How the Wealthy Nobility Cover Up Scandals

I’ve written a number of novels including A Question of Proof or A Question of Proof (Kindle); Star Time: New Version & New Introduction or Star Time (Kindle); andDeeds or Deeds (Kindle); and Stalking the Sky or Stalking the Sky (Kindle). In my historical novel Birthright or Birthright (Kindle), I wanted to show how Rob Rowell, a wealthy earl, could cajole a nurse into covering up his part in the car-accident death of his illicit lover, the mother of my protagonist, Deborah Kronenegold. Here’s an excerpt: Rob Rowell did not see the curve in the road. Or, until it was too late, the large truck with the snowplow snout that suddenly loomed up in front of them. He twisted the steering wheel and braked. The car careered to the right in a skidding spin. Madeleine’s door smashed against the side edge of the plow. The hardened steel cut through the Rolls like a knife and crushed Madeleine’s body. The hospital was very near, but Rob, cradling her in a blanket in the truck cab, knew that it did not matter. Although attendants and nurses wheeled her quickly toward an operating room, and doctors alongside hurriedly covered her face with an oxygen mask, injected chemicals into her, inserted in her arms tubes connected to bottles of blood, pressed frantically on her dented-in chest—Rob knew he was watching a futile dumb show performed out of habit. She had left him already, amid the swirling whiteness. His small suitcase beside him, Rob sat docilely on the bench in the emergency room, trying to come to grips with the finality of what had happened. The moments with her had always seemed luminous, because she was luminous—fresh and spontaneous and always so alive. He tried to summon up vivid recollections of her, so as to hold onto her and to delay his acceptance of the inalterability of her death, but all he could visualize was the angel-perfect profile resting against the black half-moon of steel that had sliced through the white Rolls. Even in his distraught condition, he could not evade the knowledge that he had been the cause of her death, but he assured himself that no one could hold him responsible; with weather conditions so deplorable, it was true only in the technical sense that he had been at the wheel. He sat up straight. At the wheel! If the police found out that he and Madeleine de Kronengold had been together in a car traveling back from her country house, the reporters would learn about their affair as well. Lurid stories would smear the two of them across every newspaper in England. There might even be speculation as to whether there had been some negligence involved in the accident. The publicity would be ghastly for him, for Maddy’s family, and especially for the Rowell bank, which was shaky right now as it was. And it would all be quite unnecessary. She was dead, and none of this would bring her back; if it could, he told himself, he would gladly endure it all. At that moment a nurse approached him diffidently, carrying the forms that would have to be filled out. She appeared to be young and unsure of herself. He gave her a sad but engaging smile. Yes, he was sufficiently recovered to answer some questions for the hospital’s records. He took her hand so she could not write, gazed into her eyes, and began to relate a tragic story of love found and lost, a poignant affair between two members of the nobility, one a prominent banker, the other a married woman from a prominent banking family. After a while he confided how much being able to tell her about his loss comforted him. And later he explained that it would be so much kinder to the dead woman’s family to leave his name out of the reports. He had been in the back seat asleep when it happened, he told her. He supposed the force of the skid had thrown her across the front seat, to the other side of the car, where the crash killed her. Under those circumstances it wasn’t absolutely necessary to write down that he was also in the car, was it? For the sake of the woman’s grieving husband and children, he would be eternally grateful to her if she spared them by leaving his name out of the reports. They’ve already suffered so much. He pointed to a newspaper front page announcing Samuel’s death. Someone had left it on a chair. She withdrew her hand from his and fumbled in her pocket for a handkerchief. She nodded. She would do it. The answering thankfulness on his face was authentic; if her report raised no questions, no one would look further into the matter. He took her phone number; he would like to be able to thank her properly some time very soon. Dabbing her eyes, she smiled and began to write her report. Read more: Birthright or Birthright (Kindle).

Spain's Expulsion of the Jews in 1492

I’ve written a number of novels including A Question of Proof or A Question of Proof (Kindle); Star Time: New Version & New Introduction or Star Time (Kindle); and Deeds or Deeds (Kindle); and Stalking the Sky or Stalking the Sky (Kindle). 

In my historical novel Birthright or Birthright (Kindle), I wanted to show how in 1492 the Christian monarchs of Spain forced their Jewish citizens to leave Spain, threatening them with death if they remained. The fictional Kronengolds' and my own ancestors were among them. 

Here’s an excerpt: 

As [Samuel's yacht] the Venture approached Malaga, reminiscences were flooding Samuel, seemingly to make up for a lifetime of never looking back. That morning he signed contracts for the land on the Costa del Sol and then drove with Deborah to Granada and the Alhambra, the magnificent Moorish palace he had not visited in fifty years.

Many memories came to him there beneath the slim columns and elegant friezes pierced by light into lace.

"We are originally Sephardic Jews, Spanish Jews," Samuel said to his granddaughter as they stood at the end of the reflecting pool in the Court of the Alberca. "The Christians forced the last of the Arabs and Jews out of Spain the same year Columbus found the New World. In this very place a woman once told me that Columbus may have been a Jew seeking a homeland for his people, that the evidence is rumored to be hidden in the Vatican. ‘Colon,’ his real name, is a Sephardic Jewish name." He described the Spanish Inquisition, how Jews were tortured by the Christians and killed in the name of God.

"Like Columbus, our family had sailed from Spain by then. We have a knack for that, thank God! They had gone to Florence, where their skill as goldsmiths could provide a living."

Read more: Birthright or Birthright (Kindle). Stalking the Sky or Stalking the Sky (Kindle). A Question of Proof or A Question of Proof (Kindle):  Deeds or Deeds (Kindle); and Star Time: New Version & New Introduction or Star Time (Kindle).

