REVIEW: Out From The Underworld by Heather Siegel

Posted by Ryder Islington, author of Ultimate Justice, a Trey Fontaine Mystery I’m not usually one for reading memoirs but Out From The Underworld caught me by surprise. In it, Heather Siegel tells the story of her childhood, as her mother disappears and her dad moves Heather and her siblings into the basement of his childhood home. Crowded, dark, and musty, the basement reminds her of Persephone’s trip to the underworld. But Heather and her siblings survive their dad’s craziness, and their grandparents’ rules as they decide that they must find out what happened to their mother. Ms. Siegel pulls the reader into the dark, into the insecurity, into the confusion only a child can suffer when things go wrong and no one has answers. I found in it dark humor, and hope. I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys a good story. Below you’ll find a book description, an author bio, a list of other sites where you can find reviews, interviews, guest posts and chances to win a copy of this poignant book. Also, there are ways to contact the author and a chance to win a copy of Out From the Underworld at the bottom of this page.       Book Description:

Heather Siegel was six years old when her mother disappeared, sending her father into a tailspin that took Heather and her siblings down with him— from a comfortable suburban home to a barely habitable basement apartment, a dark world they soon found themselves fighting to return to from the exile of foster care, then fighting even harder to escape.

Forty years later, Heather Siegel tells the remarkable story of how she and her siblings, Jaz and Greg, banded together to find out what happened to their mother and fight their way Out from the Underworld with nothing but their wits, determination, unbreakable bonds and gifts for humor and compassion to sustain them. A wrenching, inspiring story filled with heartbreak, hope and love, Out from The Underworld will move you to laughter and tears.     Author’s Bio:

 

Heather Siegel holds an MFA in nonfiction writing from The New School. Her work has appeared on Salon.com and in The Mother Magazine and Author Magazine, as well as in various trade publications. She was a finalist for the 2010 Pacific Northwest Writers Association Literary Award in Nonfiction Writing, the 2011 San Francisco Writers Conference Nonfiction Writing Award, the Carolina Wren Press 2012 Doris Bakwin Award and the 2012 Kore Press First Book Award. A multi-creative person with interests in the arts, nutrition, health and beauty, she has founded several independent businesses, including a coffeehouse, a café, an organic juice bar and a natural beauty bar. She currently lives with her husband, Jon, and daughter, Julia, in the woods of Long Island in a house filled with light.

Tour Schedule:

May 18 – Library of Clean Reads – review / giveaway May 19 – T’s Stuff – review / guest post / giveaway May 19 – The Cheshire Cat’s Looking Glass – book spotlight / giveaway May 20 – TW Brown on Border Collies, Zombies, and the Indie writing scene – review / guest post May 20 – Vic’s Media Room – review May 21 – Satisfaction for Insatiable Readers – review May 22 – Life as Leels – review May 22 – Back Porchervations – review  May 25 – The All Night Library – review May 25 – Pinky’s Favorite Reads – book spotlight / author interview May 26 – Svetlana’s Reads and Views – review May 27 – The Things We Read – review  May 27 – chic.toronto – review May 28 – Sincerely Stacie – review May 29 – Room With Books – review / author interview / giveaway June 1 –  Deal Sharing Aunt – review June 1 –  A Blue Million Books – book spotlight / guest post / giveaway June 2 – The World As I See It – review / giveaway June 3 – Nighttime Reading Center – review / author interview / giveaway June 4 – Jessica Cassidy – review / author interview / giveaway  June 5 – The Discerning Reader – review / giveaway June 11 – Confessions of a Reader – book spotlight / author interview June 15 – Ryder Islington’s Blog – review June 17 – A Splendid Messy Life – review / author interview / giveaway June 18 – Girl With Camera – review June 19 – Essentially Italian – review / giveaway

Connect with Heather:  Website  ~  Facebook  ~  Twitter

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Guest Post: How Jake Diamond Landed In San Francisco by J. L. Abramo

Posted by Ryder Isliington, author of Ultimate Justice, a Trey Fontaine Mystery

Below you’ll find an interesting view of character Jake Diamond, lead character of Circling the Runway, a Jake Diamond Mystery by author J.L. Abramo, followed by a cover shot (nice cover!), synopsis, excerpt and author bio. There is also a list of sites where you can find reviews, interviews, and an opportunity to win a free copy of J.L. Abramo’s latest Jake Diamond mystery.

 IT’S NO MYSTERY or HOW JAKE DIAMOND LANDED IN SAN FRANCISCO

The sights, sounds, tastes and aromas of San Francisco are as unmistakable as they are unforgettable and provide a perfect setting for the fictional exploits of Brooklyn born, Italian-Catholic, Russian-Jewish, unsuccessful movie actor and marginally successful private investigator, Jake Diamond.

Jake is more over-easy than hard-boiled and he is more likely to be carrying a worn paperback classic novel than a firearm. Jake’s thirst quencher of choice is Tennessee sour mash bourbon, his favorite foods are those with the highest cholesterol, and the closest he comes to being a purist is non-filtered cigarettes.

The scent of deep fried calamari floated in through my office window like an invitation to triple-bypass surgery.

So begins the third novel in the Jake Diamond series, Counting to Infinity, following Catching Water in a Net and Clutching at Straws.  Jake’s office sits above Molinari’s legendary Italian Market on Columbus Avenue; in the heart of the rich history and the eclectic street life of North Beach.  From Molinari’s Delicatessen to the Vallejo Street Police Station, to the Shrine of St. Francis of Assisi; the streets of North Beach are often the backdrop for Diamond’s most tense and funniest moments.

During the break between my first and second year of graduate studies at the University of Cincinnati, I hopped into a ten-year-old Volkswagen bus and headed west; across the Mississippi for the first time.  Having grown up on the Atlantic Ocean, I was curious about the Pacific.

I made the mandatory stops; the Grand Canyon, Las Vegas, Hollywood, and then up the coast to the City by the Bay.

It was love at first sight.

1971. Richard Nixon was in the White House. Vietnam was aflame.  The Summer of Love had come and gone, People’s Park sadly abandoned.  But Haight Street and Berkeley were still tie-dyed colors and long hair and civil disobedience.  The Jefferson Airplane and Grateful Dead were still thought of as local bands, and the city was a jewel still sparkling upon the turbulent sea of social change.  I was escorted to the top of Twin Peaks, as was Jake Diamond in Clutching at Straws, and the 360-degree view of the city, the bay and the Pacific was indelible.

I left my heart there too, Mr. Bennett.

I lived in San Francisco during the closing years of the seventies; post-Vietnam, post-Watergate, pre-Reagan.

First, in the Fillmore, where Jake Diamond lived before inheriting the house in the Presidio.  Later on Frederick Street near Masonic, a short block from Haight Street, where the last Flower Children were fighting to hold the line, with their head shops and music stores and street performances, against the other thirty-something residents who were trying to turn the Upper Haight into a respectable neighborhood.  I worked part time at the Green Apple Bookstore on Clement, where Jake Diamond purchased paperback copies of A Tale of Two Cities and The Count of Monte Cristo.  Catching Water in a Net became a tale of San Francisco and Los Angeles.  Clutching at Straws became a tale of retribution.

I explored the city.  Seldom in a car.  Automobiles were impractical in San Francisco; there was no place to put them.  As Jake Diamond once noted, the only way to get a parking space in San Francisco is to buy a parked car.

I explored on foot, walking up and down the city’s hills, from neighborhood to neighborhood, each with their unique personality and their own climate.  The Fillmore, Castro (the setting of One Hit Wonder, a Jake Diamond short story included in The Shamus Sampler), the Mission (where Vinnie Strings squanders his savings at the Finnish Line, a gambling hall run by two brothers from Helsinki), the Sunset (where Jake parks his cherished 1963 Chevy Impala convertible in Joey Russo’s garage), the Presidio, the Panhandle, North Beach and the Haight.

I explored by bike, bus, streetcar, cable car and even sailboat.  I was taken in by the frenzied activity of small theatre, the renaissance being created in the redevelopment of Fort Mason, and a theatre rag found in every small venue lobby.  I began to write about art.

I took the knowledge and the passion to Denver where I founded and edited a monthly theatre magazine and placed it in all of the local theatres.  I began writing for some of the smaller independent newspapers.  I had become a budding arts journalist.  I was a professional writer; inspired by my time in San Francisco.

In 2000, in South Carolina, I began writing my second novel.  My initial attempt, a crime novel set in Brooklyn, was sitting unread, surrounded by thanks but no thanks form letters from an assortment of literary agents.  I wanted to try my hand at first person.  The natural, unpremeditated form was the private eye narration, and the setting could be nowhere but San Francisco.

Jake Diamond was born.

Catching Water in a Net captured the SMP/PWA Award for Best First Private Eye Novel and a year later I was holding a hardback copy in my hand.  Remarkable.

I thank the city of San Francisco.  And as often as possible I visit, preferably in the fall.

Autumn in San Francisco, Diamond muses in Clutching at Straws.

Late September, early October is my favorite time of the year in San Francisco.  In terms of weather, September is the mildest month.  Most of the tourists are gone and that is a great blessing.  In July and August they’re as thick as Buddy Holly’s eyeglasses.  The kids are back where they belong; the nine-week challenge of trying to find a single square inch of ground not infested by swarms of loud and reckless adolescents is finally over.  Unless you’re insane enough to venture anywhere near a school.  I can hardly imagine a better place to be in early fall.

Though I’ll admit, I’ll take Paris in the springtime.

I visit, I walk the streets, I duck into alleys, check out storefronts, and look for more magical places for Jake Diamond to discover while searching for a clue or two.

Circling the Runway

by J.L. Abramo

on Tour April 20th – May 31st, 2015

Synopsis:

Private Investigator Jacob Diamond and San Francisco Detective Sergeant Roxton Johnson are famous for not getting along. Cats and dogs. Oil and water. Liston and Ali. Jake and Rocky.

When an assistant district attorney is murdered in his high-rise apartment building, and Johnson suspects his lieutenant may have something to do with it, he can think of no one else to turn to for help—no one he can trust except Jake Diamond.

If the mismatched duo can avoid stepping on each other’s toes long enough—they may be able to stop circling the runway and land on the villain’s doorstep. Lieutenant Laura Lopez, Detective Ray Boyle, Joey Clams, Vinnie Strings and Darlene Roman are all back in the first new Jake Diamond escapade since Counting to Infinity.

Book Details:

Genre: Mystery PI

Published by: Down & Out Books

Publication Date: April 19, 2015

Number of Pages: 260

ISBN: 978-1937495879

Series: Jake Diamond Mysteries, Book 4

Purchase Links:

Read an excerpt:

ONE

James Bingham stood at the curb in front of the high-rise residence, talking with the taxi driver who had dropped off the occupant of apartment 3501 a few minutes earlier. Bingham was inquiring into the availability of deeply discounted cartons of cigarettes. The cab driver assured Bingham he would hook him up that weekend.

Bingham walked back into the lobby as the cab pulled away.

As James Bingham approached the security desk he heard footsteps approaching from behind. Before Bingham could turn to the sound, his head was clamped between two large hands and with the twist of two powerful wrists Bingham was dead.

The woman opened the door leading from the stairwell to the thirty-fifth floor apartments only wide enough to see the hallway in both directions. Finding the hallway deserted, she pushed the door open just enough to slip through. She moved down the hall to the right and stopped in front of the door marked 3501. She pulled a plain white letter-sized envelope from the pocket of her coat and slipped it under the door. She returned to the stairwell doorway, passed through it and started down the stairs. She looked at her wristwatch—it was twenty-six minutes after midnight. She walked down to the thirty-second floor and took the elevator to the lobby. She glanced out of the elevator door. The security guard station was still unoccupied. She quickly exited, nearly colliding with a man walking a dog in front of the building.

The dog walker, Ethan Lloyd, would later say he saw a woman wearing a long blue coat at nearly half-past twelve, alone, sporting sunglasses. A blue scarf wrapped around her head. Ethan considered the coat unnecessarily heavy for such a mild evening, thought the dark glasses were oddly inappropriate for the time of night, and added that the scarf did a very good job of hiding her face and hair. He watched the woman as she moved away from the building along Third Street. Lloyd lost sight of her heading north toward Market Street.

Ethan Lloyd entered the building wondering, as he had wondered going out less than twenty minutes earlier, why James Bingham, the lobby doorman, was not at his post.

Bingham was actually there, but Ethan Lloyd could not see him. James was on the floor, hidden behind the large desk with a broken neck.

The man who had unceremoniously snapped James Bingham’s neck moved to the door of apartment 3501 and he used a key to enter. Less than three minutes later he was about to open the apartment door to leave when he saw a white envelope slide under the door. He stood perfectly still. He heard footsteps moving away from the door and he heard the stairwell door close. He waited a full fifteen minutes before leaving and, as instructed, used a shoe found in a hall closet to keep the door from shutting completely.

The man left the building through the parking garage and he walked calmly down Third Street to Howard Street. Before reaching the intersection of Third and Hawthorne, just beyond the Thirsty Bear Brewing Company, the passenger door of a parked Cadillac opened to the sidewalk and he was invited by the driver to get in.

“Well?” the driver asked.

“Done deal,” Sal DiMarco answered.

“Did you ditch the key?”

“I did.”

Fuck me, Sal thought—remembering he had forgotten to ditch the key.

He carefully slipped the apartment key from his pocket and dropped it under the seat of the Cadillac while the driver was occupied watching for an opening in the busy street traffic.

“Any problems?”

“A bit of collateral damage, no worries.”

“Tell me about it,” the driver said as he pulled away from the curb.

The woman in blue continued walking up Third Street to Market Street, crossed Market to O’Farrell Street, went west to Powell Street and circled back down to Market.

The woman disappeared down into the Powell Street BART Station.

At half-past midnight the raucous crowd at Johnny Foley’s Irish Pub and Restaurant was so deafening that Tom Romano, Ira Fennessy and Jake Diamond had to escape. They clawed their way out onto O’Farrell Street heading for the Powell Street BART Station one block away to grab a taxi.

“Did you see that woman?” asked Ira, as they crawled into a cab.

“What woman?” Tom asked.

“Going down into the station. Did you see her, Jake?”

“I can’t see anything, Ira. What about her?”

“She was all in blue.”

“And…”

“Should have been green, don’t you think.”

“I can’t think,” Diamond said.

“Where to?” asked the cabbie.

“O’Reilly’s Bar, Green Street, North Beach,” Ira answered.

“Jesus, Ira, have a heart,” Jake pleaded. “Let’s end this nightmare.”

“Not until the fat lady sings Danny Boy.”

“God forgive us,” said Diamond. “We should have played pinochle.”

“Anyone in the market for cheap cigarettes?” the taxi driver asked as he pointed the cab toward Broadway.

Benny Carlucci stumbled out of The Chieftain Irish Pub on Third and Howard Streets. Carlucci was asked to leave—not very politely. He found himself out on the street alone. He tried to remember if he had arrived with anyone, but soon gave up trying.

He walked west on Howard Street toward Fourth, passing the Moscone Center on his left and the Metreon to his right. Benny walked down Fourth toward the train station at King Street. He spotted a black Cadillac parked halfway up on the sidewalk between Harrison and Bryant under the Highway 80 overpass.

There was definitely something not right about that car in that place at that time.

Benny was a curious kid. The vehicle stimulated his interest.

Carlucci casually approached the Cadillac, looking up and down Fourth Street as he moved. Other than what appeared to be three teenage boys horsing around a few streets down toward the train station, the area was deserted.

Benny expected to find another drunk, like so many others running and falling all over town—this one most likely passed out cold behind the wheel of the big car. Carlucci peered into the passenger door window. The vehicle was unoccupied and the keys dangled from the ignition. He quickly surveyed the street once again and tried the door. It was unlocked. Carlucci pulled it open and slipped into the driver’s seat. He was thinking a ride home in a Coupe de Ville would beat the hell out of a long drunken trip on the train and then a bus ride from the train station to his place on Cole Street off Fulton. The car started with the first turn of the key.
Carlucci turned left onto Bryant Street, turned up Third one block to Harrison, then Harrison onto Ninth Street heading toward Market. Market onto Hayes onto Franklin to Fulton Street and Benny Carlucci was on his way home in style.

The police cruiser, siren blaring, pulled Carlucci over at Masonic Avenue, across from the University of San Francisco, just three short blocks from Benny’s apartment.

