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!

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 was any number of 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 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 which 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, literally, it 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 re-occurrence. 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 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 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 romanticized 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

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.

…

A late picnic

…

We spoke no more of bloodlines, and instead spread out the surprises she had brought.  Cheeses, cured meats, her mother’s creation learned long ago in the mother country, and wine from their Italian winery.

As a quirk of fate, she had lined the basket with old copies of treasure maps, and after indulging in the food and wine, looked them over. 

There were six different maps, each with a different detail as to where the treasure might be buried.  One had it on the edge of the lake, a lake by the way that had now disappeared, another at the foot of the hills, identified by a cutting high above the spot.

Another was on the mountainside, after following a track alongside the non-existent lake and past several buildings, one appearing to be a church.

I knew where that church was, not almost a ruin, but it was not alongside a lake or anything that might have been a lake in the past.  Or it could have been another church, definitely a ruin and gone, in a different place.

This was the problem interpreting maps that were drawn, purportedly, in the late eighteenth century when the land would be pristine and roamed over by native Americans.  It was why some of the maps had the word Seminole on them, to identify the land, perhaps, or the people. 

While I should have been listening to the history, I didn’t, and therefore missed the fact that a lot of the Indians had died out before the pirate captain arrived with his treasure, or whatever he might have buried, if in fact, he came at all.

I was beginning to have doubts.

Of course, the Spaniards were lurking around those parts too, and they were all about treasure, especially that stolen from South America but that was centuries before.  Was the pirate captain Spanish or part Spanish perhaps?

Questions, nothing but questions.

“Those coins that were found of the coast.  Were they Spanish?”

“Good question.”

“It seems the Spaniards were here, once upon a time.  Anything is possible.”

The joke, or irony, would be that if there was a treasure, it was off a Spanish ship that ran aground in a storm off the coast, and all of the maps and rumors were true, but for a very different reason.

That brought to mind a recent discovery of coins elsewhere in Florida, and I couldn’t help thinking that Boggs had also heard about the discovery and had conjured up in his mind that the treasure his father had been seeking existed and had embarked on this odyssey.

“I’ve got a couple of metal detectors,” Nadia said.  “Maybe we should go wandering along the shoreline and see what there might be.”

“I’m sure it’s been done to death already.”

She smiled.  “I’ve got nothing better to do, have you?”

“Sleeping in.”

“You can do that when you’re dead.  Until then, there’s a treasure to be found.  I’ll pick you up tomorrow morning, about 10ish.”

Treasure!  I was beginning to hate it.

She tossed the leftovers into the basket and dragged herself off the floor when we finished up.  “I’ll let you get back to work.”

…

© Charles Heath 2020-2022

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…

…

Jackerby came back and sat down.  It was clear he was annoyed his lunch was interrupted.

“Atherton’s not among those Leonardo brought back.”

Johannsen silently breathed a sigh of relief.  While he was still outside there was hope he would not get hurt.  If he had the sense to keep his head down.  Anyone else, Johannesen would not have cared.

“Who did Leonardo bring in?”

“Some woman called Martina, the one he says is in charge of the resistance.  He said he raided their last stronghold, killed everyone except the three people he knew were in the resistance.  They’re now in the dungeons.”

“We should be down there asking questions.”  A pointed glare from Wallace carried the message, what are you doing here?

“No use.  He nearly killed them, and it’ll take a while for them to recover.”

“To find out where Atherton is?”

“It seems that was the least of his concerns.  Apparently, she apparently humiliated him so he was more interested in payback.”

“It wouldn’t be hard to humiliate a fool like him,” Johannsen muttered.

Wallace glared at him.  “You should have more faith in our Italian friends, Richard.”

“My faith in him extends only to the fact he will drink the cellar dry.”

Wallace shrugged.  “Once he’s served his purpose…” and left it at that.  “Have you got onto London and asked them for further information on Mayer?”

