Proebstle, Jim
- Media ContactJim Proebstle
jim@intheabsenceofhonor.com - Press Materials for Download:
Jim Proebstle
Jim Proebstle has experienced northern Minnesota his entire life. He and his wife, Carole, now call it home during the warmer months. His love for the wilderness setting and fascination with Native American reservation life fueled his imagination for In the Absence of Honor.
Jim has his BA and MBA from Michigan State University, where he was fortunate enough to also play on a National Championship football team in 1965 and earn academic honors. His corporate career in sales and management prepared him to form Prodyne, Inc., a management consulting firm.
Currently, Jim and Carole reside in Deer Park, Illinois, which is close to their two children and five grandchildren.
Minnesotan Nick Morgan overcomes the hardships of life during the Depression with the thrill of flying. The rush he shares with his soon-to-be wife, Martha, as they barnstorm small Mid-western towns offering plane rides for a dollar, forges a love for each other and a sense of freedom to last a lifetime. But in 1943, Nick must leave Martha, now pregnant, to become a WWII pilot in Alaska for the army’s newly formed Air Transport Command. In this uncharted and inaccessible landscape, Nick joins U.S. forces, who have set up a strategic defense position against Japan, and a Lend-Lease supply program that trains Soviet pilots with U.S. aircrafts for their war with Germany.
The remoteness of Alaska also draws the attention of Manhattan Project scientists in New Mexico as a possible site for atomic bomb testing. When Nick Morgan and his Okie crop-duster copilot, Red, are tapped by the Manhattan Project for classified flying duty over the isolated Yukon Flats region, they have no idea that they will be caught up in a Soviet plot aimed at stealing top-secret bomb and test site development documents. After Nick’s plane goes down in a botched hijacking attempt by a Russian agent, all three crewmembers and seventeen military passengers are presumed dead by the U.S. military.
When Jake Lorenz retreats to his family's cabin in the North Minnesota woods for the winter, he's looking for peace, quiet, and time to reflect on the loss of his wife and his job. But instead, he finds destruction and death--a gruesome murder scene on his very doorstep. The more he discovers about the death, the deeper he is drawn into a shadowy struggle for land, wealth, and power. There are forceful men who don't want him to search any further: the corrupt tribal council that controls the nearby Ojibwe casino, the secretive and antisocial plutocrat who owns half the peninsula, and the ruthless Indian Mafia, to name a few. But to save the community he loves, which is set in this harsh and lovely wilderness, Jake must battle personal demons and the deadly forces of man and nature to learn the truth.
With origins dating back two hundred years and outcomes that could appear in tomorrow's newspaper, In the Absence of Honor whisks readers through a tale of conspiracy, fraud, deception, and betrayal--that reverberate from a small northern community and Indian reservation to powerful forces in Washington, DC.