Empire: Book Two of the Victors Saga (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9798234160614)

Sequel to Victors: A Novel of Love, War and Jazz. A story of heroes that bridges two World Wars... In 1945 France, retired Sergeant David Pierce, African American soldier and hero of World War I, is called into service once again. Paris has fallen to the German empire, and it is a deadly battle for survival for all who believe in freedom. David sets out to rescue his son Paul, a Tuskegee Airman, who has been shot down and imprisoned by the Germans. Carrying the weight of a tragic love, David must move heaven and earth to save his son. In his fight, David reawakens a personal war with his enemy from World War I, German scientist Bruno Hoffman, who is building a weapon of unspeakable horror. In David's odyssey this time around, he has a powerful asset-the alluring entertainer and French spy, Josephine Baker. Together, they fight to not only win the war, but to save the world.

Empire is the amazing follow-up to Victors, which is based on the true story of the Harlem Hellfighters, an all-black American regiment who fought in WWI France. Many of these soldiers returned home to the United States after the war and later fathered the generation that would become the Tuskegee Airmen, cementing a valiant U.S. military legacy. Josephine Baker plays a pivotal role in this Empire novel, due to the French govenment recently declassyfing documents which show that Baker was a spy for the French Resistance.

"...Since the Occupation, David had stood guard over this place and had managed to successfully outmaneuver the German occupiers. To David's advantage, the German High Command recognized the value of allowing their soldiers to have entertainment. Thus, music clubs such as this were frequented quite often, nearly every night. Many of the Germans regarded Seargeant David Pierce with a sliver of respect and visited there out of curiosity-he one of the famed Harlem Hellfighters of the first World War, the only Allied unit who never lost a man to capture and broke through into German territory. While Hitler regarded black men as sub-human, he could not dissuade his soldiers from the hypnotic spell of jazz music, so that was what David provided in abundance. What they did not know is how David also ran Resistance efforts through that very same club, often serving as a relay place for vital information to fight the Germans at every turn. He hated the Germans and how they disrupted the peaceful life he'd made for himself away from the U.S. In 1940, the military governor of France, General Otto von Stülpnagel, announced in a press statement that no mercy would be granted to those engaging in sabotage and all saboteurs would be shot. This threat just served to spur David on further. He would never stop doing everything in his power to run those German bastards out of France."

--from Empire