The Last Reporter · Book One
The Tenth of Av
The Last Reporter series is a time-travel thriller set in two worlds at once. On one side is first-century Jerusalem, from the Roman war to the fall of Masada, built from Josephus and the historical record. On the other is the present day: a classified American program with a way into the ancient world through a hillside in Israel, intelligence services trying to keep it quiet, and a terror group that wants what's on the other side.
Ray Mercer, a veteran investigative reporter from Michigan, goes through the door. He lives among the first followers of Jesus as the city falls around them, and he comes back changed, into a world that wants to use him, discredit him, or kill him.
The science is grounded in real physics. The history is checked. The action doesn't stop.
Kindle preorders open now
The Tenth of Av publishes November 3, 2026. Preorder the Kindle edition on Amazon now. The book will be available on Kindle and in print on Amazon and direct through this site, wherever books are sold. Print and direct-sale links appear here the day they go live.
Preorder on Kindle →Get the free story →“The entire book kept me engaged and unable to put it down. The storyline is something I’ve never read before, and that says a lot! I am on the edge of my seat waiting for the next book.”
- Published
- November 3, 2026
- Formats
- Kindle ebook $4.99; paperback $21.99
- Pages
- 502 (paperback)
- Paperback ISBN
- 979-8-9980983-0-7
- Kindle ASIN
- B0HLXRK9HP
- Publisher
- Last Reporter Press
- Series
- Book 1 of 5
Read First Chapter
Chapter One
Nobody told Ruben Ochoa anything, and that was the deal, and he’d signed for it.
Fourteen pages, in a construction trailer outside Beit Shemesh, across a folding table from a lawyer who wouldn’t give his first name. The pages said Ochoa understood he was accepting an assignment whose nature and location would not be disclosed to him.
The woman running the room let the lawyer finish and then pulled a chair around backward and sat on it.
“You’ve done confined space.”
Keep reading Chapter One
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What genre is this novel?
The Last Reporter series is a time-travel thriller set in two worlds at once. On one side is first-century Jerusalem, from the Roman war to the fall of Masada, built from Josephus and the historical record. On the other is the present day: a classified American program with a way into the ancient world through a hillside in Israel, intelligence services trying to keep it quiet, and a terror group that wants what's on the other side.
Ray Mercer, a veteran investigative reporter from Michigan, goes through the door. He lives among the first followers of Jesus as the city falls around them, and he comes back changed, into a world that wants to use him, discredit him, or kill him.
The science is grounded in real physics. The history is checked. The action doesn't stop.
From the Newsletter
Latest dispatches
October 25, 2026
Everything we know about the fall of Jerusalem comes from a man who switched sides.
Josephus fought Rome, surrendered to Rome, and then wrote the history of the war — on Rome's payroll. A reporter learns to read a source like that very carefully.
Read on Substack →
October 24, 2026
Yes, I Use AI to Help Write My Novel. Here’s Exactly How
The plot is mine. The characters are mine. The typos used to be mine too.
Read on Substack →
October 21, 2026
The Stories I Never Got to Tell
Forty years of reporting, a time-traveling reporter, and a novel that comes out November 3
Read on Substack →
Free Short Story
Meet Ray Mercer.
Detroit, winter 2003. Three men are dead in a rooming house fire, and the only witness is an old Army veteran nobody believes. Ray Mercer, a young TV reporter who will not run a story on one source, sets out to find a second. A complete, standalone story from The Last Reporter series, free.
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