for Harry and Dana, and their relationship sets off a chain of events that follows Harry to Monterey, California where he tries desperately to find himself.

The Holy Lance

Fiction, Espionage, Thriller

The crucifixion on Golgotha. An earthquake in medieval Europe. The 18th century illegitimate birth of a Romanov heir. The brutal murder of Tsar Nicholas II and his family. The theft of a holy relic from a Baghdad museum. Two millennia of unrelated events come together as a shadowy cabal of wealthy and powerful Russians conspire to revive Imperial Russia in a way that could make it the world's undisputed superpower. The Holy Lance is a 21st century thriller about a conspiracy nearly a hundred years in the making, and the only thing standing between the conspirators and success is an unlikely team made up of a disgraced CIA agent, a pair of low-level Russian intelligence operatives, and the ex-girlfriend of the man who could be the next Tsar of Russia!