New business card

I just finished designing a new business card and will have them available in a couple of weeks.  You can check it out on my Facebook page.
I'm also coming along on my follow up book to "Trust Me Now".  The title will be "Cassandra's Moon" and deals with Cassandra and Mr. John as they attempt to get their money back from Beth, as well as exact revenge for the destruction of their cushy life and sordid business enterprise.  The publish date is projected for March 2013 and will include both Kindle and print copies.
The new book will take place mostly in southeastern Minnesota and Italy.  Since my wife and I traveled there in October 2012 I became somewhat familiar with Sorrento, and decided to use it in the sequel.   The area makes a perfect backdrop for what I had planned in the follow up book.

Thanks for reading.  I'm going to write a little more regularly on the blog and will probably include short excerpts from the new book in the future.

New writings

I have been experiencing a little difficulty posting this section, but I'll try it again and hope that it turns out.  Here is part of chapter two for my sequel to "Trust Me Now".  The sequel is still untitled as I mull over different possibilities.

                                                   CHAPTER 2

Richard Armtree, aka, Mr. John, tightened the bindings around Mark's wrists, and patted him on the head.

"Now you be a good boy, while Cassandra and I have some recreational time."  There was no pretense about being pious and holy anymore. 

"Take your time, Mr. John.  Give her a kiss for me." Mark sarcastically quipped as he flipped his head to get the hair out of his eyes.

Armtree, who had walked away, returned, smiled down at Mark, and cracked him against the side of his head with the heel of his hand.  Mark's hair fell back across his eyes.  Flipping the hair away again, Mark laughed the words, "is that the best the holy man can do."

Armtree stood over him, reflexively poised to deliver another, but more powerful blow, but instead backed away with a smile.   He delivered the words evenly and without anger.  "Maybe you need a gag.  Keep the smart talk up and that's what you'll get."   Mark glared, but said nothing.  Armtree retreated from the room, then shut and locked the door.  Mark began struggling against the bindings, but couldn't loosen the tightly wound leather straps around his wrists.   His legs were chained to bolts fastened to the cement floor beneath him.  Because there was enough slack in the chains and his hands were bound in front of him, he could manage to stand, but that was all.  He stood surveying the room he was locked in.  It measured about ten-feet-by-twelve with a pot that formerly housed a large plant ostensibly serving now as a toilet.  Unfortunately, it was just out of his reach.  A twin-sized half deflated blow-up bed lay behind him with a ragged wool blanket neatly folded on top of it. 

The bare stud walls had no insulation pressed against them.  Mark began to realize the chill in the heat-less room.  It was the beginning of fall and the nights would dip into the forties making the wool blanket seem more attractive to him by the minute.  The one source of light was a small, forty-watt bulb plugged into the socket in the middle of the ceiling.  It would remain on.    The whole environment gave him the feel of an extreme rendition prison cell in Eastern Europe, made famous by the Bush administration during the height of the Iraq war.

He lay down on the twin blow-up bed.  No more air appeared to escape from it.  Apparently, Mr. John and Cassandra had partially inflated it intentionally, to add to his discomfort.  It was a wonder they had provided a mattress at all, he thought.  He eased back to wait, and wonder.  He hadn't been able to tell Beth anything of consequence his brief moment on the phone call.  Mr. John had made sure of that when he ripped the cell phone out of his hand.  Mark had only managed the feeble statement "they have me." 

Richard Armtree left the small shack that housed Mark and walked thirty yards back to the comfortable log cabin that he and Cassandra occupied.  As he approached the door, it opened and Cassandra greeted him naked, and with a smug expression on her face.

"How's our boy?  She asked.

"A little too snotty for my taste," said Armtree.  "I had to give him a knock to the head."

Cassandra smiled.  "Will he keep for a while?"

Armtree grinned.  "Oh yeah, he'll keep."  He entered the cabin, closed the door behind him, and began tearing every piece of clothing off his body.

