He is living happily, if not humbly, in Arizona, trying to avoid the notoriety he gained during the events in Point of Impact.

Russ is a writer, and wants to write a book about Bob Lee's father Earl, a Marine Corps veteran and State Policeman who was supposedly gunned down one night in 1955, near Bob's home town of Blue Eye, Arkansas, by Lamar's father, Jimmy who was to surrender to Earl after robbing a grocery store and killing four people.

These include Sam Vincent, the former Polk County prosecutor who appears in Point of Impact, and Frenchy Short, the CIA agent and Earl Swagger protégé who appears in The Second Saladin, and also in the later Earl Swagger novels Hot Springs and Havana.

Part of the connection between the novel's two time periods is the role of Sam Vincent in the prosecution of the murderer of a young black girl in 1955, and the re-investigation of that case in the present.

The third and final season of the USA Network series Shooter (2016–2018), starring Ryan Phillippe as Swagger, is loosely based on Black Light.