BOOKS

Woman Behind Home Plate

FriesenPress, 2023

Who is this woman?

At every Toronto Blue Jays game, an elderly woman sits behind home plate, her story a mystery. When sports journalist Richard Dixon notices the reclusive woman, he finds himself enthralled, determined to uncover her identity.

Marchesa di Mentone was twelve years old when her family was imprisoned in Italy during the second world war. After a miraculous escape, Marchesa finds herself an orphan, her parents and sister presumed dead. Her world changed forever, Marchesa leaves Italy behind to build a new life for herself in Scotland, cared for by distant relatives.

Despite tragedy, Marchesa thrives, marrying the love of her life, Andy, and immigrating to Canada. However, when Andy’s health deteriorates, Marchesa knows she will face the painful sting of grief once more.

Now alone in Toronto, Marchesa’s path is destined to cross with Richard’s. Their blossoming friendship emboldens Marchesa to revisit a past she thought too painful to excavate. In doing so, she may just recover something precious she thought long-lost in the destruction of war.
FORMAT: Softcover. Buy online from FriesenPress, Amazon.ca, Amazon.com, Chapters Indigo, Barnes & Noble
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Lincoln Cathedral

FriesenPress, 2018

Jack Borden, an RCAF pilot, is in Halifax awaiting transport to England, and he meets Shelagh Pearson of the RCAF Women's Division also awaiting orders. A complicated whirlwind wartime courtship ensues.
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This is primarily Jack's story. Gaps between the Second World War and present day 2007 are filled and augmented via Jack's recollections of experiences as a Lancaster bomber pilot, wartime letters and flashbacks. Shelagh and Jack's daughters, Karen and Cassandra, are born shortly after the war. Shelagh continues to define her own course. Shelagh's covert involvement in cold war undercover activities, demands the family's return to post-war Scotland where Jack nurtures toddler Karen in a role reversal. Eventually Shelagh's prowess as a photographer returns them to Canada where Jack re-establishes himself in journalism.

By 2007, Jack, alone without Shelagh, develops symptoms resembling dementia, perhaps Alzheimer's but daughter Karen, a physician, is never convinced. Jack’s grandson Jeremy and his friend, Roberto, both graduate students experiment with a cure.

When Jack's dementia appears to ameliorate, Karen, unaware of unethical experimentation, arranges a revisit to Jack's former airfield.

Lincoln Cathedral remains a bold foundational symbol that enfolds the plot.
FORMAT: Softcover. Buy online from FriesenPress, Amazon.com, Chapters Indigo
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The Aftermath

FORMAT:  E-Book. Buy from Kindle, iBooks, Kobo, Nook, BookBaby  
FORMAT:  Softcover. Buy online from BookBaby  
"What a book! ...a wonderful  well-written thoughtful story and congratulations on its completion. It is a fine story and frightening in its outcome."
​-Claire Sullivan, author of Master Gardener

BookBaby, 2012

Although Thomas Stephenson and Cassandra Borden worked together in the past, neither is aware the other is now working in post-war Kosova. Both are forensic microbiologists, although Tom appears ostensibly as a magazine writer on assignment. Through his e-mail correspondence it quickly emerges he is working undercover for the Microbiology Intelligence Network (MIN), a Canadian organization with links to government. Cassie is a novice in foreign assignments. She is helping re-establish a diagnostic microbiology laboratory service at the University of Prishtinë Health Centre at the request of the World Health Organization. 
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Tom's role with MIN involves assessing possible bioterrorist threats. He accepts that some organisms commonly thought to be agents of bioterrorism are merely bi-products of social and physical upheaval in a post-war situation. Then, he and his driver/interpreter, Agron Shalla, encounter a mysterious illness in young adults with fever and influenza-like symptoms manifesting as severe arthritis. In the newly established virology laboratory, an unusual virus is grown that Tom recognizes as chikungunya virus. Tom and Agron pull together sufficient information to theorize a Soviet involvement, suggesting the likelihood of Kosova's use as a testing ground for biological weapons. They realize the Yugoslav government of the day had to be actively or passively complicit. 

Tom and Cassie's relationship develops over the two years following their meeting in Prishtinë. Official interference ensures that Tom and Cassie are seldom able to schedule their Kosova work sessions at the same time, so much of their relationship evolves through e-mail correspondence.
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Tom's mental state deteriorates. He expresses concern to his psychiatrist friend back in Ottawa, Albert Tindall. When he finds evidence that Cassie is also an agent for MIN, an e-mail argument ensues severely straining their relationship. By the time Tom is assigned to Somalia, Cassie confides to sister, Karen, that they are no longer together.

