Jamaal Russell, writing as Jah Russ

I write about the psychological battles people fight without announcing them. Obsession, guilt, faith that stops fitting, what we inherit without choosing it, and what happens when the thing that told you who you were falls away. Mostly thrillers. One quiet book about a father and a son.

My protagonists are often men, because that is the room I know best. The books are not. What sits underneath them — wanting the wrong thing, carrying something you cannot say out loud, deciding who you are once nobody is telling you — belongs to everybody, and readers have said so in both languages.

I am an American veteran. I live and work on the north coast of the Dominican Republic, in Puerto Plata, and I publish in English and Spanish. Eight novels so far, across twenty-two editions, in three recurring worlds and several standalone books.

Alongside the writing I draw and burn original pieces into wood. Portraits, crests, names and dates, made one at a time for the person who asked. Those come off the same bench where I write, and they are signed Jah Russ.