“I think, by now, they would have tumbled to what’s going on here.  Especially after I saw Atherton come out of the radio room just before Jackerby arrived.  I asked the operator, and he gave me a coded message, but it’s not like any code I’ve seen.”

“And you’re telling me this now?”

“At least he didn’t smash it, which is what I would have done.  We haven’t heard any more from High Command other than to say the traitor was thought to be heading for Innsbruck and coming over the mountains near the Brenner Pass.  They’ve got people looking, but nothing as yet.”

“Now we’ve lost Carmichael, do we have a description of him?”

“Yes.”

“Good.  At least something is happening.”


After lunch, Johannsson went down to the dungeon to check on the prisoners.  Wallace had assigned their ‘welfare’ to him.  It was a difficult assignment seeing they arrived both exhausted, weak, and then subjected to an initial interrogation that determined whether or not they got medicines or food.

Most were left to starve.  Any women were sent to the soldier’s barracks, where they were out of his control.  None had ever come back, and he was ordered not to go check on them.

All told, there were 12 still in cells, with three due to be executed later that day.  All had worked in an armaments factory and had admitted to having information about the bombs that were being dropped over England.

Another six had yet to say what information they had, and had been subjected to severe torture, the handiwork of two of Jackerby’s men, and who Johannsen thought had been trained by the Gestapo.  In fact, he believed they were Gestapo, and that Jackerby, though he didn’t have the uniform, was a ranking SS officer.

Not a man to cross.  Leonardo would find that out soon enough.

The most recent three, the resistance fighters were put in separate cells next to each other.  The guards had been told to listen to any conversations they had, and report.  As yet, none of them had spoken.

Considering the condition they arrived in, that was no surprise.

He stood outside the cell holding the woman they called Martina.

The leader.

She hadn’t moved from the moment she had been dropped there.

A guard appeared beside him.

“Nothing yet?” Johansson asked him.

“I doubt they’ll speak again.  If that’s what Leonardo does to his so-called countrymen; I’d hate to see what he does to his enemies.”

“You let me know if she says anything.”

The soldier nodded, then went back to his station.

The other two were men, one old, one younger.  An odd group to be part of the resistance.  The woman he could understand and was the key. 

He now believed Atherton would come to rescue her.  Like any good British soldier, his empathy would be his downfall.

…

© Charles Heath 2020-2023

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.

…

Did it upset me that Boggs was a little snarky?  Yes, a bit.

We’d been friends for a long time, the sort who had stuck together at school to keep arm’s length from the bullies and work together on projects and homework.  That friendship had become more important after his father disappeared, and I had believed he appreciated it.

Until this treasure thing.

It hadn’t been there, looking over everything.  The fact of the matter was he had been too young to understand any of it, and his mother wisely kept the extended details of her husband’s obsession away from him, and it was quite by chance he stumbled over his father’s effects in the attic.

Had she destroyed that stuff then perhaps we’d all not in this position?

Life had been more predictable, we avoided Alex and Vince, Nadia was nowhere to be seen, and life just rolled along in unemployed heaven.  Of course, that would have had to change, as it had, because my mother couldn’t continue to support a son in his late teens, and at that age, I should have been looking for both work, and to move on with my life.

The state of the economy, and the town’s fortunes, made that difficult, and I guess it would have been a matter of time before I left, like nearly all of my contemporaries had to the bigger towns and cities for more opportunities.

Benderby and the factory had staved that off, for now.

Other than that, I was rather pleased with the job I had, not too taxing, amenable hours so I could do other stuff, and although the only downside was working with Alex, all I had to do was avoid him, and the warehouse was a large building.

I went home to change and found my mother there, sitting at the kitchen table having a cup of coffee.

“You’re home early,” I said when I saw her.

“On a break.  Had to go to the bank, and it wasn’t much further to come here.  Muriel tells me you’ve been talking to Nadia Cossatino.”

Talking to Nadia to her was the same as spending time with her.  And to my mother, the Cossatino’s were public enemies, close to the number one.