Tom is plummeted into depression by the deaths of Frank Macgregor and Agron. Tom suspects chikungunya virus but the official cause is influenza. Tom abruptly returns to Canada where he enters a treatment program for post-traumatic stress disorder. Both Tom and Cassie agonize over their lost relationship. The relationship reignites mainly because of Cassie's compassion and they agonizingly reconcile their differences. 
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The effect of war, international service, life from an ethnic Albanian point-of-view is explored via Tom's magazine articles, interviews, e-mail correspondence with friends and family in Canada and through Tom and Cassie's conversations with some of the many characters appearing throughout. The intersection of Mother Teresa and Bill Clinton Boulevards is an important landmark in Prishtinë, capital of Kosova, and a perfect metaphor for involvement in the war, reconstruction, and saints and sinners.

Bomber Crew

Trafford, 2005

Bomber Crew was self-published by the author, Jack E. Thompson, in 1989. This second edition has been re-published to acknowledge the 60th anniversary of VE-Day, to commemorate 2005 as the Year of the Veteran and to help celebrate the life of Jack E. Thompson (1923-2003). Some additional material including photographs, not available for the original version, have been added by the author's son, Stephen Thompson. 

Bomber Crew is the record of a tour of duty of the crew of the Lancaster bomber G-George of Bomber Command 12 Squadron based at RAF base Wickenby, Lincolnshire. This is a story of the bonds formed among seven men, five Canadian with the RCAF and two English with the RAF, bonds that lasted their lifetimes. This is the story of the happenstance and chaos of "crewing up", of endless "practice, practice, practice" sessions, and the excitement and terror of late-night bombing runs over occupied Europe and deep into Germany. 

The author and his crew would suggest that their tour was very ordinary and unremarkable. From data declassified post-war, they learned otherwise, that it was remarkable that these seven crew members survived the war and returned to civilian life. Only 40% of Bomber Command aircrew survived the war, and not all of those without physical or psychological injury.
FORMAT: Softcover. Buy online from Trafford Publishing, Amazon.com, Chapters Indigo
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Reflections Through a Lens:
​The Photographic Eye of Jack E. Thompson

Trafford, 2005

Reflections Through A  Special Lens is a tribute to the author's late father. Jack Thompson was a  well-known photographer and newspaper editor in Parry Sound, Ontario.

 The author, Stephen Thompson, has assembled 50 of his father's black and  white photographs of the rocks, clouds, trees, wind and water, and some  birds, insects and plants, of the Parry Sound area on Georgian Bay. The photos  of this collection date from 1952 to 2002 and were specially selected to  represent the span of Jack's photographic career and to honour his own desire  to publish a book of similar photographs. Reflections from the title reveals  many of the photographic images in the book, since Jack was often looking for  reflected images to complete the photographic tales of his compositions, to  provide a hint of "the bigger picture."

Reflections also describes Stephen Thompson's thoughts, interpretations, remembrances and analyses when revisiting his father's body of work. In addition to Jack Thompson's photographs, the author has included a selection of his own black and white images from the Carden plain and Haliburton areas of Ontario. As a special tribute to his father's generational influence, the author has also included a series of his son Alex's black and white photography. Alex Thompson is Jack Thompson's grandson and his selections come from the Gatineau, Quebec region.
FORMAT: Softcover. Buy online from Trafford Publishing, Amazon.com
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J. STEPHEN THOMPSON IS ALSO FEATURED IN...

Tales from the Raven Cafe

CreateSpace, 2011

Eight regulars of the Raven Cafe meet for morning coffee and conversation. Three  days in June change their lives.

Collaborative fiction by eight authors living in Central Ontario.

Stories by: 
Fred Cahoon
Val Crowley 
Lloyd Graham
J. R. MacLean
Dean Pappas
Jay Perkins
Claire Sullivan
J. Stephen Thompson
FORMAT: Softcover. Buy from Amazon.com

The Kawartha Imagination Project:
​Inspired Stories & Poems

CreateSpace, 2018

Inspired stories and poems by twelve members and project affiliates of the Peterborough Branch of the Canadian Authors Association.
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Stories by:
Louise Lukianchuk
J.R. MacLean
Richard D. Patterson
Val Crowley
Catherine McVicar
Diana Chan-Salitter
Eileen Dunne
David Austin
Richard Lowery
J. Stephen Thompson
Gail Taylor
Brenda L. Baker
​Pegi Eyers




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FORMAT: Softcover. ​Buy from Amazon.com