The Greek Stories and Their Settings
How did I choose the settings for my four-book series, The Greek Stories? Greece has an interminable history with infinite inflection points. So, yes, it was tough, but not actually. My family’s history in America starts a few years before the first book, The Greek Boxer. My grandfather and fictionalized protagonist, Harry Hantzis, came to America in 1906 with his brother. He returned to Greece in 1912 to fight in the First Balkan War. His return to America in 1914 coincides with the Great Colorado Coal War, the bloodiest episode in American labor history and the historical reference for the book. Although my grandfather, to my knowledge, never traveled to Colorado, an obligation of honor sets my fictional grandfather upon this path. The Greek Boxer is a study of honor and obligation.
From 1914, I leap ahead to a most interesting time, World War II. My protagonist, Stavros, grows from a babe in arms in The Greek Boxer, into a military-aged male who joins a specialized U.S. Army unit, the Greek Battalion. Then after its disbandment because of political pressures, Stavros volunteers for an Office of Strategic Services (OSS) commando group to fight in Greece alongside the local resistance, the andartes. American Andarte is both history and fiction. Until recently, the government classified the exploits of OSS commandos in Greece as top secret, and few people wrote about them. I was lucky to be tipped off about this incredible US Army battalion and subsequent OSS campaigns by a dear friend with strong ties to our military.
Sticking with my protagonist for the final two books in the series, Stavros is now a CIA operative in Greece. In 1951, Greece was rife with espionage from every quarter. Greece and Turkey are on the cusp of NATO ascension. The freshly minted CIA is flush with untraceable money and little accountability. The British are broke and hand off their mole-ridden campaign to overthrow the communist regime in Albania to the CIA, who name it Operation Fiend and run it from Greece. The title for book #3, Wolf Pelt, comes from Homer’s account of the Trojan War, the Iliad. In that epic poem, Dolon, a spy for Troy, sneaks among the Greeks at night wearing a wolf’s pelt for disguise. Great Odysseus discovers him with predictable consequences.
Book #4, Fifty-Seven, moves the timeline up to 1957. The Soviet Union had just launched Sputnik, catching America off guard and far behind. America had, however, launched a nuclear-powered submarine, the USS Nautilus (SSN-571), in 1956. But America had no place to refuel and maintain the boat except Groton, Connecticut, a long sail from the critical theater of the eastern Mediterranean. The Greeks step up and undertake an ambitious refit of an old shipyard to meet the needs of its NATO partners. Of course, the communists are lurking, and Stavros, now at CIA headquarters, returns to Greece to ferret out the troublemakers. His long-time love interest, Dimitra, is there, as is Stavros’s running companion, Christakis, who is undercover in Enosis, the militant movement to free Cyprus from British control.
These four settings are, in my estimation, under-reported but exciting, and consequential. Anyone who wants more details can read through my bibliographies and notes included in all four books. As always, I write fiction, but I love to anchor my fiction in genuine history.
I hope you enjoy The Greek Stories and find them entertaining and educational. Here’s to your delight; may you enjoy reading these books as much as I enjoyed writing them. — Steven James Hantzis.
Release dates
The Greek Boxer November 25, 2025
American Andarte January 15, 2026
Wolf Pelt March 15, 2026
Fifty-Seven May 15, 2026
