There is always something not quite right when you literally reach the end of the road.
At the time we were looking for a place called Never Never.
Yes, you read that correctly, Never Never. It is a place on the map, and the GPS navigator knew where we were going, and took us to where it thought it was.
That place you can see is identified by the red plastic fencing across the road. The truth of the matter, we were not allowed to go to Never Never.
So, as for inspiration, it seems we have Never Never, the Americans have got Area 51.
And no, I’m not hanging around to see if spacemen and UFOs are coming to visit after darkness falls.
This photo was taken at a Castello in Tuscany, Italy, and was quite interesting.
I was fascinated as to what was behind the door in front, and up the stairs to the right. I was guessing, up the stairs was the exit from the ballroom, but it might be something else quite banal.
Behind me was the room that had all the names of the family who had lived at the castle.
More interesting was the fact there was the old castle, going back centuries, and the new castle, not so old.
But…
One could cast their minds back to the 1500s perhaps and imagine the castle, on a hill, overlooking what are now vineyards, but could once have been the forest.
Extensive gardens at the back could have been where the jousting and other games could have taken place.
There would be a feasting hall, the kitchens, the servants, and there was a keep.
Italy had a rich history of each of the towns launching raids on other towns, and these towns were walled in, like San Gimignano, with 14 watch towers around the perimeter, where the fortifications were such they kept out the oncoming marauders.
Siena is much the same, a walled town.
Each had a large central square, and Siena famously holds the Il Palio di Siena every year in theirs.
Just being in Tuscany is almost inspiration enough for any sort of story with Tuscany as the backdrop.
This photograph represents an idyllic scene, a pool at the bottom of a waterfall, which on a fine day would be perfect.
The fact it looks to be in the middle of nowhere is neither here nor there because…
That’s where the writer’s inventiveness kicks in.
So…
How do we get there? If it’s below the waterfall, then we came up the river, which is basically how you would go anyway, it’s just the depth of the river that determines how far you can go.
We had a situation like that where the depth of the river nearly stopped us from getting far enough up the river into the mountains to discover some amazing territory.
You could also go downriver, but since this river might start up in the mountains, it might be a long way.
Why would we be there?
The boring answer, we are on holiday.
The better answer, we’re searching for gold, and so are others who are trying to get us to move on, or we’re searching for something, just insert what you want to find. I was thinking: an intrepid brother or sister who has gone missing, and the waterfall was the last place they were seen.
And, what if there’s a secret entrance behind the waterfall, that opens into an underground complex with sophisticated, very strange and never seen before equipment, that hasn’t been used in a very long time.
Somehow I like the last one best.
And, just to add a new twist, you find a human-like body in a pod, and when someone accidentally leans on a button, it comes to life. Is it human, or is it a robot?
This book has finally come back from the Editor, so this month it is going to get a second revision, a second draft for the editor, and beta readers.
…
We are now up to the part where we introduce Isobel properly and find out why such a talented person is drifting in the doldrums of Rupert’s private detective agency.
Aside from being a once high-flying legal eagle, she is also a computer hacker, or perhaps that’s what she evolved into in a devil finds work for idle hands type person.
This hacking is going to be useful, but it’s also going to bring problems, especially when she starts tracking down Zoe.
And, it seemed she had struck up a dark online relationship with another hacker with the handle Tzar. What are the odds he is Russian?
She’s digging for information, and Tzar helps, and, suddenly it appears, briefly, then is gone, with a warning. Stop digging.
And if she doesn’t.
People were coming for her.
Meanwhile, in the basement, Zoe has had enough time to devise a mask that might stave of the effects of the gas long enough to affect an escape.
And, it almost works, the mask that is.
She manages to get past all of the guards, but Romanov is waiting.
He doesn’t kill her, but he does give her some information, then leaves. He knows how dangerous she can be, especially when wounded.
This book has finally come back from the Editor, so this month it is going to get a second revision, a second draft for the editor, and beta readers.
…
We are now up to the part where we introduce Isobel properly and find out why such a talented person is drifting in the doldrums of Rupert’s private detective agency.
Aside from being a once high-flying legal eagle, she is also a computer hacker, or perhaps that’s what she evolved into in a devil finds work for idle hands type person.
This hacking is going to be useful, but it’s also going to bring problems, especially when she starts tracking down Zoe.
And, it seemed she had struck up a dark online relationship with another hacker with the handle Tzar. What are the odds he is Russian?
She’s digging for information, and Tzar helps, and, suddenly it appears, briefly, then is gone, with a warning. Stop digging.
And if she doesn’t.
People were coming for her.
Meanwhile, in the basement, Zoe has had enough time to devise a mask that might stave of the effects of the gas long enough to affect an escape.
And, it almost works, the mask that is.
She manages to get past all of the guards, but Romanov is waiting.
He doesn’t kill her, but he does give her some information, then leaves. He knows how dangerous she can be, especially when wounded.
This was at a winery in Italy where, on the tour we took, we had lunch as part of the tour, after, of course, a tour of the winery.
It was a picturesque setting, and the food, and matching wines, were exquisite, and perhaps we may have had slightly more than we should have.
But, they did leave the wine behind…
However…
Inspirationally, we could base the story around a lunch or dinner, two people looking to get their relationship back on track, deciding to take time out alone to see if the part is still there.
How could it not in a setting like this?
It could be the setting for a chef, trying out his new menu, or working on a new menu, getting tourists to sample the courses and wines.
