James W. Smith, sometimes publishing under the name
Jim Smith, worked as a Memphis Police Department police officer for 8 years during the 1960’s while earning a Bachelor’s
Degree from the University of Memphis. Although he left the full-time employment of the Memphis Police Department for a career
in medical sales, he remained a reserve officers, serving an additional 17 years. During his career with the Memphis Police
Department he was assigned the Narcotics Squad, Vice Squad, Organized Crime Unit, and General Investigations.
After retiring from the Memphis Police Department he
was appointed a Criminal Investigator with the District Attorney’s Office in 1990, assigned to Grand Jury investigations
where he investigated fatal shootings by law enforcement officers and misconduct by police officers. He also served on an
FBI Crime Task Force and was deputized as a Special Deputy U.S. Marshal. He is the author of Operation
Sorespot; From the Internet with Love; and Fort Defiance.
According to the book description of Fort
Defiance, “A routine murder investigation leads District Attorney Investigator Jake Shannon neck deep
into a life-and-death struggle. The body of a young teenage boy is found dumped in City Park in Bartlett, Tennessee, a suburb
of Memphis. Jake is called in to assist in the investigation. He is deeply shaken when he discovers the young boy is a close
personal friend. Jake is already investigating possible political corruption in the Bartlett city administration, which has
led to clashes between him, the Bartlett mayor, and the newly appointed chief of the Bartlett police department. As Shannon
moves forward with the murder investigation these clashes become more frequent and more intense. Jake’s roommate and
lover, Rachel Morgan, is a homicide detective with the Memphis police department. She is under tremendous pressure to catch
a serial rapist who is terrorizing a neighborhood in midtown Memphis. The stress and pressure from their individual investigations
threaten their already fragile relationship. Jake’s murder investigation and his investigation of political corruption
appear to be related when he discovers that automatic rifles are being stolen from the Bartlett High School ROTC armory, and
sold to a white supremacy group. Attempts to get him off the case come from several sources. Everything from bribery to threats
of physical harm is used to stop his inquiries. Unidentified assailants target Jake and Rachel. He puts everything on the
line: his job, his love, his life. Things quickly spin out of control, and Jake finds he must solve both the murder case and
the corruption case before he and Rachel become the next murder victims.”
According to the book description of
Operation Sorespot, “Who really killed Dr. Martin Luther King, and why? District Attorney
Investigator Jake Shannon never completely believed the government’s version of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther
King. Twenty-five years after the assassination, documents surface that support many of his suspicions. These documents are
the only evidence to support his theories. Government agents are tipped to Jake’s plan to expose the newly discovered
papers and he must call upon every skill he has ever learned as a police officer and intelligence officer to beat them to
the files.”
One reader of Operation
Sorespot said, “This is a great book. It really gets you hooked from the very beginning. The book is fictional
but based on fact, so I learned a lot about the events that lead up to the Martin Luther King Jr. assassination. I would definitely
recommend this book to anyone interested in governmental corruption and conspiracy theories.”
One reader of Operation
Sorespot, “Living through this time, we knew there was more to the assassination of Martin Luther King!
Operation Sorespot, although fictional in some areas, sheds the most light on this assassination than any other written. As
the daughter of a retired homicide detective from NYPD, it's written in the investigative-style that states the facts
yet is fast paced in an incredibly captivating style. Thank you for a wonderful book that gets us to the 'meat' of
the matter - what actually was taking place?”
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