EXCERPT Operation: Genocide

Chapter 8 - Wednesday, 3 Days Before The Murder

Wednesdays were Hester’s days off. Funny that. She still had to cook breakfast and straighten the house. But if she hurried, the madam would let her go before lunch. Hester was counting on it today. She didn’t want to be late for her meeting.

            The night before Hester had left the kitchen spotless. This morning the sink held two smudged whisky tumblers, an oily pot encrusted with burnt popcorn (takes forever to scrub), a greasy bowl and two mugs with dregs of milky coffee.

            The madam and the master must have had one of their good evenings together. Shared popcorn, whisky and coffee. Alcohol to make her more agreeable and coffee to make him stay up. Hester sniggered. The master got a bargain last night. When he entertained his mistress at home the time his wife and kids went to the seaside, he served lobster with sparkling wine.

            “Good morning, Hester. The children will have soft-boiled eggs with toast for breakfast.”

            “Yes, missus. What will the master have?”

            The madam moved her mouth into a tight smile that faded before it began. “Probably nothing, Hester. He’s running late this morning. I’ll just pour the coffee.”

            Perhaps if the master took as much trouble with his wife as he had with his mistress, the smile would’ve been genuine.

Heavy footsteps on the stairs didn’t bode well. The master stomped in like a buffalo with tight testicles. A chuckle bubbled in Hester’s throat. Good for the madam not to have been seduced with a bowl of popcorn.

“I’m late,” the master’s growl was all buffalo too, “and the coffee’s bloody hot.”

“Sorry. Let me put some more milk in it.”

He took another sip. Scowled. “That makes it too weak.”

The madam handed him a paper bag. “I’m very sorry, Gordon,” she repeated. “Here is some dry sausage and fruit for your breakfast. Would you like to take a lunch sandwich as well? It’s ready.”

“No, I’ll get something at work.”

Hester was sure he would. Not once and not twice did she launder traces of lipstick off the master’s business shirts.

***

“I’m late,” Gordon said, “and the coffee’s bloody hot.”

Annette felt her stomach cringe. It was all her fault. She should have got up earlier. “Sorry. Let me put some more milk in it.”

“That makes it too weak.”

Annette still hoped to make amends as she handed him a paper bag. “I’m very sorry, Gordon. Here is some dry sausage and fruit for your breakfast. Would you like to take a lunch sandwich as well? It’s ready.”

He didn’t want it. Perhaps he realised she hadn’t made his lunch with as much love and devotion as a wife should. When they were newlyweds fourteen years ago, she would hide little “I love you” notes in his sandwiches, but Gordon complained he kept biting into the pink paper, so she stopped.

            When they were newlyweds fourteen years ago, Gordon had this contagious laugh that started in his belly and burst out like gunshot from his mouth. What had happened to that laugh? Had she killed it?

            “Bye, doll.” Gordon called out.

            For old times’ sake, Annette wanted to say, “Bye, honey.”

            She couldn’t.

***

 “Bye, doll.”

Doll. Well, the madam did look like a porcelain doll, and she certainly acted like one, too, whenever the master was around.

With the puppeteer gone, the doll regained control of her own strings. “Hester, I’m going grocery shopping later on. What do we need?”

Hester recited a long list of foodstuffs and cleaning products, and the madam wrote it all down. The whites couldn’t remember things, which explained why they had to be so good at reading and writing.

The clock hurried on without mercy. Hester changed the baby’s nappy, straightened the beds, picked up the dirty clothes, washed up after breakfast, changed another nappy. Beth was getting hungry. Hester was getting restless.

“Shall I make up the bottle, Missus?”

            “No, I’ll feed Beth myself. You may go now. Please take the sandwich from the fridge, if you like.”

            “Thank you, Madam.” The sandwich was bound to contain something more interesting than Hester’s usual apricot jam with a slice of pink Polony sausage.

            Free at last. The madam would make her own lunch and gobble it all up, away from the master’s controlling gaze. For dinner, the family would go out to a restaurant in order to relieve the white woman’s workload. After all, the madam was bound to be tired from lying by the swimming pool all day, painting her nails and pretending not to gawk at the gardener’s muscles covered with forbidden black skin.

            Hester glanced at the clock. Just enough time to catch a taxi van to the illegal meeting.

***

            Annette glanced at the clock. Just enough time to drive into the city for her meeting.

***

CONTINUE

Operation Genocide: Excerpt

If it looks like an elephant and walks like an elephant, it’s an elephant, thought Captain Trevor Watson.

For some reason, though, the higher powers within the South African Police weren’t buying the wisdom.

