The next war won't wait for you to be ready.

Near-future military techno-thrillers where teleoperated war machines, autonomous swarms, and badly outgunned humans collide. Book one of the DropHawk Thrillers — Ghost Drop — deploys soon.

Read on Substack ↗

// Be first in line when Ghost Drop launches

Written by a ten-year U.S. Army infantry veteran — the tech is near-future, but the soldiering is the real thing.

// The DropHawk Thrillers

Tomorrow's battlefield, told from the inside

A near-future series grounded in real drone warfare, autonomy, and the human cost of fighting through machines. Read in order.

BOOK 01 · COMING SOON

Ghost Drop

An Iranian-backed insurgency opens a guerrilla war on US soil. One veteran's rapid-response team can deploy at 700 mph.

BOOK 02 · COMING SOON

Terror Swarm

The enemy adapts. The swarms get smarter. The war spreads from the border into the heartland.

BOOK 03 · IN PROGRESS

Phantom War

The fight goes global, and the line between operator and machine all but disappears.

// Mailing list

Join the DropJocks

Get the launch alert the moment Ghost Drop deploys, plus occasional field notes on the real technology behind the fiction. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.

// Secure signup · MailerLite

// Elsewhere

Where to find me

// Substack

The Newsletter ↗

Dispatches in support of the military sci-fi, plus the tech I can't stop thinking about.

// Personal blog

innerlizard.com ↗

The other stuff — odds, ends, and whatever else is rattling around.

// On X

@KLHigginsSr ↗

Quick takes, work-in-progress, and the occasional range day.

// The DropHawk Thrillers

The DropHawk Thrillers

Near-future military techno-thrillers — relentless action, realistic near-future tech, and flawed heroes fighting tomorrow's war. Meant to be read in order: Ghost Drop, then Terror Swarm, then Phantom War.

Book 01 · Coming soon

Ghost Drop

DropHawk Thrillers · #1

They came to ignite a guerrilla war on American soil.

A coalition of Iranian-backed insurgents has spent years burying deadly sleeper cells deep within the U.S., training silently for the moment to strike. Now, under the cover of pre-dawn darkness along the Texas border, gunfire erupts — a state-of-the-art convoy breaches defenses with cutting-edge drones and electronic warfare, leaving a lone border agent dead and bringing military arms into the country. They're gone before response arrives.

Their mastermind doesn't seek victory on battlefields — only to sow panic and chaos before unleashing his next move. Against him stand America's overstretched law-enforcement agencies and an unlikely wild card: Army veteran Sam Knightsbridge, who has engineered breakthrough technology and a rapid-response team that can deploy at 700 mph — faster and smarter than any conventional force.

But counter-insurgency is messy, and the scars run deeper than bullets or IEDs.

Publication path being finalized — release date to follow.

// COVER IN PRODUCTIONTerror SwarmBOOK 02

Book 02 · Coming soon

Terror Swarm

DropHawk Thrillers · #2

The war escalates. The insurgency adapts its tactics, the drone swarms grow smarter and deadlier, and Sam's outfit races to expand faster than the threat — before the next attack reaches deeper into the country.

Manuscript complete · final description & cover to come.

// COVER IN PRODUCTIONPhantom WarBOOK 03

Book 03 · In progress

Phantom War

DropHawk Thrillers · #3

The conflict goes global and the gloves come off. As autonomy and human judgment blur on the battlefield, the cost of the fight reaches everyone who built it.

Currently drafting · description & cover to come.

// The Gunfighter

The Gunfighter

A Western LitRPG duology set inside a brutal, hyper-real Wild West simulation where healing means surviving — and the deeper you go, the better you heal. Read Skeleton Trail, then Invasion. Both available now.

Book 01 · Available now

Skeleton Trail

A Western LitRPG Adventure · #1

Army veteran Sam Knightsbridge never wanted to be trapped in the American Wild West — especially one where bullets tear flesh and every choice leaves scars that don't fade. After a near-fatal ambush, he's forced into a cutting-edge therapeutic VR simulation where mind-body links power regenerative therapy. For Sam, escaping isn't an option; his only chance to reclaim his life is to master the wild world within.

