Paladin Will Travel, 507 Broad Street, Lake Geneva, WI (2026)

09/23/2026

https://jamesstrauss.com/the-cowardly-lion-volume-seven-chapter-xiii/
THE COWARDLY LION, Volume VII, Chapter XIII

The discovery of the gold brings fear along as its constant companion. Can anyone who knows, particularly the location, be trusted again? Can I? The forming of a team has become almost automatic as the men, from Don and Dutch to Marlys and Fernando, seem all aboard, each in his or her own way. I cannot do the mission alone, and even thinking about what might lie ahead is fearsome. Can this mission have any chance of success at all? With what I don't know ahead, and if what is so far behind is any judge, then danger is just up there, or at least total weirdness I'm very likely not ready for... like the signpost up ahead. Twilight Zone.

Volume V is printed and ready for you if you want to go on Amazon or Barnes and Noble and get it there, otherwise there's the autographed/annotated version direct from me. Thanks for considering.

Dutch smoked his Lucky Strike and then started another. I allowed him some time alone to think about his situation, as well as what we might do about it. I climbed back toward the cleft to examine the vein of copper and gold more carefully. Once down inside, on hands and knees, it was hypnotic […]

09/17/2026

https://jamesstrauss.com/the-cowardly-lion-volume-seven-chapter-xii/
THE COWARDLY LION, Volume VII, Chapter XII

The Agiuak Island becomes the key to the entire mission, and if not the key, then a 'nuclear device' to blow up everyone's lives. The \gold had to be isolated and then used in place of the tools I was never even close to being provided to succeed in such a mission. I realized that Filepe, Dutch, and Don were key players, and I needed each of them and more. Good works would not be enough, but the gold might just be the frosting that sold the cake. If I could take control and possession of it.

The 5th volume of TCL is out here, and I have copies ready for autographs and more. Amazon or Barnes & Noble for direct purchase, or send me a check for 35 dollars to James Strauss, 507 Broad Street, Lake Geneva, WI 53147, and thanks for promoting the adventure ever onward as we progress together like few authors and readers ever have. Thanks for being so special, and please comment. Your friend, Jim

Happy to be back on the ship; its movements now very welcome next to the high-risk steadiness of the solid ground we’d worked our way up, over, and out of just a bit of time before. “Since we are in this together,” I stated, loudly, with acid in my tone, “just what the hell is […]

09/11/2026

https://jamesstrauss.com/the-cowardly-lion-volume-seven-chapter-xi/
THE COWARDLY LION, Volume VII, Chapter XI

Surviving the provocative but speculative high danger of the necessary visit to the Isle of the Tsar of Russia proves almost as daunting as experiencing it, as life aboard the expedition ship MS World Discoverer seems populated by all manner of stratified crew members and expedition passengers, not to mention the added lecturers I was settled into being one of. The diving had been exceedingly dangerous, with poorly maintained equipment and an amateur fellow diver. The return to the ship without much damage proves preparatory for more dangers just up ahead.
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Please order Volume V now, as it is printed and available on Amazon and Barnes and Noble, or order directly from the author for $ 35, with an inscription if desired. 507 Broad Street, Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, 53147. I'd appreciate it most dearly.

Filipe brought the Zodiac close in toward the steel hull. Three adventurers — dirty, disheveled and nearly naked — half-lay in the bottom of the craft. My watch, the canvas bag, and my jockey shorts were all I had saved from the island. Don and Dutch were in no better shape. “Dutch,” I whisp...

09/04/2026

https://jamesstrauss.com/the-cowardly-lion-volume-seven-chapter-x/
THE COWARDLY LION, VOLUME VII, CHAPTER X

The loss of the ship's anchor becomes a minor consideration for my small team, loaded into the Zodiac to make a recovery, or at least identification, dive to the bottom of the nearly frozen Bering Sea between the two islands, both named the Isle of the Tsar of Russia. The Zodiac crashed into the rocks of one of the islands, as the expedition ship World Discoverer is called away to go to the aid of another nearby ship in trouble. Climbing the rock face and sheltering under the thick pine forest above makes no sense at all, especially since the islands are inside Russian territory and Russians are coming.

The fifth volume is published and will be sent out to those who ordered in advance, while the 6th volume will go to print in the next few days. Please send a check to the author, James Strauss, at 507 Broad Street, Lake Geneva, 53147, for thirty dollars for each of the volumes you might want to add to your collection. Keep the adventure going.

“Damn,” Don said, they didn’t try to take the Zodiac.” He turned to face me. “They couldn’t have missed our tracks. They didn’t take the valuable boat because they’re afraid we’re up here, armed, and watching them, or because they’ve already radioed the Russian Navy and the big g...

08/28/2026

https://jamesstrauss.com/the-cowardly-lion-volume-seven-chapter-ix/

Beaching on the rocks of the Tsar of the Isle of Russia, proves more than hazardous, not just to the Zodiac but its occupants as well. The dive for the ship's anchor being unsuccessfu,l and then the emergency call forcing the ship to sail to the aid of another in trouble, portends dangerously difficult survival times for me and my two crew members. Only the climb to the top of the cliffs can provide any safety. Abandoning the Zodiac, we must scale the cliff and then use whatever we find up in the pine woods at the top to help us shelter and await the return of the ship, although life events once again prove impossible to predictd.

