PENTICTON, British Columbia — A few local people may have had the opportunity to meet author E.J. “Russ” McDevitt when he was in town visiting his daughter, Lynn Ouellette.
McDevitt released his fifth book of The Danny Quigley series, “The Jihadists’ Return,” in October. His previous four action novels that are part of the Danny Quigley Series are: “The Quigley Alchemy,” “The Quigley Mission” “The Quigley Rescue” and “The Quigley Challenge.”
According to McDevitt, the main character in his Danny Quigley series is based on a real person. While training sales people for a life insurance company in the United Kingdom (U.K.), he met a man who was formerly in the Special Air Service (SAS), a special forces unit of the British Army, and obviously suffering from some sort of post-traumatic stress disorder.
In his series, Danny Quigley is a legend in the U.K.’s Special Forces. As a trooper, he was known for his deadly combat skills and fearless conduct under fire. Now retired and a civilian, MI5 are recruiting him to take on his greatest and most dangerous challenge yet. He must thwart the highly-trained, hate-filled Jihadists that are returning to wreak havoc on the U.K.’s way of life with a planned and devastating Sept. 11, 2001-style attack.
Almost immediately and through an incredible stroke of luck, he manages to penetrate one of the arriving cells of terrorists while posing as a street person. However, his luck ran out when he was forced to kill one of the Jihadists who suspected him. Events then spiraled outwards leading to violent action in Amsterdam, Belfast and California.
According to McDevitt, “Panaroma” magazine, in Dublin, Ireland, wrote two years ago that it was weird how he predicted the prominence and rise of the terrorist group Boko Haram in his last book long before the world or the media heard of them.
The Jihadists’ Return is available online at createspace.com, amazon.com and russmcdevitt.com.
Born and raised in Ireland, McDevitt is no stranger to action himself. A lot of knowledge he acquired during his life experiences is reflected in his Quigley books. His journey began when he emigrated alone from Ireland at the age of 17 to a logging town on Vancouver Island, in Canada. The journey led him from there to San Francisco, Hawaii, Fiji, New Zealand and finally to Australia, where he traveled with a boxing and wrestling troupe for three years. Then he took a short breather back in Ireland before returning to Canada and enlisting in the Canadian Armed Forces as a military policeman for six years — serving three of those years with the NATO Brigade in Europe.
After his discharge, he stayed in Europe working as a trainer, marketing manager and business coach in financial services. In civilian life, he entered the life insurance industry and eventually opened his own brokerage.
Today, McDevitt is an inspirational top-level communicator who has worked as an executive life coach for the past 15 years in Ireland, the U.K. and Canada. He has won the Irish and British Toastmaster titles and, in March 2014, the District 64 area 52 International Speech Contest in Winnipeg, Manitoba.
As a master practitioner in N.L.P. (Neuro Linguistic Programming), he has presented personal development programs in Ireland, the U.K., Switzerland, Italy, Greece, Germany and Canada, and has appeared on Irish and Canadian television. He is also author of “How To Transform Your Life: Using the 6 Step Personal Success Journal” that can be found at transformyourlife.ca.
McDevitt now lives in British Columbia, Canada with his wife Marie and has six adult children. One daughter, Lynn Ouellette, DNP, FNP has a primary care practice at Medicor Associates of Salamanca.
To find out more about McDevitt and his books, visit his website, russmcdevitt.com, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.
