James McGregor

James A. McGregor

In September 2012 I lost consciousness and collapsed while riding to work. My wife, Christel, miraculously maneuvered our Jeep Cherokee into the nearby Jacksonville Baptist Hospital emergency area with my lifeless body in the passenger seat. She and an ER nurse attempted to remove me from the Jeep but failed. A man walking past, perhaps my guardian angel, set his briefcase on the concrete, lifted my lifeless body and placed me in an awaiting wheelchair. The man was not recognized by anyone witnessing the scene and was not seen again.

Fortunately the Baptist Heart Specialist faculty was located in the same hospital complex. They immediately diagnosed me as having had a sudden cardiac arrest known as a'widow maker,' a collapse or blockage of the left anterior descending artery which carries blood from the heart providing the heart with the oxygen it needs. The result, the heart stops pumping and without treatment death occurs in minutes.

Good fortune continued. The Baptist Heart Specialists was one of a few with the new Therapeutic Hypothermal treatment developed for this type of loss of blood situation by cooling the body to 90 to 92 degrees for twenty-four hours with hopes of saving mental functions caused by extended loss of oxygen. His treatment was successful. Subsequent open heart surgery was further successful. I had beaten the 90+ to 1 odds of death by surviving a widow maker intact.

My author's story begins here. During recovery I had time to catch up on reading things I had gathered and set aside for days, weeks and months. One caught my full attention, Charles Hudson's book 'The Southeastern Indians.' I was hooked. Throughout my life I had been involved with and exposed to Native American people and groups. A few months later I met with tribal leaders in the Florida panhandle who were staring at a decades-old unapproved petition to the Bureau of Indian Affairs for their Federal Recognition. I understood the process from a few years of previous experience. I was hooked again. This led to my intense study of the history and cultures of the existing ten federally recognized tribes in the southeast and the extent of Indian and commercial casino activity in the nine southeastern states.

During the next five years I visited each tribal community and each tribal and commercial casino, and completed on-site and extensive studies of the seventy-five facilities. My blog site casinotesracinotes.com provides samples and summaries of some of the studies and work.

In 2017 I published the first book of the 'Alex, Cherokee Assassin' series featuring the fictional Eastern Cherokee millennial woman whose life profession is that of a seasoned assassin; an assassin whose mastery of Native American weapons is unsurpassed; an assassin whose ingenuity in preparation and execution of a mission is masterful. She is hired for vengeance, retaliation, and revenge by a deep secret Native American consortium to provide revenge for significant crimes and misdeeds against Native American persons and people. In each of the ventures you will be drawn into tribes, their cultures and histories, and the fascinating people, magnificent casinos, and unique towns and cities I've studied, met and enjoyed.

A list of books in the 'Alex, Cherokee Assassin'series:

Book One - Alex, Cherokee Assassin, Setting, New Orleans, Louisiana

Book Two - Alex, Cherokee Assassin, Vengeance in Savannah, Setting, Savannah, Georgia

Book Three - Alex, Cherokee Assassin, Vengeance in Biloxi, Setting, Biloxi, Mississippi

Book Four - Alex, Cherokee Assassin, Vengeance in Louisiana, Setting, Opelousas, Elkton, and Marksville, Louisiana

Book Five - Alex, Cherokee Assassin, Revenge of the Dancing Rabbit, Setting, Choctaw and Oxford, Mississippi -

casinotesracinotes.com - McGregor's blog site with a sample of his research work.

"Stiggins" - A second series (work in process), follows the life of a young Creek Indian Warrior beginning in the early 1800s.