Please consider purchasing any of the special packages as I've stocked up to autograph and make comments, which will serve to make the books more special and also collectable as my 'fame' continues to grow. I much appreciate your help, as well in commenting and purchasing in order to help me financially keep the whole adventure going. Jim

I took in the contents of the Zodiac as fully as I could, at least what I could see. “Don,” I finally said, “Grab the canvas sack out of the boat. Dutch, get the top off the outboard. We’re going to need the cover if we want to heat something.” Both men clambered aboard the […]

08/14/2026

THE COWARDLY LION, Volume VII, Chapter VII offered here for your enjoyment and edification. Just click on the link and read away….

The Bering Sea becomes turbulent, so the 'Disco' expedition ship seeks shelter wherever out there it can find it. The Tsar of Russia Pass becomes the haven, but the anchor is lost. My physician's assistant role, as sticky as it was, wasn't as bad or as wrongly credentialed as my 'ship's diver' designation should the occasion arise. And it does occur. The hugely expensive anchor for the ship is lost, and the captain demands an attempt to recover it be made. I must go into the dark, cold, and heavily tide-moving waters to make the attempt. I don't want to go down there, but there is little choice if I am to stay aboard and proceed to attempt to accomplish the mission.

Instead of going to my own cabin, I headed directly down to Botany Bay’s number 36. There was something about the way in which the Basque woman had looked at me earlier, which was drawing me back. Don had stayed behind to consult with the passengers. He had begun his masterful job of caging large ...

08/06/2026

https://jamesstrauss.com/the-cowardly-lion-volume-seven-chapter-vi/
THE COWARDLY LION, Volume VII, Chapter VI

Relationships begin to form under the beginning of pressure and some potentially terminal circumstance. My well-acted phony credentials show no frayng and remain undetected as I perform roles I never could have expected or believed. The crew of the ship begns to prove to be the most cooperative and efficient group I'd experienced since the Marine Corps, but made up of foreigners and even vagabonds. I began to realize I could not perform the mission alone, and it was likely that the crew, or part of it, would be all I had to work with or failure might be abrupt and more than painful.

I moved through throngs of passengers populating the corridors of the ship. Murmurs of “doctor” came from some of them, as they reacted to my surgical scrubs. I had removed my coat. The temperature maintained inside the vessel hallways was always high, probably to help passengers recover from th...

07/19/2026

https://jamesstrauss.com/the-cowardly-lion-volume-seven-chapter-v/
Life given back by unseen forces not truly understandable, as I am forced to continue a mission that has a result almost unattainable given the lack of resources and backup provided. Aboard an adventure cruise vessel, with phony credentials and little support, I am supposed to bring back a young man held in a gulag, which I am provided little to no information about. The crew of the ship, M.S. World Discoverer, is my only resource, and how in hell am I supposed to enlist them in this hoped-for result? And so, an 'impossible mission' begins in real time and in real play.

The washroom door swung open. Felipe stepped through the entrance, dropped a pile of dry clothes on the floor, and then looked at my nakedness. I had nothing to hide anything with. He stared for a few seconds, looking openly at the roadmap of my career. His eyes met mine for the briefest instant bef...

06/20/2026

THE COWARDLY LION, Volume VII, Chapter III
Accommodating being aboard an adventure/cruise ship becomes a startling and almost shocking education, as life aboard a ship had never been something I'd done or contemplated. The Agency hadn't furnished or funded another agent to accompany me, and I was quickly coming to figure out that I would need some crewmen and women to guide and assist me if I was ever to have a chance to get to the gulag, and then get the kid out of the country. I was overwhelmed, and I knew it. My small supply of gold was not going to go far, and I was surprised that the Agency had funded and tolerated its purchase. That alone told me I was once again on a very special and important mission, but this time without the kind of huge support I'd had in Florida.

My books are still for sale. Given my recent heart issues, I'd appreciate your support to purchase signed copies and help keep me going. I cannot thank you enough!

I learned from Don, my bunkie and fellow de-frocked PhD, that the ship was never referred to as the “MS World Discoverer,” which was painted in black across her white prow and in white across her black stern. Unlike most ships, because of seafaring lore about potential ill fortune, the ship had ...

05/15/2026

THE COWARDLY LION, Volume VII, Chapter I
The world did not explode as a whole, only the microcosmic life I'd built so cleverly yet haphazardly in embracing real-life espionage and social exchange began to shiver and tremble. My life of many braided and living fibers was harshly strummed by the nearly invisible but punishing hand of the CIA. Loaded with iodine, pulled back from a disappearing island, and deliberately reassigned immediately to nautical service up in the Arctic wasn't causing overload...it was overload itself. My arrival in Nome, Alaska, alone at a closed bar, where cleanup becomes a soothing balm of relief. How many layers of my onion-like life must be painfully laid back before any true progress or accomplishment can be allowed to surface...

It has taken a monumental effort, dragging bruised and sometimes broken parts across shoals, given the appearance of fine lips of moving sand, to reach up and make the attempt to edit, design, assemble, and print volumes V and VI to continue the saga has been like staring up into the curl of a closing wall of solid tsunami wave, facing into it and plunging forward. If you like this series and what came before, then throw your heft into this fight to rise to the surface and survive. Buy any or all of my books on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, SmashSwords, or order direct: James Strauss, 507 Broad Street, Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. 53147

The only ‘accidental’ discharge or ignition of an atomic device on U.S. soil in the history of nuclear weaponry had come to be blamed on me. Not the United States Navy, which was present; not ex-Navy Seal Marcinko, who was present; and not my control officer, who was also distantly present. The ...

Paladin Will Travel

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