About

MARK JAMES writes geopolitical thrillers. His award-winning novel Friendship Games offers a modern take on the USS Maine incident that sparked the Spanish–American War in 1898—this time, it is a U.S. aircraft carrier that sinks in the Persian Gulf amid rising tensions with Iran and a shifting world order.

Friendship Games earned a coveted Kirkus Star and was considered for the Kirkus Prize for literary excellence. It was named by the editors of Kirkus Reviews as one of their Best Books of the Year, and it received the Bronze Medal from the Military Writers Society of America.

His follow-up novel, The Compass Room, continues the high-stakes drama of Friendship Games and will be released alongside a new edition of Friendship Games and a revised version of his debut novel, Alter Road, under the banner of The Wartmann Series. The updated Alter Road will be released as Alter Road: A Wartmann Universe Novel.

Mark earned his Ph.D. in Geography from the University of Cincinnati, his M.S. in Geography from the University of Alabama, and his B.S. in Political Science from Towson University. His scholarly work has appeared in journals such as Antipode, Regional Studies, Journal of Urban Affairs, Growth & Change, and Southeastern Geographer. He has taught political, economic, and urban geography for more than two decades.

After graduating high school, Mark enlisted in the U.S. Navy and deployed to the Philippines, Japan, Guam, the Aleutian Islands, and Hawaii during the final years of the Cold War and beyond. Using the GI Bill, he worked his way through college and graduate school.

An avid surfer, he can often be found riding the breaks off the Delmarva Peninsula in Maryland or Delaware—when he probably should be writing.