Category: Mystery

Mistaken Identity – The Editor’s Draft – Day 22

I have been working on the story, the editor is asking for a second draft after making suggested changes – and I’m now working on it

…

I need a plan.

This lark of making it up as I go is getting a little more difficult, because I had an idea where this was leading, and now it seems to have hit a brick wall.

We have a friend in hiding with a mysterious diary, we have a mother who is missing, we have an agent of sorts following Jack around in the hope it will lead to the mysterious diary, and we have said agent and Jack looking for Jacob.

Why?

In my book, you don’t go looking for trouble.

What these two intrepid adventurers should be doing is trying to find Jack’s mother.

That, of course, leads to the other important question, who has her, if anyone does?

OK, so let’s let loose the diary’s owner, a man named McCallister, who coincidentally is father to both Jack and Jacob.

What’s in the diary?

This needs some background, and it needs to have the seeds of the plot sown earlier in the story, when Jack was investigating who Jacob was. He would find out who Jacobs father was, and likely his own.

A part of the current plot is that McCallister calls Jack and wants to exchange the diary for his mother. So that will mean McCallister has her.

I had considered that perhaps her sister was holding her captive, but why would she after all these years?

So, from her…

The call from McCallister, Maryanne needs to draw on her organisations resources to find McCallister (he was on jail but escaped, ok the back story is being virtually written on the fly) because of what’s in the diary, and he needs it to stay alive. What’s in it? One would have to presume it had something to do with his life before producing children, and that was as a politician.

So, was he a corrupt politician, or did he know of one, or two, maybe? Politics can be dangerous, as well as lucrative.

As they say, the plot thickens!

Today’s effort amounts to 438 words, for a total, so far, of 52,067, but I don’t know how much of this will be useful.

More tomorrow.

My cell phone is going off

I’m back to writing, sitting at the desk, pad in front of me, pen in hand.

The only thing lacking, an idea.

It’s 9:03 am, too early to start on a six-pack.

To be honest, the last thing I needed was a distraction, and, having forgotten to put my cell phone on silent, it starts buzzing, indicating there are new messages, or notifications from all those social media sites like Twitter, Facebook, WordPress, Blogger…

Then the advice from all the so-called marketing gurus starts to swirl around in my head, and instead of writing, I’m now fretting over my social media presence.

The more I read the more it bothers me that if I don’t have the right social media presence if I do not start to build an email list, all of my efforts in writing a book will come to naught.

That’s when I start trawling the internet for information on marketing and found a plethora of people offering any amount of advice for anything between a ‘small amount’ to a rather large amount that gives comprehensive coverage of most social media platforms for periods of a day, a week or a month. 

I move on to the people who offer advice for a cost on how to build a following, how to build a web presence, how to get a thousand Twitter followers, how to get thousands of email followers before the launch.

The trouble is I’m writing a novel, not a nonfiction book, or have some marvelous 30-page ebook on how to do something, for free just to drive people to my site.

I’m a novelist, not a handyman so those ideas while good is not going to help me.

Yet another problem to wrestle with along with actually creating a product to sell in the first place.

Except I’m supposed to be writing for the love of it without the premeditated idea of writing for gain or getting rich quick.

What am I missing here?

So should l be writing short stories and offering them for free to drive people to my site?  These would have to be genre-specific so it needs time and effort and fit into a convenient size story that will highlight or showcase my talent.

Some time ago I created a website on one of those so-called free sites, but it’s rather basic and not great. Of course, if I want it to be better, all I have to do is hand over a great wad of money I don’t have to make it better. So much for free!

I don’t think I will have a good night’s sleep again with all of these social media problems I’m having.

Oh well, back to the book.  It’s time to have a nightmare of a different sort!

Was it just another surveillance job – Episode 8

I’m back home and this story has been sitting on a back burner for a few months, waiting for some more to be written.

The trouble is, there are also other stories to write, and I’m not very good at prioritising.

But, here we are, a few minutes opened up and it didn’t take long to get back into the groove.

An interrogation and a revelation.

