Army veteran Kelly Turnbull fought civil wars in America and abroad, led an insurgency, survived a manmade plague, and took down the Golden Gate bridge. He’s back for more – this time in the Canal Zone – in Kurt Schlichter’s latest novel, Panama Red.
It’s the ninth book in the People’s Republic series he started in 2016. Schlichter envisioned a country divided, with the red states in the middle forming the new United States, and the blue coasts and the upper Midwest (think Minnesota and Michigan) becoming the new People’s Republic (PR). At the beginning, Kelly smuggled refugees from the blue to the U.S., until his old Special Ops handler Clay Deeds brought him inside once more. Since then, Kelly has returned to action in each book, each time more spectacular than the one before.
Panama Red is a stand-alone in the series, set just before People’s Republic. Kelly chases Circe, a slick female operator for the People’s Republic, across the world from Ireland to Panama. In between gunfights, he deals with an extravagantly corrupt Latin American dictator who turned the National Assembly of Panama into his personal party palace. The coke and beer flow night and day, while the dictator wheels and deals with the Chinese, the PR, and Turnbull.
Schlichter created the series because, as he put it in the author’s note for to Panama Red, he was “tired of the predictable, tiresome, man-action pap out there.” What the writer may not know is he wrote the action hero we conservative women have been seeking.
Note for new readers:
This is the chronological order of the books, with publication date in parentheses.
Crisis (2020)
The Split (2021)
Indian Country (2017)
Panama Red (2025)
People’s Republic (2016)
Wildfire (2018)
Collapse (2019)
Inferno (2022)
Overlord (2023)
Kelly is an ideal man for a red-blooded female, and for any woman, red or blue, in touch with her true femininity. What woman doesn’t love a man who loves dogs? In nearly all Turnbull universe books, he ends up adopting a dog, or a litter of cute puppies. In Panama Red, he doesn’t acquire a new dog, but he does help a struggling shelter during his mission. During the big action scene at the end, Kelly gets justice for Gilligan, a K-9 officer killed in the line of duty in the second chapter of the book.
Most women say they want a tall, good-looking man. In this series, we don’t know what Kelly looks like, or how tall he is, just that he carries scars from previous battles. In the latest novel, we do get a hint, as Schlichter shows Kelly demolishing the Hollywood girlboss myth that a 130-pound woman can outfight a 210-pound man.
Schlichter has purposely refrained from describing Kelly. That’s so we readers can imagine him as our vision of an action hero. In a 2017 interview with Christian Toto, Schlichter explained, “I never really describe Turnbull except that he’s tough. That’s on purpose. He has no color, no ethnicity. He’s American.” Personally, I’ve always envisioned Kelly Turnbull as a combo of Indiana Jones and John Wick.
Besides his love of dogs, Kelly is a man of action, not words. He pointedly instructs friends and enemies alike to “stop talking” nine times in Panama Red, and mentions it another four times. This “strong, silent type” is a mainstay of chick lit. He is charmingly tongue-tied around a woman he wants to date. In Wildfire, Lorna, the woman who manages to pierce his shell, must carry both sides of the conversation when Kelly comes close to asking her out at the diner where she works as a waitress. All the romance takes place off the page; when we see Lorna in Inferno, they’re engaged.
Kelly’s love language is lead. Schlichter describes Kelly’s arms with the intensity and detail the bridegroom uses to depict his beloved in the Song of Solomon. Naturally, Kelly can’t leave home without his favorite Wilson Combat CQB Elite 1911.
Though the action is hot, we’re not likely to see Hollywood’s version of this leading man any time soon. That’s because the author is intent that his vision of Kelly is the one that makes it onto the screen. As Schlichter says in his author’s note, “Kelly Turnbull must remain Kelly Turnbull, not some neutered femboy who shares his feeling openly and without restraint.”
As for any shrill harpies that can’t deal with a man like that, I’ll repeat what Kelly always says: stop talking.
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