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| Merle & Judy with actor Shemar Moore |
- Who: Merle Sheppard, author of “Ghostly Shade of Pale”
- Where and When: Sundog Books in Seaside 10 a.m. to noon Saturday, and Hidden Lantern Bookstore in Rosemary Beach 2-6 p.m. Saturday
- Details: MerleTemple.com and Facebook.com/Merle.Temple.1
SEASIDE — Merle Temple, at age 67, has begun a new
career as a novelist — a third career, after retiring from the law enforcement
and communications. He has worked for the FBI, the Mississippi Bureau of
Narcotics, and BellSouth. Now, he’s a successful author.
I caught up to him by telephone this week as he
relaxed in Destin with his wife, Judy. They had been out birding, and he had
recently spoken to a class at a Destin elementary school. He mused upon his new
life and how it reflected in those youngsters, just starting their lives.
“These books have opened up a whole new world for us
in our retirement years,” he said. “I didn’t know if anyone other than friends
and loved ones would want to read them. ... I am so grateful that I lived long
enough and survived so much tragedy to know who and what never mattered, and
Who always will.”
His debut novel, “A Ghostly Shade of Pale”
introduced the character of Michael Parker, which is based on Merle. Parker
leaves Ole Miss in the early 1970s to enter America’s “War on Drugs.” He is
kidnapped by heroin dealers and held hostage while working solo undercover.
Later, he’s ambushed near Memphis by contract killers hired by the Dixie Mafia.
When he becomes a captain, he and his men are ambushed in a heroin deal near
Columbus by a sniper.
“Only the dramatic intervention of God saves the
lives of agents that day,” Merle said, adding, “All these things and more
really happened.”
Merle, originally from Tupelo, Miss., claims to have
crossed paths with many of the iconic figures of the 20th century, including
Margaret Thatcher, Charlton Heston, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, J. Edgar
Hoover, Newt Gingrich, Dennis Hastert, and countless other senators,
congressmen, governors and celebrities.
“I pull the curtain back to allow people to see
Washington as it really is, and it is not a pretty sight — where everyone and
everything is for sale,” he said.
The second book in the trilogy, “A Rented Love,”
follows Parker into the corporate world and high-level politics. There, he
finds that the organized crime figures who tried to kill him are choir boys
compared to the political criminals he encounters in what Merle calls “the
unholy trinity of crime, politics and business.”
Merle is currently at work on the final book in the
trilogy, “The Redeemed,” in which Parker — a would-be dragonslayer — pays the
price for his crusades and for opposing the power brokers. The treachery runs
all the way to the White House, Merle hints.
“So many I
have known in politics love only power and money, but beyond that, so many of
them refuse to surrender power even in old age and infirmity,” Merle said.
“They made a Faustian deal to rule in hell on earth, rather than to serve
eternally in heaven. They equate retirement with death, and they are terrified
to stand before their maker. They know what they’ve done, and they know that
the road is running out.”
The novels are being considered for adaptation into
TV series by various Hollywood producers, which took Merle and Judy to the West
Coast for meetings. They watched the filming of “Criminal Minds,” signed books
for actors Joe Mantegna and Shemar Moore. The series writer-producer Jim
Clemente is pitching “Ghostly” for Merle.
“I have written all my life in the public and
private sector — speeches, technical papers,” he said. “People told me, ‘you
have a gift of writing,’ but I found out fiction is difficult. It’s tricky to
speak in other voices. It has so many threads in it, it’s so complex. It has
been a real learning process.”
Merle also believes that what he writes and how he
presents it is important. His work, placed in the public eye, is equivalent to
the epitaph on his tombstone, he said, in that it’s how he will be remembered.
“My novels, written as fiction but drawn from my
life, have no profanity or graphic intimacy,” he said. “They are written as
literature to endure, and people love them for that reason. ... People are
hungry right now for that, even if they’re gritty books, but behind it is a
message that’s uplifting.”
Peace.
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