NCIS Star Mark Harmon To Release True Life NCIS Book “Ghosts of Honolulu”

NCIS Star Mark Harmon To Release True Life NCIS Book “Ghosts of Honolulu”

Harper Select announced they will publish Ghosts of Honolulu: A Japanese Spy, A Japanese American Spy Hunter, and the Untold Story of Pearl Harbor, the first narrative non-fiction title from Mark Harmon and Leon Carroll Jr., on November 14, 2023. This is the first book from Harmon and Carroll Jr., who worked together on the hit CBS drama series NCIS for many years. Harmon famously played the role of Leroy Jethro Gibbs for 18 seasons, and Carroll Jr. is a former NCIS Special Agent and the show’s technical advisor.

“Even through all of the fascinating storylines of NCIS over the last 20 years, Mark Harmon always knew that the most amazing stories in naval intelligence were the true accounts in decades past. He had long desired to tell those stories, and we are honored to help take this first book to the world. Together with his longtime collaborator, Leon Carroll Jr., they have brought the past alive in a true story that reads like a novel but shows the great debt we owe to so many who paved the way for our freedom,” said Matt Baugher, publisher of Harper Select.

Scrutinizing long-buried historical documents, co-authors Harmon and Carroll Jr. have brought forth a true-life NCIS operation that depicts the incredible high-stakes game of naval intelligence encompassing cultural complexities, life-threatening dangers, and unrelenting patriotism in this riveting historical narrative about the defining moment of a generation. The book tells the story of Douglas Wada, the only Japanese American agent in naval intelligence, and Takeo Yoshikawa, a Japanese spy sent to Pearl Harbor to gather information on the US fleet. In his native Honolulu, Wada’s poses undercover as a newspaper reporter, translates wiretaps on the Japanese Consulate, and interrogates America’s first captured POW of World War II. In contrast, Yoshikawa works with the consulate as a junior diplomat and collects vital information, sending it straight to Admiral Yamamoto. Their dueling stories anchor Ghosts of Honolulu‘s gripping depiction of the world-changing cat-and-mouse games played between Japanese and US military intelligence agents (and a mercenary Nazi) in Hawaii before the outbreak of the Second World War.

Also trapped in the upheaval are Honolulu’s innocent residents—including Wada’s father—and the thousands of ordinary people caught in crosshairs of a world at war.

“I feel compelled to take part in opening up the history and real story of what became NCIS. When I first started this show, there was not much information to be found by research,” stated Harmon. “NCIS agents are public servants at the highest level and many have come and gone through this life with no one knowing anything about who they are or what they do. And now that story gets told. All because of a TV show.”

“I hope this book will give readers a different look at NCIS as an agency and that we are much more than the homicide of the week. The name NCIS was chartered in 1992, 90 years after the establishment of ONI to emphasize the criminal mission of the agency. Counterintelligence investigations and operations are an integral part of that criminal mission and play a very important role in our nation’s security. This book is intended to be the first in a series that will give an inside look into the inner workings of accomplishing that mission,” added Carroll Jr.

Ghosts of Honolulu will be available in hardcover, eBook, and audiobook. You can pre-order today at https://www.harpercollinsfocus.com/harper-horizon/ghostsofhonolulu/