The attractive woman who came out of the Civic Center BART station had little resemblance to the woman who had walked down into the Powell Street station twenty minutes earlier. Gone were the dark glasses. Also gone were the heavy blue coat and the blue scarf, replaced by an emerald green two-piece jogging suit and a mane of strawberry blond hair tied back with a green elastic terrycloth band. The .38 caliber Smith and Wesson was now strapped around her ankle.

Once above ground, on Hyde across from the plaza, she jogged in place for a minute before starting up McAllister to the Civic Center Parking Garage. She picked up her car and drove out Geary Boulevard to 25th and then up Lincoln Boulevard to Baker Beach for a solitary run in the sand.

Just before one in the morning, Blake Sanchez stood at a dark street corner in Oakland and watched as one of his least favorite neighbors moved the doormat on his porch and lifted a loose board. Sanchez saw the man place something through the opening and under the porch and then replace the board and the mat before entering the house.

Sanchez took another deep pull off his dope pipe and made a mental note.

What I don’t know would fill a book. What I didn’t know about her could fill a library. It felt as if I was getting closer to her, but it was like looking into a fun-house mirror. She had constructed so many layers of self-deception, she could deflect a jackhammer. I had no idea what she wanted and I convinced myself I didn’t care. It was not an attraction based on the intellectual or the spiritual. It was nothing logical, just biological. The sex wasn’t all that great, come to think of it—and I was thinking about it too often. I thought I was in love with her long after I was sure I didn’t like her. If she had any idea about what she wanted, she kept it a deep dark secret from herself. At first I saw something in her, honesty, selflessness—something she couldn’t see, because it was never really there.

“What do you think?”

“About what?” asked Ira Fennessy.

“I wrote that,” Tom Romano said, sitting between Jake and Ira in the back seat of the taxicab, holding a tattered sheet of paper in his hand.

“Why would you write something like that?” Ira asked.

Jake decided to stay out of it. His head felt the size of the Trans America Pyramid, point and all.

“I don’t know,” Tom said. “For fun I guess.”

The taxi pulled up in front of O’Reilly’s to let them out. The insane crowd was spilling out onto Green Street.

“You have no idea what fun is,” Ira said, “but you are about to find out.”

Jake wanted to protest. He desperately wanted to say something, anything that might rescue them.

But he couldn’t get his tongue to work.

“I liked what you wrote,” said the cab driver as they piled out of the taxi to join the mob.

It was well past midnight, a new day—but it was still St. Patrick’s Day in San Francisco.

TWO

Thursday, March 18, 2004.

Trouble is like rain.

It arrives when you least need it.

And when you are least prepared for it.

I opened my eyes and looked up.

6:04 A.M.

The time was projected on the ceiling in large bright green numbers and letters from the clock radio beside the bed—a birthday gift I thought was cute for about two days. It was like an advertisement for unfulfilled wishes. I had hoped it would be much later. I wanted to close my eyes again. Not move. But my bladder was a merciless bully.

I tossed off the bed covers and the cold hit me like an ice cream truck. I discovered I was dressed for going out, or at least dressed the way I had dressed to go out the night before.

I felt infinitely worse than I had when I fell into the bed only three hours earlier, which seemed incredible though not surprising. I tried remembering how I had made it home, but gave up on it quickly. Not a clue.

It had been nearly a year since I had moved back into the house near the Presidio, but I often woke up forgetting where I was. At that particular moment I was having a lot of trouble remembering who I was.

I slipped on my baby blue Crocs and staggered to the bathroom to urinate, intending to be back in the sack in record time. Instead, I finished my business and stumbled down the stairs, found my jacket on the steps halfway down, tried keeping my balance as I put it on and made it out to the front porch for more self-abuse.

I lit a Camel non-filtered cigarette.

It was colder outside than in, but wouldn’t be for long. The porch faced east and once the morning haze burned off it would be drenched in sunlight. The house had been marketed as being cool in summer. The pitch neglected to publicize the frigid in all other seasons feature. On a balmy day in late winter, which this day promised to be, when you entered the house was when you battled the elements.

Both cars were safe in the driveway, which led me to believe I had not driven either one the night before. If I had, one or both would have been twisted knots of tortured rubber, glass, vinyl and steel. Most of the automobiles in the neighborhood were less than two years old and had names that were German or Swedish. My vehicles were a brown 1978 Toyota Corona four-door sedan and a red 1963 Chevy Impala convertible. I loved them both for different reasons and used them accordingly. I was relieved to find them both intact after a stupidly excessive night of green beer and Jameson’s Irish whiskey. I am not a big drinker—but give me a good excuse like St. Patrick’s Day, a pal’s birthday, a Friday or Saturday night, or the joyful sounds of birds singing and I can usually keep up with the Jones’.

I dropped my unfinished cigarette to the ground, to be picked up and discarded at some later time, and returned to the chill inside. I removed the jacket, grabbed a bottle of water from the refrigerator, and I carefully negotiated the stairway. Up. I washed down a couple of Excedrin to ease my aching body—understanding it was like using a Band-Aid to treat a severed limb.

I struggled free of my party clothes and into sweat pants and shirt. There are many good things to say about down comforters which you forget completely when you are not under one. I covered myself to my chin in an urgent attempt to recall the wonders of goose feathers. I used the remote control to start up a Five For Fighting CD and prayed against all odds that the gentle piano would quiet the drum beating in my head. The projection on the ceiling insisted it was twenty-three minutes after six. I promised myself I would figure out how to disable the slideshow as soon as humanly possible. I closed my eyes and begged for sleep.

My prayers were answered for precisely six minutes.

My eyes popped open. I looked up. The lit numbers on the ceiling screamed six twenty-nine. Judging by the sound that woke me I expected to find myself sitting beside Quasimodo atop the cathedral tower, him pulling the rope with one hand and punching me in the side of my head with the other. Another peel of the deafening bell and another sock in the ear and then another. When it happened the fifth time, I realized at last it was the telephone. I struggled to grab the receiver and hit the talk button. It reduced the buzzing in my head by fifty per cent.

“Jake.”

“Darlene?”

“Since when does my name have five syllables?”

“Give me a break, Darlene. I’m not doing very well.”

“I’ll say. I’ve heard myna birds with better diction.”

“Did you call this early to torture me?”

“I called this early because Joey tried calling you and when he couldn’t reach you he called me.”

“I was outside smoking and must have missed the call.”

“Well, I was having a very pleasant dream featuring Hugh Jackman.”

“What’s so special about Hugh Jackman?”

“You’ll never know until you see the X-Men movies.”

“And what is it with grown women dreaming about movie stars?”

“It’s probably a bit like a World War Two G.I. keeping a photo of Betty Grable in his locker or like the picture of Rachel Weisz you keep in your wallet. Are you going to ask why Joey called, or do you want to continue trying to beat the subject of idol worship to death?”

“Why did Joey call?” I asked.

“Tony Carlucci called Joey so Joey called you.”

“I’m having some difficulty putting the two actions together.”

“The way you’re slurring your words makes me wonder if you could manage to put your two hands together,” Darlene said, without a hint of sarcasm. “Call Joey.”

“Are you going back to sleep?”

“Too late for that, Hugh’s gone. I may as well go for my morning run and get ready to go to the office. Pay some bills, stare at a silent telephone, and calculate the odds that you will show up there before noon. Call Joey.”

The line went dead.

Joey was Joseph Vongoli a.k.a. Joey Russo a.k.a. Joey Clams.

From the day I met him, and for the next five years, he was Joey Russo. Nearly a year ago he took a trip to Chicago to save my neck, and while he was at it he avenged the death of his sister and reinstated the family name.

Joey’s father, Louis Vongoli, a.k.a. Louie Clams, was forced out of the Chicago suburb of Cicero, Illinois by the Giancana family in the thirties. Vongoli relocated to San Francisco with his wife and son and he changed his name to Russo for protection against reprisal. When Joey reclaimed the name Vongoli he went from being known as Joey Russo to being known as Joey Clams, vongoli being the Italian word for clams and clams being easier to pronounce for Anglos.

Tony Carlucci was generally a world of trouble.

I called Joey to find out exactly what sort this time.

He picked up the phone after half a ring.

“Joey, what’s up?”

“Jake, you sound like crap.”

I’d managed three words and he already had me pegged.

“Too much Jameson’s last night.”

“Don’t tell me you went Irish pub hopping.”

“It was Ira Fennessy’s idea.”

“You call that an idea?”

“We got together to play cards with Tom Romano and Ira talked us into checking out Celtic landmarks instead.”

“Sorry to hear it. Tony Carlucci woke me up earlier this morning.”

“I heard.”

“Tony needs to speak with you as soon as possible.”

“What did I do this time, leave food on my plate?”

Carlucci ran a restaurant in North Beach where I ate occasionally because his mother was on some kind of mission to fatten me up. Not unlike my own mother’s crusade. If I didn’t clean my plate it caused undue grief. If Tony’s mom was not happy, Tony was not happy.

And when Tony Carlucci was not happy with you, he was a nightmare.

“It’s no joke, Jake. Tony sounded very upset. Don’t ask me what about, he wouldn’t say—but he insisted he had to talk with you right away. He will call at your office at nine and expects you to be there. Be there, Jake.”

Great.

“I certainly will be, Joey.”

“Give me a call as soon as Tony’s done with you.”

Interesting choice of words I thought.

I promised Joey I would call immediately after Tony was done with me and then I painfully negotiated my way across the hall toward the shower.

THREE

Kenny Gerard was nothing if not punctual.

Kenny was never late for work or, for that matter, early.

His work was that of a doorman slash security guard in a high-rise apartment building at Mission and Third. Kenny worked the day shift, seven in the morning until three in the afternoon, five days a week. His work area was limited to the building lobby, the street-front just outside the building entrance, and occasionally the elevator bank if a tenant needed help with shopping packages. Radios, iPods, portable televisions, chats with friends and book reading were all prohibited while on duty. Fraternizing with the tenants was frowned upon—though there were a good number of young woman residents who Kenny would have loved to do some fraternizing with.

Gerard bounced into the lobby at exactly seven on that Thursday morning. The first thing he noticed was that Jim Bingham was absent from his post.

The large duty desk was an L-shaped affair, fronted by a tall counter which hid the desktop and all but the top of the head of a seated person. Kenny often used the cover of the counter to take in a few pages of a graphic novel or to struggle with the Examiner crossword puzzle.

The days were long and boring.

Kenny sometimes thought he might prefer the three to eleven shift, when there was more activity—tenants coming in from their jobs and going out on the town. Women were friendlier in the evenings than they were rushing away in the morning to their workplaces. But Gerard would rather have the day shift than the graveyard. Kenny pitied James Bingham. The poor bastard was stuck with nothing to do and not much to see from eleven at night until he was replaced at seven. And at seven, Bingham was usually standing right at the doorway itching to get away, waiting on Kenny Gerard like a member of a tag team race.

But not this morning.

And Kenny Gerard continued to wonder where Bingham was until he discovered James hidden behind the security desk.

Bingham didn’t look good.

First at the scene were two San Francisco patrol car officers who were closest when the call came in. Murdoch, a rookie, and Winger, a three-year veteran. The pair were affectionately known at the station as the tall skinny kid and whatshisname.

Kenny Gerard thought they appeared to be very young, and he was correct.

The two officers looked down at the body, which was stuffed under the desk between the counter and the chair. Only Winger had touched the body, and only long enough to check for pulse. James Bingham’s head sat at an angle to his torso that brought Linda Blair to Kenny Gerard’s mind, though he didn’t mention it.

“Do you think he slipped way underneath the desk and snapped his neck?” Murdoch asked.

“I suppose it’s possible,” Winger answered.

“Who do we call now—the forensic guys, the M.E., or homicide?”

“Call it in as a D.O.A., cause of death unknown,” said Winger. “Let them figure out who the hell to send.”

Darlene Roman did her laps around Buena Vista Park alone.

She missed having Tug McGraw running beside her.

Her best friend Rose and Rose’s husband were taking the kids up to Stinson Beach for a four-day weekend and the two little girls pleaded with ‘Aunt’ Darlene to let Tug go along.

Darlene couldn’t say no because the girls were just too cute and the dog loved the beach. Darlene had joined them for dinner the night before and she left Tug there with them when she left for home, so they could get an early start north in the morning. At the dinner table with Rose, Daniel, and the two girls, Darlene wondered how she would like a family of her own.

She often speculated, but never for very long. There was a lot about being free to be herself she was not willing to give up. Sometimes Darlene felt it could be a selfish reluctance. Most of the time she understood she definitely had it in her to love and comfort and be loyal and be compassionate and passionate, but she was far from ready to have anyone be wholly dependent on her and would never let herself be totally dependent on another.

Meantime, she did have her trusty pooch.

And she did have her fun.

Darlene jogged in place for a minute before skipping up the front stairs and entering her small house opposite Buena Vista Park.
Norman Hall stood across Roosevelt Way in the park and watched as Darlene Roman closed the front door. Norman had been watching her jog around the park nearly every morning for more than a week. Hall sat down on a park bench and he stared at the house. He lit another cigarette and wondered where the dog was.

Sergeant Johnson was having one of his worst days in recent memory and it was not yet eight in the morning.

Things had actually been going downhill since the previous day. His wife had flown to Philadelphia in the afternoon. She was attending a big bash to celebrate her parents’ fortieth wedding anniversary on Saturday. Johnson politely declined the invitation to join her. He didn’t get along particularly well with his father-in-law. If he had to describe the man in two words they would be pompous ass. The man never missed the opportunity to insult Johnson, never blew a chance to remind his daughter she could have done a lot better choosing a husband. Johnson’s wife, Amy, came from Pennsylvania aristocracy—and marrying a police officer, the son of a San Francisco welder, was something her father and other members of her self-important dynasty could never understand. Even after the old man’s stroke, nearly eighteen months earlier, when for two months he could hardly speak, he managed somehow to articulate his lack of respect for his son-in-law and his disappointment in Amy for bringing someone so common into the family. Rocky could only imagine what they all would think if they had known Johnson in his late teens and early twenties, when he ran with the Polk Street Pirates, a gang that plagued the neighborhood with an extended rash of vandalism and petty burglary. But, then again, to these people, being a cop was not all that different from being a thug.

Johnson had seen plenty of ugly things in his sixteen years on the job and sometimes had difficulty seeing the distinction himself, but he always saw a bad cop as the exception and not the rule and did not abide with anyone who preached police corruption was a given. He never saw himself as a knight in shining armor, but he knew when citizens needed protection or sought justice a good cop was their best bet.

And he was a good cop.

Every time Johnson was forced to deal with Amy’s dad he was given grief and the only thing that kept him from tearing the old goat’s head off after another barrage of unveiled insults was the thought of his own father and the pride in his dad’s eyes when Johnson graduated from the police academy after all of the troubled years when Bert Johnson feared his only son might end up on the wrong side of the jail cell bars.

The only ally he had in his wife’s family was Amy’s mother, who apparently cared enough about her daughter to wish her well. But to have to put up with an arrogant jerk-off like her husband for forty years made Amy’s mother a saint or a masochist or both. Johnson felt sorry for the woman, but not sorry enough to join the festivities in the Quaker State.

Amy, of course, was on his side.

She recognized his dilemma. She was very familiar with her father’s rudeness and understood Johnson’s reluctance to subject himself to verbal abuse. Amy Johnson could not insist her husband accompany her to Philadelphia, nor could she ignore her mother’s pleas that Amy be there.

So Johnson stayed at home alone.

And he tried preparing his own dinner after Amy left but he burnt the crap out of it.

He was cajoled into a drink fest with one of the old gang from his Polk Street days and was sick as a dog and couldn’t sleep, especially without Amy there to scold him and then hold him.

After lying in a very hot bath for more than an hour and drinking more than a gallon of water he finally achieved some semblance of sleep.

And less than two hours later the telephone rudely woke him.

Now, before eight in the morning, the sergeant was crowded behind a desk in the lobby of a high-rise apartment house looking down at a dead doorman.

The lobby was a menagerie by now. Police officers escorting tenants from the elevators out to the street, keeping them away from the security desk and the victim, more officers outside interviewing tenants and trying to keep rubber-necking pedestrians moving along the street, crime scene investigators collecting evidence, ambulance personnel waiting for the body.

Dr. Steven Altman, the Medical Examiner, rose from the corpse to stand beside Johnson.

