"Terminal Policy"
By Liam McCurry
Ashleigh Publishing Group

Liam McCurry will be donating 10% of the proceeds of his book “Terminal Policy” to the Semper Fi Fund. A description of the book: A terrorist group begins violently “terminating” the policies of random persons and places covered by one of the world’s largest insurance companies. Remember: Insurance sells Fear. Terrorism sells Fear – and business is business! Can it be stopped? is YOUR name on the list? From Manhattan executive offices to Haiti, Paris, Baltimore, Mexico City, Rome, New Orleans, Geneva, London…lightning-paced terror and romance romp through Terminal Policy. The fun lies in the reading, as the tale races toward its cataclysmic finale. Order signed, limited editions of hardcover book &/or audio book at www.ashleighpublishing.org . 

Monterey's Liam McCurry adds author to his long list of vocations

     Monterey's McCurry a first-time novelist in his 80s

By DENNIS TAYLOR
Monterey Herald Staff Writer

Updated: 12/14/2009 01:29:35 AM PST

A whole bunch of people get rubbed out in "Terminal Policy," a thriller that blends insurance-industry corruption and international terrorism into an intoxicating 500-page cocktail of torture and death, intrigue and romance, and a few potent shots of Irish whiskey.

"The next one will be shorter," promises the book's fledgling author, Liam McCurry of Monterey, who on Jan. 18 will celebrate his 85th birthday.

Why he waited almost 85 years to become a first-time novelist is a question with a simply explanation: He was busy.

To mention only a few of his incarnations, McCurry has been a U.S. Marine (he saw action at Guadalcanal and Korea), a psychologist, a land developer, a sportscaster (he was the voice of the University of New Mexico and New Mexico State football in the 1960s), a computer consultant, a classical pianist, a TV weatherman, and — he admits with some reluctance — an insurance salesman.

"We were selling insurance to ranchers in New Mexico, where there's a lot of open land," he says. "We told them they could make a lot of money by investing a little bit in the insurance game, and we took care of those investments. We never stepped across the line, legally, but I think we crowded it. So, yeah, I was one of the bad guys for a while, and I felt very guilty about it."

The often-heartless nature of the insurance industry inspired "Terminal Policy," the jacket cover of which declares that "Profit is the game, death is the payoff."

The plot revolves around an avenging terrorist whose group begins violently "terminating" the policies of random persons who are covered by one of the world's largest insurance companies.

The fact that insurance companies are in the headlines nowadays, suspected of valuing profit margins above the needs of their customers, is merely serendipity, McCurry says. In fact, one reason it took about 12 years to finish "Terminal Policy," he explains, is that "reality kept interfering with my damn novel. History kept changing. People came into power and went out of power. Russia suddenly wasn't the same Russia it was before. I had to keep re-doing and re-writing."

Indeed, he claims his characters often did it for him. McCurry says he got to know the major players in his book so well that it often seemed like they were writing the story on their own. He was just the typist.

"He said the characters would just take over," says Margie McCurry, his wife of 37 years. "Sometimes, he'd create this little throw-away character, and suddenly he or she would turn out to be a major player in the book."

He created a couple of characters, in fact, mostly for the purpose of knocking them off later. "But they wouldn't die," he says. "I'd get really aggravated with one woman, in fact, because she refused to die. And ultimately, she won — she's still around at the end of the book."

McCurry says he enjoyed researching various things for his novel — discovering, for example, what the weather probably would be at a certain time of year in a specific location — but he says he and Margie have personally walked the streets of every exotic venue in the novel. Most of the restaurants, bars, hotels, shops and people in the book are based on real life, too.

"I've had to apologize to some people, saying, 'You're in my book, but your name's different,'" he explains. "I changed all of the names to protect the guilty."

McCurry was born in Denton, Texas, but says his upbringing was gypsylike. He experienced city living and country living in equal parts, and spent much of his youth dreaming of becoming a United States Marine. He made that a reality on Aug. 14, 1942, enlisting at age 17. His military career took him to the battle of Guadalcanal during World War II, and he also saw action during the Korean War.

"The Marines shaped me about as much as I could handle," he says with a laugh. I never met a drill instructor I liked when I started, and I never met one I disliked by the time I got out. You know what DIs do? They keep you alive later."

The Marine Corps bond paid dividends earlier this year when a mutual friend facilitated an introduction earlier to Maria Dennison, another retired Marine who now is founder and president of Ashleigh Publishing in St. Mary's, Kan.

"We first started talking to each other last January and Liam sent me his manuscript in June," Dennison says. "His style of writing really intrigued me, but the bigger factor, I think, was the way he spoke to me. We had an instant rapport, and between that and the quality of his writing, I decided I was going to do whatever it took to make his dream a reality."

The dream arrived on McCurry's doorstep Tuesday in the form of advance copies, which he'll be autographing in coming weeks at various book-signing events around Monterey County. Meanwhile, Dennison says she'll anxiously await his second novel, tentatively entitled "The Ulster Ultimatum," which he's already outlined, and his third one, which he says is in the planning stages.

"Terminal Policy" is expected to be available at local bookstores and at Internet sites, such as Amazon.com by mid-January, Dennison said, but can be ordered now from the publisher's Web site at www.ashleighpublishing.org. Dennis Taylor can be reached at 646-4344 or dtaylor@montereyherald.com.