Rockets’ Red Glare
Sage Mendiluze book 1
William Webster and Dick Lochte
Blackstone Pub
May 2025
Rockets’ Red Glare by William Webster and Dick Lochte combines adventure, action, and the settings of the National Forests, Parks, and Wyoming’s Wind River Indian Reservation. Many thrillers have been recently written set in the US national parks. This is one with a riveting premise.
The plot begins with the shooting and killing of two wilderness guides. Because the fatal shots came from Wyoming’s Wind River Indian Reservation, Tribal Police Deputy Sage Mendiluze, half-Shoshone, half-Basque, and his Australian Shepherd Peak, are called in to hike the rugged backcountry and investigate. Trying to find out where the sniper exactly shot from, Sage and his dog just escape, becoming two more casualties when an IED device is tripped. He realizes that there are two perps involved.
Readers meet the killers once the national search begins. They are twin brothers from Brooklyn, Alan and Harry Conner, who were born in Pakistan as Ali and Harzat Khan. Besides having the body count multiply in the national parks with sniper rifles, they also add drones and a virus to their cache of weapons. Because Sage has great tracking skills, he and Sage are asked to join the joint agency task force headed by Special Agent Maggie Comstock.
Because it is the height of summer it is impossible to shut down the national parks. With the July 4th holiday approaching it becomes a necessity to find the preparators before a catastrophic number of casualties occur.
Sage is a compelling hero. He is a loner who is smart, resourceful, driven, has common sense and reasoning, with a strong sense of justice. As a former Marine sniper, he can get into the killers’ heads. His counterpart, Maggie, is a red-haired, blue-eyed Georgian who is a great partner with her directness andstrong insight. As the two work together it becomes evident that they developed a bond and make a perfect team.
The ticking time clock creates an atmosphere of danger and suspense. Readers will be looking forward to book two because there are still some unresolved issues.
Elise Cooper: How did you get the idea for the story?
William Webster: When I was 21 years old, I was on a national outdoor leadership survival school course in Wind Rivers, Wyoming. The flagship course was in the back country. I got lost and stumbled on a herd of sheep. In the midst was a Basque herdsman who spoke no English. He had sage green eyes and jet-black hair. He made a tremendous impact and stuck in my head, that helped me write the hero Sage.
The second influence for the story was after I landed in Washington D. C. on September 11th, 2001. I was in front of the Pentagon when the hijacked flight hit it and killed 188 people. This too is a memory that has not faded quickly. This helped to create the plot line.
EC: This year it seems terrorism and US national parks have become plot lines for thriller books. Why incorporate the national parks?
WW: I have been an outdoors person my entire life. It is a part of who we are and if someone wants to strike at who we are there is no better place than the parks. I think they define us as Americans. On July 4th, there will be 25 million people at the national parks.
EC: What is the writing style as you wrote the book together?
Dick Lochte: Billy (William) had written the first draft, and I took it. I went through it to make the whole part simpler and at the same time more complex to have moments of suspense. I sent a version back to Billy who reworked it and sent it back to me. We bounced it back and forth, pretty much like a ping pong game.
WW: Dick is a celebrated crime writer. His craftsmanship is essential to what we tried to do in the book. This thriller needs to move fast and carry the reader from event to event in an exciting way. I think my biggest mistake in the first draft was trying to make it something it was not.
EC: What was the role of Peak, the Australian Shepherd?
WW: Peak was trained as a Marine IED search dog. The dogs are trained to sniff and get close. He was doing it in an environment he was not used to, a mountain setting not a roadside. In one scene, Sage saw Peak got too close and they barely escaped with their life.
EC: How would you describe Peak?
WW: He was modeled after my dog who is not an Australian Shepherd, but half Pomeranian, half Husky. She looks like only a Husky but is the size of a shoebox. I needed a larger dog that is more suited to the backcountry of the Rockies. Peak is a co-protagonist, in some ways a foil to Sage. She is Sages’ soulmate.
DL: I also have a dog, a Labradoodle. Because Sage is a loner, for him to explain his thoughts he needs someone to talk with. Not just talking to the air. With Peak, he explains how he is feeling and what he is thinking, basically what is going on his head. I think Peak understands very well. I put in the line, that Peak is not an “it.” I did that to try to make the FBI agent pompous and ridiculous.
EC: How would you describe Sage?
WW: The Basque Kurds man I spoke about earlier had a solitariness with an aura of peacefulness. His demeanor and character reminded me of the well-trained Secret Service snipers I met in the White House. Their level of concentration and discipline are unmatched. This is how I wanted to write Sage. He was a Marine, bullied as a child, confident, sometimes emotional, and has a specialty of tracking. His grandmother had a relationship with Chief Washakie, that enabled him to use the reservation to hone skills he has used later in life. Because he was half Native American and not white, he became solitary, shunned by both communities. He was bullied to a point that he decided to leave the reservation and join the Marines.
EC: How would you describe Special Agent Maggie?
WW: Maggie is based on a woman I know, a flaming red head who lives in Montana. She has great intellect and athleticism. She worked for the Special Investigative Branch of the National Park service, equivalent to their FBI. Maggie has insight, organized, decisive, tough, and is no-nonsense. She is willing to go toe-to-toe with anyone, and leads the task force, taking the jurisdiction away from the local sheriff and the FBI.
EC: How would you describe the relationship between Maggie and Sage?
WW: She became Sage’s female interest. She was able to break through his aloneness in a subtle way. She will become more important to him in future books.
DL: She was more forward than Sage. Sage’s experience with women, specifically his grandmother, mother, and sister made him very wary of forming a closer relationship with women. He has returned to the reservation because his half-sister was killed. The only woman not taken away from him is Peak.
EC: There is a line in the book where Maggie compares Sage to Charlie Brow. Does that mean Peak is Snoopy?
DL: I am not sure we can make that assumption. She used it because Sage mainly lives within himself. He is unable to speak what he is really feeling.
WW: Charlie Brown personifies innocence and naivety. Charlie Brown could not even articulate the first words to the girl he had a crush on.
EC: Why is the virus that is very relevant to what is going on today?
WW: The Secret Service and most law enforcement worry the most about asymmetric unmanned drones and viral attacks from the outside. In the story both were used as elements of the terrorist attack. The Chinese weaponed the Marburg virus in a lab in real life and the kamikaze drone that can fit in a tennis ball can. They both exist and are used as weapons.
EC: Next book?
DL: In this book we left several elements open, including the death of Sage’s sister, Yellow Bird, why Maggie left Sage so suddenly, what happened to her, and the dreaded black ants. No release date and title.
THANK YOU!!
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