Category: blogging

The cinema of my dreams – I always wanted to write a war story – Episode 33

For a story that was conceived during those long boring hours flying in a steel cocoon, striving to keep away the thoughts that the plane and everyone in it could just simply disappear as planes have in the past, it has come a long way.

Whilst I have always had a fascination with what happened during the second world war, not the battles or fighting, but in the more obscure events that took place, I decided to pen my own little sidebar to what was a long and bitter war.

And, so, it continues…

…

Neither of us knew what to expect, and I had tried to steel myself for the worst. It was war, and I’d seen some awful things, but when it had happened to people you knew, and to a certain extent civilians that were nothing to do with the war, it was all that much harder to both understand why, and see.

There were dead, I counted at least ten, villagers who were innocent of any crime other than the fact they didn’t like Leonardo. They had no chance, shot and left to die in almost the same positions I’d seen them when I’d left earlier.

But, after checking everywhere, I could not find Martina.

Then Jack appeared. He came up to me and tugged on my trouser leg. “So this is where you got to?” I said. Why had he come back, though?

He headed back further into the cavern near where we had been earlier, a doorway I had not seen. It was ajar. Jack simply stood still, looking at it.

I pulled out my service pistol, not wanting to be caught unaware, and moved quietly towards the door, then slowly pulled it open.

At first, I saw nothing, then, looking down, I saw a figure on the floor. I knelt down to see who it was. The boy, Enrico. I’d seen his parents earlier, both dead. He must have escaped and hidden in the room, and, luckily, no one had followed him.

Except for Jack. Or had Jack come back, having sensed something awful had happened?

I checked him but there didn’t seem to be any wounds, and, when I shook his shoulder, he jolted, and jumped up ready to attack me, until he saw who it was, then grabbed hold of me. He was shaking, and suddenly sobbing. He had seen what had happened, and it was not something he was going to forget.

And he was going to want to exact revenge.

He was not the only one.

It took ten minutes before he had calmed, and managed to sit, leaning back against the wall. The room was where empty bottles were stored on wooden boxes, and he must have hidden among the crates. Anyone searching quickly wouldn’t venture much past the doorway.

It had saved his life.

Then, when I asked, he related what happened.

It was over very quickly. There had been a pounding on the door, and Martina had assumed it was Chiara returning. Chiara, he said, had said she had a small errand to run before locking herself in with the others.

When Martina opened the door, Leonardo was there, and they captured her, then set about killing everyone else. Enrico had been in the rear of the cavern looking for extra places for the others to camp when he heard the shots being fired.

Instead of going back to see what was happening, he hid in the bottle room, afraid for his life. Afraid for his parents and the others, but he had quickly realized there was nothing he could do. Leonardo had used the act of surprise.

One of Leonardo’s men had come back to where he was hiding, and just as he put his head in the door, Leonardo had called him back. They had to leave before Carlo and I returned. One of his men suggested they remain and capture us when we came back, but Leonardo said we’d come to him as soon as we saw what had happened.

He was right.

Carlo had made up a list of the dead and found that not only Martina was missing, so was Giuseppe and Francesco.

I told him Chiara was still alive, but barely, that Leonardo and his men had almost killed her, extracting the other’s whereabouts.

Martina and the others were most likely receiving the same punishment Chiara had received, up at the castle in one of the dungeons.

We were going to have to rescue them if they were still alive.

In fact, now that Thompson had sent reinforcements, the fight was going to be a little more in our favor with six of us, instead of two. Perhaps seven, if I could not persuade Enrico not to come, but that was going to be difficult. In his place, I would feel exactly the same.

When Enrico was ready, we went back out to the main cavern where Carlo was sitting, head in hands. It was probably the only time he would get to mourn his fellow villagers/

Jack was seeking forgiveness for deserting me, but I was not mad at him. That he was able to give some form of companionship to Enrico probably saved him from making a mistake thinking he could exact revenge on his own.

I told him Leonardo would pay for this, and, predictably, he told me that he would be coming with us. I promised myself that I would find some way of keeping him safe.

…
© Charles Heath 2020-2023

The story behind the story – Echoes from the Past

The novel ‘Echoes from the Past’ started out as a short story I wrote about 30 years ago, titled ‘The Birthday’.

My idea was to take a normal person out of their comfort zone and led on a short but very frightening journey to a place where a surprise birthday party had been arranged.

Thus, the very large man with a scar and a red tie was created.

So was the friend with the limousine who worked as a pilot.

So were the two women, Wendy and Angelina, who were Flight Attendants that the pilot friend asked to join the conspiracy.

I was going to rework the short story, then about ten pages long, into something a little more.

And like all rewrites, especially those I have anything to do with, it turned into a novel.

There was motivation.  I had told some colleagues at the place where I worked at the time that I liked writing, and they wanted a sample.  I was going to give them the re-worked short story.  Instead, I gave them ‘Echoes from the past’

Originally, it was not set anywhere in particular.

But when considering a location, I had, at the time, recently been to New York in December, and visited Brooklyn and Queens, as well as a lot of New York itself.  We were there for New Year’s, and it was an experience I’ll never forget.

One evening, we were out late and finished up in Brooklyn Heights, near the waterfront, and there was rain and snow; it was cold and wet, and apartment buildings were shimmering in the street light, and I thought, “This is the place where my main character will live”.

It had a very spooky atmosphere, the sort where ghosts would not be unexpected.  I felt more than one shiver go up and down my spine in the few minutes I was there.

I had taken notes, as I always do, of everywhere we went, so I had a ready supply of locations I could use, changing the names in some cases.

Fifth Avenue near the Rockefeller Centre is amazing at first light, and late at night with the Seasonal decorations and lights.

The original main character was a shy man with few friends, hence not expecting the surprise party.  I enhanced that shyness into purposely lonely because of an issue from his past that leaves him always looking over his shoulder and ready to move on at the slightest hint of trouble.  No friends, no relationships, just a very low profile.

Then I thought, what if he breaks the cardinal rule and begins a relationship?

But it is also as much an exploration of a damaged soul as it is the search for a normal life, without having any idea what normal was, and how the understanding of one person can sometimes make all the difference in what we may think or feel.

And, of course, I wanted a happy ending.

Except for the bad guys.

…

Get it here:  https://amzn.to/2CYKxu4

newechocover5rs

The cinema of my dreams – I always wanted to go on a treasure hunt – Episode 34

Here’s the thing…

Every time I close my eyes, I see something different.

