The Army Payroll Plot
(2026)(The fourth book in the Possum Porter Conspiracy series)
A novel by James Glenn Thompson
A forgotten Army payroll. Five missing soldiers. A fortune in Spanish gold. And someone is willing to kill to keep the truth buried.
When a senior CIA executive from his past asks David ‘Possum’ Porter to investigate an obscure 1889 Army payroll mystery, he has little interest in digging up a problem that has been dead for more than a century.
Then he learns that the payroll may never have been a payroll at all.
Five soldiers from Fort Concho disappeared while escorting the shipment. A Fort Worth VIP vanished with them. Official records mysteriously disappeared. And an old soldier's dying words hint that the missing cargo contained Spanish doubloons dating to the early 1700s.
Now drug cartels are searching for the same treasure.
Possum and his wife, Maite, follow a trail of clues involving a cryptic ledger, the vanished soldier William Jackson, Spanish treasure from the wrecks of the 1715 Plate Fleet, and a fortune that may still be hidden somewhere along the Texas-Mexico border.
But the deeper Possum digs, the more dangerous the investigation becomes.
Cartel gunmen are closing in. Intelligence operatives are playing their own game. And a mysterious CIA operation appears to have made Possum the target.
With Maite at his side—and Clyde, the strange voice in his mind, offering observations that are sometimes useful and sometimes decidedly unhelpful—Possum must determine who is telling the truth before the century-old mystery turns deadly.
The Army Payroll Plot is a fast-moving Possum Porter adventure combining historical mystery, buried treasure, espionage, cartel intrigue, and the dangerous humor of a man who has learned that sometimes the biggest threat isn't the enemy you can see.
The past has been waiting for Possum Porter. And someone in the present is determined to make sure he never discovers it.
Genre: Thriller
When a senior CIA executive from his past asks David ‘Possum’ Porter to investigate an obscure 1889 Army payroll mystery, he has little interest in digging up a problem that has been dead for more than a century.
Then he learns that the payroll may never have been a payroll at all.
Five soldiers from Fort Concho disappeared while escorting the shipment. A Fort Worth VIP vanished with them. Official records mysteriously disappeared. And an old soldier's dying words hint that the missing cargo contained Spanish doubloons dating to the early 1700s.
Now drug cartels are searching for the same treasure.
Possum and his wife, Maite, follow a trail of clues involving a cryptic ledger, the vanished soldier William Jackson, Spanish treasure from the wrecks of the 1715 Plate Fleet, and a fortune that may still be hidden somewhere along the Texas-Mexico border.
But the deeper Possum digs, the more dangerous the investigation becomes.
Cartel gunmen are closing in. Intelligence operatives are playing their own game. And a mysterious CIA operation appears to have made Possum the target.
With Maite at his side—and Clyde, the strange voice in his mind, offering observations that are sometimes useful and sometimes decidedly unhelpful—Possum must determine who is telling the truth before the century-old mystery turns deadly.
The Army Payroll Plot is a fast-moving Possum Porter adventure combining historical mystery, buried treasure, espionage, cartel intrigue, and the dangerous humor of a man who has learned that sometimes the biggest threat isn't the enemy you can see.
The past has been waiting for Possum Porter. And someone in the present is determined to make sure he never discovers it.
Genre: Thriller