Stephen Bentley's books are a must read for true crime lovers and historians alike. #newrelease .@StephenBentley8 #truecrime #crime #mobsters

This surely has to be a first?

Crime fiction about an undercover cop written by a former undercover cop! 

cover reveal...

Dilemma

Steve Regan is back and this time he’s alone and undercover in a seedy area of Thailand on the trail of a Texan expatriate, Les Watkins, the biggest drug smuggler in South East Asia.

Using himself as the bait, Regan attempts to score a $50,000 deal with the Thai mafia in an effort to get closer to his target.

As he finds himself embroiled deeper into the operation, Regan suspects Watkins may be connected to Regan's nemesis, ruthless Mafia boss Carlo Vitale, who has fled the United States following a triple bombing and assassination of three crime family heads.

Besides staying alive, Regan has other problems when he suddenly finds himself facing the worst dilemma an undercover cop can face.

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Steve Regan is a fictional undercover cop and has now been the protagonist in Books 1 and 2 of the Steve Regan Undercover Cop series.

Stephen Bentley introduces and talks about his new Steve Regan crime book...

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Some of you may know that I, the author, was a real undercover cop in the UK many years back. I wrote about it in my Amazon UK bestseller Undercover: Operation Julie - The Inside Story. Indeed, it recently became a #1 Amazon UK bestseller for the fourth time, in four different categories on four separate occasions since first publication.

The fact of my memoir morphed into the fiction of Steve Regan owing to a meeting with two mobsters who wished to involve me into a plot to smuggle huge quantities of cocaine from Bolivia, via Miami, and into Britain. Those characters remained a mystery to me, and inspired the Steve Regan series.

Now, it’s easy for a reader to say, “Steve Regan is Steve Bentley.” He’s not but of course he is loosely based on me.

One reviewer of Book 1 wrote, “… He [Regan] is too “perfect… ” That is an interesting point about the fictional character and about real-life undercover cops. It’s only a few days ago I read an article claiming, “if he seems too good to be true, he probably is…,” meaning the “he” is probably an undercover cop. There is some truth in that. The quote is in the context of a woman who knew a guy for years. He was an undercover cop but she was unaware of it at the time because he was “such a nice guy.” It also highlights how people stereotype police officers.

To infiltrate a crime group, it helps if you are a likeable character. If you are obnoxious, the chances are you will be shunned. An undercover cop is trying to “wheedle” his or her way into another’s inner circle and to gain confidences.

Steve Regan inherits the “nice guy” character trait from me, I guess, but as he is part of my imagination, I can permit him to do things I could never do in real life. That’s fun. He also has a sense of humour, and “a way” with women. I make no comment if that is any reflection on me!

He is not another Jack Reacher or Milton. He is Steve Regan, an intelligent, determined thinking-man who is rather good at his job.

As the series develops, Regan may succumb to the mental stresses of his prolonged undercover role. Again, that scenario is a reflection of reality, as is the temptation to “go rogue” - to profit from criminal enterprises, a theme explored in Book 1.

Dilemma (Book 2 Steve Regan Undercover Cop) is part hard-boiled crime fiction and part romantic suspense. It is set in a seedy bar area of Thailand. Regan lost a wife and a daughter in a road traffic accident [fiction] many years back, and readers will discover if he finds real love in such an unlikely Thai setting. Whether that last part (love) is me or Regan, readers will have to make up their own minds.

So, to sum up: Regan is a complex mix of gentleness, ruthlessness , determination, and vulnerability. By necessity, he is also a great actor!

Dilemma is available now to buy! Release date was July 11, 2018.

Book 1 Steve Regan Undercover Cop can be downloaded for free if you subscribe to his monthly newsletter on his author website.

All of Stephen Bentley’s undercover themed books, fact and fiction, may be found in digital formats here on Books2Read.

Stephen Bentley - Author | HuffPost UK Blogger | Amazon Author Page

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A portion of all my book sales royalties are to be donated to the Jamie Bulger Memorial Trust, a UK Registered Charity. Please consider donating even if you never buy my books.

The real Stephen Bentley is a former police Detective Sergeant and barrister (trial attorney) from the UK. He is now a freelance writer and HuffPost UK blogger.

His memoir 'Undercover: Operation Julie - The Inside Story' is a frank account of his undercover detective experiences during Operation Julie - an elite group of detectives who successfully investigated one of the world's largest drugs rings.

When he isn't writing, Stephen follows the (mis)fortunes of Liverpool Football Club from afar and relaxes on the beaches of the Philippines with his family where he now lives.

Stephen is currently working on a number of books including Book Three in the fictional Steve Regan Undercover Cop Series.

He would like you to know that he will donate a portion of all book sales royalties to the James Bulger Memorial Trust, a UK registered charity.