An hour later, Cassandra lay next to her lover practicing her newest habit, smoking cigarillos.  Her current favorite was the Al Capone Menthol.  She drew a deep breath of the smoke, held it, then turned and blew it on a sleeping Armtree.  The smoke appeared to curl under his chin and flow upwards against his cheek and roll into his graying hair.  She took another drag and blew it directly into his face.  The turbulence produced by her heavier breath deflected the smoke quickly from his face and bounced it back into hers.  This caught her by surprise, making her laugh uproariously at herself.  Richard, as she called him, awoke, looked at her with a puzzled expression, then sat up.  Neither said a word for a minute, until Richard said, "can't you quit smoking those damned things!"

"Why would I do that when I enjoy them so much?"

"How can you enjoy something so much that you've never tried before until now?" He asked with exasperation.

She laughed uproariously again and then replied, " because I'm so alive and doing everything I want to do while I can."  She threw her arms up into the air, flicking ashes from the tip of the cigarillo that she still held between her fingers of one hand.  The hot ashes settled onto the sheet covering Armtree.  

"What the hell are you doing?"  Armtree said while furiously brushing the ashes off.

"I'm happy.  From now on, I'm doing anything and everything that I want to do."  Proving her point, she flicked more ashes onto the sheet and then onto him.

"You're crazy," he said while angrily throwing the sheet off and jumping out of bed.  He then ran into the bathroom and began taking a shower.  Moments later, Cassandra joined him.  Everything was made right between them during the next twenty minutes.

"Buying all this land in the middle of hills and forests right here under everyone's nose was a stroke of genius," Richard said as he dried off with the puffy, white towel Cassandra had handed to him.

"It didn't hurt that your financial genius hid the sales in a blizzard of paperwork so deep that no one will ever know that it was connected to the church or us" Cassandra purred.

His ego stroked along with the favorite parts of his anatomy, Richard began to get dressed.

  They possessed six hundred acres of rugged hill and forest country tucked snugly into the southeastern glacial drift-free country of Minnesota.  The topsoils were shallower and poorer than those to the west, resulting in primarily dairy farming rather than cash crops as the principal agricultural activity.  The land they occupied was filled with porous limestone, leading to the formation of caverns and sinkholes.   Duschee Creek meandered throughout the property flanked by three-hundred foot bluffs.  They had made sure that no one else lived in the entire area.  The land was thoroughly posted to keep hunters out.  Cassandra and Armtree had made it as isolated as possible.   It was a perfect environment for the plan they had hatched to recover their money from Beth and the others who had "stolen" from them.  

Hi,
It's Halloween and as soon as we turned on the lights we had little, scary bodies showing up at our door.  There's a little break now, so I decided to post the rest of the first chapter of my new story (still untitled).  Here it is:

                                                    CHAPTER 1

Beth retreated and circled as the six-foot-two, slimy looking stooge stalked her.  When he lunged and grabbed for her neck she deftly sidestepped, hammer fist punched him on the left side of his neck, and delivered a knee to his throat.   Fortunately for the slime-ball, however, he was wearing protective gear.  He was unhurt. 

The audience of a dozen women (young and old) burst into applause and then showered Beth with congratulations.  The would be mugger waited till the women parted from Beth, and then approached to shake her hand.  Beth eschewed the hand shake and threw a heartfelt hug into his burly figure.  The instructor smiled widely as he embraced her. 

"I never thought I would get to this point.  You've taught me so much," Beth gushed.

"I've never had a student pick up the attitude and techniques as fast as you have," Damien, the Krav Maga instructor responded.  "I hope you're going to stick with it," he added with some concern to his voice.

"No need to worry about that.  You"re going to be seeing me for a while."

A relieved grin appeared on Damien's face as he hugged her again.  "Great!  Then I'll see you on Thursday.  There's a lot more to learn, and only part of it is physical.  Krav Maga demands a mental toughness and understanding that when you're attacked in the real world it has absolutely nothing to do with practicing kicks on a heavy bag."

"I know, Damien.  I promise I'll be a good pupil". 

Beth had found out about Krav Maga a month following the death of her years long tormentor, Adrian Pope.  Her near death experience and feelings of helplessness when physically confronted by him had convinced her to attend some sort of self-defense training.  She had vowed that she would never again let another human being gain dominion over her.