We’d have to make the chef a man, or woman, on the edge of disaster, and looking to recover from a disaster of some description – like a failed restaurant and the need for second chances…
Or…
A failing chateau, typified by the declining visitor number and warring family members, all of whom were left a share in the large but rapidly deteriorating mansion.
Should they renovate and turn it into a hotel with a 5 star restaurant, or should they sell to developers and see it bulldozed, or will one, secretly very wealthy, offer to buy them all out and preserve the ancestral home?
This book has finally come back from the Editor, so this month it is going to get a second revision, a second draft for the editor, and beta readers.
…
John’s search for Zoe was at an impasse, simply because it was her job to disappear and reappear at will, and he knows he was no match for her in that regard.
So, having gone to her residence in Paris, not finding her there which was predictable, the place looked like it had not been visited in months, he concluded a short stay might help to clear his head.
Until he gets a phone call.
Kidnappers, other than the Russians, have captured Zoe, and they’re ringing him for a ransom.
Odd, because he was not the one who placed the kidnap order on her, so why would they be ringing him?
This was initiated by Zoe, no doubt playing the kidnapper by sending him to a bigger payday.
If that’s the case then John has to deduce she has faith in him to come and get her.
Which he’s going to do, but not on his own.
It’s time to call Sebastian, someone John knew would know what to do.
This book has finally come back from the Editor, so this month it is going to get a second revision, a second draft for the editor, and beta readers.
…
John’s search for Zoe was at an impasse, simply because it was her job to disappear and reappear at will, and he knows he was no match for her in that regard.
So, having gone to her residence in Paris, not finding her there which was predictable, the place looked like it had not been visited in months, he concluded a short stay might help to clear his head.
Until he gets a phone call.
Kidnappers, other than the Russians, have captured Zoe, and they’re ringing him for a ransom.
Odd, because he was not the one who placed the kidnap order on her, so why would they be ringing him?
This was initiated by Zoe, no doubt playing the kidnapper by sending him to a bigger payday.
If that’s the case then John has to deduce she has faith in him to come and get her.
Which he’s going to do, but not on his own.
It’s time to call Sebastian, someone John knew would know what to do.
We walked another umpteen miles from the exhibition to a Chinese restaurant that is going to serve us Chinese food again with a beer and a rather potent pomegranate wine that has a real kick. It was definitely value for money at 60 yuan per person.
But perhaps the biggest thrill, if it could be called that, was discovering downstairs, the man who discovered the original pieces of a terracotta soldier when digging a well. He was signing books bought in the souvenir store, but not those that had been bought elsewhere.
Some of is even got photographed with him. Fifteen minutes of fame moment? Maybe.
After lunch, it was off to the station for another high-speed train ride, this time for about two and a half hours, from X’ian to Zhangzhou dong.
It’s the standard high-speed train ride and the usual seat switching because of weird allocation issues, so a little confusion reigns until the train departs at 5:59.
Once we were underway it didn’t take long before we hit the maximum speed
Twenty minutes before arrival, and knowing we only have three minutes to get off everyone is heading for the exit clogging up the passageway. It wasn’t panic but with the three-minute limit, perhaps organized panic would be a better description.
As it turned out, with all the cases near the door, the moment to door opened one of our group got off, and the other just started putting cases on the platform, and in doing so we were all off in 42 seconds with time to spare.
And this was despite the fact there were about twenty passengers just about up against the door trying to get in. I don’t think they expected to have cases flying off the train in their direction.
We find our way to the exit and our tour guide Dannie. It was another long walk to the bus, somewhat shabbier from the previous day, no leg room, no pocket, no USB charging point like the day before. Disappointing.
On the way from the station to the hotel, the tour guide usually gives us a short spiel on the next day’s activities, but instead, I think we got her life history and a song, delivered in high pitched and rapid Chinglish that was hard to understand.
Not at this hour of the night to an almost exhausted busload of people who’d had enough from the train. Oh, did I forgot the singing, no, it was an interesting rendition of ‘you are my sunshine’.
The drive was interesting in that it mostly in the dark. There was no street lighting and in comparison to X’ian which was very bright and cheerful, this was dark and gloomy.
Then close to the hotel our guide said that if we had any problems with the room, she would be in the lobby for half an hour.
That spoke volumes about the hotel they put us in.
At the end of the first book in the series, Alistair, Zoe the assassin’s handler, was killed.
As far as he was concerned, Zoe had reneged on the contract to kill a target, and for that, she had to be punished, just to let the rest of the team know they could not decide arbitrarily who or who they would not kill.
For her sins, Zoe had been captured and was about to be executed when John, the man who wanted to become her boyfriend, turned up on a luckless and unplanned rescue mission.
But as ad-hoc operations go, that one was very successful. Zoe, though badly injured aided John in a do-or-die escape.
Alistair learned to his chagrin, that a badly injured Zoe and untrained well-meaning friend trumped overconfidence.
Of course, Alistair’s death does not go unnoticed, and his mother, a renowned and very capable ex-KGB agent with connections, wanted to avenge his death. Her influence reaches as far as the upper echelons of the State’s intelligence services, and requests from her would never be ignored.
Such a request for information is made, and so starts the next book in the series.
Revenge.
Of course, nothing to do with Zoe or John, or their relationship, runs smoothly, and once again in pursuit of the impossible, makes it his mission in life to win over the assassin-on-sabbatical.
But first, he has to find her., and sort through the lies and treachery of his best friend who is also looking for Zoe, but for entirely different reasons.
Thrills, Spills, and just a dash of Romance 