frosenblum

It sounds like you don't know ahead of time what CJ will do when you start to write a chapter/story. Does he ever surprise you?

How wonderful that Liebe is a top-three main character! Thank you for letting us watch her bright light as her personality develops and blossoms. How CJ and Ozzie interact with Liebe illustrates more than anything else in the story what great human beings they are. Bravo, Carlos!

Her siblings?????? Is there something you haven't told us yet??

Mom's keeping AM's rape a secret seems reasonable to me. It's only the last 2-3 years that a large number of women, including those famous in sports and media and entertainment, have spoken publicly about having been molested and raped. It would have been a whole second trauma for AM's gang rape to have been made public in our culture which routinely shames women but excusing men as "boys will be boys." It takes a lot of courage for a teenage girl to go public, with the likelihood of being harassed or shunned, being whispered about ("she must have led those buys on" or "she really wanted it," knowing she'd have diminished prospects of marriage. It's horrible that people do that to the victim, and it is still happning to this day. Like many parents, Mom probably thought she was protecting AM. Plus Mom may have well experienced being molested at some point in her life and was taught by her mother to keep it quiet. I think both AM and mom are the victims in this story and deserve our compassion.

I was going to comment that I've also met that type of person. Then I remembered that when I was younger and in unrewarding jobs, I was also that person, putting down others in order to increase my own status in my mind. I hope that, before his attitude results in his downfall, Northman wakes up and realizes that his self-worth doesn't depend on cutting down others.

As am I, as a copy editor.

Shhhh. Ritch might hear you and razz CJ about it.

And auto-correct sometimes sneaks in the wrong word without my noticing.

"Herd dads" is what you call them? Better watch what you imply about Liebe .... or you better hope CJ and Ozzie aren't in a bad mood and limit their retribution to only holding your arms while Liebe beats on you with her emu.

Next book! Yes! When, right away after this one, I hope, so we have minimal withdrawal symptoms.

I suspect 4 chapters in 4 days was your inner muses at work, Carlos. (You might not have even consciously known what they were up to.) You've pointed out that you've been introducing people, places and story lines slower than you used to do. By giving us 4 chapters bam-bam-bam-bam, you deeply engaged us, and hooked us, despite the slower pace of the chapter contents.

"I think I spoiled everyone with 4 chapters last week." Nah, it would more than 4 chapters to spoil us. I double dare you to try.

Phew. That death won't happen till the last three chapters. We can relax for now.

It's really enjoyable to witness all the people supporting toddler Liebe to become the wonderful young woman you gave us a glimpse of twenty years from now, when you closed out the original CJ saga.

I'm laughing at myself that I have enthusiastically been part of this conversation about Yevgeny, yet I have no personal knowledge of spies and their methods. So much of what I believe about how the world works isn't based on personal knowledge, but on movies, novels, news reports, politicians, etc. -- which time and again have been shown to be fantasy. 🤣

Well, he is young and viral.... (as demonstrated in the great photo of him in the discussion thread).

Didn't the American ambassador ask CJ to honor that invitation? She probably has plans on how CJ can use it to US advantage.

Here's hoping you accidentally hit the button before Friday. Of course, then you'd still need to publish another chapter on Friday.😁

And perhaps more vulnerable to being blackmailed for American or other agents.

I seem to remember that CJ was drugged once as a mid-teenager, by someone he knew rather than a pickup. Wasn't he also drugged when that homophobic cop arrested him while he was out running, again while a mid-teenager?

Lincoln, I'd forgotten that, in "Cadet," CJ said Lincoln had he'd arrived at the Mexico embassy months before CJ & Ozzie. As you increasingly interweave stories, I increasingly understand and am in awe of what it takes for to keep track of all the strands -- both what's happened to people in previous stories in the various CJ-verse series, but also where they need to end up in "Hail to the Chief." Bravo, Carlos.

Ambassadors are political appointees and they come and go. Career bureaucrats like Northman are long-term and they amass behind the scenes power and networks. No matter what Northman's political leanings are, he can make work unpleasant for CJ.

Hooray! And gracias.

No, I hadn't realized that. What I was thinking of was how no-holds-barred radical Nina Simone was. She was probably high on J. Edgar Hoover's targets list.

HARLEY!!!!!! When is he going to show up in this story?