7 Suspenseful Sunday - May 15

These sentences are from my stand-alone suspense novel in the final throes of polishing.  The protag, Maxine is between a rock and a hard place.

Maxine peered around--no trees, not even a tumbleweed. If she got the children away from the tracks and lying down, maybe he would drive by.  She unzipped the pocket and felt the nubby handle of the Smith & Wesson. This time she must screw up her courage. She tried to visualize the scene: the pickup, the dust, El Tigre climbing out, tramping toward them. His ferocious face, his incredible bulk, his horrific intention. She would hold the gun. . . aim at his body, right at the heart--shoot to kill.

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Looking for a cool Kindle read?   The Shadow Warriors, a novel of international intrigue with technology run amok.  Here is the link: The Shadow Warriors on Amazon, Kindle and Trade Paperback  

Seven Sentence Suspenseful Sunday Revisted: Dead Man Walking

Here is the beginning of a scene which is set in the Frankfurt train station.  Emma, the point of view character, is freaked out when she sees "Luby" who drowned in Singapore Harbor. 

The Frankfurt Train Station,  a city unto itself

Looking like a charter member of “Anarchists Anonymous,” he sported a beard, glasses and longish dark hair. I don't even know why I recognized him, but it might have been the uneasy shifting back and forth of his glance. He didn’t notice me as I marched right past him, close enough to touch. I stopped and did a double take, and as I stared after him, with each step he took my disbelief grew with my certainty.  I watched him pass the engine and move away from the tracks into the station. His appearance had changed but that didn't matter, because no physical disguise could hide that rolling slightly knock-kneed walk, springy and muscle-bound.  I was watching a dead man striding through the Frankfurt train station on a Sunday morning in June. 

Forget not to visit the other 7 Suspenseful Sunday writers.

7 Suspenseful Sentence Sunday  

           

Back again: Seven Suspenseful Sentence Sunday

  

The university town of Göttingen was just a great setting for a book.  I stole huge hunks of city landscapes and sometimes I even made up stuff, but most of the scenes were created from real places.  Here is an excerpt from The Shadow Warriors where  Emma and Wayne and their new colleagues have gone out drinking on a Friday night.  Some happens that frightens Emma.

The square was jammed with students, professors, couples pushing baby carriages, old age pensioners, farmers with round peasant faces, and the Turks and Greeks who had come years ago as “guest workers” and stayed on to open restaurants and small businesses.

 We passed a booth selling shots of vodka, each with a fig immersed in it. Wayne pantomimed gagging gestures, but I counted out four marks in change. As I handed the money to the vendor, I caught a glimpse of a face with dark eyes, eyes that were staring at me, but the man with the eyes slipped away into the crowd. It couldn't be. There was no way that the man from the Singapore bus and the Hong Kong Market could be at the Göttingen street fair. I downed the vodka in one hasty gulp, but the alcohol couldn’t burn away that face and those eyes.

Forget not to visit the other 7 Suspenseful Sunday writers.
 

7 Suspenseful Sentence Sunday  

Seven Suspenseful Sentence Sunday - Week 6

Kreuzberg back in the day

Don't forget to visit the other Seven Suspenseful Sunday Authors at:  The Magnificent Seven 


From The Shadow Warriors: 

In a sleazy Berlin neighborhood, the narrator ducks out of a bar one jump ahead of a bad guy.

 

Peering around, I realized that I wasn't in the alley, but a courtyard.  Groping along the stone wall in the darkness, I almost fell over a bike rack.  A tenement stood facing the yard, but only a few windows on the upper floors were lighted. A banner with a skull and crossbones hung over one of them. I picked my way across the rubble and ducked around a dumpster. The screech and scream of alley cats, fighting or mating, caused a dog to respond with a deep savage bark.  When I hit my shin against a crate, I sobbed in frustration, wondering how was I going to get out of here. 

The Shadow Warriors is available as a trade paperback AND on the Kindle.   It contains many  suspenseful scenes, and some funny ones, too.  You can find it on Amazon. 

 

Visit the other Seven Suspenseful Sunday Authors at:  The Magnificent Seven

Seven Suspenseful Sentence Sunday - Week Four

Earlier in the evening, I had admired this green-roofed boathouse with its little cupola, the big sloping upper story dormer windows, and the neat white doors of the boat bays. Now, in the light from Tom’s lantern, we confronted the dark cavernous space with the fetid smell of lake. 
The light revealed two big compartments with a pontoon boat floating in one, and an old speedboat moored in the second. The water, made restless by the storm, lapped and sloshed below us, causing something to creak. The lantern beam flitted over a wall plastered with oars, a fishing net, a snorkeling mask, and yellow life preservers.
 “Daddy, this place is scary and there’s no place to sit,” said Shelly when Tom put her down.
Amen to that.

From Promiscuous Mode

Don’t forget to read all the other excerpts of suspenseful sentences.  Hie your browser to: Suspense Sunday Seven Sentence Authors 
 
If you're looking for a good Kindle read with technology, suspense and a touch of romance, try the Shadow Warriors by Judith Copek.

Seven Suspenseful Sentence Sunday - Week Three

Proposed Cover of World of Mirrors

  This excerpt is from World of Mirrors, which will be published on the Kindle sometime in 2011.

 I stood still, listening, but the only noise was the insects calling and the blood rushing around in my head.  My mouth felt like dry cotton, and I couldn't swallow. Using the shadows of the tall bushes lining the parking lot as cover, I crept toward the disrobing statue, shovel in one hand, paving stone clutched in the other.  My feet crunched on the gravel, but the insect chorus in the bushes covered the sound.  Moisture made the air heavy, and although the night was cool, I had started to sweat.  With each step the paver felt heavier.

About World of Mirrors:

Zara Gray, a high tech consultant has just done something incredibly stupid. She has allowed herself be blackmailed into going to East Germany to help retrieve stolen state-of-the art software. Her partner in this misadventure is T.K. Drummond, a failed spy and Zara’s ex-lover. Now Zara, who barely speaks “survival German,” must navigate a landscape of sociopaths and unrehabilitated Stasi instead of the plummy assignment she has been promised.

 World of Mirrors is set in East Germany on the Baltic coast in the summer of 1990, after the Berlin Wall came down but before the two Germanys were united, during the Year of Miracles. Crumbling old resorts and a classic sailboat serve as backdrops as an international cast of miscreants vies for the digital jewels in this dark but comic adventure with strong elements of romantic suspense. As treacheries mount, Zara and T.K. must rely on a North Vietnamese “guest laborer” to sail them to safety as they play a nautical game of cat and mouse through the shipping lanes of the fog-shrouded Baltic.

 Zara is a strong female character who has taken this assignment in a moment of weakness. Not only does she have technical chops, she is the moral center of the novel and the character responsible for getting herself and T.K. out of a terrible jam.

Some scenes from World of Mirrors use lively Berlin as the settting.

Don’t forget to read all the other excerpts from our Suspenseful Sentences group of writers.  Hie your browser to: Suspense Sunday Seven Sentence Authors

If you're looking for a good Kindle read with technology, suspense and a touch of romance, try The Shadow Warriors by Judith Copek.