“How did he break his neck?” Johnson asked.

“Someone broke it for him,” Altman said.

“Great.”

“Where is the lovely Lieutenant Lopez?”

“She has the day off.”

“Lucky girl.”

Johnson tried to imagine anything less appealing than attempting to create order out of this chaos.

For an instant, he thought that being in Philadelphia wishing a pretentious old fuck a happy anniversary might be worse. But maybe not.

Blurbs From Reviewers:

Author Bio:

J. L. ABRAMO was born in the seaside paradise of Brooklyn, New York on Raymond Chandler’s fifty-ninth birthday. A long-time educator, journalist, theatre and film actor and director, he received a BA in Sociology at the City College of New York and an MA in Social Psychology at the University of Cincinnati.

Abramo is the author of the Jake Diamond mystery series including Catching Water in a Net (recipient of the MWA/PWA Award for Best First Private Eye Novel), Clutching at Straws, Counting to Infinity, and the prequel Chasing Charlie Chan—as well as the stand-alone crime thriller, Gravesend.

Abramo is a member of the Mystery Writers of America, International Thriller Writers, Private Eye Writers of America and Screen Actors Guild.

The author lives in Denver, Colorado.

Catch Up:

Tour Participants:

 1. 04/23/2015 Review, Giveaway @ 3 Partners in Shopping
2. 04/29/2015 Review, Giveaway @ Deal Sharing Aunt
3. 05/04/2015 Review @ VicsMedia Room
4. 05/07/2015 Guestpost & giveaway @ Ryder Islingtons Blog
5. 05/09/2015 Interview & giveaway @ Hott Books
6. 05/12/2015 Review @ Books, Movies, Reviews. Oh my!
7. 05/19/2015 Interview @ Writers and Authors
8. 05/19/2015 Showcase @ Fictionzeal
9. 05/25/2015 Guestpost & giveaway @ The Top Shelf
10. 05/27/2015 Guest Post @ Ryder Islingtons Blog
11. 05/28/2015 Review @ Quirky Book Reviews

Get Your Own Copy!

This is a giveaway hosted by Partners In Crime Virtual Book Tours for J.L. Abramo & Down and Out Books. There will be THREE winners of an ebook copy of Circling the Runway by J.L. Abramo. The giveaway is open to US residents only. The giveaway begins on April 18th, 2015 and runs through June 2nd, 2015. Visit each of the tour stops for additional giveaways! a Rafflecopter giveaway

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SHOWCASE: Dead In Dubai by Marilynn Larew

Posted by Ryder Islington, author of Ultimate Justice, a Trey Fontaine Mystery

A CIA thriller! I love those. After reading the synopsis and an excerpt of Dead in Dubai, I’m intrigued. This went straight to my TBR list. Looks veeeery in-ter-est-ing.

Below is the synopsis, an excerpt and the author bio and ways to reach the author, plus a list of places where you can find reviews, interviews, and guest posts, and at the end, an opportunity to enter a drawing for a free copy of Dead In Dubai. 

Dead in Dubai

by Marilynn Larew

on Tour April 27 – May 31, 2015

Book Details:

Genre: Thriller, Espionage

Published by: Artemis Press

Publication Date: April 30, 2015

Number of Pages: 283

ISBN: 978-0-9910912-4-9

Purchase Your Copy:

Synopsis:

Why is CIA officer George Branson dead?

Out of the Agency and looking for work, former CIA analyst Lee Carruthers accepts the request of George’s wife that Lee go to Dubai and find out what really happened. When she arrives, she walks into a deadly war between rival Merchants of Death for market share. She learns that George had worked for each man under a different name, one in Dubai and one in Istanbul. With his own, that gave George three identities. Which man was murdered? Had George really been working for the Agency, or had he sold out and, if so, to whom? Who are the men following her? And why does she keep finding diamonds?

Read an excerpt:

Is there life after the CIA? I wondered as I stamped my foot into the bindings of first one ski and then the other. I was among the few early birds on the slopes; we were hoping to avoid the rush of celebrities modeling their designer ski togs. The view was spectacular! Snowy hills covered with pine trees stretched away and away. I lowered my goggles and pushed off. As I gathered speed I laughed aloud at the awesome feel of the wind in my face, the best antidote to my time in the Algerian desert I could think of. Halfway down the piste, something buzzed past my face. Then I heard a crack. Somebody was shooting at me? I bent as far down as I could and snowplowed to the side of the run, stopping just before I got to the trees. Great! Nothing. Not even a knife.

I ripped off my goggles and kicked out of the bindings. Stepping carefully into the woods, bent almost double, I advanced with a ski pole in each hand. I wish my gear wasn’t burgundy, I thought. On the other hand, I hadn’t expected to have to channel the Fourth Mountain Brigade that morning. I heard steps crunching toward me in the snow and ducked behind a tree. A man in black wearing a black face mask, his rifle held lightly in his right hand, slipped carefully forward, scanning to the left and to the right. He was looking too high to see me. When he was half a meter away, I yelled and launched myself at him with the ski poles thrust forward, but he deflected them with the rifle. He raised the rifle for another shot. I threw myself at him again, and he dropped the rifle. I grabbed it, and swung it hard, hitting him in the left shoulder. I reversed the rifle, backed up and fired. Off balance. Tried again.

He turned and ran. Should I follow him? What would I do with him if I caught him? I considered the rifle. I could hardly take it back to the ski lodge with me. I dropped the clip and whacked it up against the side of a tree, sending a jolt all the way down to my toes, and buried it in the snow by the side of the trail, throwing the clip as far as I could into the woods. I retrieved my ski poles and stood panting, heart pounding. I started to tremble and told my body it would have to wait until I got to the bottom of the slope, but it paid no attention, so I trembled.

“Who?” I asked myself. “Who?” I sat down with my back against a tree for a count of five hundred before I stopped shaking. Blowback from Morocco?

I stomped the snow off my boots and slipped them into the ski bindings. I couldn’t find my goggles, but I wanted to be in cover as soon as possible so I didn’t spend much time looking for them. With a shooter in play, I felt terribly exposed. Maybe the shooter had a friend. Unarmed. I was unarmed. Not even a nail file. I wanted a gun and badly. Where could I get a gun in the peaceful countryside of Switzerland? Breaking into a gun shop was always an option.

At the bottom of the slope, I kicked my way out of my skis and carried them back into the rack. I felt cold deep down inside, and gin seemed advisable. A drink in the lounge? Too public. Back in the room I made one of my very dry martinis—gin and a cube of ice. Maybe that would help me unscramble my brain. I looked at my watch. Ten thirty. Drinking in the morning was a sure sign of something or other. I finished the drink, but I was still cold. I took a long, hot shower and lay curled up under the duvet remembering.

I had been sent to Morocco to find a missing colleague and wound up fighting my way out of a terrorist camp. They killed Kemal. I touched the bloodstained pearl hanging around my neck. I killed his killer, but Kemal was still dead.

Would the Pure Warriors of Islam send an assassin all the way to Switzerland to get me? Possibly, but it seemed unlikely. Whoever he was, he knew me, and I didn’t know him. I went to sleep listing the people who might want to kill me.

When I woke, I ordered lunch from room service. The waiter who delivered it looked like an Arab. Arab guest workers in Switzerland? The shooter could disappear into the crowd of Arab workers. He might even be one of them. If I couldn’t find and neutralize him, I was going to have to cut and run. I hate to do that, but I disapprove of assassination, particularly my own.

Author Bio:

MARILYNN LAREW is a historian who has published in such disparate fields as American colonial and architectural history, Vietnamese military history, and terrorism, and has taught courses in each of them in the University of Maryland System.

Before settling on the Mason-Dixon line in southern Pennsylvania, she lived in Nebraska, Iowa, Missouri, Georgia, Wisconsin, Ohio, South Carolina, Maryland, in Manila, and on Okinawa. It’s no surprise that she likes to travel. When she’s climbing the first hill in Istanbul to Topkapi Palace, strolling around Hoan Kiem Lake in Hanoi, or exploring the back streets of Kowloon, she is not just having fun, she’s looking for locations for her next novel.

When she’s not traveling, she is writing or reading. She writes thrillers and likes to read them. She also likes to read Vietnamese history and Asian history in general, as well as military history. She lives with her husband in a 200-year-old farmhouse in southern Pennsylvania.
She belongs to Sisters in Crime, the Guppies, and the Chinese Military History Society.

Catch Up:

Tour Participants:

1. 04/27/2015 Showcase @ 3 Partners in Shopping, Nana, Mommy, & Sissy, Too!
2. 04/30/2015 Guestpost @ Writers and Authors
3. 05/03/2015 Interview @ Suspense Magazine
4. 05/04/2015 Review @ Vics Media Room
5. 05/19/2015 Interview @ Hott Books
6. 05/–/2015 Review @ It’s a Mad Mad World
7. 05/–/2015 Review @ Mallory Heart Reviews

Giveaway:

This is a giveaway hosted by Partners In Crime Virtual Book Tours for Marilynn Larew. There will be TWO winners of an ebook copy of Dead in Dubai by Marilynn Larew. The giveaway is open to US residents only. The giveaway begins on April 27th, 2015 and runs through June 2nd, 2015. Visit the tour stops for additional giveaways!

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SHOWCASE: Big Mojo by Jack Getze

Posted by Ryder Islington, author of Ultimate Justice, A Trey Fontaine Mystery

Take a look at that gorgeous cover! Jack Getze is back with another Austin Carr Mystery. Below is a synopsis, excerpt and a bio of Mr. Getze. And don’t forget to check out other sites with reviews, interviews, and guest posts, plus opportunities to win a free copy of Big Mojo.

Big Mojo

by Jack Getze

on Tour May 2015

Book Details:

Genre: Screwball Mystery (Though not a cozy, it’s close ;))

Published by: Down & Out Books

Publication Date: Sept.17, 2014

Number of Pages: 176

ISBN: 978-1937495763

Series: Austin Carr Mystery #3 (Each is a Stand Alone Novel)

Purchase Links:

Synopsis:

“Gordon Gekko meets Janet Evanovich in this wry and winning caper—Jack Getze does it again!” —Hank Phillippi Ryan, Agatha, Anthony and Mary Higgins Clark Award-winning author of Truth Be Told

Wall Street’s miasmal garbage washes up on the Jersey Shore when a small time broker falls in love: Is he attracted to the beautiful lady—or her brother’s inside information? Held spellbound by a steamy, auburn-haired woman with a dubious past and a get-rich-quick, insider trading scheme, Austin Carr knocks down a beehive of bad-acting Bonacellis, including the ill-tempered “Mr. Vic” Bonacelli, who wants his redhead back, and local mob lieutenant Angelina “Mama Bones” Bonacelli, architect of a strange and excruciating death trap for the fast-talking stockbroker she calls smarty pants. To survive, Austin must unravel threads of jealousy, revenge and new affections, discover the fate of a pseudo ruby called the Big Mojo and slam the lid on a pending United States of America vs. Austin Carr insider trading case. Can Austin and his Jersey Shore mouthpiece possibly out maneuver the savvy U.S. District Attorney from Manhattan? Will anything matter for Austin ever again if Mama Bones flips that switch?

Read an excerpt:

My gaze shifts back to Patricia, successfully avoiding her large and available cleavage. Not an easy trick, even with the red hair as an alternate attraction. “Before I answer Vic’s question, let me make sure I have this straight, Ms. Willis. Your brother, a big shot Manhattan attorney, is working on a merger agreement between Fishman Corporation and Gene-Pak Industries; that is, your brother is helping negotiate and prepare — actually write the legal merger documents. Is that right?”

&nbdp;

Author Bio:

Former newsman Jack Getze is Fiction Editor for Anthony nominated Spinetingler Magazine, one of the internet’s oldest websites for noir, crime, and horror short stories. His Austin Carr Mysteries BIG NUMBERS, BIG MONEY, BIG MOJO and BIG MOUTH (a short story) were published by Down and Out Books in 2013 and 2014, with another novel BIG SHOES scheduled for 2015. His short fiction has appeared in A Twist of Noir, Beat to a Pulp, The Big Adios and the 2014 anthology, Down, Out and Dead.

Catch Up:

Tour Participants:

Don’t forget to visit the tour sites! Many are hosting individual giveaways where you could win your very own ebook copy of Big Mojo!

1. 05/01/2015 Review @ 3 Partners in Shopping
2. 05/04/2015 Guestpost @ Writers and Authors
3. 05/04/2015 Review @ Deal Sharing Aunt
4. 05/07/2015 Review @ Creatures n Crooks / Buried Under Books
5. 05/14/2015 Guestpost @ Ryder Islingtons Blog
6. 05/16/2015 Review @ Quirky Book Reviews
7. 05/18/2015 Review @ For Life After…
8. 05/25/2015 Review @ Vics Media Room

Get More Great Reads at Partners In Crime Virtual Book Tours

SHOWCASE: Miracle Man by William Leibowitz

Posted by Ryder Islington, author of Ultimate Justice

Just the cover of this book made me want to read it and then there was the synopsis and excerpt! Check them out below, and you’ll be putting on your TBR list too. And keep scrolling down to find a chance to win a copy of Miracle Man, plus other sites with reviews of the book, and guest posts and interviews, so you can get to know a little more about William Leibowitz and this intriguing book.

Miracle Man

by William Leibowitz

on Tour April 2015

 

Book Details:

Genre: Thriller

Published by: Manifesto Media Group

Publication Date: January 2014

Number of Pages: 430

ISBN: 9780989866217

Purchase Links:

 

Synopsis:

Miracle Man won “Best Thriller 2014” from National Pacific Book Awards and has received over 60 5 Star reviews in the U.S. and UK.

REVERED REVILED REMARKABLE

The victim of an unspeakable crime, an infant rises to become a new type of superhero. Unlike any that have come before him, he is not a fanciful creation of animators, he is real.

So begins the saga of Robert James Austin, the greatest genius in human history. But where did his extraordinary intelligence come from?

As agents of corporate greed vie with rabid anti-Western radicals to destroy him, an obsessive government leader launches a bizarre covert mission to exploit his intellect. Yet Austin’s greatest fear is not of this world.

Aided by two exceptional women, one of whom will become his unlikely lover, Austin struggles against abandonment and betrayal. But the forces that oppose him are more powerful than even he can understand.

 

Read an excerpt:

PROLOGUE

A tall figure wearing a black-hooded slicker walked quickly through the night carrying a large garbage bag. His pale face was wet with rain. He had picked a deserted part of town. Old warehouse buildings were being gutted so they could be converted into apartments for non-existent buyers. There were no stores, no restaurants and no people.

“Who’d wanna live in this shit place?” he muttered to himself. Even the nice neighborhoods of this dismal city had more “For Sale” signs than you could count.

He was disgusted with himself and disgusted with her, but they were too young to be burdened. Life was already hard enough. He shook his head incredulously. She had been so damn sexy, funny, full of life. Why the hell couldn’t she leave well enough alone? She should have had some control.

He wanted to scream-out down the ugly street, “It’s her fucking fault that I’m in the rain in this crap neighborhood trying to evade the police.”

But he knew he hadn’t tried to slow her down either. He kept giving her the drugs and she kept getting kinkier and kinkier and more dependent on him and that’s how he liked it. She was adventurous and creative beyond her years. Freaky and bizarre. He had been enthralled, amazed. The higher she got, the wilder she was. Nothing was out of bounds. Everything was in the game.

And so, they went farther and farther out there. Together. With the help of the chemicals. They were co-conspirators, co-sponsors of their mutual dissipation. How far they had traveled without ever leaving their cruddy little city. They were so far ahead of all the other kids.

He squinted, and his mind reeled. He tried to remember in what month of their senior year in high school the drugs became more important to her than he was. And in what month did her face start looking so tired, her complexion prefacing the ravages to follow, her breath becoming foul as her teeth and gums deteriorated. And in what month did her need for the drugs outstrip his and her cash resources.

He stopped walking and raised his hooded head to the sky so that the rain would pelt him full-on in the face. He was hoping that somehow this would make him feel absolved. It didn’t. He shuddered as he clutched the shiny black bag, the increasingly cold wet wind blowing hard against him. He didn’t even want to try to figure out how many guys she had sex with for the drugs.

The puddle-ridden deserted street had three large dumpsters on it. One was almost empty. It seemed huge and metallic and didn’t appeal to him. The second was two-thirds full. He peered into it, but was repulsed by the odor, and he was pretty sure he saw the quick moving figures of rodents foraging in the mess. The third was piled above the brim with construction debris.

