“Write What You Know”: A Review of Righteous Allegiance by George Yuhasz

(Outskirts Press, 2025). ISBN: 978-1-9772-7562-2

A tried and true adage for first-time novelists is write what you know. Writing novels is a difficult endeavor (as W. Somerset Maugham famously quipped, “There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are”) and the seasoned author controls everything they can.

According to George Yuhasz’s back-cover bio, he is a “former US Government special agent, intelligence officer, and contractor. He has also worked in the private sector as an investigator and security consultant.” It is clear he wrote about what he knows in Righteous Allegiance, which takes far-right White Christian Nationalism, especially among former members of the military, as its central subject.

Written with the technical expertise of an insider (I mentored a novelist for many years who was a former lieutenant colonel in Army intelligence, and I recognize the signs), Righteous Allegiance is topical and frightening. Yuhasz’s extremists articulate their positions well—especially the Big Bad, a Major McArdle, whose charisma is noted by more than one of the characters with whom he interacts, including a journalist and member of law enforcement. Their reasoning for their actions is important to consider, because it is how they draw others to their cause. Understanding brings us to the Complexity of the current atmosphere in the United States, which legacy and social media are designed to reduce to overly emotional dichotomies such as Us and Them without offering any insights into why such worldviews exist.

The American novel has its basis in social commentary and change. Yuhasz sits squarely in this tradition, opening up the parameters and circles of social and cultural interaction in what could have been simply an action thriller in the tradition of Tom Clancy and by the incorporation of several Indigenous characters from a broad array of tribes. Their traditions (and the echoes of Westward Expansion, Manifest Destiny, and forced relocation, for which robber barons like Morgan and Rockefeller used the US military as their personal instruments) serve to deepen the psychological aspects of Righteous Allegiance, adding in a spiritual aspect, embodied in the pervasive presence of a fox as events escalate and unfold.

I mentioned the author’s expertise in his chosen material. While it is highly detailed, Yuhasz never strays into a central rookie mistake: the narrative-dragging Info Dump. Instead, he delivers the bulk of the necessary details of the military intelligence world through the experiences of his central character, Will, who also serves as a bridge between the Indigenous and modern worlds. Will, who reminds me of the Star Wars: A New Hope version of Luke Skywalker, struggles to reconcile these worlds amid his answer of the Call to Adventure and navigation of the dangerous worlds of terrorism and geopolitical chess playing.

Yuhasz also navigates the macro and micro with a seasoned, self-assured hand. While national stakes are set, giving the novel its insistent pace (most strongly with the upcoming reelection campaign of an incumbent US president whom Aaron Sorkin could have penned), the small town in which the central action unfolds is the kind of microcosm of economically, politically, and socially diverse characters that makes Stephen King such a master of human psychology. Like King, Yuhasz shows us the often dire consequences of the ultimately petty aims and dynamic tensions inherent in small-town interactions. We encounter farmers, journalists, teachers and school administrators, national and local law enforcement, students, medical professionals, secretaries, and homemakers, all of whom are expressions of our sociopolitical landscape.

Yuhasz does not give us false hope in these tumultuous times. Losses are merged with wins and there are no storylines tidily (and unrealistically) wrapped up in a bow. As we know from events such as the Oklahoma City bombing, 9/11, and the siege at Waco, terrorism is not stopped; it is merely thwarted if all the pieces fall into place, girded by luck and timing.

All indications are that this is the first book in a series. If this is so, and I hope it is, I look forward to watching the continued Hero’s Journey on which the lead character has embarked and how the poisonous residues of the core incidents of Righteous Allegiance seep into the psychological waterways of society, macro and micro, in surprising and insidious ways.