The training took place in the basement area of a downtown Rochester hotel.  She had read an article in the local newspaper describing it as an Israeli form of martial arts.  It had been advertised as the only style of martial arts that applied to real world situations.  Her first class instructor had begun by lining all the participants at the front of the room and having them take a bow.  Then they had gone right into jumping jacks alternated with push-ups and some basic blocks with a partner.  Abs and stretching work followed.  The tone of the warm-up had been tough with the instructor yelling and appearing to want to break her down.  She had felt intimidated, but didn't leave.

Each person had then been assigned a partner and practiced palm-heal hits into pads.  Her adrenalin had flowed fiercely.  Attack scenarios came next.  First they watched the instructor and her assistant walk through frontal choking situations and how to escape.  Partners then practiced with each other.  The instructor and assistant came to each pair and offered criticism and feedback. 

The class ended with a repeat of the beginning warm-ups.  At the very end of the class, the instructor stressed that Krav Maga was a martial arts technique that involved Karate, Boxing, Muay Thai, Kickboxing, Jujitsu, Wrestling, and Grappling.  He repeated that the focus would be on real-life situations and extremely efficient and brutal counter-attacks. 

He delved into the history of the techniques.  Beth learned that it sprang from street-fighting skills developed by Imi Lichtenfeld, a Hungarian-Israeli martial artist.  Lichtenfeld had used his training as a boxer and wrestler as a means of defending the Jewish quarter against fascist groups in Bratislava during the mid-to-late 1930s.  In the late 1940s he began to provide lessons on combat training for what became known as the IDF (Israeli Defense Forces).  The IDF went on to design the Krav Maga system.  The philosophy of the system emphasized threat neutralization, simultaneous defensive and offensive maneuvers, and aggression.

Beth had felt a surge of energy as she accomplished everything demanded of her the first day, and in every training session thereafter.  She developed a strong sense of confidence in her physical and mental skills to the point where Beth found herself reveling and even thriving in this new-found environment. 

After showering and dressing, Beth took the stairs leading from the basement of the Mahler Hotel, passed through the fancy lobby, and burst into a fast walk.   She  emerged from the building and into darkness interrupted only by city lights.  she was filled with an intense feeling of confidence and vigor.   She remembered that her cell phone had been on vibrate and switched it back on.  Within seconds it rang.  She answered as she continued to swiftly walk the streets on her way to the public parking ramp. 

"Hello."  Silence.  She repeated the greeting.  Met by silence again, she was about to chalk it up as a wrong number, when the voice on the line made her stop. 

"I have someone who wants to talk to you," the familiar voice calmly stated.  Mark's voice came on the line.

"Beth, they have me!"  A jumbled sound that reminded her of an over-amped microphone being jostled around replaced Mark's voice. 

And then the familiar, initial voice came back on the line and said her name, "Beth, you have something that we want." 

She knew this time might come.  She just didn't know it would happen this soon.  Beth didn't know what to say so she remained silent for a few seconds.

"Are you still on the line?" Cassandra asked.

"Yes," she managed to say while her voice cracked.

"Good.  You never know when you're going to lose cell phone connections now  days.  We need to meet and sort this whole thing out," Cassandra said amiably.  She continued.  "We'll contact you tomorrow when you're feeling a little less tired.  We understand that you've had a difficult  evening of punching, kicking, and yelling.  Get a good nights rest.  You'll need it." 

The line went dead.  Beth slowly lowered the phone to her side while blankly staring straight ahead.   She stood motionless for several seconds.   Mark had said "they" have me.   Cassandra had said, you have something "we" want.  Obviously, Mr. John was with her.  Beth knew what they wanted.  Money! 

Unconsciously, she began walking again, slowly at first, then rapidly until she was almost running.   She reached her tan-colored Ford Focus within five minutes.  Grasping her keys from her purse, she fumbled and dropped them.  Nervously, and with a sense of desperation, she grabbed for the keys and pushed them under the car. 

"Chill," she told herself as she stood without picking the keys up.  Thirty seconds passed before her breathing had returned to normal.  Her eyes scanned the parking-ramp before getting on her hands and knees to retrieve her car keys.  Standing again, she turned the key in the lock and opened the door.  Beth settled comfortably onto the cloth seat and started the engine.  She began mentally preparing herself for the fight she knew would come.