 

Debriefings were like interrogations, only friendlier.  We were trained to withstand interrogation, so it would be interesting to see how I reacted.   I had no doubt what some of the questions would be.

While I had a few minutes to myself, sitting down behind a bare metal table on a hard plastic and uncomfortable chair, with a warm cup of station house coffee, to consider the briefing.

Target, male, 6 foot 3 inches, 200 pounds, Caucasian, thought to be from either Russia or Bulgaria, but nothing to define his as such.  I had wondered, at the time, what that meant.  When I saw him in the alley I knew, then, what was meant, he looked the same as you or me.

No explanation for why he was under surveillance, but we did get a warning that he might be dangerous if he suspected he was being observed.  Right about that, given team casualties.

Main objective, who he met, talked to, and where he went, every place, every detail to be noted.  The unpredictable explosion threw the whole operation into chaos.

The door opened and a woman, middle-aged, conservatively dressed, walked in, closing it behind her.  She sat in the other chair opposite me.  She brought a file, thin, and put it in front of her on the table.

“Your name is Sam Jackson?”

“Yes.”

No introductions, nothing, just a start on the questions.  No nonsense, but I could see she was very, very angry.  With me, or those who had run a failed operation?

“How long have you been with us?”

“Eight months.”

She opened the file and glanced at the piece of paper on top.  A minute passed before she closed the file again.  “Closer to nine,” she said.

I said nothing.  I wasn’t counting the days.

“How many operations have you been on?”

“Six, including this one.”

“Who assigned you to this specific operation?”

“Couldn’t say.  I got the usual request via text message to attend a briefing at the midtown office.”

“What was the designated operation name?”

“Chancellery.”

For a brief second, there was a quizzical expression on her face, then it was gone.

“Who was running this operation?”

“Director Severin.”

A full three minutes of silence passed.  I thought she was looking at me, the sort of stare that would break a lesser man, but in the end, I think she was looking right through me.  I could not read her thoughts, but if I was to guess, they would be rather dark right now.

Then she spoke.

“You should know that there was no Chancellery on the books, and we certainly do not have a Director named Severin.”

 

© Charles Heath 2019

“Sunday in New York”, a romantic adventure that’s not a walk in the park!

“Sunday in New York” is ultimately a story about trust, and what happens when a marriage is stretched to its limits.

When Harry Steele attends a lunch with his manager, Barclay, to discuss a promotion that any junior executive would accept in a heartbeat, it is the fact his wife, Alison, who previously professed her reservations about Barclay, also agreed to attend, that casts a small element of doubt in his mind.

From that moment, his life, in the company, in deciding what to do, his marriage, his very life, spirals out of control.

There is no one big factor that can prove Harry’s worst fears, that his marriage is over, just a number of small, interconnecting events, when piled on top of each other, points to a cataclysmic end to everything he had believed in.

Trust is lost firstly in his best friend and mentor, Andy, who only hints of impending disaster, Sasha, a woman whom he saved, and who appears to have motives of her own, and then in his wife, Alison, as he discovered piece by piece damning evidence she is about to leave him for another man.

Can we trust what we see with our eyes or trust what we hear?

Haven’t we all jumped to conclusions at least once in our lives?

Can Alison, a woman whose self-belief and confidence is about to be put to the ultimate test, find a way of proving their relationship is as strong as it has ever been?

As they say in the classics, read on!

Purchase:

http://tinyurl.com/Amazon-SundayInNewYork

Mistaken Identity – The Editor’s Draft – Day 20

I have been working on the story, the editor is asking for a second draft after making suggested changes – and I’m now working on it

…

How many of us would ever get caught up in a dangerous situation ever in a lifetime?

How many of us have skeletons in the closet that we don’t know about?

I had been thinking about it a lot when I discovered my mother’s previous boyfriend, the man whom was the love of her life.

Then, in terms of coming up with an idea for a story, what if she had a child by him that we didn’t know about, a half brother or sister.

There were many ways of putting a spin on this premise.

Then, in the back of my mind I remembered a story an acquaintance at works was once telling us over morning tea, that a fried of a friend had a mother who had a twin sister and that each of the sisters had a son by the same father, without each knowing of the father’s actions, both growing up without the other knowing of their half brother only to meet by accident on the other side of the world.

