Janszoon

It's 1942 and Humphrey Bogart seems to have it all; or did he?

It's 1942 and Humphrey Bogart seems to have it all. By day, he's reading lines for Casablanca with Ingrid Bergman; by night, he's drinking bourbon on the Sunset Strip with friends like Peter Lorre and Leslie Howard. But to Bogart, life is not so glamorous. High-profile fights with his wife Mayo and a rigid studio contract committing him to a series of mediocre films have him feeling personally and professionally trapped. That is, until one day a mysterious note arrives on set. Heeding the strange invitation, Bogart finds himself in a series of long, secret conversations with his aunt and cousin about the swashbuckling tales of their ancestor, the pirate Jan Janszoon van Salee. These tales of the high seas ignite a fire within Bogart to carve out a path that is uniquely his own—even if it means shedding the roles and people who made him famous. Janszoon is more than a Hollywood fantasy; it's a journey into the heart of a man wrestling with ambitions and desires, an actor who yearns to balance his on-screen personas with his off-screen reality. From his tumultuous marriage and infamous USO tour, through his affairs with Verita Patterson and Lauren Bacall, Janszoon imagines a life in which the enigmatic Humphrey Bogart seeks a legacy that transcends the ephemeral glow of stardom.

Mark Kraver is an American novelist and United States Air Force Dental Corps veteran. Since his service, he's worked as a General Dentist specializing in Craniofacial pain. He now lives on the water in Southwest Florida with his wife of 45+ years and a large, undisciplined garden with many incomplete art projects. They also have three grown children, seven grandchildren, and several finished and unfinished historical fiction novels. Dr. Kraver grew up in the Melbourne, Florida area, where his father was a rocket scientist, and has also lived in Alabama, Mississippi, and Oklahoma.