“You taught me to be polite and speak when spoken to.”

It was always good to quote her rules back to her when she was trying to admonish me.

“You know what the Cossatino’s are, Sam.”

“She doesn’t act like one, not now.”

“You know why they sent her away, don’t you?”

Sent away?  That was not what I heard, but then, as a so-called child, what we were told and what was reality were two entirely different things.

“I thought I did, but I’m sure you’re going to tell me the grown-up reason?”

“She stabbed a girl, and instead of going to juvenile detention, they sent her home to Italy where she couldn’t get into any more trouble.”

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why did she stab another girl?”

“Do the Cossatino’s need reasons for what they do?  She’s not a very nice person, nor are the family very nice people.  Remember that the next time you see her.”

“She’s nice to me, and I prefer to be polite.  But I’ll take what you said and be careful.”

That said, I was dismissed, lecture given.

I changed and came back to pack a meal for the evening break.  Mother was still sitting at the table.

“I thought you’d be on your way back to work.”

“Not going back today.  I’m not feeling very well.  How is the job going?  I never get to see much of you these days.”

“I’m helping Boggs when I can.”

“Isn’t he on that treasure trail his father started?”

“Yes.  He found a box of his stuff in the attic, and we’ve been trying to make sense of it.”

“There is none.   There was no treasure, just a bunch of maps Boggs’s father made for the Cossatino’s to con people out of their money.”

“What about Ormiston?”

“He was a bigger fool than Boggs.  You don’t want to be humoring Boggs with such nonsense.  You concentrate on doing your job properly and let him follow his father down that rabbit hole.  I feel sorry for Muriel, having two of her family sucked into that mess.”

“And what if it is real?”

She gave me a look that told me the only thing that was real would be her wrath if I persisted with it.  “OK,” I said.  “I’ll try and reason with him, and get him to give it up.”

It was then I noticed the flowers over by the window, a very expensive-looking bouquet in an ornate vase.

“Do you have a secret admirer?”

She looked a little puzzled, then realized what I was talking about.

“Joshua sent them over, thought it might cheer me up.”

Joshua was Alex Benderby’s father, my employer.  Odd that he would be sending my mother flowers.  We were not anywhere near his social circle.

“He’s a kind man, Sam, and we have been friends since school.  I could do with some cheering up.”

I was not sure what she meant by that, but I hope it didn’t mean he would come visiting.  Knowing Benderby was a curse, not a benefit, and I hoped my job wasn’t contingent on her being nice to him.

I shuddered at the thought, said no more, and left for work.

My job was supposed to be my sanctuary, where I could get away from home, the depressive nature of living in the town, and Boggs and his treasure hunt.

It wasn’t an escape from Alex, and not only did he work in the same building, but treated it as his fiefdom, and resented the fact I’d ‘wormed’ my way into his domain.

Under that boastful and arrogant exterior, he really was just an insecure little boy.

But very, very dangerous.

He was leaving when I arrived, having switched from night shift to day, a blessing.  His alternate for the night shift was an uncaring old man who was approaching retirement and didn’t want anything to screw up his exit.

He let me do whatever I wanted so long as it didn’t blow back on him, and I took extra care not to cause offense, or raise any flags.  Stuff came in, stuff went out, the stock register was up to date, and nothing ran out.

It was as simple as that, and even so, Alex still couldn’t get it right so we covered for him.

Alex stopped at the door on the way out, a bad sign.

“You want to tell that clown of a friend, Boggs, to stop poking around the caves.  They’re not a place for amateurs.”

“I didn’t know he was poking around the caves.  Nor that you were.  Any particular reason?”

“It’s called spelunking, dimwit.”

I knew that but wasn’t going to make an issue of it.  He was lucky he could pronounce it let alone know what it was.

“They’re just caves, Alex, with nothing more than a few limestone pinnacles, and bat shit on the floor.  Unless, of course, you think the pirate captain hid his treasure in one of them.  I can’t see how, or why.  They’re a long way from the coast.”