Holding the plastic bag, he climbed up on the rusty lip of the third dumpster. Stretching forward, he placed the bag on top of some large garbage bags which were just a few feet inside of the dumpster’s rim. As he climbed down, his body looked bent and crooked and his face was ashen. Tears streamed down his cheeks and bounced off his hands. He barely could annunciate, “Please forgive me,” as he shuffled away, head bowed and snot dripping from his nose.

1

Edith and Peter Austin sat stiffly in the worn wooden chairs of Dr. Ronald Draper’s waiting room as if they were being graded on their posture by the receptionist. Edith’s round cherubic face was framed by graying hair that was neatly swept back and pinned. Her dress was a loose fitting simple floral print that she had purchased at a clearance sale at JC Penney. Their four year old son, Bobby, sat between them, his shiny black dress shoes swinging from legs too short to touch the floor. Edith brushed the boy’s long sandy hair away from his light blue eyes that were intensely focused on the blank wall in front of him. Peter, dressed in his construction foreman’s clothes, yawned deeply having been up since five in the morning, his weathered face wrinkled well beyond his years. Looking down at his heavy work boots, he placed his hand firmly on Edith’s knee to quiet her quivering leg. When they were finally shown into Draper’s office, the receptionist signaled that Bobby should stay with her.

Ronald Draper was the Head of the Department of Child Psychology at Mount Sinai Hospital. A short portly man in his late forties, the few remaining strands of his brown hair were caked with pomade and combed straight across his narrow head. His dark eyes appeared abnormally large as a result of the strong lenses in his eye glasses and his short goatee accentuated his receding chin. Glancing at his wrist watch while he greeted Peter and Edith, Draper motioned for them to take a seat on the chairs facing his cluttered desk. Draper had been referred by Bobby’s pediatrician when Bobby’s condition didn’t improve.

“Describe to me exactly what you’re concerned about,” Draper said.

Edith cleared her throat. “It started about a year ago. At any time, without warning, Bobby will get quiet and withdrawn. Then he’ll go over to his little chair and sit down, or he’ll lie down on the window seat in the living room. He’ll stare directly in front of him as if in a trance and then his lids will close halfway. His body will be motionless. Maybe his eyes will blink occasionally. That’s it. This can go on for as much as forty minutes each time it happens. When visitors to our house have seen it, they thought Bobby was catatonic.”

Draper looked up from the notes he was taking. “When Bobby comes to, do you ask him about it?”

Edith’s hands fidgeted. “Yes. He says, ‘I was just thinking about some things.’ Then, when I ask him what things, he says, ‘those things I’m reading about.’”

Draper’s eyes narrowed. “Did you say, things he was reading about?”

Edith nodded.

“He’s four, correct?”

Edith nodded again and Draper scribbled more notes.

“Do you question him further?”

“I ask him why he gets so quiet and still. I’ve told him it’s real spooky.”

“And how does he respond to that, Mrs. Austin?”

Edith shook her head. “He says he’s just concentrating.”

“And what other issues are there?”

“Bobby always slept much less than other children, even as an infant. And he never took naps. Then, starting about a year ago, almost every night, he has terrible nightmares. He comes running into our bed crying hysterically. He’s so agitated he’ll be shaking and sometimes even wets himself.”

Draper put his pen down and leaned back in his worn leather chair, which squeaked loudly. “And what did your pediatrician, Dr. Stafford, say about all this?”

As Edith was about to reply, Peter squeezed her hand and said, “Dr. Stafford told us not to worry. He said Bobby’s smart and imaginative and bad dreams are common at this age for kids like him. And he said Bobby’s trances are caused by his lack of sleep, that they’re just a sleep substitute—like some kind of ‘waking nap.’ He told us Bobby will outgrow these problems. We thought the time had come to see a specialist.”

Tapping his pen against his folder, Draper asked Edith and Peter to bring Bobby into his office and wait in the reception area so he could speak with the boy alone. “I’m sure we won’t be long,” he said.

His chin resting in his hand, Draper looked at the four year old who sat in front of him with his long hair and piercing light blue eyes. “So, Robert. I understand that you enjoy reading.”

“It’s the passion of my life, Doctor.”

Draper laughed. “The passion of your life. That’s quite a dramatic statement. And what are you reading now?”

“Well, I only like to read non-fiction, particularly, astronomy, physics, math and chemistry. I’ve also just started reading a book called ‘Gray’s Anatomy.’”

“Gray’s Anatomy?” Draper barely covered his mouth as he yawned, recalling how many times he had met with toddlers who supposedly read the New York Times. In his experience, driven parents were usually the ones who caused their kids’ problems. “That’s a book most medical students dread. It seems awfully advanced for a child of your age.” Walking over to his bookcase, Draper stretched to reach the top shelf and pulled down a heavy tome. Blowing the dust off the binding, he said, “So, is this the book that you’ve been reading?”

Bobby smiled. “Yes, that’s it.”

“How did you get a copy?”

“I asked my Dad to get it for me from the library and he did.”

“And why did you want it?”

“I’m curious about the human body.”

“Oh, is that so? Well, let’s have you read for me, and then I’ll ask you some questions about what you read.”

Smiling smugly as he randomly opened to a page in the middle of the book, Draper put the volume down on a table in front of Bobby. Bobby stood on his toes so that he could see the page. The four-year-old began to read the tiny print fluently, complete with the proper pronunciation of medical Latin terms. His eyes narrowing, Draper scratched his chin. “Ok, Bobby. Now reading words on a page is one thing. But understanding them is quite another. So tell me the meaning of what you just read.”

Bobby gave Draper a dissertation on not only what he had just read, but how it tied it into aspects of the first five chapters of the book which he had read previously on his own. By memory, Bobby also directed Draper to specific pages of the book identifying what diagrams Draper would find that supported what Bobby was saying.

Glassy eyed, Draper stared at the child as he grabbed the book and put it back on the shelf. “Bobby, that was very interesting. Your reading shows real promise. Now let’s do a few puzzles.”

Pulling out a Rubik’s cube from his desk drawer, Draper asked, “Have you ever seen one of these?”

Bobby shook his head. “What is it?”

Draper handed the cube to Bobby and explained the object of the game. “Just explore it. Take your time—there’s no rush.”

Bobby manipulated the cube with his tiny hands as he examined it from varying angles. “I think I get the idea.”

“OK, Bobby—try to solve it.”

Thirty seconds later, Bobby handed the solved puzzle to Draper.

Draper’s eyes widened as he massaged his eyebrows. “I see. Well, let me mix it up really good this time and have you try again.” Twenty seconds after being handed the cube a second time, Bobby was passing it back to Draper solved again. Beginning to perspire, Draper removed his suit jacket.

“Bobby, we’re going to play a little game. I’m going to slowly say a number, and then another number, and another after that—and so forth, and as I call them out I’m going to write them down. When I’m finished, I’m going to ask you to recite back whatever numbers in the list you can remember. Is that clear?”

“Sure Doctor,” replied Bobby.

“Ok, here we go”. At approximately one second intervals, Draper intoned, “729; 302; 128; 297; 186; 136; 423; 114; 169; 322; 873; 455; 388; 962; 666; 293; 725; 318; 131; 406.”

Bobby responded immediately with the full list in perfect order. He then asked Draper if he would like to hear it backwards. “Sure, why not,” replied Draper.

By the time Draper tired of this game, he was up to 80 numbers, each comprised of five digits. Bobby didn’t miss a single one. “Can we stop this game now please, Doctor? It’s getting pretty monotonous, don’t you think?”

Draper loosened his tie. He went through his remaining routines of tests and puzzles designed to gauge a person’s level of abstract mathematical reasoning, theoretical problem solving, linguistic nuances, and vocabulary. Rubbing his now oily face in his hands, he said, “Let’s take a break for a few minutes.”

“Why Doctor? I’m not tired.”

“Well, I am.”

Taking Bobby back to the waiting room, Draper apologized to Peter and Edith for the long period during which he had sequestered Bobby.

“Is everything alright, Doctor?” Edith asked.

“Why don’t you take Bobby to the cafeteria for a snack and meet me back here with him in thirty minutes,” Draper replied.
When the Austins returned to Draper’s office, Draper had two of his colleagues with him. He advised Peter and Edith that his associates would assist him in administering a few IQ tests to Bobby.

Peter’s eyes narrowed as he looked at Draper. “What does that have to do with the nightmares and trances, Doctor? We came here for those issues – not to have Bobby’s intelligence tested.”

“Be patient, please, Mr. Austin. Everything is inter-connected. We’re trying to get a complete picture.”

Draper and his associates, one a Ph.D in psychology and the other a Ph.D in education, administered three different types of intelligence tests to Bobby (utilizing abbreviated versions due to time constraints). First, the Slosson Intelligence Test, then the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children – Revised (WISC-R) and finally, the Stanford-Binet L-M.

By the time the exams were concluded, Draper’s shirt was untucked and perspiration stains protruded from beneath his arms even though the room was cool. He brought Bobby back to the reception area, and took Peter and Edith into a corner of the room, out of Bobby’s earshot. “Your child isn’t normal. Are any of your other children like this?”

2

At 2:00 the next afternoon, Draper stood in the Austin’s living room.

“So, Doctor, what exactly do you want to see? Although, I’m not sure why you need to see anything,” said Edith, her brow furrowed.

“It would be very helpful if I could see Robert’s bedroom and the family room you mentioned, the books in the house, and the items that Robert plays with.”

“And the point of all that, Doctor? How does that relate to why we came to see you?”

“Mrs. Austin, as I told your husband—everything is interconnected.”

First, Edith showed Draper the living room book shelves on which Bobby’s college level text books were piled. Draper examined the stacks of treatises on astrophysics, mathematics and bio-chemistry that Bobby had printed-out from the internet which were strewn on a low table next to the computer. Draper photographed them as Edith described how Bobby would stand, surrounded by open books that he would read in an ongoing rotation, his concentration level so intense that he was oblivious to all household noises and activities.
Then came the family room where Edith showed Draper Bobby’s Lego constructions and explained how in a non-stop frenetic four hours of unbroken concentration, he would construct, without directions or diagrams, Lego projects comprised of 5000 individual pieces that would perfectly replicate the pictures on the Lego box.

As he snapped a few photos of the Lego creations, Draper’s face looked pale. “When did you first notice that your son was –shall we say — precocious?”

Edith smiled. “It started early. Bobby taught himself from the kids’ DVDs that we played on TV while he was in his playpen. He loved when we read to him and showed him pictures. He starting talking at five months, and his vocabulary grew quickly. By eleven months, he was a good speller. When Bobby was one, Peter found out by accident that he could already read, and by fifteen months he was reading and understanding fifth grade level books. At two, he was doing complicated arithmetic, all in his head. He got better at it every day.”

Examining Bobby’s bedroom, Draper thought he was in a college dorm. Open textbooks were piled everywhere. There was a large blackboard leaning against a wall that was covered with what Draper recognized as lengthy trigonometry equations, scribbled in the immature hand-writing of a four year old. Draper snapped a photo. On the floor were a few open boxes of plastic molecule building models—the kind that are used by pre-med students in college organic chemistry classes. Taped to one of the walls was a life-sized color diagram of a male human body which showed every muscle, bone and blood vessel in medical school level detail. In another corner of the room, was Bobby’s little five foot long junior bed with its railroad train-motif headboard, footboard, sheets and pillows, and a teddy bear dressed in a train conductor’s uniform sitting on the bed waiting for Bobby.

As Draper walked around the room taking photos, he almost tripped on some long strings that were tightly taped to pieces of furniture, each string at a different angle from the other, with paper circles of varying sizes hanging from them. He found a ruler and protractor on Bobby’s shelf and measured the angles and relative distances between the cut-out circles and the various strings from which they were suspended. Draper photographed it.

On the credenza, Draper picked up an odd looking home-made contraption that had instructions wrapped around it that were scribbled in a child’s handwriting. “What’s this?” Draper asked Edith.

“It’s a perpetual calendar that Bobby designed. If you follow the directions, it will let you do what Bobby does in his head.”

“What exactly?”

“It lets you figure out the day of the week on which any given date, past or future, would fall. Want to see how it works?” asked Edith.

“I can’t possibly believe that it’s accurate. I’ve never heard of such a thing.” Draper tested it out ten times.

“Robert designed this? When?”

“About a year and a half ago,” Edith replied.

Draper pulled out his camera and took a picture of it.

“Is there anything else I can show you, Doctor?” asked Edith.

“What I’ve seen is quite sufficient. Thank you for your hospitality.”

Several days later, at the Psychology Department’s weekly meeting, Draper said, “This boy, Robert Austin; there’s something unusual happening here. It doesn’t seem possible. But what I’ve recounted to you is fully accurate and not exaggerated, and Doctors Lewis and Mardin participated in the testing of the child.”

Draper then projected onto a screen the photographs he had taken in the Austin house and his list of measurements on the 3-D mobile made from string. Everyone stared at the photo of the mobile.

One of the psychologists said, “This is just a play thing the kid made, nothing more than that. Arts and crafts.” A part-time assistant of Draper, a graduate student in astrophysics, kept looking at the projection screen. He started to type into his laptop as he continued to view the projected photograph. He kept typing, looking at the projection screen, and pressing “enter” on his computer emphatically.

“Doctor Draper, with all due respect, I don’t think that mobile is meaningless arts and crafts. I’ll hook my computer up to the projection screen so I can show you something.” He was able to position on one side of the screen, Bobby’ mobile and juxtaposed on the other side of the screen, a scientifically accurate 3-D extrapolation diagram of the Andromeda Constellation which he had pulled off the internet. He super-imposed one side of the screen atop the other. There was a perfect match. Bobby’s string mobile perfectly represented the Constellation down to the exact degrees of spatial relationships between its components. Silence overtook the room.

3

Draper called Dr. Herman Knoll, the Chancellor of the city’s Board of Education, a recognized authority on gifted children.

“Dr. Knoll, I’ve discovered a highly unusual young boy. I would like the Board’s assistance in verifying the findings that my department has made.”

Knoll said, “I’ve never received this kind of request from Mt. Sinai before, so am I safe in assuming that this situation is really that special?”

“You are, Chancellor. I’m confident your time will not be wasted.”

“OK then. Send me your full report and I’ll review it with my staff. Then we’ll schedule an interview with the boy and his parents, and prepare to conduct our own tests.”

Two weeks after receiving Draper’s detailed report, Knoll called Draper.

“Well Doctor, Robert Austin does seem to be exceptional. But your conclusions appear extreme. Perhaps the Board’s experience over the years has brought us into contact with more highly gifted children than your department has encountered. You know, there are more children who are gifted in mathematics and science than you may think, and photographic memories are not that rare, particularly among the gifted.”

“But Robert isn’t just a child who can do calculations in his head and has a photographic memory. He has theoretical problem solving and mathematical reasoning abilities that are extraordinary, with very high powers of abstraction, conceptualization and synthesis. With all due respect, Doctor, in twenty-five years of being exposed to gifted children, I’ve never met anyone who comes even close to this boy. I’m aware of the differences —and I believe we’re talking here, not about ‘highly’ or ‘exceptionally’ gifted. I believe Robert fits into the category of ‘profound intelligence’ and we know how rare that is Doctor.”

“Coordinate with the parents and my secretary, and make an appointment. We’ll get to the bottom of it and see just how profound this boy really is.”

Dr. Draper didn’t have an easy time with Peter and Edith in getting them to agree to have Bobby tested by Knoll’s experts. But he did prevail, and after Knoll’s tests confirmed Draper’s conclusions, Draper had an even harder time when Knoll brought the Austin case to the attention of Raymond Massey, the dean of the State Board of Regents examiners. Massey wanted his experts to also examine Bobby. Exasperated, Peter told Draper, “Look Doctor. How many people have to test Bobby to confirm what Edith and I have known since he was five months old? My son is highly unusual. That’s obvious. He’s been tested enough. And we still haven’t gotten any answers to the questions we’re concerned about. His nightmares persist and so do his withdrawals. Does anybody care about that? Is anybody testing anything to fix that?”

“Mr. Austin, please. I understand your frustration. But you are asking us to help you with a boy that we are trying to truly understand. Hasn’t it occurred to you that his intelligence and these problems you are concerned about are products of each other—are interconnected in some way? The more we learn about Robert, the more likely we’ll be able to help him.”