It was an enormous coincidence.

And we all wondered what the sisters had planned as retribution for the man who had lied to them both.

Of course it could also be said that they could have spoken to each other long before it came to that, but like a lot of families, small problems become much larger ones when allowed to fester, and cause almost unhealable rifts. It had n this case.

Sometimes the backstory can be just as interesting as the story itself.

Today’s effort amounts to 2,573 words, for a total, so far, of 49,443.

More tomorrow.

‘What Sets Us Apart’ – A beta readers view

There’s something to be said for a story that starts like a James Bond movie, throwing you straight in the deep end, a perfect way of getting to know the main character, David, or is that Alistair?

A retired spy, well not so much a spy as a retired errand boy, David’s rather wry description of his talents, and a woman that most men would give their left arm for, not exactly the ideal couple, but there is a spark in a meeting that may or may not have been a set up.

But as the story progressed, the question I kept asking myself was why he’d bother.

And, page after unrelenting page, you find out.

Susan is exactly the sort of woman the pique his interest.  Then, inexplicably, she disappears.  That might have been the end to it, but Prendergast, that shadowy enigma, David’s ex boss who loves playing games with real people, gives him an ultimatum, find her or come back to work.

Nothing like an offer that’s a double edged sword!

A dragon for a mother, a sister he didn’t know about, Susan’s BFF who is not what she seems or a friend indeed, and Susan’s father who, up till David meets her, couldn’t be less interested, his nemesis proves to be the impossible dream, and he’s always just that one step behind.

When the rollercoaster finally came to a halt, and I could start breathing again, it was an ending that was completely unexpected.

I’ve been told there’s a sequel in the works.

Bring it on!

…

The book can be purchased here:  http://amzn.to/2Eryfth

…

“Trouble in Store” – Short Stories my way: Annalisa’s story

 It’s time to look at what’s been written for the unfortunate Annalisa, who had been caught up in a situation that is rapidly getting out of her control, not that she had it under control in the first place.  Perhaps it’s time to start reassessing her bad boy phase and think about a new lifestyle. 

Drugs, for her, were fun, to begin with, but she keep doing them now it had got her into this predicament?

Annalisa looked at the two men facing her.

Simmo, the boy on the floor, had told her that the shopkeeper would be a pushover, he was an old man who’d just hand over the drugs, rather than cause trouble for himself.

Where Simmo had discovered the shopkeeper’s true vocation, dispensing drugs to the neighbourhood addicts, she didn’t know, but it was not the first place like this they had visited.

She had always known Simmo had a problem, but he had assured her he had it under control.  Until a month ago, when he tried something new.

It had changed him.

The breaking point came earlier that day when, seeing how sick he was, she threatened to leave.  It brought out the monster within him, and he threatened to kill her.  Not long after he had changed into a whimpering child pleading with her to stay, that he hadn’t meant anything he’d said before.

All he needed was one more ‘score’ to get his ‘shit’ together, and he would do as she asked, and find help.

She believed him.

He said he knew a place not far from the apartment, a small shop where what he needed was available, and said he had the money.

That should have been the first sign he was not telling the truth because she had been funding his habit until her parents cut off the money supply.  She suspected her father had put a private detective on to find her, had, and reported back, and rather than make a scene, just cut her off so she would have to come home or starve.  Her father was no better than Simmo.

And, as soon as they stepped into the shop, Simmo pulled out the gun,

Instead of the shopkeeper cowering like Simmo said he would, he had laughed at them and told them to get out.  Simmo started ranting and waving the gun around, then all of a sudden collapsed. 

There was a race for the gun which spilled out of Simmo’s hand, and she won. 

That was just before the customer burst into the shop.

It had been shortly before closing time.  Simmo had said there would be no one else around.

Wrong again.

Now she had another problem to deal with, a man who was clearly as scared shitless as she was.

This was worse than any bad hair day, or getting out of the wrong side of bed day, this was, she was convinced, the last day of her life.

