Why Did I Write “A Common Evil…?”Posted on July 10, 2014 by Billy Ray Chitwood


                                                                         LAUNCH BLOG

                                                         Why Did I Write A Common Evil…?

The title could just as easily be ‘Why Do I Write’? This book, however, has a rather significant place in my heart and mind. A Common Evil – A Bailey Crane Mystery is the last book (6) in ‘The Bailey Crane Mystery Series but that is not the reason it occupies that significant place in my heart and mind.

It was a marvelous pleasure for my wife and me to live full-time in Mexico on the Sea of Cortez in a small fishing village some sixty miles south of the Arizona border. We were there for several years, and I served proudly as the president of the Homeowners Association at our resort…that part of the book is accurate for the character of Bailey Crane. Another part of A Common Evil which is indeed couched in fact is the early morning raid at our resort some months back in which a cartel boss was killed, along with some other bad drug people. It must also be stated as fact that this incident occurred shortly after my wife and I left Mexico in our return to the United States. The raid, or ‘sting’, by the Federales and their allies was the true inspiration for writing the book – that, and exploring the unlikely drug solutions south of the border. There are other truths in the book taken from my experiential mind vault, but, for the most part, it is a fictional novel that has all the necessary disclaimers.

It was important for me to write the book for a number of reasons.

First and foremost, it gave me a poetic license to tell a story and relive some aspects of my life and times in Mexico, a country for which I have had a love affair for many years. The allusions to the Sea of Cortez, its incomparable beauty, and to the hospitable, nostalgic, warm people of Mexico, are all from a truly thankful mind and heart. My thoughts in the book about the people in general and the country come from a good place. It is true that Mexico has its poverty, its cartels, its corruption, and it also has a desire to become more than what some in the world perceive it to be…not so different from many countries. In the main, my full-time years spent in Mexico were enjoyable and my love for the people genuine and heartfelt.

Second, I wanted to explore a common evil shared by most if not all the nations of the world. Because Mexico gets so much media attention drawn to its drug cartels, its brutal murders, and the sometime popular opinion that the government is an awed and intimidated partner in the awful business, I wanted to explore some off-the-wall solutions to the drug wars. While living by that beautiful sea and in having a resort position that gave me perhaps more opportunities for contact with local government officials, there came to me an emerging microcosmic vision of the country as a whole…certainly, not empirical, nothing measurable or notable in scientific terms, simply a desultory and superficial mix of observations.

Another reason for writing A Common Evil, the most crucial to me, I wanted to write an exciting novel that readers might enjoy, one with believable characters, one with a few twists and turns, some irony, perhaps even a red herring here and there.

Finally, writing is life for me. It keeps the old heart ticking and gives me clues to identifying myself, providing dimensions otherwise not known…after all, some of us need a lifetime to figure out just who we are.

Hope you will check out A Common Evil – A Bailey Crane Mystery – book 6. Incidentally, each book in ‘The Bailey Crane Mystery Series’ stands alone…while fleshing out the central character in each story. Some of the mysteries are inspired by true crimes.

                                                               BUY SITES FOR "A Common Evil":

                                                              Amazon US: goo.gl/cMutZf (Kindle)

                                                           Amazon US: goo.gl/seIxV4 (Paperback)

                                                                    Amazon UK: goo.gl/W1i9si

                                                 CreateSpace: https://www.createspace.com/4856989 

If you enjoy A Common Evil perhaps you will write a review of your reading experience on amazon.com and amazon.co.uk. You, the readers, are the life-blood of writers. Without you, authors can lead a very lonely life.

Feel free to comment below. My very best wishes.

                                                                   SOME LINKS TO THE AUTHOR:

                                                                  http://www.about.me/brchitwood

                                                                http://billyraychitwood.weebly.com

                                                               Follow me on Twitter – @brchitwood

                                                               http://facebook.com/billyray.chitwood 

                                                                http://facebook.com/billyrayscorner 

(NOTE: I’m very proud to have received nine awards for my blog and I usually display those awards at the end of my posts – as required. On this occasion, I will hold my pride in check – almost!)

Writing And Me Posted on May 22, 2014 by billyraychitwood

                                             Writing And Me

It is more than likely that we who write have many idiosyncrasies, patterns, and similarities. Some authors/writers have a special time during the day when the prolific flows occur. Some of us prefer early morning, others late night, still others when the spirit moves them. Presumably we can all agree that the time-element for writing is an individual thing.

What I write does not always do it for me but it comes close enough to make me feel that it is good writing. Sure, even after all the editing and re-writes, I can probably go to any page and find a word or phrase that I would change. Also, almost assuredly, there will be a small number of careless and clumsy typos and/or noun-verb disagreements. Will it bother me? Of course, it will bother me because I try for perfection – like we all do.

The plot, sub-plots, characters, and action? Will they be all that I want them to be? In some instances, yes. In some, no. However, if the tie-ins meet my approval, if the characters are drawn well, I will settle for the finished product. The essence here is that one strives to write the perfect novel, short story, blog, flash fiction, but can always find flaws, minor though they might be. I have come close, by my reckoning and my measuring stick, to writing an almost perfect novel, better than the first, the second, or the others I have written. I say ‘almost’ because there was something else that could have been written to make it all the way perfect. The reason that ‘something else’ was not written? So much time was consumed in the writing, in the re-writing and editing, that I tired and my impatience settled in the end for what was there.

So, what am I trying to say? Like the good golfer who can never win his first PGA tournament, like the good tennis professional who just can’t win the big final, like the carpenter who thinks he can get by with nails instead of screws, we as writers are good but cannot quite take it to the next level. We have the talent but maybe we lack that special spark of enlightenment, that patient ‘stick to it’ quality that will make our books best sellers and movies.

Do not get me wrong here. Writing does it for me. When I turn that special phrase that says everything I want it to say, that’s magic. When I write something that emotionally rouses me to tears or to anger, that’s really special for me. When my fingers dance merrily around those laptop keys in an almost automatic flowing, and, in the re-reading, it knocks me off my feet, that’s a winning lottery ticket. So my plots are not too convoluted and my stories are rather simple. That’s okay because somewhere in that mesh of words is part of me, visible on and between the lines – my legacy to those who love me and those who wish to know me.

With so many million writers across the globe, some for real, some not so much, the odds are long and near impossible for us to reach that pinnacle for which our egos wish to attain. When I ineptly try to market my books with my many tweets (ad nauseam for many folks, I’m sure!), add some amateurish book trailers, do Facebook and LinkedIn, offer KDP freebies, and doctor up my Amazon US and UK author pages, and nothing seems to bring the sale numbers up, do I despair? Sure, it is a natural reaction. Do I give up? Not in my make-up. I’m staying the course, writing for me and the world. It might take a while for the world to reach me, if ever it should, but I will have a writer’s life of ups and downs. There is so much to learn in this digital world and so much of it is a jigsaw puzzle I cannot put together. Being in Twilight, set in some of my ways, I’m not willing to spend so many hours of my day trying to figure out RSS feeeds, SEOs, Widgets, Apps, and the mechanics of cyberspace. So, I will write, do what I minimally can on the internet, and hope for the best. Plus, I’m too cheap to hire someone to do it all for me.

Careless and clumsy errata? Sure.

Good writing? Damned straight, it’s good!

While I won’t be making the NY Times Best Seller List anytime soon, I’m having a ball, writing my blogs and my books… It keeps me young and obstinate! 

Who knows! Maybe one day all the elements come together, that extra spark of hidden genius, that incredible flow of words that say everything in perfect connection, and suddenly the total package of fulfillment comes… Author Stardom!

If one truly believes he/she can write, gives honest assessments to their skills, and, most importantly, loves to write, then I say, stay the course. Success or no success, I have glimpsed life and have given my pen the joy of describing it. The desire to be known, the ego, will always be there, but, beyond all that, I intend to enjoy the process of writing for itself. Many of us wish for those elusive moments of fame and fortune, and some cannot seem to handle it once it comes. If that fame and fortune never comes, you and I will have found much bounty and joy in the writing process. 