“We’re not looking for treasure.  It doesn’t exist.”

“Then why warn Boggs off?”

He shook his head.  “You’re as daft in the head as he is.  Just tell him not to get in my way.”

With that, he was gone.  A huge sigh of relief, and a long peaceful night ahead of me.

Until the phone rang.

…

© Charles Heath 2020-2022

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…

…

Jackerby came back and sat down.  It was clear he was annoyed his lunch was interrupted.

“Atherton’s not among those Leonardo brought back.”

Johannsen silently breathed a sigh of relief.  While he was still outside there was hope he would not get hurt.  If he had the sense to keep his head down.  Anyone else, Johannesen would not have cared.

“Who did Leonardo bring in?”

“Some woman called Martina, the one he says is in charge of the resistance.  He said he raided their last stronghold, killed everyone except the three people he knew were in the resistance.  They’re now in the dungeons.”

“We should be down there asking questions.”  A pointed glare from Wallace carried the message, what are you doing here?

“No use.  He nearly killed them, and it’ll take a while for them to recover.”

“To find out where Atherton is?”

“It seems that was the least of his concerns.  Apparently, she apparently humiliated him so he was more interested in payback.”

“It wouldn’t be hard to humiliate a fool like him,” Johannsen muttered.

Wallace glared at him.  “You should have more faith in our Italian friends, Richard.”

“My faith in him extends only to the fact he will drink the cellar dry.”

Wallace shrugged.  “Once he’s served his purpose…” and left it at that.  “Have you got onto London and asked them for further information on Mayer?”

“I think, by now, they would have tumbled to what’s going on here.  Especially after I saw Atherton come out of the radio room just before Jackerby arrived.  I asked the operator, and he gave me a coded message, but it’s not like any code I’ve seen.”

“And you’re telling me this now?”

“At least he didn’t smash it, which is what I would have done.  We haven’t heard any more from High Command other than to say the traitor was thought to be heading for Innsbruck and coming over the mountains near the Brenner Pass.  They’ve got people looking, but nothing as yet.”

“Now we’ve lost Carmichael, do we have a description of him?”

“Yes.”

“Good.  At least something is happening.”


After lunch, Johannsson went down to the dungeon to check on the prisoners.  Wallace had assigned their ‘welfare’ to him.  It was a difficult assignment seeing they arrived both exhausted, weak, and then subjected to an initial interrogation that determined whether or not they got medicines or food.

Most were left to starve.  Any women were sent to the soldier’s barracks, where they were out of his control.  None had ever come back, and he was ordered not to go check on them.

All told, there were 12 still in cells, with three due to be executed later that day.  All had worked in an armaments factory and had admitted to having information about the bombs that were being dropped over England.

Another six had yet to say what information they had, and had been subjected to severe torture, the handiwork of two of Jackerby’s men, and who Johannsen thought had been trained by the Gestapo.  In fact, he believed they were Gestapo, and that Jackerby, though he didn’t have the uniform, was a ranking SS officer.

Not a man to cross.  Leonardo would find that out soon enough.

The most recent three, the resistance fighters were put in separate cells next to each other.  The guards had been told to listen to any conversations they had, and report.  As yet, none of them had spoken.

Considering the condition they arrived in, that was no surprise.

He stood outside the cell holding the woman they called Martina.

The leader.

She hadn’t moved from the moment she had been dropped there.

A guard appeared beside him.

“Nothing yet?” Johansson asked him.

“I doubt they’ll speak again.  If that’s what Leonardo does to his so-called countrymen; I’d hate to see what he does to his enemies.”

“You let me know if she says anything.”

The soldier nodded, then went back to his station.

The other two were men, one old, one younger.  An odd group to be part of the resistance.  The woman he could understand and was the key. 

He now believed Atherton would come to rescue her.  Like any good British soldier, his empathy would be his downfall.

…

© Charles Heath 2020-2023