I’d like to think the cinema of my dreams is playing a double feature but it’s a bit like a comedy cartoon night on Fox.

But these dreams are nothing to laugh about.

Once again there’s a new installment of an old feature, and we’re back on the treasure hunt.

…

When I woke the next morning, it was to the sound of voices in the front of the house.  One of the voices was my mothers.  The other I had trouble placing, and I initially thought it was Benderby, calling in on the way to work.

When I threw on some clothes and came out, still a little bleary-eyed, I found it was the Sherriff.  It seemed, all of a sudden, my mother had become the most popular girl in town.

The thing is, I knew little of the history of what went on in my mother’s time in a city where she had been born, raised, and remained.  Married and divorced her high school sweetheart, there was talk of her being one of the popular girls at school, coincidentally the same school I went to, and there was evidence everywhere of her there.

I had not lived up to the family name.

Not that she expected me too, nor did she acknowledge those wild and hazy days where she had not been weighed down by a useless drunken husband, and struggle to pay the bills, hold onto the house, and both work and be a mother.  Life had not gone the way she had expected.

But curiously those times were also those of Sherriff Johnson, in the same grade, along with Benderby, a few years ahead, and both Boggs’ mother and father who were contemporaries along with others including Nadia and Vince’s mother.  They had been friends once until she married Cossatino and she ‘changed’.

Now they were an ocean apart on the social or any scale.

“Ah, Sam.  How are you now?”

“Better.  I’ll be more careful next time.  Got any leads on who it was?”

“Ghosts.  We have a few.  Some of them are Cossatino’s, the others Benderby.  Pity no one is willing to name names.”

“I didn’t see them, Sherriff.  They wore masks.”

“Of course.”

“Is there anything more about the Frobisher case?”

“You seem very interested in police matters Sam.”

“He was an antique dealer, according to the papers, and there’s a lot of talk going around about the infamous treasure maps and you can’t help but put two and two together.  Especially when Rico is related to Boggs whose father was the one responsible for creating those treasure maps.  You think Rico was trying to get some answers out of him?”

“Hardly the sort of thing that any sane man would kill for, don’t you think?”

I doubted he would tell me if he knew anything, but he had taken more interest in what I was saying.  It was stuff he’d know, or at least should know, since he had been the one to investigate Boggs’ father’s disappearance.

“Who said Rico was sane.  He was a terrifying sort of guy when he lost his temper which I’ve seen him do in front of Boggs.  But you have to agree, Rico had to know about Boggs’ father’s role in creating the maps for the Cossatino’s.”

The sheriff shook his head.

“Those are not the sort of rumors you want to be spreading around town, not unless you want an army of Cossatino’s layers on your doorstep.  They are just that, rumors.  Nothing was ever proven, and there was no evidence that the Cossatino’s had anything to do with Boggs’ father’s disappearance.”

“And Rico?”

“Rico is a harmless fool who talks big and that’s all.  He did his time for running a map scam that he claims was run by Boggs senior.  No one could prove it so he copped it sweet.  Now, he should know better.  But I will say this, Frobisher was not here to see Rico, but Benderby.  Benderby apparently had some old coins he’s scooped up off the ocean floor on a dive and thought they might be worth something.  Frobisher took them to be assessed and valued but got no further than Rico’s boat.  And the coins are now missing.”

“Sounds to me like there’s going to be another treasure hunt.”

There’d been another some years before fuelled by news an authentic treasure map had been found, showing the location of Captain Markaby’s plunder stashed away for another day somewhere on our shores.

It all ended with Boggs senior’s disappearance.

“It might, but we can only hope what happened to the father in the last one, doesn’t happen to the son in this one.  It’s why I called in.  Your mother tells me you have some influence on young Boggs.  Please tell him to stop stirring the pot with this notion he has the real map.  He doesn’t.  No one does.  The plain truth is, there isn’t one.  Someone needs to get through to him before something really bad happens to him.  He’s already had one close shave.  I’ll deal with the Cossatino’s and the Benderby’s.  I expect you to deal with Boggs.  Am I clear?”

Put to me in that authoritarian voice, it was very clear.  But to Boggs, it was going to be like a red rag to a bull.

I nodded and went back to my room.

How did I manage to get in the middle of this mess?

…

© Charles Heath 2019-2020

Short story writing – don’t try this at home! – Part 3

Where is this story going to start?

Let’s forget about the what, the who and the when for the moment, and figure out the location.

After all, we couldn’t make a movie unless we had somewhere to shoot it.  Those places are called locations, and before a film begins, someone has to go out and find locations.

Sometimes it’s easy, because you know where the story is based.

New York, London, Singapore, Moscow.

It’s more likely it will be somewhere you’ve been, or where you live.

I live in Brisbane, in Australia.  Not a lot of people overseas know of it.  Oddly enough, before I moved here over 30 years ago, it was just a name on a map.

But the point is, now that I’m here, I could write a story based in Brisbane.  Or as easily, in Melbourne, where I also used to live.

Or I could select a place I’ve travelled to, perhaps not once, but a few times, and each time taking photographs and notes about that place, thinking one day I could use it as a location.

I have, and I do.  It’s one of the reasons why I like to travel.  I’m always on the lookout for someplace new.

Several of my books are set in New York, several in London, and various parts of the story find the characters in places like Paris, Rome, Florence, Tuscany, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Moscow.

Then, sometimes when my knowledge is lacking in some of the finer points of the city, Google Maps and Google itself are there to fill in the gaps.  I have virtually driven down streets in London, especially near Kew Gardens and in Knightsbridge, checking locations.

Suffice to say, I know some parts of London like the back of my hand, and recently, before COVID, I visited and did a spot check just to be sure.

With COVID-19 causing havoc with travel plans, virtual travel is all I can do at present.

Then there’s building, like houses, apartments, any sort of building, which may require some knowledge.

I guess what I’m saying is that there’s more to locations than just saying something is there; it had to fit the area.  Yes, the story is a work of fiction, but sometimes it’s better to have an idea of what’s there, or readers will be disappointed.

Especially if they live in that city, town, village, house or tent.

I actually use the real estate advertisements in a city or town where I want to have a house, because it gives me a map, exterior views, how to get there, and best of all, what it looks like inside.

Still can’t afford that $12,000,000 apartment in New York, but the views, there were to die for.