Writing does it for me! (Warts and all!)

Billy Ray Chitwood – May 22, 2014

http://www.about.me/brchitwood 

http://billyraychitwood.weebly.com

http://www.goo.gl/fuxUA (My books on IAN – Independent Author Network)

http://twitter.com/brchitwood (@brchitwood)

http://facebook.com/billyray.chitwood

http://facebook.com/billyrayscorner

PLEASE COMMENT IF SO INCLINED. THANK YOU. 

        

Some Notes On My Writing Posted on March 29, 2014 by billyraychitwood1

                                  Some Notes on My Writing

Words have always fascinated me, individually and the way they can be strung together. For me there’s a certain magic that takes place when I write something that brings echoes from the soul, brings tears or makes me laugh. Writing a blog or a book is an incredible adventure of fingers tapping keys on a blank screen page. From where do the words come, these signals from the heart and the mind?

Quite often I open the blank whiteness of ‘Word’ and only have some simple words to tap on the screen. For example, I dabbled during my more youthful days in acting, stage, and did some television commercials. In a recent blog, I thought the words, ‘Action! Camera!’ Without yet a title for the blog, I allowed the two words to take me on a short ‘flash fiction’ ride, creating the story as I went along. The title in the end became ‘Love and Consequence’. In reading the piece several times I was surprised to find that multiple summations could be made about the post relative to life and its many crossroads.

Again, from where do the words come?

This might not astound or surprise anyone who reads my blogs, but I believe that some of us are endowed with a special talent for creating strings of words that arouse the soul to deliver a moving story, to amuse, anger, bewilder, entertain, inspire, intimidate, terrify. Are we thus endowed by virtue of our life sources, our environment, our genetic programming? Is it as Alfred Lord Tennyson conveyed in ‘The Charge of the Light Brigade’ – “Theirs not to reply / Theirs not to reason why / Theirs but to do and die…”? We are all, of course, marching into the valley of death! But, let’s delay that event and thought for as long as our lives’ purposes allow.

Words and writing are marvelous gifts. Some authors distinguish themselves for their moments in the bright light are timely and their words find an eager audience. Other authors are anguished by rejection slips and their moments come late or not at all. While a jovial and sane person I perhaps would not honor my words, my blogs, my books with Tennyson, Tolstoy, Grisham, Hemingway type praise, but they are good words, good blogs, good books, and worthy of reading. Even I will pick up one of my books on occasion, try to divorce my authorship, read it and find enjoyment from that reading. Sure, I might perchance find a typo or some minor error missed in editing, but it does not dismiss the book’s validity. Sure, add to that a bit of ego and pride… I’m not immune.

If it is folly and I fool myself, so be it…there is immense joy in the penning process. It is enough for me that readers and authors I respect find my stories good enough to earn their 5-Stars. With the positive reviews or without them I am officially a slave to the pecking of laptop keys and will continue until there are no pecks left. However, there is no hiding the fact that an author wishes to be recognized.

My writing is a necessary ingredient in my life these days. Age at times bids me quit my trifling typing on the laptop keys, but I say nay and fill my days with writing. At times there are songs, poetry, flash fiction, short stories, and full-length books. There, in that lofty solitude, I stay young and vibrant. My heroes and heroines fight their good fights, and there is musing on and between the lines of what I write…particularly with my five ‘Bailey Crane Mysteries’, several of which were inspired by true life events. (In fact, as a side note, there were to be six ‘Bailey Crane Mysteries’ — “A Stranger Abduction” is missing — but, with all my moving about, the second manuscript was lost and has not been found. While each book can be read independently it grieves me that some of Bailey’s musings and life situations are not included in the series, enough, however, that your picture of the man will be quite clear.) So be it! As I was saying, I try to capture in my books that vitality and youth, once mine for real, on the blank screens of ‘Word’, present the finished product to an audience I hope might forget for those moments of reading the trivial pursuits of a man in Twilight.

One area of my neglect has been in marketing my books… After all, like any author, I wish to be read. I’ve admittedly been rather inept in this digital world, trying to figure ways to promote myself, making many mistakes. Basically, I’ve been a Tweeter/Re-tweeter fool, have likely not availed myself of the proper use of Facebook, LinkedIn, other no doubt valuable platforms and tools. I’m afraid no one would consider labeling me a ‘Renaissance Man’. It is indeed time that I ask of my blog followers/friends and cyberspace in general for help in promoting my books.

Thus, I come to the really good part of this blog. Beginning on March 30, 2014 and running through April 3, 2014, five of my eleven books are free on Amazon.Hopefully, with fingers crossed and a pitiful pose, those who get free copies will be kind and give me an Amazon and/or Goodreads review. Following are the books and the Amazon sites for getting your free copies:

“The Reluctant Savage” – http://www.goo.gl/nTvwNo (mystery, suspense, romance)

“Mama’s Madness” – http://www.goo.gl/nnTjbX (suspense, evil, inspired by truth)

“Butterflies and Jellybeans – A Love Story” – http://www.goo.gl/tvaJmv(romance + twists)

“The Cracked Mirror – Reflections of an Appalachian Son” –http://www.goo.gl/0Ln6Mc  (bio)

“Joe Public’s Political Perspective” – http://www.goo.gl/g9bzxK (musings about our nation and its leaders)

Should you like what you read, perhaps you will consider as well my five ‘Bailey Crane Mystery’ titles. All of my books are available through Amazon in paperback and Kindle format. If you wish, please follow me on:

http://www.twitter.com/brchitwood

http://www.facebook.com/billyray.chitwood and http://www.facebook.com/billyrayscorner  

http://www.goo.gl/x7j7wD

All my books can be previewed at my IAN site, with Amazon links:  http://www.goo.gl/fuxUA

Please leave a comment if so inclined. Thank you and my very best wishes.

        

“Butterflies And Jellybeans – A Love Story” (A short excerpt)Posted on June 4, 2013 by billyraychitwood1
    

A Friend On A CotPosted on April 29, 2013 by billyraychitwood1
      
There is this compelling need within me to record and share some of the emotions and thoughts during a visit to a small medical clinic and a friend on a cot…

Ruben has diabetes. While hiking on Sonora’s Pinacate volcanic range (where the astronauts trained for the ‘Moon Landing’) he fell on some rocks and hit his head. He was most likely dehydrated. A few days later, while on a city hall errand, he passed out as he got out of his car. A good Samaritan witnessed his fainting spell, called an ambulance, and Ruben was taken to this Mexican clinic. The Pinacate event no doubt led to the fainting spell.

My friend, Ruben, was lying on a small cot in a dingy cell-like room in this medical clinic. He was on his back, covered by a cheap and gaudy blanket, staring straight ahead at a solid wall of concrete, for all the world like a man so forlorn he did not wish my wife and me, anyone, to be there with him. He was able to speak but his words were barely audible and with a total lack of will or spirit. A connected intravenous contraption was the only apparent equipment supplying nourishment and proper medicines to my friend. There would be some tests. With luck he would be out of the clinic in two days.

Ruben’s family was just outside this small closet-like room, sitting in a slightly larger area with sofas and chairs – his wife with a kind smile, his lovely and fidgety children, his mother with the aged and creased toil lines on her face, and his brother. They greeted us upon our entry into the little Mexican clinic and they tried to show us kindness with their modest smiles of thanks for being there. Their consideration of us, their genuine warmth, would ever be locked away in our memories… These were the same friendly and warm faces of most of the people in this small fishing village my wife and I call home.

Now, standing above Ruben, who works for the beach resort where I live and serve on the Board of Directors, my feelings were jangled. Part of me wanted to cry at the scene in front of me. There was Ruben, valiantly assuring me that he was going to be okay…”no problema, Bill, mi amigo.” His voice was weak, but, then, Ruben had never been strong of voice – just softly saying what he had to say, but saying it with more verve and commitment than now. My wife, Julie, stood at the end of the cot trying to show her smiley face and reassure him that we were there if he needed us.