She heard a strange sound come from beside her and looked down.  There was a trickle of blood coming out of his mouth and Simmo was making strange sounds like he was choking.

Any other time she might have been concerned, but the hard reality of it was, Simmo was never going to change.  She was only surprised at the fact it took so long for her to realize it.

As for the man standing in front of her, she was safe from the shopkeeper with him around, so he would have to stay.

“No.  Stay.”

Another glance at the shopkeeper told her she had made the right decision, his expression said it all.  Gun or no gun, the moment she was alone with him, he would kill her.

© Charles Heath 2018-2022

The cinema of my dreams – I always wanted to write a war story – Episode 29

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…

 

They reached a point a few kilometers from what was known as Brenner Pass at four in the morning, having navigated their way through patchy snow, icy roads, and bitter cold.

Progress at times was slow and the roads were difficult, the driver, at times, nearly losing control of the car.

The checkpoint appeared almost when they were on top of it, one that hadn’t been marked on the map, so they had not been prepared for it. Too late to turn back, they had to stop.

Once again the soldier that came out of the hut beside the boom was an army Unteroffizier who was more concerned about the cold than those in the car.

The Standartenfuhrer once again explained the nature of their business, and again the sentry went back to his hut and made a call.

While he was there the driver was checking the number of other soldiers were in attendance and had pulled his weapon out from under the seat and had it ready to use.

The Standartenfuhrer had done the same, also having checked the extent of the staffing of the post.

Then the driver said, “This looks like one of several. I think we may have walked into a hornet’s nest. The Brenner Pass is very important to the Germans for supplies from Germany to its soldiers in Italy.”

“You think our luck has finally run out?”

They had both seen the guard change expression, from the languid guard worrying more about the cold than a lone car at night, to a soldier who looked like he was about to attend a Nazi rally.

“I think they’ve finally discovered that our friend Mayer is missing.”

“Which means we’re about to get a small platoon of soldiers down on us. OK. You keep them off as long as you can so Mayer and I can get into the woods.”

The Standartenfuhrer turned to Mayer. “This is it, then end of the line for driving. We’re about to get a lot of unwanted visitors.”

He thrust the folder of plans into Mayer’s hands along with a coat.

“Let’s go.”

“Where?” Mayer was almost panic-stricken. The situation was deteriorating with each passing second. He, like the others, could see six men jogging towards them.

Their only advantage was the lack of illumination.

The driver said, “See you on the other side.”

The Standartenfuhrer leaned over, opened the door, and said, forcefully, “Get out, now.”

Mayer tumbled out almost slipping on the icy surface, and the sudden cold hitting him hard.

The Standartenfuher was right behind him, closing the door, and then literally dragging him off the side of the road and towards the tree line about 50 meters away, just barely visible again the dark sky. Thankfully there was no moon peeking through the clouds.
But light snow just began to fall, and it would hide them behind an artificial white wall.

They made it to the edge of the forest just as the soldiers reached the car.

Mayer turned to look and could see the sentry now with a torch, probably checking the car which was now barely visible to them. He had seen three people before, now there was only one.

No time to see the inevitable, the Standartenfuhrer dragged him away with, “We have to go before they bring out the dogs.”

Further into the trees, and moving as quickly as they could through the trees and undergrowth, and at times slipping and sliding on both snow and ice, it was five minutes before they heard six shots in rapid succession, followed by the sound of a machine gun.

“Let’s hope he killed at least six of them before he died.”

The problem was, Mayer thought, there was probably another hundred others waiting to take their place.

 

Mayer had come totally unprepared for the snow, and the cold. At least he had a coat.

Another problem was that he was hungry and that only added to his discomfort. And now they had no means of transport, it was going to take a lot longer to get to Florence, or anywhere for that matter.

An hour passed as they worked their way steadily through the trees, and cover. The dreaded dogs had not been unleashed on them, but they had to assume that someone at the border checkpoint would raise the alarm that there were fugitives in the area, and probably wait until morning before looking for them,

They could calculate how far they had walked and sent in search teams from there.

Or not.

