The story is historical fiction of a current-events type ... convicts fighting wildfires are real, and so was General Robert E. Lee, into whose family and legacy I have grafted both captains inside a fictional but plausible county in Virginia. So too is Rev. Robert Wright Lee IV, a real nephew of the real general, who paid a heavy price in modern Virginia for repudiating the Confederate ideals and the idol-making of his famous uncle -- he is the spiritual elder brother of the two captains. And then, of course, Sherlock Holmes is Captain Hamilton's direct investigative antecedent, while Captain Lee borrows more heavily from Nero Wolfe, with a touch of Hercule Poirot. Captain Hamilton is better in the field, with fresh evidence, but uses modern data handling methods to sort it all out when he can't solve it on the fly -- which he often can, though. Sherlock Holmes meets Watson the computer, in essence, but with a richer home life -- Captain Hamilton has no antecedent in that he has a VERY large family and enjoys a full life with them, and that makes him gentler and more compassionate. Captain Lee IS the computer, loving his piles and piles of data and sending his lieutenants out to bring in more, and, as a widower, having all kinds of time to let his mind crunch and crunch and crunch ... but if he has to come out of his office, then you meet a modern version of his famous uncle, at his most deadly ...

The two captains are best friends, and have worked together for a long time ... here they are out of position, but they don't see themselves as just cogs in the wheel of race-tinted law enforcement. Both are 23-year veterans in Special Forces and JAG: like most of the military veterans I know, they make things happen, as you can read in chapters 9 through 11 of Black, White, and RED All Over (here are parts one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, and twelve, epilogue 1, and epilogue 2 in case you have time). So: in the daily freewrites, I just allow the two characters to explore the world in near-real-time, dealing with the country as we deal with it ... it IS fiction, but there is a PILE of truth behind it...