But I, as always, digress…

Now it’s starting to sound like a lot of hard work.

It is.

Even if you go down the ‘pantser’ road, there’s still a lot of research to be done.

More confusion tomorrow.

What I learned about writing – The Lester Dent Master Fiction Plot

The Blueprint of a Bestseller: Cracking the “Lester Dent Master Fiction Plot”

If you’ve ever sat down to write a story only to find yourself staring at a blinking cursor, wondering, “How do I keep this momentum going?” you aren’t alone. Even the most prolific writers hit a wall.

Enter Lester Dent.

If the name doesn’t ring a bell, the character he created certainly will: Doc Savage. Dent was a pulp fiction machine, responsible for writing some 160 novels in the Doc Savage series alone. To maintain that breakneck pace, he developed a secret weapon—a structural blueprint so effective he called it the “Master Fiction Plot.”

In 1939, Dent published his formula in a writer’s magazine. He claimed it was “foolproof.” While no formula can guarantee a masterpiece, Dent’s method is a masterclass in pacing, tension, and narrative flow.

Here is how you can use the Lester Dent Master Fiction Plot to structure your next story.

The Formula: Four 1,500-Word Quarters

Dent’s formula is based on an 8,000-word novelette structure. He divided the story into four distinct “quarters,” each serving a specific purpose.

Quarter 1: The Setup

  • The Hook: Introduce the hero and a “different” situation. Something needs to happen immediately that is out of the ordinary.
  • The Conflict: Throw a problem at the hero right away.
  • The Stakes: Set the stakes clearly. The hero should be in danger or face a massive obstacle.
  • The Climax of Part 1: The hero must face a situation that seems impossible to escape.

Quarter 2: The Escalation

  • The Twist: The hero escapes the trap from Part 1, but realises the situation is even worse/more complex than they thought.
  • New Obstacles: Introduce new characters (allies or villains) or new complications.
  • Heightened Tension: The hero must take action, but their actions should lead to even greater peril.
  • The Climax of Part 2: Another “impossible” situation or a cliffhanger that leaves the reader needing to know what happens next.

Quarter 3: The Deepening

  • The Investigation: The hero uncovers the “why” behind the mystery. The puzzle starts coming together, but the cost of the secret is rising.
  • Tension Peaks: The villain should catch on to the hero’s progress. The hero should be fighting for their life here.
  • The Climax of Part 3: The hero suffers a massive blow—maybe they lose a resource, get injured, or lose a lead. Things look bleakest here.

Quarter 4: The Resolution

  • The Final Push: The hero figures out the final piece of the mystery.
  • The Confrontation: The hero faces the antagonist head-on.
  • The Resolution: The loose ends are tied up, the mystery is solved, and the hero emerges (usually) victorious.
  • The Wrap-up: A brief scene to ground the world and show the aftermath of the journey.

Why It Still Works Today (And How to Use It)

You might be thinking, “But I’m not writing 1930s pulp.”

True, but the DNA of the Lester Dent formula is identical to the modern “Save the Cat” or the standard “Three-Act Structure” used by every major Hollywood studio.

The brilliance of Dent’s method is the focus on “Pulled-Out All the Stops”:

  1. Never let the reader catch their breath: Each quarter ends with a cliffhanger that forces the reader to turn the page.
  2. Every scene must be active: Dent insisted that if a scene didn’t have a conflict or a step toward the solution, it had to be cut.
  3. The hero must be in trouble: If your hero isn’t struggling, the reader isn’t invested. Dent’s hero was always in trouble.

The Takeaway

The Lester Dent Master Fiction Plot isn’t meant to be a creative straightjacket. It is a scaffolding. By ensuring your story keeps the tension high, the mystery deepening, and the hero constantly tested, you eliminate the “sagging middle” that kills so many novels.

The next time you’re stuck, grab a notepad, divide your outline into those four quarters, and ask yourself: Is my hero in enough trouble?

If the answer is “no,” you know exactly what you need to add. Happy writing!

365 Days of writing, 2026 – 188

Day 188 – Writing exercise

…

When you look back and think about certain aspects of your life and wonder, for that fraction of a second, if you had done one thing differently, it would have made a difference.

Some well-meaning relative had said, thinking that I was not near enough to overhear, that my insistence on wanting to see the Pont d’veccio in Florence was ‘a bridge too far’, was the reason why Alexandra was dead, was not fair.

But in a literal sense it was true.  Had I not insisted, she would still be alive, and that was true.

I was standing there right now, practically in the same place, at the same time, and the memory of what happened came flooding back.

Richard Wyler, Alexandria’s high school boyfriend, had appeared out of the crowd of tourists, now grown more devilishly handsome than he had been at school.

Her eyes lit up when she saw him, nearly all of 20 years later; they saw each other, and it was like I was not there.  I had known, even from the moment I met her, she had not forgotten him, even though he had abandoned her.

I had never believed that after he left I would have any sort of chance with her.  None of us in the year did, but it happened; we dropped together at college, got jobs in New York, kept bumping into each other and five years later got married.

It wasn’t until the children themselves went to college that we decided to go on the grand tour of Europe, the honeymoon we had planned but never got to take, what with one thing or another.

We got to Florence; the first few days were glorious, and then Richard appeared.

That morning a change had come over her.  One minute everything was fine; she was going down to the front desk to get a map of Florence before we went for a walking tour to round out the experience. 

She went down happier than I had seen her in years.  When she came back, it was like she was a completely different person.  I had asked her if everything was alright, but she wouldn’t tell me.

I asked her if she wanted to stay in, rest, if things had caught up and she was feeling tired, but she said I wanted to go, so we did.

And by the time we got to the bridge, I was ready to just walk away and leave her to gather her thoughts.  Then Richard appeared, and instantly she had changed again.  Back to that giddy effervescent teenager she had been back then.

Clearly she wanted to spend some time with him, and I knew and trusted her to spend some time with him, thinking it would push away the bad mood she was in.

Until she didn’t come back, and I could not get her on her cell phone.  Of course I was a little disappointed she had called to tell me that she was spending some more time with him, so I let it go.

She would come back when she was ready.

Until she had not returned the next morning.  That’s when I got worried.  He phone was now officially dead, the battery having given out.  It was one of her quirks, never remembering to charge it overnight. 

