Liz Chandler, Inc. - Protecting Sharks

As a soldier, police officer and corporate bodyguard, Liz Chandler has stared death in the face and made it blink more times than she wants to remember. But in Protecting Sharks, she finds herself in a situation that tests all of her finely-tuned survival skills. As Liz fights to stay alive, she forces herself to face tragic personal memories she has kept buried for too long. Intrigued? Click the links above to enter our site and get inside the mystery that is Liz Chandler.

About John Fedack John Fedack was destined to create the character of Liz Chandler and write Protecting Sharks. A native of Atlanta, GA, John's interest in police work began at a very early age. As county physician in Clayton County near Atlanta, John's father, Dr. William Fedack treated both county deputies and prisoners who were ill or injured. With a deep respect for law enforcement, his treatment of both officers and prisoners was fair and compassionate.

After listening to compelling stories about his father's work in the county and his role as a U.S. Navy physician during WWII, John might have predictably followed in his father's footsteps and chosen a medical career. That was not to be, as the pull toward law enforcement grew stronger with the years. Following his education at Woodward Academy (previously a boy’s military school) and the University of Georgia, John joined the university police department at Georgia State University. He quickly rose to the rank of Detective Sergeant and remained with the department for three years. But always in the back of his mind was the dream of working for the DeKalb County Police Department.

Nationally recognized for its superior training and equipment, DeKalb County was in the vanguard of police departments. Joining the department as a uniform patrol officer in the late 1970s, John learned invaluable first-hand survival lessons as a street cop. In DeKalb County and around the nation, this time period was among the most violent and dangerous to serve as a police officer. During his four years with the department, four of John's fellow officers were killed in the line of duty. As both a uniform patrolman and a member of numerous stakeout teams, he received several letters of commendation from the Director of Public Safety for bravery and exceptional police work. However, following the tragic shooting of a good friend, John made the difficult decision to leave the department. Ironically, he was off duty on the night of the shooting and the officer who was shot was working John's assigned territory."

After leaving police work, John accepted a position with Crum & Forster, a Xerox company. He was trained and joined the sales team for an accounting software package, marking his foray into the world of technology. During the 1990s and well into the 2000s, John made a name for himself in the legal software arena, but there was another, powerful calling in store for him. In November 2006, he made the decision to devote himself fulltime to what has grown into Liz Chandler, Inc., a company with plans to produce a series of books and television movies with Liz coming back as the protagonist, as well as a number of exciting offshoot media products.

John describes the character of Liz Chandler as a compilation of female officers he worked closely with and got to know well over his years as a fellow officer. Protecting Sharks is a novel with many real life situations woven into the story. As the author explains it, the original inspiration came from a routine evening roll call at the DeKalb County Police precinct in 1976.

"I looked around and noticed something very striking," he describes. "I was only 5’8” and maybe 150 pounds and virtually all of the other patrolman were at least six feet and built like football players. Then I noticed three or four female officers and I thought to myself, 'If I feel like a fish out of water, I can only imagine what they're feeling.' These women were all dedicated and brave officers, but they were working from a point of disadvantage in what was clearly a male-dominated workplace. The good news is, they hung in there and a number of them became good friends and sometimes my most trusted partners.”

John never forgot these women. He witnessed a savage attack on a small shark by a sadistic young fisherman while he was vacationing on St. Simon's Island and the seeds of a book began to take shape in his mind. A few years later, he started writing about a female officer who witnesses the same attack and takes action to stop it. That scene is a key element in the prologue of Protecting Sharks, a book John spent several years of off-and-on writing to produce.

The rest, as they say, is history.