By the end of 2025, Don Keith will see the publication of his 45th book. The prolific writer, born Dec. 12, 1947, in Springville, Ala., writes both fiction and nonfiction and is best known for his book series “Hunter Killer,” co-authored with author George Wallace.

How has he managed to write so many books? “I haven’t slept since 1995,” Keith joked in a recent interview with AL.com. His books include biographies, military history books and young adult novels.

Keith currently lives in Indian Springs Village, Ala., with his wife, Charlene, who was his girlfriend from when they both attended Springville High School.

If you don’t know Ketih from his books, you may remember him as a radio personality at stations in Alabama.

“I had a 25-year career in broadcasting before turning to other pursuits,” he said. He worked in Nashville, where he was named Billboard Magazine Radio Personality of the Year, as well as at K99 FM in Birmingham. He was also co-owner of 92-Zew in Mobile.

Then he turned his attention to writing and has produced several bestsellers. Keith has a new book being released in September from Severn River Press called “The Kaboom Boys,” co-authored with Elaine Hume Peake. Pre-order the book here.

Keith said the book, a fictional account based on actual events and real people, has been described as “Band of Brothers” meets “The Hurt Locker.” The book is currently being shopped around to industry professionals for a potential film adaptation.

“They all love the story and see the cinematic possibilities, and early reviews for the book have been spectacular,” he said.

The author is no stranger to the film industry. One of his books was made into the 2018 film “Hunter Killer,” starring Gerard Butler, Gary Oldman and Common.

“Because of the film, ‘Hunter Killer’ is my best-selling book, and each of the titles in The Hunter Killer series of thrillers have sold – and continue to sell – very well,” Keith said.

Keith has another film credit for a documentary called “Colors of Character,” about Birmingham native Steve Skipper, who was a teenaged member of a street gang before turning his life around. Skipper became an artist whose paintings hang in places like the Bear Bryant Museum, the Pro Football Hall of Fame, the U.S. Capitol and Buckingham Palace, Keith said.

The Kaboom Boys

“The Kaboom Boys” tells the story of bomb demolition crews during World War II.

Keith said his co-author Elaine Peake knew the story well. “Elaine’s father was one of the first U.S. Army bomb demolition captains in World War II and went into Normandy two days after D-day,” Keith said. “He enlisted in such a dangerous program – average life expectancy of ‘BD boys’ at the time was 10 weeks – because he wanted to escape a mundane existence in a dreary Pennsylvania coalmining town and go find an adventurous, exciting, meaningful life, all while seeing the world. And, by the way, to help win the war by saving lives rather than taking them. He did that by dealing with lethal unexploded bombs, booby traps, ammunition dumps, land mines and the like while trying to keep up with General Patton’s Third Army.”

The publisher Severn River Press has already announced a sequel to “Kaboom Boys,” called “The Blacksmith of Dachau,” due out in March of 2026 – Keith’s 46th book. There will be two more books in this series, called “A Call to War.”

“It, too, is based on actual events and carries over most of the same characters from ‘The Kaboom Boys,’ plus introduces a Polish Jew prisoner at Dachau concentration camp – a character based on a real person – a former blacksmith who is forced by the SS to defuse unexploded Allied bombs with no training whatsoever.” In real life, the man defused 246 bombs.

Other projects

Keith has another book, in addition to “The Kaboom Boys,” being released this year. “Argentina Station” will be released in November. “Argentina Station,” co-authored with George Wallace, is about four young men “stationed in the cold, unforgiving waters of the North Atlantic at the secret Argentia base in Newfoundland, Canada … tasked with a pre-war mission few will ever know: supporting Britain’s struggle against the German U-boats.” It can be pre-ordered here.

Keith has used his Alabama upbringing to create settings for many of his books. One of his young adult books in the Rolling Thunder Stock Car Racing series (co-authored with Kent Wright) is set at the Talladega Superspeedway.

Among his biographies is a title many will recognize: “Bear: The Legendary Life of Coach Paul ‘Bear’ Bryant”, released in 2006. He also wrote the story the USS Drum, a submarine exhibited next to the USS Alabama in Mobile, in his book “Final Patrol.”

Keith is also keeping an eye on the future.

“I am also actively pitching a screenplay I wrote based on the true story of a Talladega man, Earl Smith, who, while serving as a bomb tech in the US Air Force in the early 1960s, was called upon to make safe an armed atomic bomb that was lost when a bomber crashed in North Carolina,” Keith said. “One slip and much of the East Coast of the US would have disappeared. Amazing story! It’s titled ‘The Man Who Stopped Thunder.’”