He stood at the entrance to the rich man’s garage, the smell of car fumes still tarnishing the night air. He scanned the confined space.

“This exactly how you found it?” he asked Jones.

The pimply constable stood to attention. “Yes, sir.”

To the left side, a Ford Cortina with a teddy bear on the back seat. A silver BMW to the right. An expensive status symbol car for him, a practical one for her, Watson noted. That in itself said something about the dead man. A garden hose extended from the Beemer’s exhaust to the driver’s side window.

They had all the garage doors open now, airing out the interior before proceeding with the investigation.

“Your thoughts, Constable?”

Let the youngster learn on the easy ones.

Jones shrugged. “Looks like a suicide to me.”

“Right.” Did to Watson too, but obviously the brigadier had a different take on it to call him when he wasn’t up on the rotation. Watson knew better than to complain. After last week’s crap-out session, his job was hanging by the proverbial thread, except in his case the thread was thinner than a hair and more brittle than a dry twig from a thorn tree.

Officially, he’d been in the right. A white property owner had the legal right to shoot a black burglar, provided a warning shot had been fired first. The way some policeman worked, they would fire that warning shot themselves when they arrived at the crime scene and found only one spent cartridge. Some policemen, but not him. A week ago, Watson had been called out to a shooting scene: one dead burglar, one shot fired. Only one shot. Instead of fixing up the scene after the fact, he had chosen to obey the letter of the law, arrest the white homeowner for culpable homicide. The result? The guy who shot the burglar without warning got off with a smack on the wrist. Watson, given the history of his employment in the South African Police, came out with excrement stuck to both boots.

Remember whose side you’re on, Watson, the brigadier’s words kept ringing in his ears. One false move. Just one, and you’re finished. I’m watching you.

So. Saturday night, and he’d been pulled out of bed to investigate yet another suicide. Yet another white middle-aged guy whose life of luxury had blown up in his face. Watson remembered the outline of the man’s sprawling mansion, eyed the BMW, tried to understand. No go.

“Word has it he’s some sort of big shot. That right?” Jones swatted at his forearm, brushed off the dead insect. “Bloody mozzies.”

“Far as I know, the victim hasn’t been positively identified yet. Both cars and this residence, though, are registered to a scientist doing classified work for the government. That’s why all sorts of trip wires sounded the alarm the moment the call came in.”

“Live by the sword, die by the sword, hey, Captain?”

Watson waved a mosquito away from his own arm. Shook his head. “It’s not as though the victim…” his memory was still sluggish from the sex marathon he’d had only half an hour before, “this Gordon Pretorius…” He paused, found his train of thought. “Not as though he died of poison, or a bomb explosion, or whatever it is government scientists create in their labs.

(link to the book)

Desolation Row - Excerpt

“Deception, intrigue  and authentic sixties nostalgia. Those who remember this turbulent time-gone-by will connect with the tension and conflict of the passionately anti-war generation that hoped  to give peace a chance, but in this entertaining mystery, wound up with murder instead.” 

    -Hank Phillippi Ryan, Anthony, Agatha and Macavity award-winning author 


CHAPTER NINE

The telephone was ringing when Austin entered the apartment. She rushed to answer, hoping for good news about David.

“Austin Amelia, it’s time for you to pack up and come right home.” Mother spoke without preliminaries.

Austin’s teeth clenched, and her stomach tightened in knots.

Mother pressed on, not waiting for a response. “Your father and I agree that’s the best thing to do. We‘ll wire the money for a plane ticket tomorrow. How soon can you be ready to leave?”

The moment she heard the words “Austin Amelia,” Austin had prepared for the thousandth battle with Mother in their ongoing war. Her middle name irritated Austin since it was Mother’s first name,
making it harder for Austin to ignore her connection with the woman who’d tried to control her since time immemorial. Or at least for as long as she could remember.

How wrong Austin had been, thinking she’d won independence by marrying David. Mother merely changed the nature of the war and moved to another battle, one called “how a young matron should behave.”

The distance between Cuero, Texas, and Toronto, Ontario, was seventeen hundred miles, but unfortunately, the mail and the telephone could bridge that gap. She focused on the provocations pouring from her phone.

“Your father’s very concerned about this turn of events.”

“Naturally Daddy’s upset, and who wouldn’t be? Don’t you think I am?” Austin’s anger was reaching gale force. “This is no picnic for me either, you know.”

“My point is that you don’t want to upset your father, do you?” Mother’s tone was civil, but nevertheless she’d upped the stakes of the current battle by deploying her not so secret Daddy weapon. It was obvious to everyone—especially to her mother—that Austin adored her father, a fact that infuriated Mother.

