A medical doctor, bestselling novelist, and Hollywood insider shares details from his eclectic life.

Kahn grew up in Illinois as the son of a general practitioner, and his interests have always been divided between medicine (which he describes as “a kind of sorcery”) and writing stories. After completing his medical internship, he took a year off to pen his first novel, Diagnosis: Murder (1980) about a crime-solving doctor. Later, while working as an emergency-room doctor at St. John’s Hospital in Santa Monica, California, Kahn met with film producer Kathleen Kennedy, who needed an expert medical opinion on a movie she was working on with director Steven Spielberg: E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982). From there, Kahn’s life would be split between his career as a physician and his work on Hollywood productions. Spielberg would subsequently invite him to write the novelization of another blockbuster film he produced—Poltergeist (1982)—which set the stage for a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity when he was later asked to novelize the final film of the original Star Warstrilogy, Return of the Jedi (1983). Kahn’s highly approachable remembrance is full of engrossing stories about his work as an M.D., his stints as a screenwriter for multiple television shows, and his side gig as a folk musician who released six albums.However, his work on Jedi takes center stage; not only did he bear the pressure of producing a novelization for what was perhaps the most anticipated movie of all time, but he also had to do so without having seen the final film—including its most iconic scene, in which Luke Skywalker finds out the truth about Darth Vader. The memoir explicitly tailors its behind-the-scenes vignettes to Star Wars fans, pulling back the curtain on the production of Jedi and blending Luke’s heroic journey with Kahn’s own life as he came into his own as both a writer and a physician.

The engaging story of a doctor’s unlikely connection to some iconic films.

A historical novel offers an in-depth view of the machinations surrounding the Civil War battle for Texas.

The year is 1863, and Matamoras, Mexico, across the Rio Grande from Brownsville, Texas, has become the Confederacy’s backdoor port for trading cotton for munitions. The once-sleepy village is now a booming town of 40,000 with “a hive of Northern and Southern spies” and profiteers of all stripes. A very large cast of colorful characters and complicated plotlines are woven together through interrelationships with the novel’s primary protagonists, Clayton Wilkes, owner of Brave River Gambling Emporium, and Allie Stoneman. Clayton, whose father was a cruel plantation owner, despises slavery. Secretly working with Yankee Ambassador Leonard Pierce, he is a spy for the North who feeds Confederate Consul Jose Quintero misleading information about Union plans to invade Texas. Allie is Clayton’s former con-artist partner and lover. A Confederate sympathizer, she has come to Matamoras to establish a business. But she requires capital. When Clayton learns of her scam to raise money, he sets her up to give Quintero false information as to where the Union force will attack. Of course, one con deserves another. When Allie learns she’s been had, she schemes to nullify Clayton’s plan. In this deadly game, thousands of young men are going to die. The only question is whether they will be Rebels or Yankees. Kahn’s (Timefall, 2014, etc.) descriptive prose delivers powerful images, as when Brownsville prepares to evacuate before the oncoming Union Army: “Clayton walked the streets under sensory assault: trees afire, people barking, animals screaming, orange shadows on adobe; glass breaking, fists beating flesh, sour smoke.” And when Allie tells Clayton: “ ‘This is my new life…I don’t want you in it’…a hollow opened in the pit of his stomach.” The slow plot development eventually leads to lively, often gripping action. Clayton’s thoughts, scattered throughout the story, clarify the man he has become. Skirmishes between the two armies and the maneuverings of the characters involved successfully build tension to an ending that delivers more than one surprise.

Strong leads star in a passionate war tale filled with political intrigue, violence, and scoundrels.