Again I waited until lunchtime, though I was not sure of my reasoning, before I went to the police

That in itself was the worst five hours of my life, going through a succession of officers saying the same answers to the same set of questions over and over.

Until I finally found an officer of the Gendarmerie who could speak English, and started asking more serious questions.  It was she who had just been advised of an unidentified American woman who had been taken to hospital with serious wounds.

She could not say the exact nature of the circumstances but accompanied me to the hospital to see if it might be Alexandria.  I thought it impossible; it had to be someone else.

When we arrived, she was advised the patient had just died.  I felt a cold shiver go through me, the sort that felt like an omen.

Getting from the front foyer of the hospital, the rather room on the fourth floor seemed to take an eternity, the corridor full of police and hospital staff.  The room was cleared, and after a few minutes, she came out to take me in.

I knew the moment I stepped through the door.  When they drew back the sheet, I collapsed.  It was like my whole world had been pulled from under me.

It was her.

…

Several people asked me if I was alright; that moment I saw her face had hit me as hard now as it had then, and I had to stop myself from falling over.

How had she died?

She had been shot.  Not alone.  Whoever had killed her had also killed Richard Wyler.  And, it appeared he had been the intended target, and Alexandra had been caught in the crossfire.

She had been alive when they found her, in another hotel, on an island on the other side of the city.

Of course, the Italian police had taken my statement when I had sought their assistance in finding her, and had made the mistake of mentioning Wyler’s importance and relationship to her, and drew all the wrong conclusions.

And for the next week I had to find a lawyer and try to prove to them that I had not shot both of them in a jealous rage. Fortunately? In the end, the hotel was able to provide CCTV of the actual shooter, and it didn’t look like me.

But I have to prove that I had not hired him to do the job for me.  Even my children, as loyal as they were to me, had doubts until proven otherwise, but the damage was done.

If I hadn’t taken her there, she would still be alive.  Her family didn’t speak to me, her friends hated me, and my children had just stopped coming home.

So why was I back in Florence revisiting the place that caused me all that grief?

I wanted to know what happened.  I was retracing steps.  I had the police report, and I had the private investigator’s report retracing her steps from the moment she met Wyler to the moment they were shot in his hotel room.

The private investigator’s report read like I was caught up in a thriller novel.  It was, when I first read it, unbelievable.  I thought the fellow was making it all up, because he had painted both of them as completely unrecognisable characters.

I had told me one because no one would believe me.

It was one of the reasons I was on that bridge.

It was a message on my phone.  No caller ID.  Simple.  “Meet me on the bridge, same day, same time, this week. I have information about Alexandria.”

Thursday, 1 pm.

…

It had to be a sick joke.  She had been here, saw Tyler and did what she did.  Nothing anyone could tell me about it was going to change the fact she was dead, and was not coming back.

I was looking for closure, not a reopening of the wound, and yet, with a morbid sense of curiosity, I found myself on the bridge at the appointed time, waiting.

For whom.  Obviously, they knew me by sight, which in itself was scary.  Who was this person?  Was it a shake-down, information for money?  It wouldn’t surprise me.

“Mr Guillam?”

First surprise, it was a woman’s voice; second surprise, she knew me by sight, and when I turned to see who asked the question, third surprise, Alexandria’s oldest friend now estranged, for reasons she would never explain.

“Deborah.”

Deborah Willis, the girl who went through high school and college with her best friend and two others, though Alexandria never told me their names.  By the time she married me, she had moved away and never mentioned them.  Only Deborah had remained until something happened.

“Edward.  Long time, no see.”

“Alexandria never told me why; she just came home from one of your weekends and said she was done with you.”

“Let’s walk.”  I noticed she had been looking around, perhaps looking for someone.

We walked off the bridge and back the way I’d come.

I sensed she needed a moment to recover from the shock of meeting me again, and to gather her thoughts.

“Alexandria was always a piece of work,” she said, finally, with an edge to her tone.  “In school she was the leader of the pack, with us lesser mortals always clamouring to be in her group.  As you can imagine, we had a love-hate relationship.”

Alexandria was difficult at times, I had to admit, but her mother once told me that she needed treating with kid gloves from time to time.  It had a lot to do with self-image and confidence.

The thing is, I found she was rarely short of either, and that it was best just to yield to her will.  That popularity extended into adulthood, and I knew she liked to flirt but trusted she knew where the boundaries were.

It was sad when I discovered she did not.  Then it was a matter of what I was prepared to live with.  We had a comfortable life, though I sensed at times she was bored.  The trip around Europe was supposed to cure that.

Perhaps it was just an excuse for her to look for something else, something less boring.  I didn’t love her less.

“She was unique.”

She looked at me sideways.  “So, you know she and Tyler’s never stopped seeing each other even after you were married.”

The thought of that stopped me in my tracks.  She had never once mentioned him after declaring he had abandoned her.  Then, if I thought about it, it all sounded a little staged.  I was too blinded by my good fortune to see it, and so much easier for her to keep up the pretence

She realised I’d stopped and came back.

“You didn’t know.”

“I should have guessed.  The signs were all there when you know what to look for.”

“It’s why I never came to your wedding.  None of us did.  We knew it was hypocrisy.  It was also the beginning of the end.  None of us liked what she was doing.  Meeting him here was not a surprise, at least not the one she wanted you to believe.  They planned it.”

I wondered in that brief moment if Deborah was here to rub salt into a gaping wound.

“How do you know all of this?”

“I work for the same people Wyler does.  Different section, but I know everything there is to know about him.  Where he is, what he’s doing.  Which brought him to Florence.  I knew Alexandria was coming here, and why.  That performance at the bridge was Oscar-winning material.  She was, after all, the leading lady in all our school and college productions.”

A titbit of information she never shared.  As far as she was concerned, school had been a drudge, and she couldn’t wait to leave.

“What does Wyler do, you too for that matter, and why bother telling me all this?”

Perhaps she sensed the anger in my tone.  “Because it was Wyler who was killed, not her.  That hospital charade was set up by me so that we could get her back home.  She was close to death, but she didn’t die.”

Why did I get the feeling the next thing she was going to tell was something I didn’t want to know?

“Wyler was an intelligence gatherer.  He was good at being the hero, the one in the room that everyone noticed, the one in the room everyone wanted to tell their life story to, especially the ladies.”

“A spy?”

“No.  He just talked to specially targeted people, mostly women, and extracted information by any and all means necessary.”

