On D.B. Cooper

Treat Williams made an overly handsome Cooper in the 1981 Universal film.

I have a fascination with weird mysteries and strange characters from history. So when a man in 1971 (seven full years before my birth) stepped out of an airplane with a briefcase full of cash and disappeared into history, I cannot help but latch on to them.

Dan Cooper has floated in my head space for years. (The alias D.B. Cooper was never actually used by the hijacker, but is based on poor early reporting.) At one point in my life I thought about turning his later years into a crime series equally influenced by Magnum, P.I. and Spenser. But as the years past and I never put him to paper, I realized I wanted to develop him a bit more than that.

While Cooper was a weird start to the 1970s, much of the decade fell into a lot of interest in weird esoteric nonsense. The government even did psychic research in the era, through a project called Stargate. As I have slowly put development into the psychic side of the Quadrant Universe, the realization came that I could combine the famous hijacker and bits of the historical narrative of psychics in my shared universe and create something interesting.

"The Second Life of D.B. Cooper" follows the former hijacker as he tries to stay out of the sight of his former Stargate handlers and use the money he stole to start a new life for himself. The first tale picks up eleven years later in Key West, Florida, as a pair of figures from his past make their returns.

Of course, I am not alone in using the mysterious figure. From books to comics to film, he has loomed in pop culture. But I hope to make a new mark on a real man that has become far more of a legend.

The tale upcoming in The Good Fight 2: Villains is far from my last tale of Coop and this corner of the Quadrant Universe. In fact, I plan a few more anthology appearances over the next couple years with the character and related figures, one of which I will discuss a bit more early next week.

The Good Fight 2: Villains is available for pre-order at Amazon or Smashwords for just 99 cents. It will go on sale digitally on March 30.