With Bruno there was too much information to digest; Patrick Hovelacque, on the other hand, was a mystery wrapped in a classified file. Franck couldn’t find much beyond Patrick’s name—and for good reason. Patrick had been an MI9 agent, and when I first started my research, his files were still sealed. For years, every lead hit a dead end.

But persistence pays off.

With Franck’s help, I finally located Patrick’s son, Gerald, who revealed that his father had barely spoken about his wartime experiences. Fortunately, as I kept writing and time moved on, the classification walls began to come down. Franck spent countless hours in the French archives photographing hundreds of pages, and I translated them all (my French got quite the workout).

Then, just as the book was almost ready for publication, I stumbled upon a 1939 University of Georgia student newspaper mentioning a French exchange student named—yes—Patrick Hovelacque. His son confirmed it was the same man. I even obtained a copy of Patrick’s Master’s thesis, “Benjamin Franklin in Paris.”

At that point, I went back and inserted 19 chapters about Patrick into The Duty of Memory—and then had to remove 19 others to keep it under 400 pages. The MI9 training and his life in Georgia will finally get their full treatment in The Horseman. I also have my eye on the MI9 archives in London as my next research stop—an untapped mine of information waiting to be explored.

I can hardly wait to share the rest of Patrick’s story with you

With Bruno there was too much information to digest, Patrick Hovelacque, on the other hand, was a mystery wrapped in a classified file. Franck couldn’t find much beyond Patrick’s name—and for good reason. Patrick had been an MI9 agent, and when I first started my research, his files were still sealed. For years, every lead hit a dead end. But persistence pays off. With Franck’s help, I finally located Patrick’s son, Gerald, who revealed that his father had barely spoken about his wartime experiences. Fortunately, as I kept writing and time moved on, the classification walls began to come down. Franck spent countless hours in the French archives photographing hundreds of pages, and I translated them all (my French got quite the workout). Then, just as the book was almost ready for publication, I stumbled upon a 1939 University of Georgia student newspaper mentioning a French exchange student named—yes—Patrick Hovelacque. His son confirmed it was the same man. I even obtained a copy of Patrick’s Master’s thesis, “Benjamin Franklin in Paris.” At that point, I went back and inserted 19 chapters about Patrick into The Duty of Memory—and then had to remove 19 others to keep it under 400 pages. The MI9 training and his life in Georgia will finally get their full treatment in The Horseman. I also have my eye on the MI9 archives in London as my next research stop—an untapped mine of information waiting to be explored.

I can hardly wait to share this story with you.

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Chasing the Horseman

Two Sequels, Too Many Pages, and a Lot of Pigeons