We left ‘la clinica’ but my thoughts would not leave me. They took me down several mind paths that dealt with the quaint and beautiful culture of this small fishing village, how the families all gathered in moments of crises, how they bore up so well under circumstances such as this one, accepting the fate that was dealt to them.     My thoughts took me down the dusty back roads of this fishing village of Rocky Point where scraggly dogs roamed the streets in search of food, where sand from the desert floor was a constant airborne gust and swirl in the wind. They took me to the middle class areas of town where lovely haciendas dotted the landscape. They took me to the poverty that was a part of this tiny microcosm of the world, where the young kids rushed out at a red light stop to wipe down a car’s windshield, where hard working people with bronze skin wearily wandered up and down the beautiful beaches to peddle their wares. They took me to the pottery shops, the t-shirt shops, the fish markets where some of the best shrimp in the world were cheaply sold.

The thoughts took me to the Sandy Beach area where I lived among the wealthy and not so wealthy folks, those who sunbathed on the sand, swam in the myriad pools, relaxed in the spas, exercised in the resort gyms, ate at the finer restaurants along the beach and near the Old Port, and enjoyed million dollar views from their condo decks.

The thoughts were there, mingling and mixing, showing me the sides of societies the world over, the haves and those who wish to have. Somehow, here in this nostalgic world of Rocky Point, Mexico, the differences were stark, enough to batter the brain with too much unwanted and unwarranted guilt. Here was a town trying to come into the twenty-first century, arriving a bit slowly, but here, eventually, with all the resources and fast spreading technology, to become another Cabo San Lucas, Puerto Vallarta, Mazatlan, Cancun…

The thoughts were there about the US media’s enthrallment with denouncing this country, this lovely little speck of scrub brush desert, dusty roads, middle class and poverty, and a beautiful Sea of Cortez. Never have I lived more safely anywhere in this world than Rocky Point and I marvel at the absurd arrogance of the press to beat a dead horse. Sure, there is occasional crime in Mexico and in Rocky Point but not nearly as much per capita as can be seen in almost every city and town of equal size in the United States. Try living in some areas of Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles, New York, Phoenix, Houston. Yes, I get it, these big metro areas are melting pots. My mind just tells me it’s grossly unfair to keep posting negatives about a town and a country called Mexico without certain qualifiers. Can we not use the common sense God gave us no matter where we travel. There are few places in the world today where one can wander in an area that is suspected of having a crime element. We go where we feel it’s most safe to go. That’s our world today — a bit different from not so many years ago.

My clinic visit to Ruben caused all of this rambling and I’m glad it did. Rocky Point (Puerto Penasco), scrub brush desert and The Sea of Cortez, is a spot that can make you want to stay – in my case, for several years. The town has an AutoZone, a new Convention Center, a new Sam’s Club, a Walmart affiliate, a Burger King, a Dominoe’s Pizza, a lovely Malecon, a theater mall, jet skis for riding the waves, sailboats, yachts, para sailing, on and on. In fact, the government has already funded a future home cruise port for Rocky Point – to be started in June, 2013. Aero Mexico is scheduled to start two flights a week into Rocky Point from Las Vegas, Nevada. For anyone loving the seaside experience and life style, this is a good place to come.

My thoughts take me to an end point… This is a different country. The language is different. The culture has a timeless and nostalgic quality. ‘Manana’ is a theme for living. Things can wait until tomorrow, next week, or next month. If a rumor is not started by 11:00 AM in the morning, it’s time to make one up. This little fishing village where I live is making strides to become one of the best areas to visit, an area where one will perhaps stay a long spell along the long stretch of coastline we call The Sea of Cortez. There are a lot of good people working to make that happen, and it will happen!

In the meantime, Ruben must get better…not because we need him at the Bella Sirena Resort, but because I love the man, his stubborn yet gentle manner — and I love his family.

Please follow me on Twitter (@brchitwood) and preview my books at http://goo.gl/fuxUA(scroll/preview).

Linda Howard Urbach – Someone You Must KnowPosted on April 24, 2013 by billyraychitwood1
   
Linda Howard Urbach is someone you will want to know, to follow, and to delight in her amusing blog interviews. Linda has two twitter accounts: @BovarysDaughter and @LindaUrbach. Her blog sites are:   http://www.madamebovarysdaughter.com  and  http://www.bovaryblog.com. Aside from writing books, Linda is the founder of ‘MoMoirs Writing Workshops for Moms.’ She is a busy lady not only writing delightful interviews but giving them as well – you can see at her site some of the interviews she has given. She has two books by Putnam, Expecting Miracles and The Money Honey. Expecting Miracles was also published in England and France where it won The French Family Book Award. Linda is currently working on her next book, Sarah’s Hair, ’the tangled story of Sarah Bernhardt’s hairdresser.’

Before I give you  a sampling of her own most amusing interviews there is a unique and noteworthy novel about which to inform you. Random House published Linda’s Madame Bovary’s Daughter and it has received critical acclaim as you will see further along. Most of us will remember reading many years ago Gustave Flaubert’s classic, Madame Bovary, but Linda found a lingering nagging question long after reading the book… This excerpt from Amazon says it best…

                                                                                        *

Picking up after the shattering end of Gustave Flaubert’s classic, Madame Bovary, this beguiling novel imagines an answer to the questionWhatever happened to Emma Bovary’s orphaned daughter?

 
One year after her mother’s suicide and just one day after her father’s brokenhearted demise, twelve-year-old Berthe Bovary is sent to live on her grandmother’s impoverished farm. Amid the beauty of the French countryside, Berthe models for the painter Jean-François Millet, but fate has more in store for her than a quiet life of simple pleasures. Berthe’s determination to rise above her mother’s scandalous past will take her from the dangerous cotton mills of Lille to a convent in Rouen to the wealth and glamour of nineteenth-century Paris. There, as an apprentice to famed fashion designer Charles Frederick Worth, Berthe is ushered into the high society of which she once only dreamed. But even as the praise for her couture gowns steadily rises, she still yearns for the one thing her mother never had: the love of someone she loves in return.

Brilliantly integrating one of classic literature’s fictional creations with real historical figures, Madame Bovary’s Daughter is an uncommon coming-of-age tale, a splendid excursion through the rags and the riches of French fashion, and a sweeping novel of poverty and wealth, passion and revenge.

                                                                                         *

Here are some Amazon reviews of “Madame Bovary’s Daughter”:

“[A] lavishly textured sequel to a timeless literary masterpiece . . . With more and more readers and book clubs revisiting the classics, there should be built-in interest.”--Booklist“Readers will cheer [Berthe Bovary] all the way…Urbach includes lots of details for reading groups to discuss about social class, women’s roles, and fashion, while never forgetting to tell a good story.”--Library Journal

“Grand in scope…Urbach relays a classic tale of rags to riches, tragedy to triumph and passion to vengeance. Saga fans who adore Rosalind Laker and Barbara Taylor Bradford will rejoice.”--Romantic Times, Top Pick!“Skillfully continues Flaubert’s story…An entertaining romance for readers of historical fiction.”--Publishers Weekly

“In this richly detailed, stunningly imaginative novel, Linda Urbach has created a fascinating, complex heroine.  As Berthe Bovary determines to distance herself from her infamous mother’s legacy, she discovers, instead, that a passionate life can be a life well-lived. Readers will rejoice in her journey to understanding and forgiveness.”
—MELANIE BENJAMIN, author of Alice I Have Been and The Autobiography of Mrs. Tom Thumb

“Engrossing, vivid, beautifully written, adventurous, and often heart-rending—a young girl finds her way from the depths of poverty to the top of the nineteenth-century French fashion world, led by her wistful dreams of the lovely way life could be and by her gift for making those dreams a reality. I just loved this novel!”
—STEPHANIE COWELL, author of Claude and Camille: A Novel of Monet and Marrying Mozart“Very hard to put down. A very intriguing story, and Gustave Flaubert would be proud to have Berthe’s voice finally on paper. 4 1/2 stars.”–Burton Book Review

