Out of the Blue is a historical action thriller set in the year 1812 and deals with the trials and tribulations of two prominent characters of that era, John Andrew, a local smuggler from Saltburn on the English Northeast coast and the French emperor Napoleon Bonaparte, who invaded Russia in the same year. The text also bounces back to modern times where Ryan Thompson, armed with nothing more than his memories of an action comic magazine from his youth, uncovers the secrets of times gone by with the assistance of his pretty guide, Victoria Dunn. After two hundred years, the truth is finally revealed.

Mark Thompson was a full-time professor at Harvard University from 1975 to 1983 and has been a visiting professor at the Universite de Paris and the Universitat Bielefeld in North Rhine-Westphalia in Germany. He taught courses on decision science, game theory, and social program evaluation. He lives in Lexington, Massachusetts.