“Was Alexandria a target?”  I’m not sure what I was supposed to think, but it was getting more difficult to believe any of this.

“No.  She was basically just some fool who thought she was in love with him when he just wanted to fuck her.  It’s what we argued about, and why she told me to go to hell.  It wasn’t worth burning her marriage over.  Anyway, I told the bosses he was compromised and why, and they told him to end it.  That was what he was supposed to do here.”

“When they met, it looked to me to be that last thing on his mind.  And, so the police told me, she was found shot in his hotel bed.”

“They both were.  He was the target.  He had a job in Siena, but he was sloppy and the people the woman worked for found out.  They sent an assassin.  The thing was, he hadn’t filed a report, and we needed it, so I assumed in those last moments before he did, he passed it on, or at the very least, where the information was.”

It was a story, and so far-fetched that it was almost believable.  They say truth is stranger than fiction, and I guess when it came to intelligence, the how always comes ahead of the why.

“Did he?”

“The short answer is yes.  The long answer requires more time and effort than I care to expend.”

“Did she tell you?”

“No.  She had leverage.  We need it; she knows it.”

“And you’re here because?”

“She’s somewhere in Florence.  She escaped once she realised what was going on, whether she thinks she’s in danger from us, or the others, I don’t know, and I’m assuming she has come to get the information and use it to make a bargain.”

And if all those TV shows I’d seen over the years were right, she didn’t have a bargaining chip, just a one-way ticket to the graveyard.  Once she handed it over, no more leverage.

Then there was the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question: what did all of this have to do with me?  Now I knew she had been cheating on me all this time; it made the loss less painful.  The fact he was using her, maybe that was karma.

“How does any of this involve me?”

“I think she’ll try to contact you.”

“How could she possibly know I’m here?”  Then it dawned on me.  The masters of intelligence gathering, she’d known exactly where every character would be on the chessboard. “You told her.”

“She asked.  We had to make sure they didn’t come after you and her children, just to be safe, so if you feel like people have been watching you, you weren’t imagining it.”

I hadn’t, but I wasn’t going to say that.

I shrugged.  “She’s not a spy, so I don’t expect much.”

“You’d be surprised.  I am at the level of cunning she has acquired in the last week, particularly in evading us.”

“I can’t help her.”

“I think she believes you can.”

“I won’t.”

“She’ll have a story, a convincing one.  She has spent years lying to everyone, even to herself.  We just want you to call us when she does approach you.  She is out of her depth.  I am too if you want the truth, and since this all went sideways, I just want out.  Unfortunately, this was deemed my mess, and I have to clean it up.  Just call me when she comes.  I’ll do the rest.”

“Which is?”

“As usual, resolve the problem by any or all means available.  Irrespective of the cost.”

She looked tired.

I just felt like a building had fallen on me.

When we parted, I didn’t think I’d see her again.  A pity, in another lifetime I liked her perhaps a little more than I should.  I’d always wondered what Deborah had seen in her.

…

The idea of confronting a dead person was not something I had been contemplating.  What it did was anger me, considering the damage it had done to me by all those who believed I killed her, children included.

To be honest, getting away, far away from all of them, had been necessary for my sanity, and I had seriously been contemplating never going back

While staying in Greve, I had been looking at cottages, and deciding where I might just stay and never go home.  If Alexandria was alive, the kids could have her; everyone could.

I trudged up the stairs to my hotel room, churning over every little detail that, if I had looked harder, would have pointed to the betrayal.  It annoyed me that I refused to look at them then, or believe something was wrong.

And then on the landing, a new sensation hit me.  The scent of her perfume.  It wasn’t for the first time, and I’d believed it to be my imagination wanting to believe she hadn’t gone.

I opened the door, and the scent lingered.  I stepped in and closed the door behind me. 

I could feel her presence.  She had that ability to affect me.  She had a way of enveloping you, making you feel like you were the only one in the room with her.

Except it was all a lie.  Everything about her was a lie, and I’d allowed myself to be caught up in it.

I took the two steps from the door to the entrance to the dining room and said, “I know you’re here somewhere, Alex.”

Then she stepped out, the old Alexandria, the one who could still take my breath away the same as she had twenty years ago. And probably always would.

“Of course you do.  My charming friend Debby has been in your ear.”

“Nearly five months and you didn’t think to tell me.”

“They wouldn’t let me.”

“You wouldn’t tell them what they wanted to hear.”

“A man gave his life for it.”

“The same man you’ve been screwing for years.”

OK.  That finally silenced her.  I wondered if she knew just how much Deborah would tell me.  Just enough also that I would do her bidding.

“I’m sorry.”

“You’re not, or you wouldn’t have done it.  It fits with my initial assessment, the silly fool who thought he’d won the lottery, only to discover that he was really the inconvenient excuse.  Twenty years, Alex.  You must feel so vastly superior.”

“You may never believe me, Edward, but I am sorry.  It was unforgivable, arrogant and selfish of me.  I did, do care for you.”

“Did. That had run its course by the time we got on the plane.  You made it perfectly clear you wanted to be anywhere but with me.”

“You changed,” she said, as if those two words would explain it all away.

“No.  I’m exactly the same as I was when I met you.  You changed.  Wyler changed you.  He had the lifestyle, the life you always saw you wanted.  It didn’t include kids or a husband.”

“I’m sure they don’t miss me.  I wasn’t much of a mother to them.  You did all of that.”

“They all think I killed you. Why do you think I’m here?  They never want to see me again.  No one back home does.”

“Interesting.”

Right then, had I given free rein to my emotions, I would have willingly throttled her.  How could I be tried for murder when she was already dead?  The fact I took two steps towards her, and she retreated, indicated she knew she had just hit a raw nerve.

“Look.  What happened didn’t go the way it was supposed to.  He told me it was the end, we couldn’t do it any more, and I convinced him to be together one last time.  Had I known he was a marked man and an assassin was coming to kill him, a small detail he forgot to mention, everything would have been fine.  I would have come back, admitted I was having an affair, and we would talk about it.  But what happened happened.  What are we going to do about it?”

“Nothing.  You’re going to leave, I’m not going home, there’s nothing and no one there I care for any more.  Why did you bother tracking me down when you knew what the result would be?”

“I thought you’d be more forgiving.”

“Perhaps if you hadn’t faked your death.”

“That wasn’t my fault.”