“Having read and enjoyed Madame Bovary years ago, I liked reading about Emma’s daughter, and finally knowing that she turned out alright after all.”–Luxury Reading

“I found myself enjoying this book far more than I did the classic Madame Bovary. Mainly because I never wound up caring about Emma Bovary like I did her daughter in this excellent book…I highly recommend Madame Bovary’s Daughter to fans of Historical Fiction.”–Danvers Reads

“Madame Bovary’s Daughter is a wonderful homage to a great novel that also manages to work on its own compelling terms.” –Connecticut News

“Madame Bovary’s Daughter is a powerful and deeply satisfying return to Flaubert’s world of mid-19th century France.” –Connecticut Post

“A rich tale of high society and, finally, a love [Berthe Bovary's] mother never found.”
–Cape Cod Times

“Urbach wonderfully integrates the classic novel with her own creation. Madame Bovary’s Daughter is a beautiful rag to riches story filled with desire, dreams, poverty and wealth.” –Book Garden Reviews

“Madame Bovary’s Daughter is an exceptionally written masterpiece rich in period detail. Linda Urbach powerfully brings to life the opulence of the rich in nineteenth- century France.” –Fresh Fiction

“It’s a creative idea and an interesting story. It’s a great book for romantic and true Victorian novel-lovers.” –South Coast Today

“Madame Bovary’s Daughter was an extremely well-written novel that did justice to the original while creating a new storyline that kept me interested and reading.” –Night Owl Reviews

“Urbach posits her view of Berthe’s life in pretty much flawless homage to Flaubert as the beloved character he created. It is easy to get lost in the tale and forget that you aren’t reading a book by Flaubert when learning what happens to the penniless orphan of a truly scandalous woman. The novel is like a visit with an old friend.” –City Book Review

“Madame Bovary’s Daughter is a fun book that provides some much needed closure to Berthe’s story. Recommended.” –Devourer of Books

“Madame Bovary’s Daughter is definitely a historical romance that is intriguing to read and a great, juicy follow up to the old classic.” –Peace Love Books

“In a novel written in the clean Gallic style of the original, Madame Bovary’s daughter is a wonderful character, struggling to overcome her mother’s legacy and the expectations of her own fantasies. –The Historical Novels Review


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Now that you know a bit about Linda, let’s get to her most beautiful blog site, eye catching in its color and design, but it is the amusing satirical ‘interviews’ she puts on these blogs that will give you a moment of chuckles, and, I dare say, some good information. Please enjoy this posting I’m including here. Occasionally, there will be others of her ‘interesting interviews’ appearing here. It is my wish to share this clever literaryweaver of words. Read on and enjoy. This is just her most current interview with John Le Carre (as you can see, my (Carre) is minus the L’accent aigu – that little (‘) mark above the (e) in CARRE). You will want to read all her interviews. They are divine!


JOHN LE CARRÉ CAUSES AUTHOR’S FOXHUNTING ACCIDENT.Posted on April 21, 2013 by lindahoward

                                                                                           
[I submitted the following article months ago. Needless to say, the New York Times chose to go with the piece written by their literary critic, Dwight Garner instead.]

I heard through the literary grape vine that one of my favorite authors, John le Carré was coming out with a new book. A Delicate Truth is due out in May. Who better to include in My Little Publishing Company’s “How Do You Do It?” series.

I’m not a complete idiot. I wrote ahead and asked him for an interview and when I got no response I took that for a yes, knowing how reserved the Brits can sometimes be. Since I had no specific time or place for a meeting with the author, I put together a very clever plan. I knew Le Carré had a fondness for fox hunting and so I rented an authentic Lady’s Victorian riding costume. Then I drove to St. Buryan a small village in Cornwall and stopping by the local stables, I arranged to hire a horse for the hunt.

“You wearin’ that to ride in?” asked the stable man.

“Yes, do you like it?” I swirled around in my long skirt.

“It’s a bloody hoot.” He led out my horse for the day.  “This here’s Marshmallow. She’s a bit light in the mouth, but you sez you rid plenty afore so you should be fine.” He helped me up. “Put your other leg over,” he said.

“Oh, no,” I said,  “I’m riding side saddle.”

“This here’s just a regular huntin’ saddle. You’ll fall over the first fence and break your noggin,” he said.

I joined the group of fellow foxhunters who were dressed in a much more conservative, albeit contemporary manner. We walked through the streets of St. Buryan. And it was there I spotted Le Carré standing on the sidewalk with the other spectators.  He was deep in conversation with another man. Slipping off my steed (I do love alliteration) I led Marshmallow over to the great writer and introduced myself.

“Linda Urbach, CEO of My Little Publishing Company,” I said extending my kid-gloved hand.

“Oh, yes, I seem to remember you wrote me a while back.”

“I just wanted to do an interview with you for my series.”

“Dwight Garner of the New York Times has beaten you to it, I’m afraid,” he said indicating the man next to him.  “But at least you’ll be able to take in the hunt while you’re here.” He turned his tweedy back on me.

Mr. Garner proceeded to monopolize Le Carré by asking him all sorts of tedious questions about his background, his attitudes about current espionage and the London literary scene. Marshmallow shifted restlessly as the last of the riders walked through town. Finally, Garner excused himself and I had Le Carré to myself. I realized my time with him was limited so I got to the important issues first.

“Mr. Le Carré, why don’t you capitalize the “l” in your name?” He shook his head. I heard the horn signaling the sighting of a fox and it was all I could do to keep hold of Marshmallow’s reins.

“No one’s ever asked me that before.” I was pleased until he added, “That’s a rather idiotic question. Do you have any others?” Luckily, I did.

“Do your eyebrows ever get in the way of your writing?” He had extremely long, thick eyebrows that threatened to obscure his vision.  For some reason this last seemed to annoy him.

“Perhaps you’d better quit while you’re ahead, Ms. Urbach.”  He turned to go.

“Wait, Mr. Le Carré. I was wondering if you might give me a blurb for my new novel.” He turned and looked at me with interest.

“Is it a spy novel?”

“Well, no. Actually it’s historical fiction.”

“I’m afraid that wouldn’t do at all. I’m known for my spy novels. It doesn’t make sense for me to write a blurb about a totally different genre.”

What a stickler he was. I suppose that’s what made him the successful author he is today. But he had given me an idea.

“Then I’ll make my next novel a spy novel.”

“Fine, fine. I wish you luck with it.”

“If you would just give me some of your leftovers.” Marshmallow was prancing in place, anxious to be off.

“Leftovers?”

“Old plots that you aren’t going to use,” I explained. He chuckled and then walked briskly away.

There was nothing left for me to do but get back on Marshmallow and join the hunt. Just as the stableman predicted, going over the first low fence, I fell off my horse and suffered a mild concussion. Which was wonderful because I now had something in common with Hillary. I couldn’t wait to exchange concussion symptoms with her.

In conclusion, I had gone to considerable expense and effort to interview John le Carré only to find out that there is definitely a class system operating in literature in England. Still, the trip was worthwhile. My only real regret were all those annoying accent aigus that have to be added every single time you write his name. That and the small “l” are a bit of an affectation, to say the least.

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Linda Urbach is a lady I’m proud to know, a lady with writing skills of the finest order, and a lady who is doing something of value in our world. I’m likely forgetting something – it gets that way here in ‘Twilight.’ Just go to Linda’s beautiful sites. You will find most of her story there –  http://www.madamebovarysdaughter.com/site/

If you might want to know more about me, your can find information here on http://thefinalcurtain1.wordpress.com  and these other sites:

http://www.about.me/brchitwood

http://billyraychitwood.weebly.com (my main website, with a blog, book reviews, etc.)

http://www.goo.gl/fuxUA (IAN – a preview of my nine books)

Twitter: @brchitwood

Facebook: http://facebook.com/billyray.chitwood

My only ‘Romance’ writing so far is “Butterflies And Jellybeans – A Love Story.” The book was dedicated to my most beautiful twin granddaughters, Chase and Paige, affectionately known by me as ‘Chatty Chaser’ and ‘The Pickle Princess.’

