Paul MacPherson spent his career as a senior leader in Canadian business. He has managed large and small teams, within large and small organizations, made decisions under pressure, and learned — as most managers eventually do — that the most interesting problems are never the ones on the agenda.
He started writing fiction late. Not as a second career. As the thing that was always waiting.
His debut novel, Throne Keepers: The Storm Protocol, is a literary espionage thriller set in Nassau, Bahamas, in August 1942. It follows Major Alec Harrow, a British intelligence officer assigned to protect the Duke and Duchess of Windsor from a German extraction attempt — and to carry, in a sealed envelope, the authorization he hopes never to use. The novel is the first in a planned trilogy tracking Harrow’s career across three decades and three theatres of the twentieth century’s long shadow.
The idea came from a documentary watched twenty years ago. The question it planted took another decade to find its form. The writing began in earnest after a diagnosis of colon cancer that had spread to his liver. Some projects clarify what matters. This one did.
This site documents two things in parallel: the craft of writing historical fiction and the process of building a platform for a debut novel before the book exists. Both are works in progress. Neither is finished.
The novel’s protagonist has his own corner of the internet at ALECHARROW.com. That site is waiting for the book to catch up with it.
Current projects
- Throne Keepers: The Storm Protocol — debut novel, late draft
- Writing the Dark — Substack series on the craft and research behind the novel
- Before the Book — blog series on platform-building for debut historical fiction