“And that’s the problem right there.  You are not going to take responsibility for your actions.  I’m surprised you haven’t blamed me for everything that went wrong.  All this time I blame myself, that if I hadn’t brought you here you’d still be alive…” I glared at her.  “Just get out of my sight.”

“I am sorry.”

“You don’t even know what that word means.”

I think she finally saw the futility in arguing with me.  She simply shrugged and left.

I called Deborah and told he she just left my room.

…

Life sometimes surprises you.

I didn’t go home, I told no one where I was going, and decided that, aside from my neighbours who called me that mysterious man who doesn’t say much, I kept to myself, tending my acre of olive trees somewhere in Tuscany.

It took me six slow and sometimes difficult months to repair the villa back to a livable condition, and ahead of me were the final touches.  At least now when it rained I didn’t have to have a shower in the dining room.

About three months after I last saw Alexandria, I started getting emails from my children, the first from each admitting they had made assumptions and were glad to finally hear how and where their mother died.

Deborah was true to her word when she said they would get the truth or as close to the truth as possible.  She sent me copies of her emails and their questions so I was across it.

The main thing was I was not to blame, and what happened I could not have stopped.  There was also the blunt truth that she was having an affair with a bad man and they had promised to rendezvous in Florence.  She even had an email trail that disparaged me, and suggested they would meet and live together, somewhere in Italy.

Someone in her organisation was a master storyteller.

The irony was not lost on them when they learned I was living in Tuscany, and wasn’t planning to come back.  They asked for forgiveness, and I said it would take time.  Maybe I would let them come and visit, but no one else could.  Children were all over the place with their feelings and loyalties; adults knew what they were doing.

None deserved or would ever get my forgiveness.

Then, at the end of summer, eight months had passed, and it had been raining, cooling the hot August day, leaving it cool and just perfect.

Two cars, one with carabinieri on the side, stopped outside my house.

I knew who the person was in the second car, and watched the officer get out of the first car, go back to the other car, open the door and help a woman get out of the passenger’s side.  The officer was the same woman officer who had told me Alexandria was dead.

The drivers of the two cars got out and stood by their vehicles.  One was Deborah.

It meant that the procedures they used on Alexandria had worked. 

There had been one more conversation with Deborah and Alexandria a week after she had been captured outside my hotel.  There, Alexandria discovered she had two choices: one to be locked up in an isolated prison that no one had ever escaped from and would never leave, or she submitted to a memory erasure procedure, and if it worked, would be returned to me.

To me it sounded awful.  And illegal.  But it wasn’t my idea.  I argued against having it, because even in jail she would know who she was.

She said she had no choice.  Either way, in most respects she was dead, so what did it matter?  She signed the forms, and said she would see me again; and this time she would be different.

I wasn’t holding my breath.

After six months, I had all but given up expecting anything.  I had heard nothing, and I didn’t know where or who I was to ask.

Perhaps it had worked.

The woman I saw walking beside the officer was looking around, smiling, and I had to say she looked very little like the woman in my hotel room eight months ago.  She was like the girl I first met nearly twenty-one years ago, before the obsession with the gym and losing weight.  Her hair colour was golden, long, and out so that the breeze lifted wisps into her face, causing her to brush it aside.

She was in full summer mode, happy, confident, and she could still take my breath away.

I opened the door.  The officer acted as if she didn’t know me.

“Mr Walters?”

“Yes?”

“As discussed yesterday, we have brought your wife home.  She has slight memory loss, but the doctors agree it will return eventually.  She remembers you, which is, I believe, a good thing.”

She stood patiently beside the officer.  Her eyes registered recognition.  Deborah said she had her memory retrained to the point where she knew she was married to me, that we had once lived in another country and that we had moved here for her health.  And to recover from a very bad accident, which was the reason for her memory loss.  Other than that, she was perfectly well.

She also had a new name and an Italian heritage.  She had always been able to speak Italian fluently, as well as several other European languages.  That hadn’t changed.

“Alessandria.”

“Gordon.  I was surprised when they came yesterday to tell me I could come home.  You’ve done the place up.  I guess all that nagging finally worked out.”

I took her outstretched hand and guided her inside.  The office wasn’t staying.  Through the windows I saw Deborah’s wave before getting back in her car.  She would come back in a week to see how Alessandria was managing.

Then she gave me a hug.  In my ear she whispered, “You have no idea how glad I am to be home.”

“You have no idea how glad I am you are home.”

Now alone with her, I was not quite sure what to do next.  I knew she was Alexandria, but she didn’t look like her; they had made changes so she would not be too recognisable.  And it felt like I could not assume that everything would be marital bliss instantly.  She would have to find her way and get comfortable.

She kissed me on the cheek, hugged me, then went into the bedroom, checking if everything was there.  Several large cases had arrived the day before with her belongings, and I’d set them out like she had never been away.  Everything of Alexandria’s was there, including her favourite perfume.

She sat on the bed and smiled, then a tear ran down her cheek.  Happy, sad, glad, upset?

She patted the bed beside her, and I sat.

“We start again.  I think I was not too good a wife before; this I feel, not remember.  Do not tell me about previous life; we shall create a new one.”

“Do you feel comfortable here?”

“Why should I not?  We were, before the accident, embarking on a second honeymoon.  Let it be so, and perhaps let it not end.  Champagne?”

“Of course.”  I gently wiped the tears away and went out to get the bottle waiting in the fridge.

It was more than I expected, or hoped for.  I said a silent prayer of thanks, then took two glasses and the bottle in an ice bucket back to the room.

The computer had restarted, and there was a Zoom call, which, before I could stop her, she answered. 

It was Alexandria and Edward, our children, each named after us because Alexandria thought it was the thing to do.  I thought it was odd.

“Dad.” I could hear Edward before I could see him.  “Dad, you never told us Alessandria was home from the hospital.”

She was sitting in front of the screen, looking a little confused.  I had hoped to ease her into the fact she was a stepmother, and that they had one.

It seemed Deborah had woven a story for them.

“Just now, Ed, and she’s a little tired from the trip.  Can we do this tomorrow?”

“No.”  She said.  “I am alright.  I have been waiting and wanting to meet you, and hope that you will accept me not as a replacement but a friend if and when you need one.  You could come and stay for a while.  I would love to show you my country.”

“That’s what we called for.”  Alexandria had sat down beside Edward.  It was not hard to see her mother in the daughter.  “We thought we could visit, see a little of Italy, spend some time repairing bridges.”