Four hours after they’d left the car, they stumbled upon a cabin. It was not much, having been abandoned quite some time ago and left for the forest to reclaim, but it was shelter and a place to rest. It was not long before first light, and then they could assess their situation.

It was also time for the Standartenfuhrer to give Mayer all the information he needed once he got to Gaiole because at some point they were going to have to split up and Mayer would have to go alone.

Just when he thought it couldn’t get any worse.

 

© Charles Heath 2020

Mistaken Identity – The Editor’s Draft – Day 22

I have been working on the story, the editor is asking for a second draft after making suggested changes – and I’m now working on it

…

I need a plan.

This lark of making it up as I go is getting a little more difficult, because I had an idea where this was leading, and now it seems to have hit a brick wall.

We have a friend in hiding with a mysterious diary, we have a mother who is missing, we have an agent of sorts following Jack around in the hope it will lead to the mysterious diary, and we have said agent and Jack looking for Jacob.

Why?

In my book, you don’t go looking for trouble.

What these two intrepid adventurers should be doing is trying to find Jack’s mother.

That, of course, leads to the other important question, who has her, if anyone does?

OK, so let’s let loose the diary’s owner, a man named McCallister, who coincidentally is father to both Jack and Jacob.

What’s in the diary?

This needs some background, and it needs to have the seeds of the plot sown earlier in the story, when Jack was investigating who Jacob was. He would find out who Jacobs father was, and likely his own.

A part of the current plot is that McCallister calls Jack and wants to exchange the diary for his mother. So that will mean McCallister has her.

I had considered that perhaps her sister was holding her captive, but why would she after all these years?

So, from her…

The call from McCallister, Maryanne needs to draw on her organisations resources to find McCallister (he was on jail but escaped, ok the back story is being virtually written on the fly) because of what’s in the diary, and he needs it to stay alive. What’s in it? One would have to presume it had something to do with his life before producing children, and that was as a politician.

So, was he a corrupt politician, or did he know of one, or two, maybe? Politics can be dangerous, as well as lucrative.

As they say, the plot thickens!

Today’s effort amounts to 438 words, for a total, so far, of 52,067, but I don’t know how much of this will be useful.

More tomorrow.

My cell phone is going off

I’m back to writing, sitting at the desk, pad in front of me, pen in hand.

The only thing lacking, an idea.

It’s 9:03 am, too early to start on a six-pack.

To be honest, the last thing I needed was a distraction, and, having forgotten to put my cell phone on silent, it starts buzzing, indicating there are new messages, or notifications from all those social media sites like Twitter, Facebook, WordPress, Blogger…

Then the advice from all the so-called marketing gurus starts to swirl around in my head, and instead of writing, I’m now fretting over my social media presence.

The more I read the more it bothers me that if I don’t have the right social media presence if I do not start to build an email list, all of my efforts in writing a book will come to naught.

That’s when I start trawling the internet for information on marketing and found a plethora of people offering any amount of advice for anything between a ‘small amount’ to a rather large amount that gives comprehensive coverage of most social media platforms for periods of a day, a week or a month. 

I move on to the people who offer advice for a cost on how to build a following, how to build a web presence, how to get a thousand Twitter followers, how to get thousands of email followers before the launch.

The trouble is I’m writing a novel, not a nonfiction book, or have some marvelous 30-page ebook on how to do something, for free just to drive people to my site.

I’m a novelist, not a handyman so those ideas while good is not going to help me.

Yet another problem to wrestle with along with actually creating a product to sell in the first place.

Except I’m supposed to be writing for the love of it without the premeditated idea of writing for gain or getting rich quick.

What am I missing here?

So should l be writing short stories and offering them for free to drive people to my site?  These would have to be genre-specific so it needs time and effort and fit into a convenient size story that will highlight or showcase my talent.

Some time ago I created a website on one of those so-called free sites, but it’s rather basic and not great. Of course, if I want it to be better, all I have to do is hand over a great wad of money I don’t have to make it better. So much for free!

I don’t think I will have a good night’s sleep again with all of these social media problems I’m having.

Oh well, back to the book.  It’s time to have a nightmare of a different sort!