David E. Grogan Books In Order

Publication Order of Steve Stilwell Books

David E. Grogan is a thriller, suspense, and mystery author from Savoy, Illinois. The author was born to a fighter pilot father and a Cleveland girl in Rome, New York. While it was great living at the Air Force base in New York, his mother always longed to live somewhere near friends and family. As such, when his father retired from the military, the family moved to Olmsted Falls, Ohio, which is where Grogan spent much of his childhood. Smalltown USA, Olmsted Falls had the typical Rocky River, Village Green, and a waterfall in the middle of the central business district. A few hundred meters away was the steel girder bridge that was more than a hundred years old, and a soft ice cream shop where Dave and the other children would get cold snacks after some practice on the outdoor basketball court. It was a small town where everyone knew everyone and all the children played with each other. It was such a rustic spot that most people never left after completing high school. However, David wanted something different and went to a college that no one in the town ever even thought of.

As an eighteen-year-old, he went to the College of William & Mary in the east and it is at college that he would meet Sharon that would later become his wife. Within three months before graduation, the two started dating and never grew apart after college. After graduation, they both moved to Houston Texas to begin their careers before getting married two years later. Dave spent three years working as a Certified Public Accountant and worked on many real estate deals before he decided that it was not for him. He thought that he was better off as an originator and manager of deals rather than an auditor and therefore he decided to go back to school. Soon after, the couple moved to Charlottesville, Virginia as Dave had identified the University of Virginia as a college with a great law school.

It was during his time at the University of Virginia that everything changed. He had gone to a party, and it was there met a young Naval Officer named “Whit” that was studying the law on a scholarship from the US Navy. The young officer had many interesting stories of his experiences aboard the USS America aircraft carrier that Grogan decide that he had to join the army. She was stunned to learn that he would no longer be pursuing the law but she finally let him join. Sharon believed this was a temporary deviation and that Dave would soon go back to study the law and pursue a corporate career. Dave reorganized his classes and planned for how he would become a JAG (Navy Judge Advocate), a profession that was made famous in the movie “A Few Good Men” by Tom Cruise. The decision resulted in a nearly three-decade journey that allowed Grogan to accomplish his wildest dreams. While in the Navy, he had lived in Bahrain, Cuba, and Japan, helped fight international terrorism and pirates. He has also defended and prosecuted court-martial cases, and deployed on a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf and the Mediterranean Sea. His experiences in the Navy and abroad inspire much of his writing.

Before Dave Grogan became an acclaimed author, he published in several places. Some of the places that he published include the “Proceedings” magazine by the US Naval Institute, the “Virginia Law Review,” the “Naval Law Review,” the “Virginia Journal of International Law,” and the very influential “War on the Rocks” blog. David published his debut novel “The Siegel Dispositions” the first of the “Steve Stilwell” series of novels in 2014. He currently lives with his wife Sharon, their children, and Marley their dog in Savoy, Illinois.

David Grogan’s “The Siegel Dispositions” is set in Dusseldorf Germany in 1997, where Emil Weisentrope an old Jewish man has been shot dead. On the same day, Steve Stilwell who had served as Navy JAG for more than two decades starts practicing as a civil attorney. His first assignment is to revise the will of Felix Siegel a seventy-year-old professor that survived the Auschwitz horrors. The professor has brought along Michelle, his surly bit beautiful adopted daughter who is set to be the sole heir. But there are caveats to the will as man wants $1.5 million of his money to go to friends he had made during the war if he dies before them. If they die before him, then Michelle would get everything. But then Siegel meets a violent and untimely death and Steve now has to find the man’s friends. He soon learns that two of the men one of whom is Emil Weisentrope are dead under mysterious circumstances. Even as the police conduct the official investigations into Michelle, believing her guilty of the murders, Steve is not so sure, they have the right person. His life and that of Michelle the ultimate beneficiary now hang in the balance as they seek to find and stop an elusive cold-blooded killer.

David Grogan’s “Sapphire Pavilion” opens to Ric Stokes who is Steve Stilwell’s best friend from his days at JAG getting jailed in Vietnam. He had been found in the room of Ryan Eversall, a man who died of an overdose and has now charged with heroin possession. Stilwell knows his friend would never deal in heroin and thinks he may have been set up. He travels to Vietnam to go find the truth and in no time, he is the target of people he believed were responsible for the predicament his friend finds himself in. A young and beautiful American butts into the case but Stilwell does not have the luxury of choosing allies, and lets her in. Ryan had teamed up with Ric to find an Air Force transport that had crashed in the area in 1968. The pilot had been Ryan’s father and just before they were busted, they had communicated that they had found the plane’s wreckage. Steve finds Ryan’s notebook that spells out the location of the wreckage. Casey his associate had managed to find a file named Sapphire Pavilion that they believe is invaluable. Someone is determined to steal both the file and the notebook and it is soon clear that there are strong forces arrayed against them.

“Hidden Key” by Steve Stilwell is the story of a US Navy and Iraq war veteran that answers his doors late in the evening to find himself face to face with two thugs. They intend to rob him of the souvenir clay tablet he had brought back from Iraq. It is the opening of a quest for the ancient relic that is believed to have a treasure map on its face. A week after the events at Stilwell’s home, he is called to London to meet an Indian billionaire who wants to employ him. They have barely taken their seats at the sleazy restaurant when two gun-toting assailants burst in. Moments later, the billionaire is dead, shot by the two men and Stilwell now has to deal with the questions of the Scotland Yard. A few days later, Steve goes to Virginia to find out more information about his client’s fortune. Steve and Casey find the enigmatic pilfered clay tablet and soon have to go on an international chase in which everyone is vulnerable to the pull of ancient treasure and the danger of death.

One Response to “David E. Grogan”

1. Ron Brenner: 2 years ago

   I met you when you had a table outside the exchange at WPAFB, I bougbt and read all 3 of your books. I have enjoyed your work very much and am wondering when you might put out another.

   Reply