“Of course.  When?”

“We arrived in Florence in two days.  Grandma arranged it.  She was coming with us, but Granddad got sick and is in hospital.  It will be just us, on our best behaviour.  OK.  Got to go.  See you then.”

The screen went blank.

I looked at Allessandria.  “Wow,” she said.  “They are everything you said they were, even if they made a mistake in blaming you for their mother’s death.  I guess children are like that.  Alexandria looks like her mother, doesn’t she?”

I looked at her, trying to tell if there was a hidden meaning in her tone.  Perhaps I worried too much.

“She does.  It hurts sometimes, but you managed to assuage that pain.  In more ways than one.”

“Is that why you picked me?  The name.  You know it’s the Italian version of it.”

“Perhaps in my grief it crossed my mind, but not specifically.  I simply fell in love with you the first time I saw you, and it only gets stronger every time I see you.  Now.  Champagne.  Time to celebrate your return.”

…

©  Charles Heath  2026

Top 5 sights on the road less travelled – Corsica

Corsica, known as the “Isle of Beauty,” has many stunning areas that are often overlooked by the crowds heading to the main coastal resorts.

Here are five of the next best places or activities to do on a less-travelled road in Corsica:

1. The Désert des Agriates

  • Why it’s “less travelled”: This vast, uninhabited area in the north-west is a protected coastal wilderness with no main roads. The beaches are often only accessible by boat, a long hike, or a rough, dusty 4×4 track.
  • The Experience: Explore the wild, fragrant maquis (scrubland) and find pristine white-sand beaches like Plage de Saleccia and Plage du Lodu. You can hire a boat-taxi from Saint-Florent for a day trip, or rent a 4×4 to experience the rugged interior track.

2. The Castagniccia Region (Chestnut Country)

  • Why it’s “less travelled”: Located in the mountainous north-east, this region is a maze of winding, narrow roads that discourage fast travel. Its villages were once wealthy but have been slowly abandoned, giving it an atmosphere of beautiful, forgotten history.
  • The Experience: Drive through deep chestnut forests (castagna is the Corsican word for chestnut) and discover ancient, isolated stone villages like Piedicroce or La Porta, which features a magnificent baroque church and bell tower. This area is perfect for feeling truly lost in time.

3. Hiking the Western Side of Cap Corse’s Sentier des Douaniers

  • Why it’s “less travelled”: While the Cap Corse loop road is popular, most tourists stick to the drive and the villages. The full coastal path (Sentier des Douaniers) is long, but the section on the wilder, rockier west coast sees fewer walkers than the northern tip.
  • The Experience: Start near a village like Centuri or Tollare and walk south along the “customs officers’ path,” an ancient route used to patrol the coast. You’ll be rewarded with dramatic sea views, Genoese watchtowers, and a silence that contrasts with the busy eastern coast.

4. The Alta Rocca Region and the Solenzara Natural Pools

  • Why it’s “less travelled”: Located in the mountainous south, the focus here is inland scenery, far from the coastal bustle of Porto-Vecchio and Propriano. The villages like Zicavo and Quenza offer an authentic glimpse of mountain life.
  • The Experience: Go for a freshwater swim in the natural rock pools (piscines naturelles) carved by rivers like the Solenzara, or head toward the spectacular Aiguilles de Bavella (Bavella Needles) for jaw-dropping mountain views and hiking trails.

5. The Niolo Valley and the Col de Vergio

  • Why it’s “less travelled”: This high-altitude valley is deep in the heart of the Corsican mountains, accessible via a dramatic, narrow road that climbs up to the Col de Vergio (the island’s highest road pass).
  • The Experience: Enjoy the dramatic scenery and cooler air. From the Col de Vergio, you are close to the famous GR20 hiking trail. A short hike to the Lac de Nino is a popular but quieter option. The valley is also known for its traditional Corsican products and its semi-wild roaming pigs and cows.

In a word: Key

So, as we all know, a key is used to lock or unlock a door, gate, or something else.  It’s either made of shiny metal, brass, or rusty iron, it can be small, or very, very big, as is the key to a dungeon.

We can have one key or we can have many or even a master key that unlocks everything, very handy if you have a house full of locked rooms.

People always seem to want to steal them, especially in crime shows.

There is also an item called a key card.  Not the metal thing, but a plastic thing, that opens doors.  Odd that it’s called keyless entry!

Then there’s what is known as the key to something, i.e. you might have the key to his or her heart, metaphorically speaking.

And in that metaphorical sense, it opens up pandora’s box with a plethora of different meanings.

He had the key to the puzzle.

I wish sometimes I had the key to be able to write better, that that one particular key eludes me.

There are keys on a keyboard, the ones you use on computers and calculators.  They were originally on typewriters.  You can also find keys on a piano, or an accordion, and some other musical instruments.

A key can also be a master index field, or unique identifier, in a database, particularly those kept on computers.

And,

there’s a host of other uses for the word key, such as

roughening a surface

describing the shooting area on a basketball court

a group, or one, of small coral islets

matching words to pictures

or, you’re just too keyed up to sleep.

 

 

 

The first case of PI Walthenson – “A Case of Working With the Jones Brothers”

This case has everything: red herrings, jealous brothers, femme fatales, and at the heart of it all, greed.

See below for an excerpt from the book…

Coming soon!

PIWalthJones1

An excerpt from the book:

…

When Harry took the time to consider his position, a rather uncomfortable position at that, he concluded that he was somehow involved in another case that meant very little to him.

Not that it wasn’t important in some way he was yet to determine, it was just that his curiosity had got the better of him, and it had led to this: sitting in a chair, securely bound, waiting for someone, one of his captors had called Doug.

It was not the name that worried him so much; it was the evil laugh that had come after the name was spoken.

Doug what? Doug the ‘destroyer’, Doug the ‘dangerous’, Doug the ‘deadly’; there were several sinister connotations, and perhaps that was the point of the laugh, to make it more frightening than it was.

But there was no doubt about one thing in his mind right then: he’d made a mistake. A very big. and a costly mistake. Just how big the cost, no doubt, he would soon find out.

His mother and his grandmother, the wisest person he had ever known, had once told him never to eavesdrop.

At the time, he couldn’t help himself, and instead of minding his own business, listening to a one-sided conversation that ended with a time and a place. The very nature of the person receiving the call was, at the very least, sinister, and, because of the cryptic conversation, there appeared to be, or at least to Harry, criminal activity involved.