Chase’s nickname came from a hike down a mountain in southeast Arizona – grandma and I had told the girls to watch for rattlesnakes and that they should make noise along the way to maybe keep the snakes away… Well, Chase, seven years old at the time, chatted all the way down the mountain, delighted us and made us all laugh. So, she became forever our ‘Chatty Chaser.’

Paige’s nickname came much earlier. The twins were mere babies at the time, and I might say there have never been better behaved babies in this universe. At lunch time I would have pickles with my hot dogs and/or sandwiches. It rather astonished me the immediate taste acquired by Paige for those sweet pickles. She would not stop at one or two. She absolutely loved them. So, she became our ‘Pickle Princess.’

When my writing of mysteries began with some earnest, I decided at some point to write a romance novel, a love story. Chase and Paige were by now cheerleaders for the NFL Baltimore Ravens, their beautiful bodies now filled out to gloriously fit into skimpy bikinis and to confound all the young men with whom they were to encounter — even, grandpa, I might add (after all, I still had eyes). What I knew and what everyone who came to know them would know was that these twins were as beautiful of heart and soul as of body. Anyway, I wrote my love story, “Butterflies And Jellybeans – A Love Story,” and added some gambling, some murder scenes, and those conflicts that a book must have to make it interesting. It was to be a simple and perhaps an old fashioned love story with some sprinklings of secrets and intrigues. It was finished and published in 2012.

Here is the beginning of “Butterflies And Jellybeans – A Love Story.” If you like what you read here, I promise it gets even better later on.

Chapter One

She was lost in the brightness, a magnificent static whiteness, alluring and warm. It was an easy place to be, if it was a place. Perhaps it was a state, a bright and new awareness, a safe and final destination.

She only knew that her essence was etched in the great luminous energy and she did not wish to leave it. The light seemed to be transporting her outward, expanding some awesome truth, recently possessed, and she wanted only to remain and to become whatever the promising ultimacy.

Then, there came a shimmer of interference, vaguely emanating from the mystic fringes, slowly fragmenting the weightless pool of white. There was a rippling which nudged her new awareness, gently precluding her anticipated oneness with the expanding light.

Then came sound, soft and beckoning, like a bird chirping in slow motion, becoming stronger and more strident. She resisted the sound and the fragmenting but she could not pull herself onward into the radiant void. Like a swimmer urgently breast stroking against a strong noiseless tide, she felt herself dipping, sinking, then free-falling from the disintegrating brilliance.

She became conscious of her head shaking in sidelong negation of the interference, her lips silently murmuring, ‘no, no, let me stay! Please let me stay!’

Then she acknowledged the inevitable full  immersion back to a solid, contoured reality. The bird chirps became loud concerned voices. The ripples became caring and caressing hands.

The hard ground was cold.  She began to shiver, felt the urge to rise, but was somehow constricted. Her mind made some adjustments and she suddenly knew where she was, how she had gotten there.

Finally, she slowly opened her eyes with a fluttery acceptance of her immediate environment. A man’s face came into focus, hovering two feet above her own. She felt pinned down and quickly discovered that the man was astride her. There was a momentary sense of panic but something about the man’s face made her relax.

A light rain fell, and she was conscious of wet hair matted to her face and forehead. The sky was a dull gray, and skinny treetops came to her peripherally as some surreal apparitions. The man’s concerned face gave her a final focus. She remembered what had happened.

The lightning! She recalled an awful clap of thunder, so jarring and harsh, so totally upon her, instantaneously enveloping her in its loud and splintered brightness. She remembered the searing, exquisite pain that had so consummately wracked her body and mind.

She had been jogging and she must have been struck by lightning. As she blinked from the raindrops and the accounting of the lightning strike, she felt lethargic and without purpose. She had been struck by lightning, yet there was no panic, no real sense of urgency.

The man’s hands left her chest and he studied her with a tender and squinted concern. She felt the weight of his body leaving her, felt a great rush of air fill her chest. The man lifted himself from her but his soft blue eyes remained upon her face.

They were beautiful eyes, shrouded by dark cavernous brows. Wisps of his black hair was pasted about his forehead, and he made odd movements with his lips as though making an adjustment.

Her own lips felt strangely tender to the touch of her tongue, and, in a moment of clarity, she understood: the man had given her mouth to mouth resuscitation.

The man then spoke, softly, his voice conveying a cultured refinement and pleasant resonance. “Can you move your arms and legs?”

She understood the question and lifted her head tentatively, feeling her hands, arms, and legs slowly move to her inner commands. She nodded to the handsome stranger who knelt above and to her side. She managed a small, sad smile of gratitude.

“And can you speak?” He returned her smile.

“Yes, I think so,” came her weak reply.

She noticed for the first time a small group of people standing off to her right, near a park utility shed. She heard a siren off in the distance, its sound increasing in volume. She attempted to rise from the ground.

“Maybe you should stay where you are until medically checked. Are you feeling much pain?” The man lightly touched her shoulder.

As her powers of observation became more keen she noticed how the man was dressed. He wore faded red denim shorts, a powder blue sweat shirt which matched his eyes, white athletic socks, and Adidas jogging shoes. Her own ensemble of white shorts, blue top, white socks, and Nike shoes merged nicely with the man’s attire.

She answered the question. “No, I don’t think so, not pain so much. It’s sort of dull aching almost everywhere about my body. I think I’m okay. You’re very kind to help me. Thank you.”

“No ‘thanks’ necessary. It was kind of freaky the way that cloud exploded above us. You just got unlucky, and I suppose we could be faulted for jogging when a storm was brewing …”

The man stopped talking as he saw the flashing lights and heard the diminishing siren whirr of an approaching ambulance.

Uniformed EMTs rushed from the ambulance to the woman’s side, their faces intent and focused. She watched as they quickly set up equipment and prepared for various medical checks. She was beginning to feel confident that her body had not sustained any permanent damage, although some tingling sensations remained in her legs.

After all the medical tests were run, she heard an attendant announce that her vital signs were normal, that she was stable.

The visage of the handsome stranger stayed with her, after the ambulance attendants had displaced him. The image of his dark hair wet against the brow stayed with her, even when he became a blur on the gray fringe of the rainy day crowd. His face stayed with her even beyond the hospital’s emergency room where she was pronounced hale, hearty, and lucky to be alive. His soft smile stayed even when she had returned to her spacious Scottsdale condominium.

(End of Chapter One.)

For those of you who might be interested in reading all of “Butterflies And Jellybeans – A Love Story,” you can find it on all of the following sites:

http://www.goo.gl/Rv4tk (Amazon)

http://www.goo.gl/jH5Zk (Amazon – UK)

http://www.billyraychitwood.weebly.com

http://www.goo.gl/fuxUA

http://www.about.me/brchitwood

If you have an inclination, please follow me on:

http://www.twitter.com (@brchitwood)

http://www.facebook.com/billyray.chitwood

How often do you look up there?  That big old sky that presents all its patterns? The clear lucent blue with old Sol hanging around? A few wisps of clouds that enhance the palette of your mind? A thick set of dark impending cumuli that carries lots of moisture, with perhaps a patch of blue just off to the west? A clear dreamer’s night of a million plus stars? How often do you look up there?