And it was always Mother—never Mama or Mommy. But Daddy got the loving endearment.

“Where’s Daddy? Put him on and I’ll tell him why I can’t leave Toronto.”

“He’s not here. He’s sitting on another well and won’t be back for days. But I know what he’d say if he were here.”

Austin’s family ran an oil production company, and her father and uncle were often out in the field while new wells were drilled. How she’d envied their freedom. 

“Mother, you’re the one who always told me that a woman’s place was beside her hus—”

“Not if he’s in jail.” Her mother’s voice went up an octave, and the word squawk leapt to Austin’s mind.

“All the more reason to support David,” Austin said. “He’s been wrongly accused.”

“And what makes you so sure, Austin Amelia?”

“Mother!”

Austin banged down the receiver, then looked in awe at the phone. That was a first. She doubted anyone had ever hung up on Amelia Starr before. She allowed herself a smile. She was feeling better already. If only she’d remembered to ask Mother to send boxes of grits before she hung up on her.

She ran to the refrigerator and opened the freezer compartment. She unwrapped a package of  brownies, used a butcher knife to separate them, and began gnawing on one. She immediately relaxed.

Thank God for baked goods and chocolate.

The freezer in her parents’ garage held leftovers from their daily desserts. The freezer was padlocked, ostensibly so no one could sneak into the garage and steal her mother’s prized baking. Austin
knew the real reason had been to keep her from doing the sneaking. The goodies were meant for Daddy, who loomed large at six feet five inches, but Austin always wanted to eat as many cookies as he did.

“Little ladies do not eat like that,” Mother would say, the words often intermingled with the warning, “No boy will want to marry you if you’re fat.”

Alone in her rental kitchen in Toronto, grinding through frozen brownies, Austin recalled hunting for the freezer key she’d known was secreted in the garage. She eventually found it but until she had, she’d obsessed over the mystery.

Right now she felt the same. Obsessive.

Someone had murdered the senator’s son, and that someone wasn’t David. Austin had no choice but to track down the killer. All she had to do was find the missing key.

Want to read more?

Interview With Kay Kendall

Yvonne: Welcome, Kay! Please tell us the title and genre of your book and its tagline.

Kay: Desolation Row—An Austin Starr Mystery. In 1968 a young bride from Texas uses her CIA-honed skills to catch the real killer when her husband lands in a Canadian jail for murdering the draft-resisting son of a United States senator.

YW: Who is your intended audience and why should they read your book?

KK: My primary audience is female baby boomers—readers drawn to mysteries set in a tumultuous era they
lived through. Also, younger readers are having fun learning about hippie times. On the cover of my
book is a recommendation from bestselling thriller author Norb Vonnegut, who said “Kay Kendall is one author who knows how to burrow into your heart.”

YW: How did you come up with the title of your book?

KK: My amateur sleuth Austin Starr is a fan of Bob Dylan’s music so each mystery featuring her has a title that comes from one of his songs. The titles do double duty. To those who know the music from that time the titles signify the era without having to say something dull like – “a mystery from the sixties,” or some such. Future titles are Rainy Day Women and Tangled Up in Blue.

YW: Tell us about your cover art.

KK: When I brainstormed with my publisher and publicist at Stairway Press, we wanted an image to connote the time of the Vietnam War without being too hard-edged. I didn’t want to use peace signs or protest scenes because I thought those would be a turnoff and also they didn’t represent what the book is about. Really, this mystery is propelled by a love story. A young recently married couple far from home is pulled apart by mistakes of the American and Canadian authorities.

We decided to show a young woman with a slightly hippie vibe and I found the photo. Everyone loves the
cover, and I’m very pleased with it. One of the benefits of working with a smaller press is that an author gets much more input into all aspects of the publishing process than she would have at a huge publisher.

YW: Give us an interesting fact about living during the Cold War.

KK: The Cold War was the background theme of my childhood.  An intercontinental ballistic missile was housed in a silo on the outskirts of my hometown, and I thought that was very exciting. I took entrance exams for college during the Cuban Missile Crisis, and I remember driving to the tests thinking it wouldn’t matter if I bombed on them or not, since the world could blow up the next day. It was so surreal that I didn’t expect it but I did think about it. War was everywhere, and the mass media was still uncovering facts about World War II, and almost all our fathers had fought in that huge conflict. I went straight from reading Nancy Drew mysteries to suspense stories set during World Wars I and II. On the Beach was required reading in my high school English class. Published in 1957, the novel was a bestseller for a decade afterwards. Its subject was nuclear annihilation, with only parts of Australia had survivors, but they were doomed too. This was all thrilling to me, and I wasn’t scared as many said they were. It was too terrible to have happen so I treated it all like fiction.

