​​Bob Ackerman Author

Why the flip/​flop on the name?

Fans who've been with me from the start remember all of the confusion with my name. Robert or Bob? Remember? So to differentiate myself from the other author, I've decided to publish under the "Bob" name. And the website now reflects this change. Simple and less letters to remember.

​I'm excited about the launch of my first print version novel, ​The Doppelgänger Project. You'll find a full description of that story in the Latest Release section of the site. For you digital fans, a Kindle version is also available. I'm working with the production people to get versions for other popular e-book readers such as Nook, I-Book, and Kobo-reader.

​Yes, that's yours truly in the photo. And I'm standing in the Bombe Room at Bletchley Park. Actually the Bombe Hut. Read the book for the explanation, and no, it's not an ice cream chain.  This was the amazing device that decoded the supposedly unbreakable German Enigma-coded messages, That's what they thought. Hence the super secrecy. It was pre-computer era — all mechanical with genuine steampunk rotating wheels, sprockets, and whistles that took-in Enigma messages and spit out  decoded English. Well, maybe that's an over simplification, but observing it in action was very cool. 

​​The Doppelgänger Project is my first venture into historic fiction (or as I'm calling it, "historic science fiction" and as such required painstaking research into dates and locations. Part of that involved a trip to Bletchley Park, England — a key setting in this World War II era saga. It was here that an ultra top-secret code breaking operation was run. So secret that the nearly ten thousand employees on the site were never allowed to breathe a word of what went on to ANYONE — picture that today. Not a word to family members, friends, lovers, pen pals. UNDER PAIN OF DEATH for violating the Official Secrets Act. And here's the kicker, this regulation remained in effect until the 1970s when the Secrets Act was finally declassified.