Quite often for me… You see, I’m one of those restless and rudderless romantics that cannot somehow find that magical glue that pastes me to one place. So I look up there quite often and ponder not only God’s great handiwork but the course of history and mortal confusion and doubt. Mostly, it’s my own mortal confusion and doubt, but, certainly, I would be totally blind not to see it all around me. The people of the world, peasant-types, power brokers, movers
and shakers, all of us send out our queries to the universe in moments of that mortal confusion and doubt. Individual, global, it matters not, we fight our wars within these fragile bodies created during that nine-month miracle in time when we become who and what it is we are meant to be. Some of us with doubt and confusion speak in different tongues, make a wrong translation, push a wrong button, and cause a war. Some of us have been passed the torch of hate from generation to generation, will seemingly ever know only one way to relieve their confusion and doubt. Some of us, even amid our doubt and confusion, will create a masterpiece map for living in freedom with liberty and justice for all. And, some of us add to our confusion and doubt, forget the lessons of history which in the relative span of mortal time were only yesterday.

Somehow, I’ve managed to somehow understand that we all cannot come together in peace and understanding in my mortal lifetime. The efforts of good intentioned people have really become just silly simple games played among those who pursue their selfish political agendas. An accord is reached only to be broken. An ally becomes an enemy. An enemy becomes an ally… All silly power games that silly power men and women play.

When I look up there, in that sky that gives us sometime hope, sometime fear, I only ponder my simple existence and must come to some conclusion as to why I am here on this rotating sphere. The only reckoning that I can make is that no simple big bang caused all of this mortal confusion and doubt. When I look up into that sky of many faces there is but one conclusion, one truth that for me makes all the sense in this world. It is the truth that has been passed down to us from the beginning of our time, on cave walls, on papyrus, in the bible, the truth that has been maligned, reorganized, and otherwise discounted for centuries, the truth that has become debatable sport among some elites and scholars. It is the truth that a Supreme Being,
God, controls all of our destinies. Otherwise, why do I and so many have our faith? Why would we contrive so much to make something so?

Our God gives us so many examples to how our mortal moments could and should be spent. He gives us so many paths our lives could take, to provide help for those who need, to forever act as peacemakers, to quell the urges of the dark essence that would possess us… Our God gives us free will to act out our choices. And, what makes God’s plan so wonderful is that we get to do it over and over again until we get it right. In His time, our mortal months and years are but fleeting seconds. There is death on the mortal plain, but you must believe, you must have faith, that you will never forego God’s ultimate plan. At some point along God’s timeline, no matter how many mortal lives it might take, you will reach that magical light of eternity.

It’s always up there. When I look up and penetrate the blue and dark of sky, that is what I see, out beyond the far dimensions of space… Family, Hope, Love, Peace, Eternity.

And, sometimes, I sing and write about it…

Please follow me on twitter.com (@brchitwood)

On http://www.facebook.com/billyray.chitwood 

My main website/blog/archives/books/reviews: http://www.billyraychitwood.weebly.com

Also see: http://www.about.me/brchitwood

My books are also on: http://www.goo.gl/fuxUA

The title represents an intriguing question. Obviously it is a question posed by an incurable romantic, a question that can occupy many minutes and hours of the day. The context in which the question is posed has to do with those of us who live our lives not so much by genetic and environmental formulae but by the seat of our pants, those of us who have some insatiable nomadic quality that pushes us over the next mountain, over the next body of water, or over the next arid desert. The context has to do with that indefinable impulse within us that makes us ‘moths to light’ or ‘creatures of instinct and passion.’ I’m really a simple man but somehow I seem to be making this sound complicated…

Here’s the deal! I’m sharing me with you. I’m currently living a lovely life in a penthouse on the beautiful Sea of Cortez. Now, as I write, I look out my big windows at the beach and cobalt brilliance of ’Cortez.’ The sun is slowly making its western arc thanks to our spinning orb. There are sail boats out there, jet skis, occasional yachts, and people adorn the sands dreaming whatever dreams within them. I’m living here near three years now and I’m restless, somehow needing and wanting a new venue, perhaps going backward in time to the state where I was born – Tennessee. What! Give up this sea, this constant sun, and return to the hills of my youth? Am I nuts? No, not nuts, just some inner wiring that makes me long and yearn for where I’ve been and/or what I’ve had – that nomadic thing, that ’wisp in the wind’ thing, that ‘moth to light’ thing.

Maybe it’s because that opportunity is there. I can move to the Cumberland Plateau in Tennessee, exchanging what I have here for the four acres of hardwood trees, a canyon, and a big lovely three-story log house. It’s compelling. The urge is strong…to be going back to the state where it all began for me, and not necessarily in the best ways. The property is near the most exquisite Sequatchie Valley, a long and narrow valley that stretches far and parallels the Cumberland Plateau of the Appalachian Mountains. That current within me that sends these strong romantic impulses cannot be quelled. What do I do? But, that begs the question to which the answer is already likely known. If the promises are met by the Tennessee person involved, it will in all likelihood become a reality.

So it becomes a reality. I leave the sea for Tennessee and the Cumberland Plateau. What then? The ’what then’ is rather predictable for an incurable romantic, is it not? The romantic will come to miss his Sea of Cortez, the constant sun, and the far distant southern horizon. He will feel new wanderlust urges in his senses. It is the way of a romantic.

An incurable romantic knows not about the ways of practicality! 

Please check me and my nine books out on: http://www.billyraychitwood.weebly.com and http://www.about.me/brchitwood

Please follow me on twitter.com (@brchitwood) and at http://www.facebook.com/billyray.chitwood

        

As promised last week, here in its entirety are Parts 1-4 of "The Candlestick Killer" by Eden Baylee (@edenbaylee on twitter), John Dolan (@JohnDolanAuthor), Billy Ray Chitwood (@brchitwood on twitter), and Diane Strong (@DianeIStrong on twitter), a short story which is a regular part of Cameron Gaggiepy's 'The Story Circle' blog (@camerongarriepy on twitter). Again, it has been a great pleasure for me to participate in this project and my sincere thanks and good wishes go to my author buddies here. Eden started us off in the story, gave us our title, "The Candlestick Killer," and passed Part 2 on to John Dolan. John passed Part 3 on to me. I passed the Part 4 finale on to Diane. It is our hope that you will enjoy our little story and perhaps visit us at twitter and our blogs. Those blog sites and amazon sites are listed at the end of the story.

“The Candlestick Killer”

PART ONE (by Eden Baylee)

I gazed into pale blue eyes framed by ruddy, pockmarked skin. His smile revealed a missing front tooth. I wrinkled my nose as an acrid smell drifted toward me. Alcohol mixed with rotting teeth. Wonderful.

“Howdy, Missy. You’re a sight for sore eyes.”

I inhaled through my mouth and sucked in my stomach, afraid bile might force itself up my throat. How many times had he used that line before? “I’m sorry,” I said, “but I can’t say the same for you.” A steely calm draped itself over me, but inside, I was shaking. I pressed my hands against my thighs to steady myself.

His look of shock seemed genuine. For a moment, I thought I had blown it, but then I saw the corners of his eyes wrinkle as he burst into raucous laughter.

“Ooh, you’re a feisty one. I like that!” He snatched a chair from an adjacent table. Twirling it around as if he were a matador fending off a bull, he dropped the chair in front me and sat down with a heavy thud.

I pretended to stave off disdain, but it was actually relief I felt. The plan was working; the next steps would be crucial. He liked women who were hard to get, that much I knew, but it was a fine line between keeping him interested and turning him off. “He’s a charmer,” my boss had said. “We need to figure out what he’s telling these women, how he persuades them to bring him home. We know it’s not his looks.”

No question about that. In person, the bastard looked more disgusting than the few out-of-focus pictures I’d seen of him. The lead we had been waiting for came after his last victim called 9-1-1 just before she died. She only managed to utter two words —“Ugly Motherfucker.” He’d left her in a pool of blood after cracking her skull with a brass candlestick. It took a week to retrace her every step, where she’d been, who she’d come in contact with.
A spree of killings over the past three months had left the women of New York City in a state of panic. Aside from living alone, the victims had little in common with one another. They came from varied economic backgrounds, worked different jobs, and shared no social connections. I received the case after the mayor demanded an arrest be made to allay the growing hysteria. Crimes against women were my specialty, but this reeked of a serial killing—not my specialty. I had little choice in the matter though. We’d caught a break. I sat face to face with the first suspect of the case the press now called “The Candlestick Killer.”