YW: Do you have any unique hobbies?
KK: My husband and I have house rabbits—five of them currently. We belong to an organization in Houston, Texas, called Bunny Buddies. This is a rescue organization that saves at-risk rabbits that get abandoned and taken into shelters. We’ve had bunnies for almost twenty years now, and they are charming pets. The one that I hold in my author’s photograph is Dusty, and the other four are jealous. He was chosen
because he could hold still for a pose the longest. We also have a Cavalier King Charles spaniel named
Wills, but he doesn’t get to play with the bunnies since he’s too frisky. Rabbits are very nervous since they are preyed on by almost all other creatures. They have been called “the cheeseburger of the forest” to illustrate that they are snacks for all other animals. It’s terrible but true.

YW: How can we contact you and find out more about your book?
KK: You can email me at Kay@Stairwaypress.com and I’m on Twitter @kaylee_kendall.  My website is www.KayKendallAuthor.com and find me here too – www.facebook.com/KayKendallAuthor

YW: What can we expect from you in the future?
KK: Desolation Row will soon be available as an audio book, in addition to paperback and E books. Online sales will be by Audible.com, Amazon.com, and iTunes. The narrator is Tatiana Gomberg, an amazing young actress in New York City. She does a fabulous job, especially with all the different accents in my book—like Texan, Scottish, Russian, and New Jersey! I’m also working on the second mystery in the series, Rainy Day Women. It’s set in rainy Vancouver, Canada, in 1970. This time murder takes place in a women’s liberation group, and Austin’s best friend is the prime suspect.

YW: What can readers who enjoy your book do to help make it successful?
KK: Great question! Readers who enjoy my book can leave reviews on the usual online spots—like Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, and Goodreads. My page on Goodreads has lots of information about my book and about me. I’m pleased to say that at this point in time my average rating out of five stars is 4.8. Also, multi awardwinning author Hank Phillippi Ryan says about my book, “Deception, intrigue and authentic sixties nostalgia.  Those who remember this turbulent time-gone-by will connect with the tension and conflict of the passionately anti-war generation that hoped to give peace a chance, but in this entertaining mystery, wound up with murder instead.” I hope my new readers will like Desolation Row just as much as she did.

“Incendiary” - What if your past comes back to haunt you?

What if your past came back to haunt you?
Chris Redding answers the question in her latest book, "Incendiary", published by Imajin Books in September 2012. Previously, this book was published with another publisher. It’s set in New Jersey, in a fictional town. The heroine is an EMT while the hero is a firefighter.

Excerpt:
The electricity of an impending storm raised the hair on Chelsea James's arms. Barefoot, she stood on the wide front porch and watched the trees blow almost in half.

Her dead sister's voice played in her mind.

"It's like nature has to violently clean up," Morgan would say as they stood in this very spot.

They both loved storms. The power of nature impressed Chelsea. Morgan concentrated on the aftermath. Odd that she never thought of the aftermath of her own actions.

"How so?" Chelsea would ask her older-by-a-few-minutes sister.

Morgan's eyes would be wide. "Because a storm gives the trees a haircut, gets rid of the ones that are weak. And on top of that, the rain helps the ones that do survive."

Chelsea would nod.

But this storm didn't bring with it the same renewal. Somewhere deep inside her, Chelsea knew this storm was different. This storm could bring destruction— or worse—this storm might not bring the wanted rain for those trees that survived.

She sighed. Right now she missed her sister more than anything.

Chelsea's firehouse pager went off. "Unit 37, you have a fully involved structure fire on Briar Lane."

As Captain of Biggin Hill First Aid Squad, she had certain duties. But she was also a firefighter and sometimes that took precedence. The shakiness of the dispatcher's voice told her this fire could be big.

So tonight she'd be a firefighter.


URL to book: http://tinyurl.com/8davpke

THE RELUCTANT MATCHMAKER

Below you will find an excellent excerpt from THE RELUCTANT MATCHMAKER by Shobhan Bantwal (whom we already had the pleasure of hosting on this blog). Happy reading!

I was hauled against him in one quick move, taking the breath right out of my lungs.

God, this was good—better than anything I’d ever felt in my whole life.

Although his hold on me felt like a vice grip, I liked it, basked in it. His next kiss was harder, more demanding, that of a hungry male rather than a tender admirer. And all the while my mind sang: He wants me. He wants me.