But the ruthless Patriot Council is twisting the SIM to their own ends — hacking controls, razing towns, and harvesting pain as profit. When his girlfriend and best friend are taken, Sam faces a brutal choice: risk everything to save them, or lose everything to a merciless enemy.

Buy on Amazon ↗

Book 02 · Available now

Invasion

A Western LitRPG Adventure · #2

Sam has barely escaped the Patriot Council's grip — in the SIM and the real world. But peace is an illusion. The Council's hold tightens, turning the land into a bloody battleground where hackers and hardened criminals wage war and demonic shapechangers hunt him across the Pacific Northwest.

With family and friends fighting beside him on both sides of the screen, Sam must sneak into the heart of the Council's corruption for even a chance at saving the frontier so many depend on. A high-stakes adventure where gunfights, melees, hacking, and honor collide.

Buy on Amazon ↗

// More Books

More from Kevin Higgins

A back catalog spanning thriller, epic fantasy, and tech nonfiction.

Thriller

Surrogate Threats

Michael Rader Adventures · Book 1

Michael Rader and Gabriel Lang hunt a cunning new breed of entrepreneurial criminal whose command of cutting-edge technology lets them prey on others while misdirecting the police.

Rader — a wanted man himself — must figure out why someone is luring hundreds of innocent young women into surrogate motherhood as an unwitting part of a global blackmail operation. Who is the master villain, and why is his organization toppling the powerful and destroying lives? When victims are thrust into their ultimate nightmare, Rader and Lang are the only hope for the helpless.

Epic Fantasy

A Blade in the Storm

With George Leslie Reed II

A storm is brewing in the Kingdom of Zantaria. A lifetime in service as a Rogar-mahn — Zantaria's ranger-diplomats and guardians of the land — has earned Caeron Coldlake an unequaled reputation as woodsman, sword master, and champion of the King.

But an ancient power is altering the very weather across the continent, and just when the kingdom needs him most, Caeron is forced into retirement. Then raiders take his daughter and assault his wife — too organized to be mere brigands. Torn and devastated, his confidence shattered, Caeron must beg the King for one last mission: revenge. When the raiders prove tied to the force manipulating the kingdom's weather, that mission becomes the realm's only warning.

Nonfiction · 2015

Self-Driving Steamrollers

Your guide to a future of autonomous cars you may never buy

Don't wait for the near future to hit you like a driverless truck with a faulty collision sensor. Using easy narrative, humor, and a futurist's eye, Higgins forecasts that the age of driverless cars will arrive faster and change the world more drastically than most people realize — and lays out what's there to be gained, and lost, by those who plan ahead.

Written in 2015 — these days it mostly reads as a snapshot of what some people were thinking before self-driving cars became real.

// Short Fiction

Short Fiction

Shorter work, for when you want a complete story in a single sitting.

Dark Fantasy · Short Story

The Sins of the Father

A dark fantasy short story

On the high bridges over Mueglar's fetid swamps, a young nobleman with one thing on his mind leads a desperate girl to her fate.

A dark fantasy short story, sinuously intertwined with elements of gothic horror.

// The Author

About Kevin Higgins

// PROFILE
Ex-soldier · 10 yrs infantry
Serial entrepreneur · founder, PayByCash®
Futurist · father · husband
On X: @KLHigginsSr

Ten years in the U.S. Army infantry. The rest is research.

Kevin Higgins served as an infantryman in the U.S. Army for ten years. After leaving the military, he worked as a network analyst before moving into the massively-multiplayer online game industry, working for years with the people who first built games in that space.

He left gaming to found an internet startup with his wife. That company, PayByCash®, started with two computers in their living room and grew into a global alternative-payment processor, accepting 80 different payment methods from over 150 countries.

Higgins identifies as an ex-soldier, serial entrepreneur, futurist, father, husband, and author. He enjoys hooning around race tracks as a medium-performance driver of high-performance cars, takes his Jeep rock-crawling through high-difficulty trails, and hasn't yet given up the dream of running a half-Ironman.

He is the grandson of the late Leslie Charteris, creator of The Saint. He currently heads the company that manages that intellectual property and is working with Paramount on a major motion picture.

Substack ↗ innerlizard.com ↗ @KLHigginsSr ↗