Edith piped in, “You know, he’s not a guinea pig or a circus oddity. He’s our son and deserves to be helped.”

Draper nodded. “But we’re not hurting Robert. In fact, I think he somewhat enjoys these tests and interviews. He thinks they’re games. He’s entertained by them. The last thing he said to Dr. Knoll was, ‘So when are you guys going to give me some tough questions?’”

Edith and Peter relented and the experts of the State Regents Board subjected Bobby to six different intelligence tests including those designed for the most rarified levels. Their conclusions were the same as Draper and Knoll. Dean Massey summed it up in his report when he wrote, “The boy’s intelligence defies accurate measurement by any current means of testing. We can only determine Robert Austin’s minimum intelligence—we have no way of measuring its upper reaches—his real intelligence—because he quickly ‘ceilings-out’ on all of our test scales.”

Dean Massey knew what he had to do. In his thirty year career in education, he never had to even consider compliance with Intergovernmental Protocol 329. But it was obvious to him that he had to now. So Massey reported Robert James Austin to the OSSIS (the Office of Special Strategic Intelligence Services), a security agency of the Federal government. The discovery of profound intelligence is considered to be a matter of national security because such people are regarded as rare natural resources.

The director of the OSSIS, Orin Varneys, received from Massey, not only his report with copies of all the testing materials and results, but also the materials of Knoll and Draper. Director Varneys had more experience in these matters than any local or state authority, and he was quick to dismiss hyperbole. Intrinsically skeptical, Varneys was fond of saying, “Genius is a relative term and it’s used too loosely. Every educator and psychologist wants to discover the next Einstein, but we’re still waiting, aren’t we.”

4

The Austin family was enjoying one of their favorite weekend indulgences, a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken with mashed potatoes, gravy, corn on the cob and coleslaw, when the phone rang. Edith picked it up.

A woman’s voice said, “Is Mr. or Mrs. Austin there, please?”

Edith answered, “Yes, this is Mrs. Austin.”

“Hold on for Director Varneys.”

“Who?”

“Hello Mrs. Austin. Is your husband home?”

“Who is this? Is this a crank call?” replied Edith.

Peter motioned to Edith and took hold of the phone. “Who is this?” he asked with annoyance.

“This is Director Varneys of the OSSIS.”

“We’re not interested in buying anything, and you shouldn’t disturb people on their weekends. I thought that became illegal.”

“Wait—don’t hang up. I’m not selling anything.” Peter slammed the phone into its cradle, and then a few seconds later picked it up and left it lying on its side so it would ring busy.

On Monday morning, an envelope was delivered to the Austin’s house by Fed Ex. No sender was indicated. Edith opened it. It was a letter on engraved stationary with the initials OSSIS at the top and a Washington, D.C. address.

Dear Mr. and Mrs. Austin:

I am sorry we were unable to speak when I telephoned you on Saturday. I can understand that my call was unexpected. I am the director of a U.S. government agency called the Office of Special Strategic Intelligence Services. We are, among other things, in charge of monitoring unusual intelligence assets. We have been advised by Drs. Draper, Knoll and Massey that your son, Robert James, may possibly be of importance to this office.

I can assure you that it is in your son’s best interests that you kindly cooperate with us.

Please call me when you receive this letter.

Very truly yours,

Orin Varneys

Edith did something she virtually never did because Peter didn’t like it. She called him at work. Edith’s voice was shaky as she read Peter the letter and he was annoyed that someone had upset her. Telling her to calm down, he asked her for Varneys’ phone number, which was printed on the letter, and said he’d call him during his lunch break.

When Varneys got on the phone, Peter said, “Mr. Varneys, we received your letter. I’m sorry I hung up on you the other day, but we get a lot of phone solicitations and you certainly sounded like one. What’s your letter all about?”

“Mr. Austin. Let me ask you a question. What’s the most valuable asset that the United States has?”

Peter replied, “A lot of things.”

“No. One thing is the most valuable. Human talent. Superior human talent and intelligence. From this, stems everything—economic dominance, military security, our entire way of life.”

Peter responded, “Well, we’re not the only country with smart people.”

“Exactly my point, Mr. Austin. Many of our competitors have extremely intelligent people. So all we can do is to try to keep ahead. That’s why my agency exists. To identify extraordinary human intelligence. And to nurture and protect it. And that’s why we’re interested in your son.”

“What do you want from us?”

“All we want is to fly you, Mrs. Austin and Robert to Rochester, Minnesota for a few days. All at taxpayer expense, of course. We’ll put you up in the best hotel, deluxe rental car, fine restaurants, everything. It will be a nice respite for you and the family.”

“Why Rochester, Minnesota?”

“That’s where the Mayo Clinic is located. We want Robert to spend some time with a doctor who does work for us there. Dr. John Uhlman. He’s chief of Psycho-Neurological Development at Mayo.”

“More tests on Bobby?”

“I assure you that these will be the last. Uhlman is the biggest expert in the U.S. —-probably in the world.”

“And what happens after that, Mr. Varneys?”

“Well, let’s just take one step at a time Mr. Austin.”

“Is ‘no’ a viable answer here?”

The silence lasted long enough for Peter to think the line had gone dead. Finally, he heard Varneys say, “It really is in your family’s best interests to work with me on this, Mr. Austin.”

 

 

 

 

Author Bio:

William R. Leibowitz has been practicing entertainment/media law in New York City for a number of years. He has represented numerous recording artists, songwriters, producers and many of the leading record companies, talent managers, merchandisers and other notable entertainment businesses. At one point, he was the Chief Operating Officer/General Counsel for the Sanctuary Group of Companies, a U.K. public company that was the largest ‘indie’ music company in the world (prior to its acquisition by the Universal Music Group).

William has a Bachelor of Science degree from New York University (magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa) and a law degree from Columbia University. He lives in the village of Quogue, New York with his wife, Alexandria, and dog, George.

William wrote Miracle Man because of its humanistic and spiritual messages and because he feels that in our current times–when meritless celebrity has eclipsed accomplishment and the only heroes are those based on comic books, the world needs a real hero–and that, of course, is Robert James Austin, the protagonist in Miracle Man.

Catch Up:

 

Tour Participants:

1. 04/07/2015 Guestpost, Showcase @ Wanted Readers
2. 04/10/2015 Review @ VicsMedia Room
3. 04/12/2015 Interview @ Hott Books
4. 04/14/2015 Guestpost @ Ryder Islingtons Blog
5. 04/15/2015 Review @ Deal Sharing Aunt
6. 04/16/2015 Guestpost @ Writers and Authors
7. 04/25/2015 Review @ Quirky Book Reviews
8. 04/26/2015 Interview @ Suspense Magazine

Don’t Miss Out – You Could Win Your Own Copy!!

This is a giveaway hosted by Partners In Crime Virtual Book Tours for William Leibowitz. There will be ONE U.S. winners of a physical book copy ofMiracle Man by William Leibowitz. The giveaway is open to US residents only. The giveaway begins on April 1st, 2015 and runs through May 2nd, 2015.

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SHOWCASE: Turnabout & Shallow Secrets by Rick Ollerman

Posted by Ryder Islington, author of Ultimate Justice

Turnabout & Shallow Secrets

by Rick Ollerman

on Tour March 2015

Book Details:

Genre: Crime

Published by: Stark House Press

Publication Date: September 26, 2014

Number of Pages: 389 – the “book” contains 2 novels

ISBN: 978-1933586472

More: This is a set of two books featuring Crime.
These include strong language.

Purchase Links:

Synopsis:

Remember those old Ace paperbacks, with two actioners in one volume? Stark House is reviving them, with the current offering holding all the slam-bang anyone might want.

In Turnabout, ex-cop Frankie O’Neil is skeptical when a friend’s death is ruled a suicide. He uncovers a crime unknown to the Ace masters: computer theft. These crooks have friends with guns, and halfway along the novel becomes a series of cliffhangers that hit another memory: movie serials. Will Frankie escape in time? Find out in the next chapter. You won’t stop until you know.

Shallow Secrets moves slower, with a subtext: the power of chance to provoke horrors, then avenge them. Cop James Robinson doesn’t just know the accused killer. They’re roommates. The coincidence ruins his career. Then there are fresh killings, and Robinson is “a person of interest.” Near the end, Robinson almost tells a woman that “there wasn’t anything they could do to make the world safe” from murders. But coincidence can bring them down, as when someone sees something he’s not supposed to.

– from Don Crinklaw

Read an excerpt:

When they touched down in Miami, Gene could have passed out in relief. In a superhuman test of will, he forced himself through the cattle call of customs without drawing attention to himself. From there he almost ran to the nearest rest room and claimed the first open toilet as his own. He had pains in his gut now, his lower abdomen, and he swallowed two Ex-Lax tablets as he lowered himself onto the toilet.

It was a very unpleasant feeling when the first one came out, goose bumps breaking out across his thighs and arms, but Gene almost cried he was so thankful. He counted carefully, not wanting to get up until every last one of those damned things was pushed through his body, never relaxing, always afraid that any one of them might rupture, get caught on something on the way out, just before it cleared his asshole. Never again, he thought. His days as a mule were over.

Finally, the last condom exited his spent body and Gene slumped forward, exhausted. He had to spend some more time waiting for the effects of the laxatives to subside, but he didn’t mind. It was over and he had made it. He was tired and stinking of dried sweat and public bathroom, but he had brought the drugs in. All he had to do now was pick those little white torpedoes out of the toilet and boogie on back to Everglades City. To Midge and his knife and that damned spooky necklace.

Gene finally stood up and looked over his shoulder. It was hard to imagine how much money that ugly mess was worth. He took a half step forward and bent over to pull up his pants then stumbled and fell into the door of the tiny cubicle. The whoosh of water from the flushing toilet sent a bolt of electrified panic down his spine.

On his knees he turned and dove towards the toilet bowl in time to see the last wad of crumpled tissue get sucked into the hole at the bottom. In a futile gesture he grabbed for it, grabbed for anything, jamming his hand up to the wrist into the small opening.

Oh my fucking lord, Gene thought as he looked up at the piping coming out of the wall. What the fuck happened? There was no way to flush the damned thing, no goddamned lever to pull. Christ! he swore again. He hadn’t done anything!

He pulled his hand out of the toilet and wiped it in his shirt as he got to his feet. Staring in disbelief, he finished fastening his pants as he took a step back toward the door. Again the toilet flushed itself.

The damned thing was like the automatic doors to the terminal! It flushed itself when he moved away from it! How the hell was he supposed to know, God damn it? Nobody ever told him anything about fucking automatic toilets.

Author Bio:

Rick Ollerman made his first dollar from writing when a crossword magazine printed a question he’d sent. Later he went on to hold world records for various large skydives, appear in photo spreads in LIFE magazine and The National Enquirer, can be seen on an inspirational poster during the opening credits of a popular TV show, and has been interviewed on CNN. He also had a full-screen shot as an extra in the film Purple Rain. His writing has appeared in technical and sporting magazines and he has edited and proofread many books, and written introductions for a dozen more. Notably in 2014 he sold a short story and an essay to Noir Riot and his first two books, Turnabout and Shallow Secrets, were published by Stark House Press in September.

Catch Up:

Tour Participants:

1. 3/02 Guest Post & Showcase @ Our Wolves Den
2. 3/05 Review @ fundinmental
3. 3/09 Review @ 3 Partners in Shopping
4. 3/10 Review @ Tea and A Book
5. 3/16 Guest Post @ Writers and Authors
6. 3/16 Review @ Deal Sharing Aunt
7. 3/19 Review @ Vics Media Room
8. 3/22 Review @ Quirky Book Reviews
9. 3/25 Showcase @ Mommabears Book Blog?
10. 3/29 Radio Interview @ Suspense Magazine
11. 3/31 Showcase @ Ryder Islingtons Blog

Giveaway:

This is a giveaway hosted by Partners In Crime Virtual Book Tours for Rick Ollerman. There will be three winners of 3 sets of – 1) Signed book plus a 2) signed, limited chapbook of two essays on paperback original writers that served as introductions to other books. The giveaway begins on Feb 28th, 2015 and runs through April 3rd, 2015. a Rafflecopter giveaway

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SHOWCASE: The Fourth Amendment by SM Smith

Posted by Ryder Islington, author of Ultimate Justice

The Fourth Amendment

by SM Smith

on Tour

Book Details:

Genre: Thriller

Published by: Camelot Publishing

Publication Date: December 3, 2014

Number of Pages: 299

ASIN: B00QJK68NI

Purchase Links:

Get Your Copy Today! From March 12-18th The Fourth Amendment is only $.99!!

Synopsis:

When Kris Storm, the new manager of an elite cyber security team at Illuminate, a global internet powerhouse, receives an order to sift through web traffic to further the presidential ambitions of the mayor of New York, she stomps out the door in protest. But her staunch belief in the protection of an individual’s right to privacy is tested when her boss abruptly shuts down the project a few weeks later. By then, a disturbing trail of terrorist activity, albeit circumstantial, has emerged: Brighton Beach, Russian jingoism, freedom fighters, liquid explosives, jihad, Boston Marathon. Now, Kris must decide whether to digdeeper, or stay constitutionally safe on the sidelines. Her hesitancy, however, costs valuable time. When Kris and her partner, street-savvy FBI agent Jim Bright, finally identify the bombers and their target, Yankee Stadium, they must race to the Bronx. Will they arrive in time to prevent the carnage? Who is really behind the plot? Angry and now brimming with patriotic fervor, Kris plunges undercover as a hacker among the bright lights and party beaches of the Adriatic Sea to smoke out a global gang of cyber criminals.

From Edward Snowden’s revelations about our own government’s surveillance activities to the financial data breaches perpetrated by Russian hackers to the European Union’s sanctions against Google, cybersecurity arouses passionate controversy worldwide. The Fourth Amendment combines a multidimensional view of the issues with a compelling cast of characters to create a rollicking, contemporary thriller.

Read an excerpt:

PROLOGUE – JUNE 12

“Let’s go Yankees,” twenty-year-old AnatolyTurken wisecracked. Standing in the compact kitchen of the cramped two-bedroom apartment that he still shared with his parents in the Russian enclave of Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, he anchored a sixteen ounce water bottle, displaying the familiar Poland Springs label, to the countertop with his left hand. Slowly, very slowly, he poured a clear, viscous liquid from a bright red container into a funnel that emptied into it. The spicy aroma of tonight’s dinner, roast chicken, garlic potatoes and borscht, normally would have distracted Anatoly, he adored his mother and her cooking, but not today. Anatoly’s blue eyes burned with the intensity of a true believer, while his hands, calloused from hours hoisting heavy crates on the loading dock of his father’s furniture store, never faltered. The work had sculpted Anatoly’s wiry, six foot frame, stretching taut his sleeveless, black Brooklyn Nets tank top. Mikhail Prokhorov – oligarch, politician, athlete, playboy, and owner of the Nets – was his idol. When the Poland Springs bottle was full, Anatoly screwed the green plastic cap on tightly, pushed down the drinking spout, fitted the plastic cover on top, and resealed it with clear plastic wrap. He grabbed a blue floral dish towel from the rack next to the sink and dried the sweat from his hands. The squeals of children splashing in the gushing fire hydrant rose from the street through the kitchen’s lone window, open wide to provide some minimal respite from the June heat wave. Anatoly rubbed his head, blond hair trimmed so tightly that he could appear bald at times, and surveyed his handiwork. He had assembled four Poland Springs bottles, all similarly filled, in a neat row.

VladimirUnchkin, two years younger than Anatoly, nodded approvingly, as he usually did whenever in Anatoly’s company. Vladimir was a full head shorter than Anatoly and much thinner. His gray “Brooklyn Basketball” tee shirt, another variation of Nets’ merchandise, hung loosely on his frame, while his baggy jeans sagged to reveal red boxers and an occasional glimpse of his butt crack. Vladimir’s mother had died of cancer two years ago, and his father was still drinking away his grief. Not surprisingly, Vladimir frequently rang the Turken doorbell near dinner time. Peeking through a shaggy mop of brown hair, his green eyes flickered between the bottles and the chicken roasting in the oven.

“What time does the game start? Do you think we can eat before we go?” he asked in rapid fire succession.