I couldn’t hold back any longer. My hands rested on his shoulders, savoring the tautness of the muscle and the soft feel of his shirt for a moment, and then my arms slid around his neck, clamping his mouth to mine. I never wanted to let go. This was a minor miracle. I’d come here to help him locate a woman who’d make him a suitable wife, and instead I was clasped in his arms, his mouth making scalding, passionate love to mine.

Even in my wildest dreams I hadn’t thought it would be this wonderful. His cologne was rousing, his hair ticklish on my fingers, and his chest was hard as a rock against my pliant breasts. This felt so damn right.

Just when I thought this was heaven on earth, he abruptly loosened his hold on me, a puzzled look coming over his face once more. But this time the bafflement was not mixed with wonder and awe. It was more like an unpleasant shock.

I had done it—exactly what I didn’t want to do—I’d repulsed him. Why the heck hadn’t I behaved like a nice Hindu girl and held myself in check?

He took me by the shoulders and set me away from him. “I’m so sorry. I—I don’t know what came over me.”



(Excerpt from The Reluctant Matchmaker by Shobhan Bantwal)



For more information: about The Reluctant Matchmaker and Shobhan Bantwal’s other books, visit http://www.shobhanbantwal.com or http://www.amazon.com/The-Reluctant-Matchmaker-Shobhan-Bantwal/dp/0758258852. The full virtual tour schedule is available at: http://bookpromotionservices.com/2012/06/03/reluctant-matchmaker-tour

Murder @ Play - excerpt

Prelude - Pretoria, October 1994

Chapter 1

Anonymous letters are always a cliché. In South Africa, they can also be deadly.

This one would contain no explosives or wires. Just a plain envelope and a photocopy of words cut out from newspapers.

How many copies?

Five. One for every guy at the Election Day after-party.

Or perhaps only four?

Yes, that would be truly brilliant. Only four.

Chapter 2

"Every marriage needs a glaze of mystery," her husband had said last night. "Even ours could do with a secret or three."

Christine Chamberlain thought theirs could do without.

Whoever said jealousy was green, must have been colour-blind. Black. That was the colour. The pink and yellow sunrise was black, the sound of birds pecking at the apricot tree outside was black, and black was the smell of warm dusty soil. African black was the new, well, black.

Although, in the New South Africa, perhaps it was not politically correct to think that way. Perhaps she should stick to green. Green jealous thoughts, green sunrise, green birdsong, green smell of parched soil…yeah, right.

Christine's gaze shifted to Tom. They had fallen asleep together, as usual, entwined like lovers. This morning they woke up apart. As usual.

Tom lay on his side, his tanned back towards her, his sexy blond spikes limp from the heat. Yet Christine did not roll closer to curve her body around his. She clenched her jaw, remembering.

Last night's movie came back to haunt her. The music. The words.

Though I have all faith so that I could move mountains, if I have not love, I am nothing...

* * *

Though I speak with the tongues of angels, if I have not love, I have nothing, she mused on the way to the bathroom. She ran her bath on the cool side of tepid. It was going to be another scorching South African summer day.

Reclining in the water, Christine made a mental list of the weekend tasks.

One, vacuum the threadbare carpet of their start-up home. Most white South Africans employed a daily domestic cleaner, of course. Most white South Africans had a swimming pool too, and didn't have to rely on tepid baths in order to start the day cool and refreshed.

So, one, vacuuming.

Two, grocery shopping.

Three, finish reading that mathematics article….

Is that how much fun other married couples had every Saturday?

Four–

Tom's broad-shouldered form, clad in a summer bathrobe for decency's sake in case the neighbours developed x-ray vision, appeared in the bathroom door. His 'hi' was automatic, his kiss programmed into his subconscious routine.

"Yesterday's post, Dr Chamberlain."

He placed the envelopes on the edge of the tub and busied himself with the comb.

Yep, this was exactly how much fun married couples usually had on Saturday mornings. A naked wife and a semi-naked husband, in the bathroom together, gelling their hair and reading the previous day's post.

Tom looked at her reflection in the mirror. "Why the glum face this morning?"

Why, indeed. They had been out the previous night. After the movie they had stopped for a drink. Several drinks, in fact. The film had made an impact that needed drowning.

As soon as they'd sat down at the table, a Mexican waitress arrived. She had legs that defied all biological explanation, a wedge of lemon in her teeth and a bottle of tequila in each of the twin holsters. Before Christine could analyse how that made her feel, the waitress drew the tequila bottle in one smooth almost invisible gesture. Christine saw Tom's hand glide towards his hip in a matching movement.