Credit to author and illustrator Kelly Artieri

Kelly was commissioned to produce an illustration of what Steve Regan looked like, wearing his beloved Aviators, sat astride his 1970's vintage Triumph Bonneville motorcycle.

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It's not Halloween! Spine-tingling true stories that can't be explained #paranormal #authorsconfess #spooky

Ever have something strange happen? Something you can't explain?

These authors reveal their spooky tales...

Judy Weir's story...

All of us student nurses were set free from classes one summer afternoon. We headed to the lake. No specific plans other than to see if there might be some handsome fellas looking to hook up with a bevy of pretty girls.

We decided to swim out to a raft a few dozen yards from the dock. None of us were prepared for a swim, and we jumped in wearing our clothes. Wearing jeans, I quickly became exhausted. Too late to turn around, I panicked. When they say a drowning person can’t scream – it’s true. The terror filled me with the desperate energy to thrash, but without a moment of coherent thought. When I sank beneath the lake’s surface for the third time, I collapsed to lie on the sandy bottom. As I blacked out, I thought of my family. Then it happened. I heard a voice. 

Clearly and calmly, he said, “If you stand, you can breathe.”

I barely registered the advice. It wasn’t my first experience with the paranormal. I had never made a big deal of out-of-body experiences, visions, and contact with my guides. But something made me listen to the urging. “If you stand, you can breathe.” The tone was incredibly benevolent.

As impossible as it should be, I was able to straighten my legs and stand. Sure enough. My nose reached just above the water. With a few gasps to fill my lungs, I swam back to the shore. A few days later at the nursing school residence, I thought about confessing my foolishness to my family. I phoned. My mother listened to my confession. There was a momentary silence but then asked what day had the near drowning occurred. When I answered, I heard her voice tremble with shock.

“I heard you,” she said. “And your father and brother, they heard you. They came running to the house saying they heard you scream. Their faces were white. We heard you scream on that day at that time.” When they had calmed down, my parents believed it was just a case of missing me since I’d never been away from home before. Some ‘screams’ are heard - hundreds of miles away. - Judy Weir author of Featherstone

Juli  D. Revezzo's story...

Sometimes, my rational/skeptical self says ghosts are all just fantasy. But sometimes, I do believe otherworldly beings can "meddle in our affairs" to some extent. 

I'm not sure they can affect us the way they affect characters in stories and movies (throwing bodies around and stuff like that), but I believe they're "real" in the same way that I believe landwights, Fates, faeries and plain ole bad luck are real *innocent look*.

Some of you may remember I've mentioned this before, when my father was a little boy, he swore he lived in a haunted house. He said one day he went into his closet (this big walk in thing) and the light went out. He stepped outside to find the switch had been thrown. He turned it back on and went back inside. The light went out again. He walked out to find the switch off. Annoyed, he went downstairs and asked his brothers if they were up there mucking around with him. The boys swore up and down they had nothing to do with the light. Dad says he was so freaked he slept under his bed that night to hide from them.

Jump up 70 years and we went to New York, and dad took us to see that old house. Maybe it was his stories, but when I looked in the window, cold chills chased up and down my skin. Were there ghosts in that house? I sure think so! - Juli D. Revezzo

Louise Wise's story...

I was doing normal ‘mummy’ things, making the dinner whilst keeping an eye on my two children in the other room (3 and 5 years old). They were always fighting between themselves, but had gone quiet so I popped my head around the door to see what they were up to and saw two unknown children watching TV, and unlike my two, who seemed to hate one another, these were holding hands.

Now, my eldest is blond and the youngest is dark-haired but in this instance I saw an older DARK-haired child watching the TV with a younger BLOND boy, which was totally the wrong way round, plus they were holding hands!. The image lasted briefly, then I was ‘seeing’ my two children again and predictably the older was NOT holding hands with the younger, in fact the younger was about to wallop the older with a cushion.

I just put the vision down to ‘one of those unexplained things’ but many years later (and another two children later) I recalled this event when I walked into the room to see my two new additions watching the TV. The elder was dark-haired, the younger was blond. They were holding hands.- Louise Wise

Bill Johnson's tale...

Years ago, I had just started chiropractic treatment, getting my spine adjusted. After several sessions, I woke from sleep and noticed about a dozen feet from my bed (I was sleeping in a large family room) a distortion in the air about the size of a baseball, a few feet off the ground. The distortion floated over to my bed and entered my spine at the base.

As the distortion slowly rose up my spine, the small muscles that connect the vertebrae started clicking rapidly in turn. I could feel each tiny muscle.

The distortion then came out of my neck and came down to my left elbow, which was being treated for tennis elbow. The muscles in my elbow twitched and released tension.

Then the distortion moved down to my wrist, which was also being treated. The distortion was larger than my wrist, and as the muscles in my wrist twitched and released tension, the bedsheet by my wrist fluttered.

All this took 3-4 minutes, then the distortion left. - Bill Johnson