Zig and Nola · #1
The Escape Artist
Who is Nola Brown?
Nola is a mystery.
Nola is trouble.
And Nola is supposed to be dead.
Her body was found on a plane that mysteriously fell from the sky as it left a secret military base in the Alaskan wilderness. Her commanding officer verifies she's dead. The US government confirms it. But Jim "Zig" Zigarowski has just found out the truth: Nola is still alive. And on the run.
Zig works at Dover Air Force Base, helping put to rest the bodies of those who die on top-secret missions. Nola was a childhood friend of Zig's daughter and someone who once saved his daughter's life. So when Zig realizes Nola is still alive, he's determined to find her. Yet as Zig digs into Nola's past, he learns that trouble follows Nola everywhere she goes.
Nola is the US Army's artist-in-residence-a painter and trained soldier who rushes into battle, making art from war's aftermath and sharing observations about today's wars that would otherwise go overlooked. On her last mission, Nola saw something nobody was supposed to see, earning her an enemy unlike any other, one who will do whatever it takes to keep Nola quiet.
Together, Nola and Zig will either reveal a sleight of hand being played at the highest levels of power or die trying to uncover the US Army's most mysterious secret-a centuries-old conspiracy that traces back through history to the greatest escape artist of all: Harry Houdini.
The series
In a world built on secrets, sometimes it takes an unlikely pair to uncover the truth no one wants found.
Read full series description
The Zig and Nola series walks the thin line between duty and obsession, between justice and vengeance. What begins with a government mortician—Jim "Zig" Zigarowski—quietly tending to the dead in the hidden corners of military bureaucracy quickly spirals into something far more dangerous. When Zig crosses paths with Nola Brown, a fiercely enigmatic Army artist with a traumatic past and a knack for vanishing into shadows, their lives become tangled in conspiracies designed to stay buried.
These aren’t your typical thrillers. The stories pulse with the weight of real-world stakes, rooted in the strange truths of institutions we often take for granted. From the hallowed rooms of the White House to black sites hidden in plain sight, the series peels back layers of power, grief, and loyalty. What sets it apart is its emotional core: Zig’s quiet tenderness, Nola’s violent brilliance, and the bond they form—not of trust, but of necessity.
The atmosphere is taut, grounded in forensic realism and shaped by an author who thrives on asking uncomfortable questions: What do we owe the dead? What lies do we live with, just to survive? For fans of political thrillers that don’t just race—they dig deep—the Zig and Nola books offer a labyrinth of truth, half-truths, and the kind of danger that changes you.
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