He was an ugly motherfucker, all right. I braced myself to walk the flirtation tightrope with him, wondering how the hell he had convinced eight women to invite him into their homes and ultimately to their deaths.

PART TWO (by John Dolan)

Manfred Bauer took a sip of beer and leaned forward slightly towards the woman sitting opposite him in the bar.He
continued to mouth platitudes while his real attention focused on the emotions she was concealing behind her confident exterior. The tendrils of his consciousness rippled out across the table which divided them and began slowly to insinuate themselves into her mind.

“I haven’t seen you in here before,” he said. “I’m sure I would have remembered. My name is Manfred, by the way." His extended awareness probed into her raw subconscious, gently caressing the texture of her feelings. Ah! There it was … revulsion. The expected revulsion. But there was something else. Something with an edge to it. It felt like … fear.

“I’m Joy.”

“You certainly are,” he smiled and ordered drinks for them both from a harassed waitress.

Manfred Bauer had a gift. It was a talent which in the hands of a good man could have been turned into something useful. But he was not a good man.

Bauer had been born into a family of poor German immigrants in one of the poorer suburbs of Detroit. He was unplanned and unwanted. Moreover he was ugly, and he was made to feel his ugliness.

At school he was tormented by the other children and became a loner, an outcast. He was not particularly bright and incurred both the indifference of his teachers and the contempt of his peers. Even at the local Catholic Church his family attended he felt unwelcome: the consolations of religion were withheld from him.

Later he drifted in and out of menial jobs; security guard, warehouseman, hotel cleaner. Wherever he went, he never stayed long. People were uncomfortable with him, and supervisors rapidly found excuses to let him go. When he heard the regretful platitudes, he looked into the eyes and he saw the truth: he was hated.

His family had heaved a sigh of relief some years back when he moved from Detroit to New York City.

But it was in that metropolis of isolated souls that he had discovered his gift.

Bauer’s only contact with women was through prostitutes. He felt even their contempt, but gradually he began to
realise – social misfit that he was – that he had an ability that others did not have. Perhaps his upbringing and isolation had honed his senses; perhaps he was just a biological freak. But whatever the explanation, he discovered that he could know what others were feeling.

Their actual thoughts remained hidden to him, but he could delineate the shapes of their emotions, he could mark out the maps of their current motivations. 

With practice he became a cartographer of others’ desires. If he concentrated he found he could lay bare the restless emotions that lurked behind the quotidian mask. He could do this with only one person at a time, but it was a singular discovery.

However, the skill did not bring him joy. It brought him an even deeper sense of loneliness. Denied to him were the white lies and petty hypocrisies that make daily life bearable.

When he lay down with a whore, he could no longer even pretend the experience was pleasurable. It was fake, it was simulated. For both of them.

Bauer’s bitterness and sense of injustice intensified, until one day he discovered his talent had reached a new level. He could not only detect the emotions of others: he could influence them.

The ability was fragmentary and only worked for a short time, but it was powerful. Exactly how it worked he had no idea, but he began to use it in small ways for sexual conquest. At first, it gave him pleasure, but later it merely deepened his contempt for women. His deep-seated misogyny for the sex that had most tormented him in his youth burst forth into full bloom.

And a new thought formed: Why fuck them when I can kill them?

Bauer sat back in his chair and studied Joy’s face. The usual signs of puzzlement were present in her eyes as her feelings were silently manipulated. Her body language was beginning to soften towards him. She started playing with her hair, and her lips parted in a smile as the mental metamorphosis continued.

“Another drink, Joy?”

“I’d love one, Manfred.”

Bauer looked at the hint of cleavage showing through her blouse and imagined the incipient wetness between her thighs. He wondered how long ago it was since he’d last had sex.

Perhaps for old times’ sake he’d have this one before he killed her. He deserved a little treat.

PART THREE (by Billy Ray Chitwood)

None were visibly present in this lower Manhattan bar of zombie-like misbegottens but a swarm of flies or cockroaches would have been right at home. The scarred table in the corner of the large square room had a wall light that flickered and gave an eerie cast to the already dimly-lit room. The sordid place reminded me of dark and shadowy scenes from a Robert Rodriguez film. At this late hour there were still a few resident zombies on bar stools and at other worn tables. At the bar Manfred waited, smiling, watching me, while the bald slob of a bartender mixed my vodka tonic and poured a generous serving of well Scotch into a highball glass for my newly acquired boyfriend… The harassed waitress who had taken our drink order was no where in sight. These few moments gave me time to consider a new line of work and a long soap-sudsy bath.


When Manfred Bauer (God! this genteel name, this man!) placed the drinks on the table and sat, his eye and confident smile never left me. “I’m sorry, Joy, to make you wait. It appears our waitress has suddenly left the premises. Baldy the bar man says it happens frequently.” His smile still in place, he paused, drank, gave me a curious look with those blue eyes that were somehow conflicting pools, an odd magnetic mix of charm, evil, and sadness. “Tell me, Joy, you dress like a girl of the streets, sexy and slut-like, but I have the distinct feeling you don’t belong here… where do you belong?”

“Stop undressing me with your eyes, Manfred. Everyone has to be somewhere. Tonight, I’m here, and I belong wherever the hell I wish to present myself.” I took a sip of my vodka tonic, measured its taste, decided there was no alien blend, and took a larger swig. He couldn’t possible read my inside trembling, but his eyes touched a nerve within me and made my focus more difficult.

“Aah, a lady confident within herself! I’m not easily fooled, Joy. Why, indeed, are you sitting here with me at this hour in time?”

“There’s something about your brutish style and ugly looks that intrigue me, Manfred. What is it that you do for a living here in the lower east side?” I tried to hold it but involuntarily did a dry swallow before the drink glass reached my lips. I hoped my inceptive fear was not showing. Those eyes! Those damned eyes!

What a snake-charming creep, this perp! His orbs took me to an unwholesome place that frightened me more than I thought it possible. There was something else in those remarkably pale blue eyes that I could not define, an aura of malevolence that sought to bring me to it. My mind was being tested big time. Could I handle this? Could all my
training get me through these last moments? I could only hope that the ‘wire button’ was doing its job, that my comrades at NYPD were ready to join the party when the time came, when we were sure this person was the
candlestick killer. In my mind there was no doubt. In some exclusive way, as I sat across from this obnoxious and odorous man, there came a certainty that he was the killer. Further, another certainty came loud and clear: he
wanted not only to have me sexually in the most awful ways but he wanted to kill me. All this I felt in those light-flickering moments.

“I do whatever I want, pure Joy! There is enough money, enough sex, and enough activity within the underbelly of the lower east side that keeps me active and alive … for a while longer.” His last three words fell softly like an afterthought not to be clearly heard. As he spoke he arranged his chair and guided his left hand under the table to gently rest upon my thigh. His devilish eyes betrayed him for a moment, and, without my protest, he removed his hand. I caught something in his pitted face, just not sure what the hell it was.

“‘For a while longer,’ you said? Is there a special meaning to that statement, Manfred?”

“Why not? Why not tell you? It doesn’t matter to me and it won’t matter to you. I’m to die shortly, pure Joy. A rare and fatal disease, I’m told. What you need to know is that I accept and embrace that knowledge. It is not knowledge that will upset our little world and I’m simply living out some final dreams and illusions. What say we get out of here, my lovely and sexy pure Joy.”

“Stop calling me, ‘pure Joy,’ and leave off with the ‘my,’ Manfred. You’re dying?” His smile was locked into place and his eyes were doing a Hallmark number on me.

“Everyone dies at some point, Joy… You notice I’ve honored your request. Now, can we get out of here? Where do you live?” He pushed back his chair, stood, and put on his bulky winter coat.

