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 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.