“I can’t fucking believe that you are thinking about food,” Anatoly replied, turning to stare down at his young friend. “Today is Russia Day – Independence Day for our country. Mr. Nakitov wants us to make a statement that the whole world will notice.”

“What’s for dinner? Can’t we eat first?” Vladimir persisted.

Anatoly just sneered in reply. “Help me load up,” he said, picking up one of the two blue and white pinstriped backpacks on the tiled floor. He grabbed a yellow bath towel from a stack on the counter, laid it flat, and then placed one of the bottles in the center. Then he gingerly wrapped the towel around the bottle and placed it in the first pack. Anatoly exhaled loudly when the bottle was at rest. “Two in each pack. We need to take them on the subway to the stadium,” he explained.

“Where did you get the stuff?”

“Never mind where I got it. We used it last night and it works,” Anatoly replied, feathering the second bottle into position.

“Sidney’s Cleaners?” Vladimir asked incredulously.

“Sidney’s causing trouble again. We did the job at 2AM so no one would get hurt. Mr. Nakitov just wanted to send a warning.”

“Shit,” Vladimir mumbled.

“I researched it all on-line too – FreedomFighters.IO. It’s based in the Middle East.” Anatoly added proudly.

“They got websites for this?”

“Mudak, the Internet’s not just porn, you know.”

“I like porn. Did you see the video of that pixie gymnast doing her balance beam split on the Ukrainian hockey player?” When his question did not elicit a response, Vladimir added, “She really curved his stick,” laughing at his own well-worn tagline.

“Your brain is porn-fried. ” Anatoly reached into a brown cardboard box and pulled out two coils of spaghetti thin yellow wire, each with a silver blasting cap, the size of a cigarette, on one end and an orange plug on the other. “These are detonators. I bought them on-line too,” he bragged.

“On Amazon?”

“No. On the FreedomFighters’ site. They label everything as mining supplies and ship all over the world.” Anatoly returned the detonators to the box. “Let’s finish up,” he said.

Vladimir reached for a towel with his left hand and a bottle with his right.

“No!” Anatoly screeched, recoiling a half step back from the counter. “Medlenno, slowly – one step at a time.” He locked his fingers around Vladimir’s right hand and returned the explosive-laden bottle to its place. “Just go to the stairs and look out for my mom. She should be coming home from Aunt Volga’s soon. I’ll finish up here,” Anatoly said, heart still pounding from his friend’s carelessness.

“OK,” Vladimir said, shuffling away.

Anatoly’s searing eyes followed Vladimir out of the kitchen before he returned to work. After storing the two loaded packs in the hall closet, Anatoly flopped down on the overstuffed living room couch to watch TV. Within five minutes, he heard the intercom ring from the lobby, Vladimir’s signal of his mother’s return.

“Watching TV? Don’t you have anything better to do?” Anatoly’s mother, Ariana, said as she bustled through the living room. She had been pretty but was starting to show the mileage of a hard life – graying hair, thickening waist, and worry lines encircling her eyes. Her grandfather had fought the Nazis at Stalingrad, and survived, but then had the poor judgment to agitate for more freedoms in Russia. Stalin had rewarded him with a one-way ticket to Siberia and his descendants had been out of favor with the Soviet government ever since. Ariana had immigrated to America with her parents when she was ten years old and never looked back.

“Hi ma,” Anatoly replied without turning around.

“Your cousin Joseph goes to school at night now, you know.”

“We’re going to the Yankee game tonight.”

“That’s in the Bronx.”

“Yeah, mom, we’re taking the subway.”

“Dinner’s almost ready. You should eat first.”

“I’m not hungry. I’m watching the news,” Anatoly replied, still fixed on the television where a reporter solemnly noted the escalating military situation in the Ukraine. A snippet of a video of the Russian President addressing the Russian parliament flashed on the screen.

“I’m hungry, Mrs. Turken,” Vladimir chipped in as he followed Anatoly’s mom into the kitchen.

Ariana fastened a blue apron around her once-white sleeveless sundress and grabbed two potholders to protect her hands as she removed the chicken from the oven. “Set the table. Get the milk. I can’t do it all myself,” she said, although she often did exactly that. Anatoly was her only child and she had always doted on him.

The pleasing smells from the kitchen finally lured Anatoly away from the TV. “We’ve got to eat fast, Mom,” he said, sitting down at the faux marble table in the front foyer that served as the family’s dining room.

“Never a problem with this one,” Ariana replied, nodding towards Vladimir who had already filled his plate. “Here, eat,” she said passing the chicken to Anatoly.

“What about dad?”

“He’s working late. I’ll fix him something when he gets home.”

“He’s always working,” Anatoly said, adding a large spoonful of potatoes to his plate. “What does he have to show for it? Mr. Nakitov just bought a new Mercedes. He’s got a penthouse apartment. Everyone in the neighborhood respects him.”

“I don’t want to hear about that gangster at my table.”

“He’s a businessman, mom, and a war hero. A new Russian.”

“The new Russians are just like the old Russians. Stalin, Brezhnev, Putin – they are all the same.” Ariana’s frustration bubbled to the surface. Countless times, she had described the realities of life in their homeland to her son, but he persisted with his fairy tales.

“You’ll see. Putin will make the Rodina great again.” And I will restore our family name after all these years, Anatoly thought, but dared not say aloud. Instead, he started to hum the Russian national anthem.

“Enough of that nonsense. Your country is right here. It’s called America. Now eat or you’ll be hungry at the game.” Ariana rose and began to clean up while the boys finished their meals. She wrapped two pieces of chicken in cellophane and headed to the hall closet. “I’ll put these in your packs for later.”

Anatoly spit up a mouthful of the purple borscht as he lurched to head off his mother. “I’ll take them,” he said. “Come on, Vladimir, let’s go. We don’t want to miss the first pitch.” He picked up both packs and held one out to Vladimir. Vladimir looked longingly at the leftovers on the table, but knew that he had to go. He sidled to the door, slowly placed the pack over his shoulder, and followed his friend downstairs.

Once they were on the street, Anatoly put his pack on the ground and pulled out two red baseball caps with the interlocking NY logo of the New York Yankees. He put one on his head, brim forward but cocked to the right, and then handed the second one to his friend. “Wear this,” he demanded.

“Why?”

“Because we’re supposed to. That’s why.” Vladimir did not need any further explanation.

Walking down the street, the boys had to dodge a gauntlet of youngsters darting in and out of the cold spray from the fire hydrant. Anatoly shifted his pack to his right shoulder, away from hydrant, and picked up his pace. Vladimir struggled, but stayed two steps behind until he heard a familiar voice.

“Vlad, Vlad – where are you going?” his ten year old brother, Nikolai, chirped. He was standing in front of the hydrant’s stream, soaked and smiling. “You need to cool off,” Nikolai said, jamming both hands into the mouth of the hydrant, trying to redirect the gusher to reach his big brother. Vlad jumped away from the curb, crossing his feet and almost tripping over the pack. He had to reach out with his free hand to steady himself on a metal pole bearing a streetlamp and a New York City sign with a red letter warning: No Parking, Tuesday and Friday, 9-11AM.

“Come here,” Vladimir squealed once he had regained his balance. Nikolai dutifully trotted over, the water dripping off his clothes and puddling at his feet. Vladimir hugged him. The cold water was refreshing. “Be good,” he whispered. “Look after dad.” Nikolai just shrugged, pulling away quickly to dunk himself once again in the hydrant spray.

Anatoly surveyed the fraternal scene with an air of indifference. “Let’s go,” he said impatiently. He had planned their route carefully: the B train to Grand Street in Lower Manhattan then a transfer to the D express that would take them to the Yankee Stadium stop at 161st Street in the Bronx. The Brighton Beach station was located high above the avenue, suspended just below the elevated tracks. Anatoly ran interference for Vladimir as they climbed the narrow stairway, jostling against the tide of commuters returning from the day’s work in the city. He cradled the backpack in both hands, tucked his shoulder, and barged upward. Once through the turnstiles, the boys had to climb another set of stairs to the platform for trains into Manhattan. They were virtually alone here. Vladimir peered down the tracks but could not see a train approaching. He stepped back to sit down on a bench, backpack on his lap. Anatoly remained standing, pacing back and forth. Both were sweating profusely from the heat, the crowd, and their payload. They watched a local pull in on the far track, heading to Coney Island, before their train to the city finally arrived. Since Brighton Beach was the terminus of the B line in Brooklyn, the car was empty. The boys sat next to each other near the center door, staring straight ahead, the seriousness of their mission finally sinking in.

Kings Highway. Newkirk Plaza. Church Avenue. Prospect Park. The train rolled through the various neighborhoods comprising the bulk of Brooklyn. To the outsider, Brooklyn might appear homogeneous, the fourth most populous city in the United States in its own right, but residents knew well that the borough was a polyglot of ethnicities, religions and economics. Russians, Jews, Indians and Chinese; blacks and whites; young families, struggling artists, and wealthy hipsters each had their own territory. Anatoly and Vladimir had ridden the subway to the city many times but had never ventured into the neighborhoods below the elevated tracks. They squeezed closer together as the car steadily filled with passengers. Three thickly bearded Hasidic men, dressed in traditional garb, sweat-stained white shirts open at the collar, grasped the rail above their heads. A black teenager, earbuds firmly in place and head bopping to his own beat, dropped down next to Vladimir, but Vlad’s attention was on the two twenty-something women sitting across the aisle. They were obviously dressed for a night out. The blonde wore tight black shorts and matching platform heels, while her dark-haired friend had squeezed into a white jersey that provided little cover for her cupcake-sized breasts. Vladimir stared intently as they jiggled with every lurch of the subway car until Anatoly’s sharp elbow broke his reverie. “We change at the next stop,” he said. Vladimir’s gaze remained on the girls as he followed Anatoly off the train at Grand Street, but they continued to chat away, oblivious to his departure.

“They were hot,” Anatoly admitted nodding back towards the train as its doors closed behind them.

“Definitely.” Vladimir stammered.

“We will have all the hot girls we want after tonight. They love soldiers.”

“Hot girls?”

“They will suck your chlen like it was a giant lollipop.” Anatoly said playfully. Vlad’s eyes widened as he savored the possibility of pleasures that had only existed in his wettest dreams before tonight. Anatoly offered his fist and Vladimir bumped it with his own, sealing their pact for the evening.

The D train arrived quickly and was only half full, so the boys were able to find seats next to each other again. The subway, now submerged beneath the streets of Manhattan, gained passengers at every stop. Business executives and tourists shuffled in and out, while a boisterous coterie of fellow Yankee fans steadily crowded in. By the time the train left the 125th street station, its last stop in Manhattan before heading into the Bronx, it was packed like a giant jigsaw puzzle, arms stretching up to grab handrails, legs staking out territory, and butts bumping against butts. The train’s air conditioning, taxed to its limit, kept the temperature in the car bearable, although the air was thick with the dank odor of massed summertime humanity. Anatoly, holding his backpack securely in his lap, motioned for Vlad to do the same. Vladimir obediently followed instructions, lifting his pack from between his legs on the floor. At last, the train arrived at their destination, 161st Street in the Bronx, home of the New York Yankees. Almost the entire train emptied here, its passengers lining up to ascend from the underground station to the streets surrounding the new Yankee Stadium, shimmering in the twilight over the urban landscape.

In 2009, New York City had demolished the original Stadium, built in 1923, replacing it with a modern edifice at a cost of $1.5 billion, the most expensive stadium ever built at the time. Its white facade, encompassing 11,000 pieces of Indiana limestone, towered 140 feet capped by a replica of the original frieze of archways and balustrades encircling the upper levels of the grandstand. The stadium’s lights atop the frieze beckoned the boys like candles on a birthday cake.

“How many people will be here tonight?” Vlad asked.

“Fifty thousand – it’s a big game,” Anatoly replied, steering them towards the park just across the street. His friend, jostled by the surging crowd, could barely keep up.

“One dollar water – one dollar water,” the Latino youth with a pock-marked face shouted, holding up a dripping wet Poland Springs bottle that he had just pulled from the ice-filled cooler at his feet. “Five dollars in the stadium,” he added.

Anatoly hustled by but Vlad grabbed his shoulder from behind. “They look just like ours,” he said.

“Of course, you idiot, Anatoly replied. “That’s why I used the Poland Springs bottles. The cops and stadium security guys are so used to seeing these bottles that they will never even notice ours.” He sat down on a bench in the park. “Now we have to unpack our toys and ditch the towels.” Anatoly opened his pack, gingerly unwound the towel from the first bottle, and placed it on the ground at his feet. He repeated the task with the second bottle and then put both back in his pack. “Slowly. Very slowly,” he admonished Vladimir. When Vlad was done, the boys joined the throng heading towards the stadium entrance.

Bill Jones followed the boys with sniper’s eyes from his wheelchair a few feet away. Their bright red baseball caps stood out in a sea of Yankee blue and gray. Having grown up ten blocks from the Stadium in an apartment building on the Grand Concourse, Bill had always been a rabid Yankee fan. He could even afford to buy a ticket at the old stadium especially before the team started winning and all the suits and suites took over. The team built the new stadium for them, not the ordinary fan, Bill and his buddies on the Concourse would grumble jealously when they sat on the front stoop of their building, drinking Bud and listening to John Sterling call the game on the radio. Now, Bill often panhandled outside of Yankee Stadium on game days, usually floating in a pleasant fog of painkillers, booze and weed. Bill liked being part of the swelling, boisterous crowd and could always use the extra bucks. He wore his favorite dark blue Yankee T-shirt, sporting Mickey Mantle’s name and number 7 on the back, and a traditional Yankee cap, also dark blue with the interlocking NY logo. He would be laughed off the Concourse if he showed up with one of those red ones. Gray shorts and a thin, blue pinstriped blanket covered Bill’s midsection and what was left of his legs. A thick beard and weathered black skin camouflaged the jagged scar on his cheek.

Bill had tried a variety of approaches to asking for money, but found that honesty was the most profitable so he had pinned his sniper’s medals to a hand-lettered, cardboard sign on his lap, reading “War Vet Needs Beer Money”. In fact, he was a veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Watching the boys slip away, Bill’s thoughts drifted back to a patrol in Baghdad ten years ago. He was walking down a dusty street when he noticed two teenagers working on the engine of a beat up automobile, a black Mercedes sedan. He was young and stupid then, so he and his partner approached, looking to help. The teens sprinted away into an adjacent building. Bill could still hear the explosion and feel the burning shrapnel bite into his legs. But, as he told himself often, he was the lucky one, returning to the States in the hospital section of the military transport while his partner came back in a body bag. Bill snapped back to reality as he heard the rattle of loose change in his cup.

Anatoly stopped on the fringe of the plaza fronting the stadium. He pulled his phone out of his back pocket and handed it to Vlad. “Take a photo,” he said.

“With the stadium in the background?” Vlad asked incredulously.

Anatoly just nodded and smiled while his friend dutifully snapped the picture. He then tapped to send a SnapChat and jammed the phone back into his pocket. Vlad started to move towards the stadium, but Anatoly remained still. He swung his pack around slowly, unzipped a side compartment and pulled out a sealed envelope. Ripping it open, he found another cell phone and a set of instructions, written in Russian. Anatoly read them slowly and then read them a second time while Vlad looked on, unsure of what his friend was doing.

“A clean phone to get instructions from the boss,” Anatoly said, as he turned on the new phone and waited for service to connect. Then, he keyed in a ten digit phone number in the address line and the code “2.23.1922” as the body of his text message. It was the date of the first celebration of Defender of the Fatherland Day, honoring veterans of the Red Army. He waited two long minutes, before the reply, “6”, came in. Anatoly looked up and saw Gate 6 right ahead of them. He pointed Vlad towards the line heading to the security check there.

Twenty fans were on the queue ahead of them. The boys waited nervously, shuffling their feet and trying to peer ahead to see the nature of the search. They need not have worried much.

“What’s in the pack?” the security officer asked.

“Water – it’s hot tonight, man” Anatoly replied, taking out a Poland Springs bottle.

“Don’t I know it. What about your pockets?”

Anatoly pulled out his keys, wallet and phone, even turning it on to show his lock-screen, the picture Vlad had just taken in front of the stadium. The officer waved him through. Vlad followed quickly behind. They flashed their tickets at the turnstile where an usher scanned the bar codes.