“Whoa, el tigre, not so fast! Let me finish my vodka tonic.” I gulped down my drink. “What? We’ve known each other, twenty-thirty minutes?”

“Time is a relative thing, Joy. For me, it’s now or never.” His eyes did their last combo of devilry and wistfulness. “Where do you live?”

“Uptown!” I said.

I rose. I knew what it was that had brought me to this bar and part one of the mission was successful. There were the final dreaded and hoped-for moments ahead, but I had gotten the first part of the job done. Now, there was within me an odd deja vu feeling, a medley of sensations that played to my cop-side and to my woman-side. Not only was some of that mix beguiling, it was also a betrayal of self.

As he awaited my coat donning, he said: “So, you were just slumming, pure Joy?”

“Yes, occasionally I get the hankering to see multiple sides of the Big Apple. We’re all animals, you know?” I walked alongside Manfred out the bar door.

“Oh, indeed, I do. Are you driving or cabbing?”

“I’m parked a few cars up the curb.”

He was quiet as I started the car’s engine and pulled away from the curb.

He played ‘rub the thigh’ during the ride and kept his smile esoterically baffling. I tried slapping his paw away, but he kept up his game. Actually, the gentleness of his touch and the sensate stir it caused surprised, titillated, and annoyed me. I managed to check the rear view mirror occasionally but could not be sure that the few trailing cars far behind me included my unmarked back-up. There was not a lot of traffic, and we chatted, strangely like a romantic couple on their way for a sexual encounter. What bothered me was that I could feel the anticipatory urges. What the hell was up with that?

“What motivates you, Joy?” he asked, feigning perhaps an honest and sincere question. Damn, the question had a mysterious sadness to it. He removed his hand from my thigh and stroked my black smooth tresses.

“I motivate me, Manfred. I participate in life, in living, and, for the most part, I enjoy people and sharing…”

He abruptly removed his hand from my hair as though surprised by his own fondling action.

“Is this all just an animal instinct for you, Joy?” He asked in a surprisingly weak voice.

He caught me off guard with this near normal conversation. I needed to keep it real! I had to keep my focus. “What the hell else could it be, Manfred? You have your moments but you’re not the most appealing of the ape class! You do have an odd animal attraction. That, I can’t deny… What? You for sure can’t be expecting more than that after this rapid romance? I mean, hey, I’m sad, sorry you’re dying, and I feel like helping you realize some of those sexual illusions, but that’s it, pal.”

I glanced over at him. His face still held that unnerving smile on the lips. The lights of neon night produced a shiny side-view watery glaze to his eyes. For brief seconds, I damned near felt sorry for Manfred Bauer. He didn’t drug me, but what the hell was this wacko using on me? Was he using some weird mojo, voodoo black magic stuff on me? There was a lot going on in this new tech savvy world of ours, and I was not privy to all of it. Damn, maybe he did put some tasteless something in my vodka tonic…

“It was just a trick question, pure Joy. That’s ‘for sure’ all that it was.” His voice had regained its edge of hardness. He stared straight ahead with the pasted smile. It was as though he had reached a final determination on the outcome of this night. There was a sense that he knew all the steps that were to follow our drive to uptown Manhattan.

Despite all my investigative training, all the years of experience and heightened awareness in tough undercover situations, there was something palpable and very scary happening inside of me. A degree of fear always
accompanied these operations, but the frenzied feeling that came to me now was beyond any I had ever known. Manfred Bauer had done a job on my emotional wiring, and I felt myself losing control.

We arrived at the recently rented NYPD apartment twenty minutes later.

Part 4 - Finale by Diane Strong

Manfred Bauer leaned his tanned body back in the reclining chair with a sigh and pushed his manicured feet deep into the warm sand. It felt comforting. The sun sat just above the horizon casting an orange light over the vast beach and colorful bungalows. He breathed in the warm salty air, basking in the solitude. His thoughts drifted back to nine months ago, to memories he tried to keep out of his head but usually failed.

It had been so close.

Had he not changed his mind at the last minute and forced Joy to drive away from her apartment his pathetic but rhythmic life would have been doomed. The investigators would have captured him in her apartment, guilty. Evidence of his plans to kill her would have been obvious, had they reached him before the act which they most likely would have since he planned to have his way with her first…stretching out the night.

He would be on death row right now.

They wouldn’t have needed to drag a confession out of him, it would have spilled out. But then he wouldn’t have cared if they’d sentenced him to death. He had prepared for death anyway, and he certainly wouldn’t have made a difference if it come at the hands of the state or his own hands. He had wanted to die either way. He’d had no desire to remain in a world so appalled, so disgusted by him.

His gift hadn’t been enough. Sure he could influence the feelings of women, make them think they wanted him briefly, just long enough for him to have his way with them. But the manipulation always proved temporary and counterfeit. It had been like stretching a rubber band, you could pull it taut but as soon as you let go, it snapped back to its original shape, unchanged.

The sudden change of plans had saved him. There hadn’t been a chase, Joy’s back-up investigators weren’t close enough to understand what had happened until it was too late. He had ripped the wires from her body and tossed her cell phone into the back of a truck heading in the opposite direction. By the time the investigators realized they were following the wrong vehicle and got an APB out on the car, he had ditched it over an embankment.

Before making good his escape in his own car, Manfred had made a quick stop at his home which fortunately for him was not yet under surveillance.

As he scooped out the contents of his safe, he had recalled the phone call a year ago notifying him of his mother’s death. In spite the coldness between them his heart had sunk. His father’s death the year prior had hardly phased him, only creating a glimmer of sympathy toward his mother, now alone in his childhood home. His spirits had lifted, however, when in the same conversation he was informed that his mother, in good Catholic form, had left the entire estate to her one and only child, despite her never wanting him. Or perhaps because of it.

He wasn’t rich by American standards, but as he emptied the safe knew he could live quite comfortably in Mexico for the rest of his life. Moreover, he was struck by the realization that for the first time in his life, he actually wanted to live.

Manfred reached for his frosty pina colada and took a long pull from the large glass. He ran his tongue slowly over his upper lip collecting the salt from the exfoliated skin. His pale blue eyes stared into his drink, an unfamiliar image reflected back at him. The person staring back still felt so foreign with his clean shaven chin, plucked and trimmed eyebrows. Who could have known that a fresh hair style, a little dental work, daily hygiene and clean fashionable clothes could make a semi-handsome man out of him?

Of course, his new found love of running on the beach had helped tremendously. For the first time ever he had abdominal muscles and a tight ass that even he wanted to grab. The endurance he had acquired had worked for him two fold, he could run farther than most but even more importantly, he had become something of an athlete in the bedroom too.

This new life… how different it was from the one he had left behind. That creature he had been back in New York wouldn’t recognize the confident, loved man relaxing on this beach as the sun set across the ocean horizon. The Chinos, the Birkenstock’s and the soft organic cotton shirt draped over his muscular chest would all have been alien to him. Only maybe one thing would not…

“Joy, dear?” Manfred twisted his body and called out to the small bungalow behind him. A slender woman appeared carrying a tray of fresh fruit in her long tanned arms. A candle stick poked from the pocket of her long white cotton smock. Sleek, black tendrils of hair cascaded down her back, swaying as she walked carefully over the warm beach sand.

“Manfred, oh what an evening. It’s just to die for…”

“Yes, Joy. Pure Joy.”


EDEN BAYLEE: http://edenbaylee.com  -  http://about.me/eden.baylee  - http://bit.ly/ebAmazon

JOHN DOLAN: http://johndolanwriter.blogspot.com  -  http://on.fb.me/TEKHds  -  #ASMSG (twitter)

BILLY RAY CHITWOOD: http://goo.gl/TeQpP  -  http://about.me/brchitwood  -  http://goo.gl/KtPJy (amazon) goo.gl/klczd (UK)

DIANE STRONG: http://dianestrong.wordpress.com  -  http://facebook.com/RunningAuthor  -  http://amzn.to/Ouedkh