Hey,
I’m Larry Patzer
welcome in.

I write military thriller novels, action suspense novels, and short stories grounded in progressive Christianity and mysticism, with the occasional delightfully strange detour. You can find information about my current and upcoming books, short stories, and details on signings and events throughout this site. Bonus: under short stories, you’ll also find candid notes from nine years of Alzheimer’s caregiving.

Coffee Cup Publishing Presents

Larry Patzer

My military thriller novels are built on real people’s lived situations and human stakes. After retiring as an Air Force officer, I spent nineteen years as an aerospace systems engineer designing large scale intelligence systems where failure wasn’t an option a discipline that shows up on every page: tight plots, clean lines, credible tradecraft.

I’m a nationally certified Spiritual Director and a graduate of Clinical Pastoral Education, and I served as an on call trauma chaplain. Sitting with families in their hardest moments taught me how choices echo; that’s why my characters don’t just fight they face the consequences. I also bring nine years of personal Alzheimer’s caregiving, distilled into essays used by grief counselors and families. To me, whether you’re reading spiritual fiction novels, books about mercenaries, or action suspense novels, all stories should help us live better, not just turn pages.

Read the full bio

About Book

The Past Always Comes Back

…to help you, or kill you…

Michael Johnson once ran black ops in Africa, then worked high end security across Europe. Now he wants peace with his wife, Ann, in the Willamette Valley. The explosion ends that fantasy. Their house is gone. Enemies are not. To live, they must become the hunters. As Michael reactivates buried skills: safehouses, forged identities, weapons caches, Ann refuses to be sidelined. Training turns to combat. Each firefight forces a question: how far will they go to stop the people who won’t stop? Their chase cuts from a college town to border backroads and, finally, European strongholds where old scars carry new signatures and family honor fuels modern violence. This is propulsive, grounded action with conscience and consequence. If you crave kinetic pacing with moral weight, you’re in the right book.

“📘 Available Now on Amazon”

The Palm Tree

Coffee Shop Extraordinaire

In an Oregon college town, The Palm Tree is more than a coffee shop; it’s a crossroads. Ann arrives still captive to a toxic religious past, searching for a God she can trust. By chance, she meets Michael, a guarded stranger hiding his history as an ex-bodyguard, with notches on his gun handle and grief he won’t name. Their only common ground, at first, is the café itself, yet a rocky relationship takes root. When nightmares spill into daylight, assassins, gunfights, paranoia, tragedy, Michael revives his spiritual-counselor alter ego, even as the loss of his wife threatens to pull him under. Ann longs for escape and transformation, but her past won’t easily let go.

Amid twists, turns, and reversals, the questions remain: Can Ann find personal resurrection, redemption, and a meaningful relationship with God? Is Michael too broken to help? Is love even possible? While the story touches on progressive Christianity, its core is how Ann and Michael confront religious grief and conflicted histories—pointing to the possibility that people can overcome toxic religious experiences and find, at last, a home in God.

“📘 Available Now on Amazon”

Reviews

The Page Turners Book Club
What I loved is that it wasn't just a basic action story. It was such a great blend of pure thriller tension mixed with all that messy family revenge and raw, real emotion. That's what made it hit so hard.

I felt so invested in Michael and Ann. They weren't just cardboard cutouts; their fear was palpable, and you could feel the struggle in their relationship. Watching them fight for survival while dealing with deep issues of trust and betrayal made every single twist in the plot matter so much more.
OC Public Libraries Book Group
If you're looking for a book that acts like a shot of adrenaline, this is absolutely the one. It grabbed my attention from page one and never, ever let up.

The thing I kept thinking while reading was how cinematic it felt. The pacing is relentless—you can almost picture the whole thing playing out on a massive screen!
Whispering Pages Book Club
The writing is so incredibly sharp and vivid; it made the whole story feel real, even when the stakes were so high they were almost unbelievable. I mean, the author truly nails that balance.

I especially loved how perfectly they blended the genres. We got great, twisting mystery, serious military grit (which felt totally authentic), and deep personal drama that gave the story its emotional anchor.

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