Thoughts on Delta File
by Dale A. Dye
On the publication of Delta File, the ninth adventure in Dale Dye’s award-winning Shake Davis series, the author reflects on the process.
Since I was a little lost 12-year-old striving to outshine my military school peers, I have been an avid and voracious reader. Just to be a noted contrarian at that young age, I actually struggled gamely through Tolstoy’s War and Peace while most of my buddies were devouring Sgt. Rock comic books. It was somewhere around that time that I got hooked on books, particularly action/adventure novels that feature and follow a central character. I am and have been for years a huge fan of works by series authors like Lee Child. In my mind, Jack Reacher is the epitome of cool, and the fact that Reacher — the ultimate rootless iconoclast — has a military background sealed the deal between me and Lee Child. Just to be open about all this, I really should mention my fanboy addiction to other writers such as Tom Clancy (Clandestine Ops), W.E.B. Griffin (mostly Army), Dale Brown (Air Force), Ward Carroll (Naval Aviation), and John Gobbell (surface Navy), just to list some of my personal favorites. Of course, if you’re a perceptive and discriminating reader, you’ll want me to include my own File Series novels featuring retired Marine Shake Davis.
I mention all this because the ninth Shake Davis novel (Delta File) is about to be released and writing it was a weird experience. It left me wondering how much of their personal life and experience my fellow novelists are willing to reveal in writing about Jack Reacher, Jack Ryan, Punk Reichert or Patrick McLanahan. I’ll probably never know, but if I were to run across any of them in one of the exotic locations we write about, I’d caution them about the minefields that are sown all over memory lane. There were times in writing Delta File when I wanted to quit, hit delete and restart the tale because I found myself revisiting sensitive times and places as I took Shake Davis back to his (and my) old home place in Southeast Missouri. Fortified by strong drink, I pushed on with Delta File, and while it was a little painful in places, it was also an opportunity to take a cold, hard, and ultimately rewarding look at my life to date. Of course, the plot carries Shake into a grisly discovery and any number of dangerous challenges he must overcome in putting an end to a very seamy criminal operation he discovers in the heartland. Along the way in getting up that tree and down again, Shake reveals a lot about his personal life. And much of that is a mirror to my own upbringing and development. I’m hoping it will appeal as much as the other File Series books which typically take Shake and his partner, associates, and colorful acquaintances into locales and situations that are more exotic and deadly.
If nothing else, it was fun to clone Samuel Clemmons and commune with Huck Finn and Runaway Jim.
About the Author: Marine officer Dale A. Dye rose through the ranks to retire as a captain after 21 years of service in war and peace. Following retirement from active duty in 1984, and upset with Hollywood’s treatment of the American military, he went to Hollywood and established Warriors, Inc., the preeminent military training and advisory service to the entertainment industry. Dye has worked on more than 50 movies and TV shows, including several Oscar-and Emmy-winning productions. His current project, No Better Place To Die, — for which he is the writer and director — is a World War II drama about the airborne Normandy landings on D-Day. Tom Hanks has signed on to both act in and executive-produce the film.
Find the complete File Series, featuring Shake Davis, along with Captain Dye’s other books here.