"So what's with the instinct to draw? You don't even carry a gun," Christine had asked after they had gulped their shots.

That's when Tom had said the thing about every marriage needing a mystery. Then he ordered another tequila, this time with salt. The salt had arrived on the waitress's wrist.

At least it was not in her navel, thought Christine now, as she seethed in her cool bath.

No. That was all wrong. The secret of a successful marriage was to act as though you already had one. As simple as that.

"See? No more glum face," she replied.

She stood up in the bathtub and pressed her cheek to Tom's bare back, leaving a cool wet imprint. Tom turned to her, the comb forgotten.

Many satisfying minutes later she slid back into the tub and looked through the post. She liked her weekend ritual of sorting and reading the letters in the bath.

There was a thick envelope from the bank: pages and pages of their expenses recorded in depressing rows. A large, offensively decorated envelope promised a win of ten thousand Rand if acted upon promptly. A manila envelope with a plastic window….

"This one's addressed to you," Christine said. "You handle it."

"But it's meant for you. It's from your gynaecologist. The day I have a pap smear, I'll pay for it, but meanwhile, perhaps you could ask him to send his bills directly to you."

Christine shrugged. "The day a woman can buy a house in this country without her husband's permission, the day a woman can walk into a South African bar–"

"I know. And the day your married-woman income is taxed at the same low rate as mine, that's when you'll pay your doctors' bills yourself."

The repartee was academic, since they pooled their meagre resources. South Africa was still South Africa, despite the first free and fair election seven months earlier. The man was still the head of the household, with power over all matters financial, even if the wife was the main breadwinner.

"Too bloody right," murmured Christine.

The next piece of mail was addressed to Mrs. C. Wodehouse, instead of Dr. C. Chamberlain. Christine threw it into the bathroom dustbin unopened. It wasn't the omission of her academic title that annoyed her, it was Tom's surname stitched onto her initial. What next? Mrs. Tom Wodehouse? She had kept her maiden name in defiance of the chauvinist ways permeating the country's social conventions. Come to think of it, that defiance was one of the driving forces behind her getting a doctorate in the first place, and in a 'male' subject like maths, too.

The beige envelope with an intricate pattern felt thick and smooth under her fingers. The card inside matched the envelope, the words laser-printed, keeping up with the latest technology of the 1990s.

Dear Christine,

The fanfares announce that finally I'm free,

would you believe it, I got my degree,

Maths has relinquished another PhD,

so grab your significant other and hastily join me,

for a fun weekend at Bay Street five three.

P.S. Dress up or dress down, play a part, not the clown.

The invitation made the world seem a little less black. Basil was notorious for churning out absurd rhymes. 'A fat cat sat on a mat and with a pat of a bat had a chat with a rat,' began one of his typical epics.

Wordlessly, she handed the invitation to Tom.

Tom took his time spitting out the toothpaste. "Are we going?"

"What do you mean, 'are we going'?"

Tom sat on the edge of the bath.

"I just don't think it's such a good idea. Not after what happened at the Election Day party. It just wouldn't work anymore, Christine, all of us together."

The last thing Christine wanted to talk about was the Election Day party and the way their loyal group of friends had crumbled that night.

To avoid the memories, she put on a naughty grin. "You mean, the fact that we went through four rubbers that night?"

"We did? I don't recall playing bridge."

They laughed together, the way a couple should laugh. For a moment, a too brief a moment, all was well.

"You do know I still see Daniel occasionally? Despite the break-up of our group?" It came out more challenging than she had anticipated.

Tom scowled. "Yes, occasionally being the operative word here. But the whole weekend? That's what I call an overdose."

"Jealous, are we?" She smiled through her anger. Daniel had been a teenage romance, a friend more than a boyfriend.

"It's not that." Tom's tone was dismissive. "It's the whole idea of all of us together. Imagine the atmosphere."

"The atmosphere will hardly be antagonistic. Alice is not with Daniel anymore. Basil…Basil will cope. Why else would he be inviting us all?"

He shrugged an unconvinced shrug. "Sure."

Christine swallowed hard. Alice. Alice with her black wavy hair, twisting like leeches along her back, all the way to her–she hated to admit it–shapely buttocks. Alice with her smile that made men pull in their stomachs and pull out their guns to compare sizes. Alice the artist. Alice the free spirit. Alice the woman of mystery. How could a mousy mathematician compete?

Christine slid deeper into the bath, allowing the water to soak her hair even though she hadn't intended to wash it. Her thoughts melted into the cheap foam. Although a luxury, or even midrange, bath oil was not out of their financial league, her prudence usually opted for the eight Rand saving.