At last, they were inside. The Great Hall, a broad, high ceilinged concourse, beckoned. Vlad looked in awe at its scale, huge photos of past Yankee greats adorning the walls down one side, and banks of escalators, elevators and stairs leading to the seats on the other. Shops hawking expensive Yankee merchandise cluttered the plaza.

“Yankee pigs,” Anatoly muttered, as he pulled the secure phone from his pack and texted the next code, “6.12.1990”, to the mystery destination. The inaugural Russia Day, June 12, 1990, marked the dissolution of the old Soviet Union and the beginning of the Russian Federation. “100” came the reply. Anatoly scanned the signs in front of them, and pointed Vlad towards the ramp to Section 100.

When the boys passed a men’s room, Vlad tugged on Anatoly’s arm. “I’ve got to go,” he said, pushing through the door before Anatoly had time to reply. Anatoly waited outside, surveying the crowd and thinking scornfully of his friend’s weakness.

“Your buddy’s not doing too well,” a bald stranger, flab spilling out from both sides of his Yankee tank top, said to Anatoly. Poking Anatoly’s pack, he added, “He’s puking all over the men’s room. Someone’s going to have to clean it up.”

Anatoly jerked around, knocking the man’s hand away from the pack but not even bothering to reply. He half ran into the bathroom. He had to get Vlad out of there before security arrived. A father holding the hand of a small boy pointed him to the second stall, where Vlad was on his knees bent over the toilet bowl. No other men even turned around from the urinals on the opposite wall. Anatoly grimaced as he saw the remnants of his mom’s chicken and borscht in the bowl and on the floor. He leaned over his friend’s shoulder and said, “We have to go.” Vlad just grunted and dry heaved. Anatoly grabbed Vlad’s pack off the floor with one hand, and yanked Vlad’s shoulder with the other. “Now,” he said, dragging Vlad up and towards the door.

“Here, man – clean him up,” someone said, handing Anatoly a handful of paper towels. Once out of the men’s room, Anatoly pushed Vlad to a corner and handed him the towels. Vlad curled on the floor and Anatoly sat down next to him

“What happened?” he said.

“I can’t do it,” Vlad sputtered, wiping the dribble from the corner of his mouth. “I can’t pull the trigger. I just want to go home.” He was almost crying now.

Anatoly wanted to slap his friend, but couldn’t attract any more attention from the crowd swirling towards the seats. Fortunately, no one stopped. “We are not going to pull any triggers,” Anatoly whispered.

“What?”

“I left the detonators home. We are just delivering the bottles – nothing else. I didn’t pull the trigger at Sidney’s last night either.”

“You sure?”

“Yes. Let’s go. We’re late.”

Vladimir shuddered with relief and slowly staggered back to his feet. Anatoly pointed the way towards Section 100. They could see the outfield grass, glowing in the stadium’s lights, as they walked. At the top of Section 100 ramp, a vendor with a blue-pinstriped Yankee apron and a red Yankee hat waited, swiveling impatiently to look in both directions. The vendor was tall and stocky with sawdust colored hair, snaking out from underneath his hat in a ponytail, and a square jaw that appeared to sit directly on top of his powerfully muscled shoulders. He held a tray of a dozen Poland Spring bottles.

Anatoly tipped his own red Yankee cap, knelt down to remove the bottles from his pack, and added them to the tray. He motioned for Vladimir to do the same. The exchange took only a few seconds. When it was complete, the vendor returned the salute, turned towards home plate and walked away.

“Did you see his right hand. He was missing the last two fingers,” Anatoly said.

Vlad just trembled.

“Probably lost them in the struggle. A real geroy.”

“I want to go home now,” Vlad finally replied.
Anatoly nodded, pointing back towards the exit. They tossed their now empty backpacks in a trash bin on the way out.

Author Bio:

SM Smith has longed to write fiction since high school, but needed to “detour” through a career in the investment world first. As one of the first Wall Street analysts to specialize in the information industry, and then as the co-founder (along with his wife) of a successful hedge fund, Smith has researched and invested in the technology sector for the past thirty years. The Fourth Amendment is Smith’s debut.

Catch Up:

Tour Participants:

1. 03/02/15 Guest Post @ Writers and Authors
2. 03/03/15 Showcase and Giveaway @ Deal Sharing Aunt
3. 03/04/15 Showcase @ Ryder Islingtons Blog
4. 03/08/15 Review @ Vics Media Room
5. 03/09/15 Review @ For Life After
6. 03/11/15 Showcase @ Celticladys Reviews
7. 03/12/15 Review @ Taking It One Page at a Time
8. 03/13/15 Showcase @ Tales of a Book Addict
9. 03/15/15 Radio Interview @ Suspense Magazine
10. 03/16/15 Guest Post @ Our Wolves Den
11. 03/17/15 Review @ Tea and a Book
12. 03/20/15 Review @ Jersey Girl Book Reviews
13. 03/21/15 Interview @ Hott Books
14. 03/24/15 Review @ Brooke Blogs
15. 03/27/15 Review & Showcase @ FictionZeal

Giveaway:

This is a giveaway hosted by Partners In Crime Virtual Book Tours for SM Smith. There will be 2 winners who will each receive 1-$25 Amazon gift card. The giveaway begins on Feb 28th, 2015 and runs through April 3rd, 2015. a Rafflecopter giveaway

Get More Great Reads at Partners In Crime Virtual Book Tours

GUEST POST: Remembering Irvin Kershner by Steven Axelrod

Posted by Ryder Islington, author of Ultimate Justice

Below is a very interesting post by Steven Axelrod, on Irvin Kershner, director of the Star Wars movies. Wow. He met Irvin Kershner! And below the article, you’ll find information about Steven’s latest book, Nantucket Five-Spot. Don’t forget to scroll down to the bottom, where you’ll find an opportunity to win a free book! And now, Steven’s guest post:

Remembering Irvin Kershner

I think about Irvin Kershner often. I didn’t know much about him when the producer of my little family drama movie script set up the meeting, but I could tell he considered it a major coup. He is best known today for directing what most aficionados agree was the best of the Star Wars movies – The Empire Strikes Back. Indeed he was just coming off that career high success, looking for a new project, when I got the chance to meet him.

It was quite an intimidating set up – the luxurious office on the Warners lot, the giant photograph of Yoda that dominated the wall behind his desk, and the man himself – craggy, bearded, sharp eyed, a true Jedi Knight in his own brand of creative warfare.

 The main problem he had with my script was the long passage in the middle during which the father character and his oldest friend reminisce and re-litigate their lifetime of conflict over a series of excellent meals and walks on the winter beaches of Nantucket.

          “This isn’t a movie!” he barked, dropping the script on his desk like something dead that had just twitched alarmingly.

          “Right,” my hapless producer agreed. “It’s – it’s a play. All that dialogue …”

          Kershner turned that beady stare on him. “It’s not even a play! It’s nothing! There’s no drama, here. It’s just two geezers chewing the fat. A movie is about what happens next. Don’t you get that? Look, I say to you – this script is shit. You can’t write. Get out of the business while you still can. What do you do? That’s insulting! That’s abusive! What are you going to do about it?”

          “I, uh –“

          “Are you going to break into tears? Run out of the room? Stand up and slug me? I don’t know – but you’re going to do something. That’s a movie! Here’s how EVERY SCENE in a movie should play. Pay attention to me, kid. There’s a nail sticking up out of this desk. I wrap a red rubber band around it and start pulling. The rubber band starts stretching, it pulling thin, turning pink, it’s about to snap, you’re flinching in advance … and then – pow! The nail comes out of the table. That’s what I’m looking for — that kind of reversal, that kind of surprise.”

          He didn’t like my ending, either.

          “The father admits the son is talented, and they kiss and make up. It’s shit. It’s a TV movie. Do you watch TV?”

          “Sure,” I said “I mean – sometimes, I guess, but –

          “Well as long as you’re working with me, you don’t watch TV. Not one second of it. It’s all shit. It’s written like shit, it’s acted like shit, it’s directed like shit and if you keep watching that shit you won’t be able to do anything else.”

          A silence fell. My producer, he seemed near tears – he had no idea how jazzed I was – said, “So… we’re done here?”

          But Kershner wasn’t done. He didn’t think much of the father son relationship that made up the core of the story.

          “It’s all in the past,” he said. “it’s all memory and back story and no one cares.”

          “So … what do you think I should do instead?” I asked.

          “Give them some real conflict, something that’s happening right now. The kid has a girlfriend – let the dad be having an affair with her. That should heat things up a little. Write me that draft  – and cut thirty pages out of it.”

          We reeled out of there,  and I was already framing the re-write in my head and when I met Kershner, two weeks later, I had a new draft that ran 90 stream-lined pages.

          He hefted it with a grin “Fighting weight,” he said.

          I was dazzled and star struck – I had just seen Sean Connery coming out of his office, wearing a track suit … the meeting before mine. I figured out later what that meeting signified: Kershner was about to direct his own version of a James Bond movie with Connery, a re-make of Thunderball.

          His decision had already been made, and I wasn’t even in the running. But I got a lesson in writing I’ll never forget, and every time I ratchet up the conflict in a scene or somehow manage to pull that nail out of the table, I think of Irvin Kershner and bow my head in gratitude to the wild-eyed genius who played Yoda to my humble Padawan.

It was definitely Kerhner’s voice I heard in his movie when old Jedi said “Do, or do not. There is no try.”

          I was lucky to have met him, and sad to see him go.

Nantucket Five-Spot

by Steven Axelrod

Book Details:

Genre: Mystery

Publisher: Poisoned Pen Press

Publication Date: Jan 6, 2015

Number of Pages: 296

ISBN: 9781464203428

Purchase Links:

Synopsis:

Henry Kennis, Nantucket island’s poetry-writing police chief who will remind readers of Robert B. Parker’s Jesse Stone and Spenser, works a second challenging case in Nantucket Five-Spot.
At the height of the summer tourist season, a threat to bomb the annual Boston Pops Concert could destroy the island’s economy, along with its cachet as a safe, if mostly summer-time, haven for America’s ruling class. The threat of terrorism brings The Department of Homeland Security to the island, along with prospects for a rekindled love affair –Henry’s lost love works for the DHS now.
The “terrorism” aspects of the attack prove to be a red herring. The truth lies much closer to home. At first suspicion falls on local carpenter Billy Delavane, but Henry investigates the case and proves that Billy is being framed. Then it turns out that Henry’s new suspect is also being framed –for the bizarre and almost undetectable crime of framing someone else. Every piece of evidence works three ways in the investigation of a crime rooted in betrayed friendship, infidelity, and the quiet poisonous feuds of small town life. Henry traces the origin of the attacks back almost twenty years and uncovers an obsessive revenge conspiracy that he must unravel –now alone, discredited and on the run –before further disaster strikes.

Author Bio:

Steven Axelrod holds an MFA in writing from Vermont College of the Fine Arts and remains a member of the WGA despite a long absence from Hollywood. His work has been featured on various websites, including the literary e-zine Numéro Cinq, where he is on the masthead. His work has also appeared at Salon.com and The GoodMen Project, as well as the magazines PulpModern and BigPulp. A father of two, he lives on Nantucket Island, Massachusetts, where he paints houses and writes, often at the same time, much to the annoyance of his customers.

Catch Up:

Tour Participants:

1. 3/01 Showcase & Excerpt @ FictionZeal
2. 3/03 Review @ Celticladys Reviews
3. 3/04 Review @ Vics Media Room
4. 3/05 Guest Post @ Writers and Authors
5. 3/05 Showcase @ Maries Cozy Corner
6. 3/06 Review @ For Life After
7. 3/11 Review @ Deal Sharing Aunt
8. 3/12 Guest Post @ Building Bookshelves
9. 3/14 Interview @ Hott Books
10. 3/15 Review @ Nook Users Book Club
11. 3/16 Review @ Views from the Countryside
12. 3/18 Guest Post @ Our Wolves Den
13. 3/19 Showcase @ fuonlyknew
14. 3/20 Review by Carol Wong
15. 3/21 Review @ 3 Partners in Shopping
16. 3/22 Review & Giveaway @ Marys Cup of Tea
17. 3/23 Review & Giveaway @ Bless Their Hearts Mom
18. 3/24 Review & Giveaway @ Building Bookshelves
19. 3/27 Review @ Brooke Blogs
20. 3/28 Review @ Bunnys Review

Giveaway:

This is a giveaway hosted by Partners In Crime Virtual Book Tours for Steven Axelrod & Poisoned Pen Press. There will be one winner of 1 Box of Poisoned Pen Press books including Nantucket Fivespot. The giveaway begins on Feb 28th, 2015 and runs through April 3rd, 2015. Tour Reviewers are also eligible to host their own giveaway for an ebook copy of Nantucket Fivespot. All individual giveaway winners must be sent to Gina at Partners in Crime no later than April 3, 2015. a Rafflecopter giveaway

Get More Great Reads at Partners In Crime Virtual Book Tours

SHOWCASE: Where the Bones Are Buried by Jeanne Mathews

Not only does this book sound like a winner, but I love the cover. Don’t forget to visit the other sites listed at the end of this showcase. There are interviews, reviews and a chance to win free books.

 Where the Bones Are Buried

by Jeanne Mathews

on Tour March 1-31, 2015

Book Details:

Genre: Mystery

Published by: Poisoned Pen Press

Publication Date: January 6, 2015

Number of Pages: 288

ISBN: 9781464203466

Purchase Links:

Synopsis:

Dinah Pelerin has finally put her life in order. Living in Berlin with her boyfriend Thor, she has landed a job teaching Native American cultures at the university. She’s never felt happier. And then her Seminole mother Swan shows up with a crazy scheme to blackmail a German tax dodger and dredges up a secret Dinah has kept hidden from the IRS and from straight-arrow Norwegian Thor, a former cop now with hush-hush international duties.

Germans harbor a century-long fascination with the American Wild West and American Indians. Some enthusiasts dress up as Indians and adopt Indian names. Like Der Indianer Club which has invited Swan to a powwow where she plans to meet her blackmail victim. Dinah tries to head heroff, but arrives at the scene too late. A man has been killed and scalped and Swan quickly becomes the prime suspect. Torn between love for her mother and dismay at her incessant lies, Dinah sets out to find the killer—hoping the killer doesn’t turn out to share her DNA.
But Swan isn’t the only liar. Everyone is lying about something. Margaret,Swan’s dead ex-husband’s former wife, come to the city with Swan. Dinah’s teen-age “ward.” Thor. Especially Dinah. Ghosts of Germany’s terrible history haunt Berlin while she faces exorcising a hateful ghost of her own.

Read an excerpt:

Chapter 1

Dinah Pelerin wasn’t used to waking up happy and it scared the daylights out of her. She pulled the blanket to her chin and snuggled close under Thor’s arm. They had known each other for almost ayear, but had moved in together just three weeks ago. With every passing day, her confidence grew that she’d made the right decision. She cared about him more than she’d cared about anyone in a very long time, but the people she cared about had a habit of turning into liars or dying. Thor was too honest to lie.

She said, “I wish you didn’t have to go. It’s not fair. I haven’t learned my way around the city yet and the only person I know besides you is the wacko across the hall.”

“You have a dozen Berlin guide books and street maps and Geert isn’t a wacko. He’s the resident caretaker. If the lights go off or the furnace dies, tell him and he’ll take care of the problem. Anyway, I’ll only be away for five days. Norwegian Intelligence can’t function without my unerring wisdom.”

“Can’t you send your unerring wisdom to them in an email?”

“I’m glad you’ll miss me, kjære, but I have my orders.” He looked at his watch and sat up. “I need to be at the Embassy in an hour. I’m picking up two diplomats who will join me on the flight to Oslo.”

“Just my luck to fall for alatterday James Bond, forever charging off to save the nation.” She placed a hand over her heart. “I could not love thee dear so much loved I not honor more.”

He kissed her in a particularly melting way, then rolled out of bed abruptly and headed for the shower. “Hold that thought.”

“You’re a tease, Thor Ramberg.”

“Like Bond, I leave them begging for more.”

“Them?”

He didn’t hear. The bathroom door snicked shut and she slipped on her robe and padded into the kitchen to make coffee. Rain pelted against the windowpanes and the pedestrians on the Niederwallstrasse down below carried umbrellas and wore their collars turned up like KGB operatives. Until the Wall fell in 1989, this street and the area for miles around was Soviet-dominated East Berlin. Since that time, the Germanys had reunified and Berlin had reinvented itself as the cultural and financial hub of Europe. The only thing that hadn’t changed was the KGB weather.