For several days, he had wrestled with the thought of whether he should go. Stay on the fringe, keep out of sight, observe and report to the police if it was a crime. Instead, he had willingly gone down the rabbit hole.

Now, sitting in an uncomfortable chair, several heat lamps hanging over his head, he was perspiring, and if perspiration could be used as a measure of fear, then Harry’s fear was at the highest level.

Another runnel of sweat rolled into his left eye, and, having his hands tied, it literally made it impossible to clear it. The burning sensation momentarily took his mind off his predicament. He cursed and then shook his head, trying to prevent a recurrence. It was to no avail.

Let the stinging sensation be a reminder of what was right and what was wrong.

It was obvious that it was the right place and the right time, but in considering his current perilous situation, it definitely was the wrong place to be, at the worst possible time.

It was meant to be his escape, an escape from the generations of lawyers, what were to Harry, dry, dusty men who had been in business since George Washington said to the first Walthenson to step foot on American soil, ‘Why don’t you become a lawyer?” when asked what he could do for the great man.

Or so it was handed down as lore, though Harry didn’t think Washington meant it literally, the Walthenson’s, then as now, were not shy of taking advice.

Except, of course, when it came to Harry.

He was, Harry’s father was prone to saying, the exception to every rule. Harry guessed his father was referring to the fact that his son wanted to be a Private Detective rather than a dry, dusty lawyer. Just the clothes were enough to turn Harry off the profession.

So, with a little of the money Harry inherited from one of his aunts, he leased an office in Gramercy Park and had it renovated to look like the Sam Spade detective agency, you know the one, Spade and Archer, and The Maltese Falcon.

There’s a movie and a book by Dashiell Hammett if you’re interested.

So, there it was, painted on the opaque glass inset of the front door, ‘Harold Walthenson, Private Detective’.

There was enough money to hire an assistant, and it took a week before the right person came along, or, more to the point, didn’t just see his business plan as something sinister. Ellen, a tall, cool woman in a long black dress, or so the words of a song in his head told him, fitted in perfectly.

She’d seen the movie, but she said with a grin, Harry was no Humphrey Bogart.

Of course not, he said, he didn’t smoke.

Three months on the job, and it had been a few calls, no ‘real’ cases, nothing but missing animals, and other miscellaneous items. What he really wanted was a missing person. Or perhaps a beguiling, sophisticated woman who was as deadly as she was charming, looking for an errant husband, perhaps one that she had already ‘dispatched’.

Or for a tall, dark and handsome foreigner who spoke in riddles and in heavily accented English, a spy, or perhaps an assassin, in town to take out the mayor. The man was such an imbecile that Harry had considered doing it himself.

Now, in a back room of a disused warehouse, that wishful thinking might be just about to come to a very abrupt end, with none of the romanticised trappings of the business befalling him. No beguiling women, no sinister criminals, no stupid policemen.

Just a nasty little man whose only concern was how quickly or how slowly Harry’s end was going to be.

…

© Charles Heath 2019-2024

Top 5 sights on the road less travelled – Santorini

That is a fantastic shift! Santorini is world-famous for the caldera view, but if you venture away from the main settlements of Fira and Oia, you’ll find the authentic, Cycladic heart of the island.

Here are five next best places or activities to explore on the road less travelled in Santorini:

1. Pyrgos Kallistis Village

  • What it is: The highest village on Santorini, offering 360-degree views of the entire island. It was the former capital until 1800.
  • Why it’s less travelled: While tour buses stop here, they rarely spend the evening, meaning it’s wonderfully quiet outside of midday. Its labyrinthine, uphill streets were built to confuse pirates, and its architecture is a beautiful mix of Cycladic and Venetian styles, culminating in a Venetian castle (Kasteli) at the peak.
  • Activity: Wander the quiet alleyways in the late afternoon, climb to the top of the Kasteli, and have dinner at a traditional taverna as the sun sets, without the shoulder-to-shoulder crowds of Oia.

2. Akrotiri Lighthouse

  • What it is: Located on the southernmost tip of the island, this is one of the oldest lighthouses in Greece, built in 1892.
  • Why it’s less travelled: It requires a dedicated drive, and most tourists stop short at the famous Akrotiri archeological site or Red Beach. This spot offers a stunning, completely different perspective on the caldera and the Aegean Sea.
  • Activity: Pack a small picnic and head here for a truly quiet and spectacular sunset view. You’ll be watching the sun sink into the sea from a peaceful, historic spot, rather than looking at it over the main villages.

3. Vlychada Beach and its Volcanic Cliffs

  • What it is: A beach on the south side of the island famous for its towering, sculpted white cliffs composed of volcanic ash, which have been eroded by wind and sea into incredible, moon-like shapes.
  • Why it’s less travelled: It’s far from the main villages and has a wilder, more remote feel than the popular black sand beaches (Perissa/Perivolos).
  • Activity: Take a long walk along the unique shoreline, where the “moonscape” cliffs provide a naturally shaded, artistic backdrop. The beach itself is a mix of black sand and pebbles, offering a dramatic setting for relaxation and photography.

4. Hiking to Ancient Thera

  • What it is: The ruins of an ancient city built on the steep, rocky Mesa Vouno mountain, which separates the beaches of Perissa and Kamari.
  • Why it’s less travelled: It requires a rigorous 30-45 minute uphill hike (or a drive up a steep, winding road) to reach, which deters most casual tourists.
  • Activity: Climb up in the morning before the heat hits, and explore the remains of Hellenistic temples, Roman baths, and Byzantine walls. You’ll be rewarded with incredible panoramic views over the black sand beaches on one side and the eastern coast on the other.

5. Wine Tasting in Mesa Gonia (Ghost Village)

  • What it is: A collection of traditional wineries located in the inland vineyards, away from the caldera, in a village often referred to as a “ghost village” because many inhabitants left after the 1956 earthquake.
  • Why it’s less travelled: The island’s wine culture (using the unique kouloura basket-pruning technique) is often overlooked in favour of beach time. The village itself is authentic and unrenovated.
  • Activity: Visit a local winery like Gavalas or Koutsoyannopoulos Wine Museum (which is underground) to taste the local Assyrtiko, Nykteri, and Vinsanto wines. This gives you a true appreciation for the island’s unique volcanic soil and agricultural traditions.