"Would you be a darling and bring your wife some chocolates?" she murmured.

Why is he allowed to mind about Daniel but I'm not allowed to mind about Alice?

"Chocolates in the bath? No way. That's decadence. Sampling life's riches does not spell happiness, darling. But I'll wash your back, if you like."

"I like." Christine soaped the sponge and pressed it into his hand. It was good, but not good enough.

The Romans didn't know chocolate, and so their decadence must have been seriously lacking.

"Tom, there's something for you in that pile of mail. And it's not from my gynie."

"From whom is it, then?"

"It doesn't say." The rough sponge felt delicious between her shoulder blades. "Perhaps it's from your secret lover."

"I don't have a secret lover. Open it."

Inside was a single photocopied page. The text was made up of fragments of newspaper headlines glued onto a sheet then photocopied. Christine stared at the words:

YOU AND ALICE.

THAT IS WHY

I WILL KILL YOU.

Frozen acid pooled in the pit of Christine's stomach. The world became blacker, much blacker than before.

(more)

Excerpt from "The Hanukkah Time Capsule"

While we're waiting, here is an excerpt from "The Hanukkah Time Capsule" by Yvonne Walus, about to be published by Echelon Press:

“Get on with it,” snarled the Anti-Knowledge Warden. “Open the damned time capsule! Let’s see what precious information your Grandmother has left for you to abuse.”

Esther chewed the end of her dark braid. The fear which she had learnt to accept in the last few years, burnt sour in her stomach. Escape, she needed to escape from it all. Briefly, she wondered which of her so-called friends had reported the legacy her Grandmama had left -

The mind stunner glinted in the Warden’s hand. “Do it now, or -”

“Yes, sir,” muttered Esther. The words scratched her suddenly constricted throat, got muffled by the nibbled braid. She would do anything to avoid being zapped. Mind stunners left permanent marks: gaps in memory, holes in the logical processing. Some people claimed they could even alter the victim’s personality. Judging by Nathaniel’s latest behaviour, she wouldn’t be surprised… after his encounter with a mind stunner, he was simply not the same person she had married.

Esther turned her eyes to the Warden, trying to hold the fear back. “If you allow me, sir, I need to switch on the computer, please.”

Buy link: please purchase here

EVERY MARRIAGE NEEDS A TOUCH OF MYSTERY. OR DOES IT?

Blurb for "Murder @ Play":

In the new free South Africa of 1994, men are still boss, women carry handguns for self-protection, and some mistakes can change your life forever.

When a body is found during their weekend away with friends, Christine Chamberlain must use her brilliant mathematical mind to prove her husband's innocence...

... whether he's innocent or not.

When it comes to your loved ones, is it possible to know too much?

Excerpt from "Murder @ Play":

Prelude–Pretoria, October 1994

Chapter 1

Anonymous letters are always a cliché. In South Africa, they can also be deadly.

This one would contain no explosives or wires. Just a plain envelope and a photocopy of words cut out from newspapers.

How many copies?

Five. One for every guy at the Election Day after-party.

Or perhaps only four?

Yes, that would be truly brilliant. Only four.

Quick Facts

Release: August 2009
Title: Murder @ Play
Author: Yvonne Walus

Link: Buy it here

ISBN: 978-1-59080-637-1
Genre: Mystery
Pages: 268
Price: $13.49 US

Café Tempest: Adventures on a Small Greek Island

What is it about Greece that makes it so exotic, so romantic, so tantalizing that it’s right at the top of everybody’s bucket list – the one foreign land they’re longing to visit? Our dreams are made on Never on Sunday, Zorba the Greek, and more recently My Big Fat Greek Wedding and Mama Mia.

Café Tempest: Adventures on a Small Greek Island is a witty, evocative, beautifully written novel that puts you right in the heart of Greek island life. It’s so alive with the sights and smells and tastes and characters of Greece that you can pick it up and start your Mediterranean vacation on page one. On a deeper level, the book is filled with the kinds of observations, reflections, and arc of self-discovery that make Eat, Pray, Love so compelling.

“Welcome to Pharos. Laugh and dance in the hammock—not the cradle—of Western civilization,” says author, lyricist, and theatrical producer Barbara Bonfigli. “I’ve been falling in love with Greece since I was old enough to drink retsina. But if Sarah hadn’t captured my imagination you’d never know how I feel about friendship, feta, and the abundance of grace that turns friends into lovers and fishermen into kings.”