Hi.  I've been pretty busy for a few months and haven't posted anything since August.  My wife and I just returned from a two week trip to Italy.  We visited, in order, Venice, Florence, Rome, and Sorrento.  All were beautiful, but Sorrento stood out to us for the shear beauty of the area right on the coast of the Mediterranean.  Capri was a short hop away on a ferry, which we took, and the ruins of Pompeii were to the north.  Both were, literally, breathtaking, but for different reasons.

But, enough of that, now for the important stuff.  I have started work on a sequel to "Trust Me Now"  which picks up where the first novel left off.  Cassandra and Mr. John are alive and well, holed up in a safe spot and eager to get their money back from Beth, plus a little revenge.   Here is a short sample:

PROLOGUE

Mark awoke, his body stuck in a fetal position. He tried stretching to his full six-foot length, but was stopped by a hard, extended surface on both ends.   He moved his feet behind and arms to the front.  The same type of hard surface abruptly stopped his limbs.  Violently, his body was suddenly launched vertically, and his head crashed into the top of the enclosure he realized he was trapped in.  

He was moving, or rather, the container he was in, was moving.   While continuing to be bounced around he was slowly becoming aware of what had happened to him earlier in the evening.

While emptying his trash into an outside bin someone had approached him from behind and covered his nose and mouth with a rag soaked in something; chloroform he guessed.  Blackness had enveloped him, until waking in the moving container he currently occupied. 

Another brutal bump sent him to the top of his container again, banging him down with a force that caught his right hand twisted beneath his hips.  Pain now wracked through his hand and extended into his forearm.  Whatever he was riding in was not rolling over a smooth surface.  Mark was continually bouncing around with an occasional huge jolt sending him flying into the roof.  Roof!  As his mind continued to clear, he began to understand that he was in the trunk of a car moving over rough roads. 

Questions tumbled from his mind, bewildering him with answers that made no sense.  Who did this?  Why?  Where is he or she taking me?  Is it one person, two, three?  He almost dreaded the answers.

                                                    CHAPTER 1

Beth retreated and circled as the six-foot-two, slimy looking stooge stalked her.  When he lunged and grabbed for her neck she deftly sidestepped, hammer fist punched him on the left side of his neck, and delivered a knee to his throat.   Fortunately for the slime-ball, however, he was wearing protective gear.  He was unhurt. 

The audience of a dozen women (young and old) burst into applause and then showered Beth with congratulations.  The would be mugger waited till the women parted from Beth, and then approached to shake her hand.  Beth eschewed the handshake and threw a heartfelt hug into his burly figure.  The instructor smiled widely as he embraced her. 

"I never thought I would get to this point.  You've taught me so much," Beth gushed.

"I've never had a student pick up the attitude and techniques as fast as you have," Damien, the Krav Maga instructor responded.  "I hope you're going to stick with it," he added with some concern to his voice.

"No need to worry about that.  You’re going to be seeing me for a while."

A relieved grin appeared on Damien's face as he hugged her again.  "Great!  Then I'll see you on Thursday.  There's a lot more to learn, and only part of it is physical.  Krav Maga demands a mental toughness and understanding that when you're attacked in the real world it has absolutely nothing to do with practicing kicks on a heavy bag."

"I know, Damien.  I promise I'll be a good pupil". 

Beth had found out about Krav Maga a month following the death of her years long tormentor, Adrian Pope.  Her near death experience and feelings of helplessness when physically confronted by him had convinced her to attend some sort of self-defense training.  She had vowed that she would never again let another human being gain dominion over her.

The training took place in the basement area of a downtown Rochester hotel.  She had read an article in the local newspaper describing it as an Israeli form of martial arts.  It had been advertised as the only style of martial arts that applied to real world situations.  Her first class instructor had begun by lining all the participants at the front of the room and having them take a bow.  Then they had gone right into jumping jacks alternated with push-ups and some basic blocks with a partner.  Abs and stretching work followed.  The tone of the warm-up had been tough with the instructor yelling and appearing to want to break her down.  She had felt intimidated, but didn't leave.