She shivered. If September was this cold and dreary, she didn’t want to think what winter would bring. But in spite of the gloom, she’d never felt so happy. It seemed that the stars had aligned and for the first time in living memory, every aspect of her life clicked perfectly. Thor was wonderful, her new job asguest lecturer on Native American cultures at Humboldt University was a plum, and the weather aside, Berlin was one of the most exciting cities she’d ever visited. She tried to put the thought of all this happy synchronicity out of her mind lest the gods grow jealous and snatch it away.

She brought in the International Herald Tribune, poured herself a mug of the local Einsteinbrew, and sat down at the kitchen table to read about the turmoil in Greece and Pakistan and Kenya. The world seemed fragmented, a jigsaw of violent factions that refused to fit together and fanatics willing to do anything in furtherance of their cause. She worried about Thor’s work carrying out counterterrorism missions on behalf of his native Norway. He’d almost been killed in Greece last June while investigating a ring of arms traffickers. She had encouraged him to go to law school or return to a less hazardous police job in Norway. But he was a patriot and he craved adventure. She had learned not to try and argue him out of his dream job as an international sleuth.

He breezed into the room in a dark suit and tie, bringing with him the ferny scent of Fitjar soap. With his deep brown eyes and almost black hair, he did look a bit Bond-like – a cross between Sean Connery and Genghis Khan. He was descended from the Sami people of Arctic Scandinavia and he loved cold weather as much as she hated it. He poured himself a cup of coffee and glanced out the window. “Museum weather. You should go to the Pergamon this afternoon. The Gates of Ishtar will start your anthropologist’s juices flowing.”

“It’s on my list.”

“And there’s a market in the platz with local fruits and vegetables and flowers.”

“I’ll check it out.” His tie didn’t need straightening, but she pretended it did, standing ready for a kiss that would have to last her for five days. “I’ll probably spend the day preparing for my first class. I know that most Germans speak English and the ones who sign up for my class will be fluent, but I don’t want to use too many Americanisms or too much jargon.”

“Most Germans under the age of fifty have studied English in school. Even those who say they speak ‘only a little English,’ can talk politics like a senator, which by the way is the German word for senator.”

He was so relaxed and reassuring. Too relaxed? She felt a frisson of superstitious fear. “You will be careful, won’t you? Don’t let the bad guys sneak up on you.”

“I’m off to Oslo, not Kabul.”

Her iPhone erupted in a concatenation of percussive plinking.

Thor took a quick swallow of coffee and set down his mug. “Answer your xylophone. I’ve got to run.”

“No, wait…” she turned toward the phone.

“I’ll call you.” His kiss landed in her hair somewhere in the vicinity of her left ear and he hurried out the door.

Frustrated, she picked up the phone. “Hello.”

“Dinah, is that you? It’s your mother. Your friend Margaret and I are in the Hartsfield Airport in Atlanta waitin’ for our flight. What’s that number, Margaret? Here it is, Air France, seven seven-oh. Don’t we change planes somewhere, Margaret?”

“You’re coming here? To Berlin?”

“What? Good heavens, that’s too little for me to read, Margaret. Anyhow, we’ll be arriving this evenin’ at…what? Can that be right? All right, tomorrow evenin’ at eight-thirty at TXL, which we think is the name of the airport. If you can come get us and put us up for a few days, that’ll be just lovely.”

Dinah fought back a groan. “How long do you plan to be here?”

“That depends, baby. We have a little detective job we need you to help us with.”

Author Bio:

Jeanne Matthews was born and raised in Georgia. She graduated from the University of Georgia with a degree in Journalism and has worked as a copywriter, a high school English and Drama teacher, and a paralegal. She currently lives in Renton, Washington with her husband, who is a law professor.

Catch Up:

Tour Participants:

1. 3/01 – Review @ Buried Under Books
2. 3/03 – Review @ Tea and A Book
3. 3/04 – Showcase @ Our Wolves Den
4. 3/11 – Showcase @ fuonlyknew
5. 3/12 – Guest Post @ Writers and Authors
6. 3/12 – Review & Giveaway @ Marys Cup of Tea
7. 3/16 – Guest Post @ The Book Divas Reads
8. 3/17 – Review @ Vics Media Room
9. 3/18 – Showcase @ Ryder Islingtons Blog
10. 3/19 – Interview @ The Reading Frenzy
11. 3/23 – Review & Giveaway @ Deal Sharing Aunt
12. 3/26 – Review @ From the TBR Pile
13. 3/27 – Interview & Showcase @ The Pen and Muse Book Reviews

Giveaway:

This is a giveaway hosted by Partners In Crime Virtual Book Tours for Jeanne Mathews & Poisoned Pen Press. There will be one winner of 1 Box of Poisoned Pen Press books including Where the Bones Are Buried. The giveaway begins on Feb 28th, 2015 and runs through April 3rd, 2015. Tour Reviewers are also eligible to host their own giveaway for an ebook copy of Where the Bones Are Buried. All individual giveaway winners must be sent to Gina at Partners in Crime no later than April 3, 2015. a Rafflecopter giveaway

Get More Great Reads at Partners In Crime Virtual Book Tours

SHOWCASE: The Sirena Quest by Michael Kahn

Posted by Ryder Islington, author of Ultimate Justice, a Trey Fontaine Mystery, and coming April 10, 2015, Ultimate Game, a Trey Fontaine Mystery

The Sirena Quest

by Michael Kahn

on Tour March 1-31, 2015

Book Details:

Genre: Mystery

Published by: Poisoned Pen Press

Publication Date: January 6, 2015

Number of Pages: 298

ISBN: 9781464203503

Purchase Links:

Synopsis:

The New York Times Sunday Magazine piece famously opened: “She has pouting lips and high round breasts. Thousands of men have dreamt of her. Hundreds have chased after her. Two have died in pursuit. Her name is Sirena, she weighs 193 pounds, and she vanished in 1959. Without a trace.”

Barrett College’s legendary Greco-Roman sculpture’s fate was still a hot topic in 1970 when four roommates began their freshman year at the New England school. They’ve gone their separate ways for years. But as the 1994 commencement approaches, they are about to reunite to meet a challenge thrown down by a Class of ’59 hedge-fund billionaire. He has pledged a $25 million endowment plus a $3 million purse to her finder(s) if Sirena is restored to Barrett by June 17th, the date of his 35th reunion, the college’s sesquicentennial celebration—and our foursome’s 20th class reunion.

Although they are not alone in their pursuit—groups of alumni, including a pair of aggressive and highly financed classmates, are running down leads across the world—St. Louis lawyer Lou Solomon and his crew come upon an obscure but intriguing clue. It leads them to Chicago where a young lawyer called Rachel Gold may hold key information. As the men race to crack the Sirena puzzle, their quest will transform their lives in unexpected ways.

Read an excerpt:

CHAPTER 1

At 10:48 on the morning of June 6, 1994, Lou Solomon was in his law firm’s library. That in itself was noteworthy. The law library of Rosen & O’Malley, as with the libraries of most large law firms, is not a likely place to find a partner. Although a partner may occasionally poke his head in looking for an associate or to scan that day’s Wall Street Journal, the library is—as its name suggests—a place for research. Within the law firm hierarchy, associates do the research. They are, in the jargon of the profession, the mind mules.
Even more unusual, by 10:48 that morning Lou Solomon had already been in the library for nearly three hours. And there he would remain for several more. There hadn’t been a partner in the Rosen & O’Malley library for that long since old Mr. Caruthers spent the night back in the Spring of 1982, and that didn’t really count. After all, when the assistant librarian found the 74-year-old tax attorney the following morning slumped against the side of a carrel, his right arm clutching volume four of Scott on Trusts, he was already in an advanced stage of rigor mortis.

When Lou finally gathered his research materials at three that afternoon, two male junior associates peered over their library carrels to watch him leave. As the door swung closed behind him, they exchanged glances.

“Almost seven hours,” one said.

The other shook his head. “That’s incredible, dude.”

He said it with affection.

Lou Solomon was a favorite of the associates. The younger litigators tried to emulate his unassuming style in front of judges and juries, and he was often the topic of firm lore when associates gathered for lunch during the week or over pitchers of beer at Dooley’s after work on Fridays.

As the older associates occasionally reminded the younger ones, Lou Solomon had been a different guy back when they joined the firm.

“Remember when he played on the softball team?” one would reminisce between sips of beer.

“Lou played?” a younger associate would ask.

“Oh, yeah. He was good, too. Damn good. Played ball in college, didn’t he, Dave?”

And then Dave would lean back with a smile. “He ran the summer program when I was a law clerk.”

“My summer, too. Remember those float trips?”

“What float trips?” a younger associate would ask.

“He organized this annual float trip down the Meramec. It was a real hoot.”

Invariably, one of the senior associates would add, “She used to go on the float trips with us.”

“She?”

“Andi.”

And then there’d be silence. They all knew about Andi, even the ones who’d never met her. Especially the women.

“Yeah,” one of the senior associates would eventually say. “He was a different guy back then.”

Standing at the library carrels, the two associates watched as Lou disappeared down the hall.

“What’s he working on?”

“I think it’s that Donohue appeal.”

“Donohue? Isn’t Brenda on that with him?”

“She says Lou’s obsessed.”

And he was.

The brief was due tomorrow, and he still couldn’t let go. He’d promised Brenda his final changes by six that night. That would still leave her enough time to proof and cite-check the brief, shepherd the final version through the word processing department, and arrange to have the correct number of copies bound and filed in the court of appeals by the close of business tomorrow afternoon.

The Donohue appeal.

Its grip on Lou was all the more unusual because of the type of case it was. Lou’s specialty was complex commercial litigation—or, as those cases were known among law firms, elephant orgies: massive disputes featuring lots of parties, warehouses of documents, Dickensian plots, hordes of witnesses, squadrons of attorneys, and millions and millions of dollars at stake. His growing reputation in the field had placed him on the short lists of most general counsels in the region, which made him, at the age of forty-one, one of the firm’s top rainmakers.

But the Donohue appeal was no elephant orgy. The case arose out of a traffic accident, that hoary staple of the personal injury bar. Nevertheless, it possessed him like none he’d ever worked on. He found himself thinking about it in bed at night and on his morning jog and off and on during the day while listening to a long-winded client on the phone or waiting in court for a motion to be called. Although he was hardly the introspective type, Lou wondered about his devotion to this lost cause.

His office was one floor above the library. As he reached the interior stairway between the two floors, he was flipping through his research notes. He scanned one of the pages as he bounded up the stairs two at a time. The human shape registered in his peripheral vision at the last possible instant.

Roger Madison ducked back to avoid the collision.

“Whoops,” Madison said. “That was close.”

“I’m sorry, Roger.”

The older man chuckled. “No harm, no foul, Louis.”

Roger Madison was a litigation partner who specialized in condemnation matters. He was sixty-three, bald, slightly hunched over, and recently divorced. His only son, Roger Jr., had died of AIDS a year ago. Lou was close enough to Madison to pick up the tang of alcohol beneath the Polo cologne.

Lou gave him an apologetic smile as he started back up the stairs. “I’m a little out of it today, Roger.”

“No problem, Iceman.”

Lou paused and looked back, but Madison was already heading down the stairs.

Iceman.

He started up the stairs again, shaking his head.

He was scanning the headnotes of the next case in the pile as he strolled into his office. Taking a seat on the front edge of his desk, he began reading the court opinion.

The Donohue appeal.

It was a tale any fiction editor would reject as forced and overwrought and far too dependent upon coincidence. Thing was, God seemed to like them that way. The law books were filled with Donohue appeals—fact patterns served up with heavy platters of melodrama, seasoned with pure happenstance, and smothered in a thick gravy of pathos.

The Donohue of Donohue v. Henderson Construction Co. was Jane Donohue—attorney, widow, quadriplegic, mother of two little girls. The Henderson Construction Company had been her client. When old man Henderson died a few years back, Jane advised his adult sons to restructure the company into three separate corporations, one responsible for finances, one for marketing and one for operations. Her legal strategy was to limit the liability exposure of the operations end of the business. The sons agreed, Jane drew up the new corporate papers, and six weeks later a Henderson dump truck loaded with eight tons of hot asphalt ran a stop sign in her subdivision and plowed into the driver’s side of her station wagon, killing her husband and leaving her paralyzed from the neck down.

Lou had tried the case earlier that year. Forty-five minutes after closing arguments, the jury returned a verdict in Jane’s favor for $8.7 million. That was the good news. The bad news was that the judgment was against the operations corporation, which had total assets of $700,000. Jane Donohue’s medical bills alone had long since exceeded that amount.

Lou had been struggling with the appellate brief for weeks. The court had granted him three extensions of time as he searched for a loose brick in the legal fortress that Jane had built around the assets of the business. With no support from Missouri precedents, he had spent the last seven hours scouring the legal countryside for aid, reviewing dozens of court opinions from other states and law review articles from across the nation in what seemed an increasingly doomed effort to get some money to a paralyzed woman and her little girls. He’d even turned to California cases—a true sign of desperation. Asking a panel of Missouri appellate judges to follow a Left Coast precedent was akin to asking them to join you in a rousing evening of pansexual bondage. You might get lucky, but the odds were against you.

But even with California in the mix, there wasn’t much help out there. He set the court opinion down and with a sigh of fatigue turned to reach for the latest draft of the appellate brief.

And that’s when he saw the pink Phono-O-Gram slip.

Actually, he saw several. They were in a neat stack on top of the latest draft of the brief. He picked up the slips and started flipping through them. He stopped when he saw the one from 10:48 that morning:

Mr. Gorman of San Diego called re “fame and fortune (His words) “Change of plans.” Arrives @5 PM tomorrow: TWA Flight 432. Said you should “clear your calendar and fasten your seat belt.”

Lou smiled as he leaned back.

What was Gorman up to now?

Their twentieth college reunion was less than two weeks away. Three months ago, Ray Gorman had put Lou, Gordie, and Bronco Billy together on a conference call and made them take a pledge to meet him at Barrett College two days before the reunion. It would be the first gathering of the James Gang since the end of freshman year.

Lou read the message again.

Change of plans?

He checked his watch. Twenty minutes after three. He’d promised Brenda the brief by six. San Diego was two hours behind St. Louis time. He’d call Ray later.

He flipped through the other messages. Nothing urgent. He folded Ray’s message slip and put it in the pocket of his white dress shirt.

Author Bio:

Michael A. Kahn is a trial lawyer by day and an author at night. He wrote his first novel, GRAVE DESIGNS, on a challenge from his wife Margi, who got tired of listening to the same answer whenever she asked him about a book he was reading. “Not bad,” he would say, “but I could write a better book than that.” “Then write one,” she finally said, “or please shut up.” So he shut up–no easy task for an attorney–and then he wrote one.

Kahn is the award-winning author of: seven Rachel Gold novels; an eighth novel, THE MOURNING SEXTON, under the pen name Michael Baron; and several short stories.

In addition to his day job as a lawyer, he is an adjunct professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis, where he teaches a class on censorship and free expression. Married to his high school sweetheart, he is the father of five and the grandfather of, so far, four.

Catch Up:

Tour Participants:

1. 3/03 Guest Post @ Mythical Books
2. 3/04 Review @ Views from the Countryside
3. 3/05 Showcase @ Mommabears Book Blog
4. 3/07 Interview & Showcase @hott Books
5. 3/09 Guest Post @ Writers and Authors
6. 3/09 Review @ 3 Partners in Shopping
7. 3/10 Showcase @ Ryder Islingtons Blog
8. 3/11 Review @ Vics Media Room
9. 3/16 Review @ Deal Sharing Aunt
10. 3/17 Review @ For Life After
11. 3/18 Guest Post @ Our Wolves Den
12. 3/30 Review @ Tea and A Book
13. 3/31 Review @ FictionZeal

Giveaway:

This is a giveaway hosted by Partners In Crime Virtual Book Tours for Michael Kahn & Poisoned Pen Press. There will be one winner of 1 Box of Poisoned Pen Press books including The Sirena Quest. The giveaway begins on Feb 28th, 2015 and runs through April 3rd, 2015. Tour Reviewers are also eligible to host their own giveaway for an ebook copy of The Sirena Quest so don’t forget to stop by their sites & enter to win! a Rafflecopter giveaway

Get More Great Reads at Partners In Crime Virtual Book Tours