Synopsis

When Sarah, a thirty-something American theatrical producer, is asked to direct the locals in their summer show, she picks Shakespeare’s play The Tempest. What follows is a hilarious adventure in casting, rehearsing, and consuming. Her neighbors are excited about acting but delirious about eating. Their rehearsals in a deconsecrated church become a feast in four acts.

Armed with a sizzling wit, a dangerously limited Greek vocabulary, and a pitch-perfect ear for drama, Sarah navigates the major egos and minor storms of a cab driver Caliban, a postmaster Prospero, and a host of fishermen dukes and knaves.

When she falls in love, there are even trickier seas to navigate. Her own offstage romance provides an exhilarating, unpredictable counterpoint to Shakespeare’s story of magic, intrigue, and the power of love.

Excerpt

[from Chapter 23, edited for length. Sarah, the novel’s main character, is an American theater producer spending several weeks on Pharos, a rustic idyllic Greek island. This evening, she’s at a taverna –owned by Dmitri --with her friends Alexandra (Alex) and Petros, and Petros’ new Swedish girlfriend Monika]

“I love these fish places,” says Monika. She’s wearing a halo, the sun having bleached her blond hair river gold. Below that is a black-and-white Joffrey Ballet T-shirt tucked into black hipsters; the dancers are pas-de-deuxing over Monika’s small unsupported breasts.

“But you must have the same thing in Sweden,” says Alex, who’s chosen the poor-fisherman-dangling-threads look tonight.

“Lots of places that serve fish, but they don’t have this atmosphere. Even the outside cafés there are all . . .” Monika makes a sour face that does nothing to dim the voltage. “. . . modern.”

“Dmitri thinks this is modern,” says Petros, raising his arm off the back of her chair, “covering the lights with fishnets.”

“Mykonos fifteen years ago,” I recall.

“Do you think Pharos will be spoiled?” Monika addresses this directly to me. “No,” Petros answers for me, “no airport, no discos.”

“No movie theaters,” says Alex.

“No music,” I say.

“Music? You like music? We have.” Dmitri has appeared with his order pad. “Tomas has coffee, then he plays.”

“Great!” we all say.

We’re in luck. Tomas the shipwright is a terrific fiddler, and his younger brother Takis plays wizard bouzouki.

“You eat something?” asks Dmitri.

“Oh yes,” says Petros. He spreads his arms. “Octopodhi [octopus] everyone?”

“Not for me, thanks,” I say. “I’ll have tsipoura [grey sole].”

“And I’d like kalamari,” says Alex.

“Me too,” says Monika in English.

Petros contracts slightly. “But the specialty is octopodhi . . .” He looks from face to determined face. “Well, I’ll have it. And a pitcher of your house white.”

Except Dmitri’s house white will take baked-on bugs off your windshield.

“Dmitri,” I say, arresting him, “let’s have a bottle of retsina too.”

Dmitri brings a collection of mezedes [appetizers] with the retsina and we dig in.

“Yasoo, Sarah!” Iannis the postman slaps a letter on the table, “I lose a few days,” and departs.

I inspect the envelope closely: “God, it’s more than a week old.”

“A week old? Isn’t he the postman?” Monika asks. She’s new here, and from the north.

“You’ve heard of the Peter Principle?” says Alex.

Monika shakes her head.

“The what principle?” Petros says.

“It’s a theory that describes why nothing works very well,” she says. “The idea is that when people are good at their jobs, they get promoted. Till they finally rise to their level of incompetence. And that’s where they stay. So no one’s really good at what they do.”

“The author’s name was Peter something,” I add, turning to Petros, “so think of it as the Petros Principle.” Petros looks pretty miserable. Sometimes irony doesn’t leap the cultural divide.

“It’s just an amusing idea,” I say. “If it were always true we’d never have walked on the moon.”

“Right,” says Petros.

“Why are we walking on the moon?” says Alex.

Tino’s wife has made fresh tarama,[fish roe salad] and the feta is soft and sweet.

“Let’s get some more tarama and pita,” I say.

“Even the retsina’s good,” says Alex, dropping the moon. “Can’t we give up and come here every night?”

To learn about Barbara Bonfigli and Café Tempest, feel free to visit any of these sites.

Barbara Bonfigli’s website – www.cafetempest.com

Order Café Tempest directly from the publisher - http://www.tellmepress.com/pub_ct.php or from Amazon http://www.amazon.com/Café-Tempest-Adventures-Small-Island/dp/0981645313

To see the complete tour schedule visit http://virtualblogtour.blogspot.com/2009/05/cafe-tempest-by-barbara-bonfigli-summer.html