Every Defendant Lies, But So Do Witnesses

I’ve written a number of novels including A Question of Proof or A Question of Proof (Kindle); Star Time: New Version & New Introduction or Star Time (Kindle); and Deeds or Deeds (Kindle); Stalking the Sky or Stalking the Sky (Kindle); and Birthright or Birthright (Kindle). In my novel A Question of Proof or A Question of Proof (Kindle), I wanted my readers to understand what an experienced trial lawyer told me when I was fresh out of law school: Don't expect the truth from any one, not from your witnesses, not from the police, and certainly not from your client. No one ever tells the whole truth. Everyone always has something to hide. A witness might claim the defendant stole the money because he did it himself or because he was supposed to be watching the cash register but had gone to see a girlfriend or because he was bribed. A defendant, even an innocent one, may be protecting a friend she believes committed the crime or may be hiding an affair. At one point I even thought of calling the novel False Witness. 

Here's how Dan Lazar, the protagonist, explains it: 

"Believe me, every client lies. If not outright lies, then murky areas the client tries to keep that way. During the trial you'll do and say anything to save yourself—it's your sole priority, and that's natural. You'll cover things up to me, to the judge, to the jury. Everything you've vowed to me—all that 'truth'—could get shredded into confetti."

"I'm innocent. I have nothing to fear," she said fervently. She was staring into his eyes, measuring his love against hers.

He did not reply.

Read more: A Question of Proof or A Question of Proof (Kindle). bit.ly/PojdHz

How to Heighten Suspense Employing Ancillary Events

In writing my novel STALKING THE SKY, I wanted to associate the corporate raider, J. Stephen Girard, a ruthless, cunning predator deliberating on whether to seize a premier airline, with a merciless flying predator of a different sort, a trained falcon.

Here's an excerpt:

Finally, the Arab extended his gloved hand, held it there long enough for the falcon to gain her balance, and then cast her upward. Her jesses released, the falcon leaped forward, and with one beat of her powerful wings she was airborne and climbing. Higher and higher she ascended, spiraling upward until she was only a speck herself. Then she hovered motionless, the sun behind her, awaiting the inevitable moment when the guileless pigeons' flight would carry them beneath her.

Girard had sensed the excitement mounting within him as the peregrine sped upward. He felt a kinship with the soaring predator. Every part of her body had been designed by nature for her single purpose in life, the hunt. Success at the hunt meant survival.

The falcon had already chosen which was to be her victim and the point in the sky where they would meet. She seemed to wait forever, as if, hypnotized by the magic of flight, she had forgotten the kill. Then, almost too late, the wings snapping tight against her body, she suddenly plummeted. Faster she dove, until she was no more than a streaking blur. At the last instant, wings and tail spread, talons clenched, she swooped sharply upward into her prey, knocking the pigeon senseless. Helplessly, it fluttered downward like a pinwheel. Within seconds the falcon's claws clenched the stunned bird, and she was returning to earth. There she would mantle the pigeon with her wide wings before taking its neck within her beak and breaking it.

At that moment J. Stephen Girard decided it was time to bid for control of Global Universal Airlines.

Read more: STALKING THE SKY. bit.ly/PojdHz

Creating a Character Who Is Larger Than Life

I've written a number of novels, including Stalking the Sky or Stalking the Sky (Kindle); A Question of Proof or A Question of Proof (Kindle); Star Time: New Version & New Introduction or Star Time(Kindle); Birthright or Birthright (Kindle); and Deeds or Deeds (Kindle). In writing my novel, Stalking the Sky or Stalking the Sky (Kindle), I wanted a scene over dinner to accomplish several things: First was to give the reader a sense of the vivid, dynamic and virile personality and past of the legendary Ben Buck, head of Global Universal Airline. I did that by having another person at the dinner relate old anecdotes about him that would surprisingly prove important later on in the book. I also wanted to sketch in a little of the beginnings of what grew into the airline industry and did that, too, with an anecdote, this one about an early flyer getting lost on a mail flight. Here's an excerpt: Dinner was a noisy affair, laced with half a century of anecdotes about airplanes and the characters who flew them, people like Danny Morell, who had a mail route in the twenties. He was too farsighted to read the compass and too vain to wear glasses, so he followed the railroad tracks below him from one city to the next. One day fog rolled in unexpectedly, and when he finally landed at what he thought was Baltimore, it turned out to be Washington, D.C. "Take me to the Postmaster General," he demanded. "I want to bid on a new mail route to Baltimore I just discovered." Then there was the time Buck agreed to publicize GUA’s new jets, just delivered to replace piston aircraft. The plan called for him and a planeful of reporters to have breakfast in New York and lunch in Los Angeles; they’d be back in New York for a late dinner that night. It was an eye-catching stunt for a nation only three decades from biplanes and wire wing supports. Unfortunately, a new employee at Los Angeles Airport mistook a football team for the planeload of newsmen; lunch was gone when the jet touched down. "You know," the GUA man finally admitted after the shock wore off, "I thought they were kind of big for reporters, but I couldn’t be sure. I’ve never been East." Frey remembered the times during the war when the General, dog-tired from months of unceasing work to build an air transport system capable of supporting the war effort, would disappear for a few days of R & R. Frey was his driver then—that was how they met—and the one who shared the roistering hours when Buck let off steam. "We were known in every whorehouse in every two-bit town that had an air base. Only the General never gave his real name. He called himself General Benjamin," the small man recalled, with a wink at Buck. "Remember Annette, with the business cards? She had business cards printed to advertise her house, with a line at the bottom of the card saying, ‘Recommended by General Benjamin. ’" The table exploded in laughter, Buck’s loudest of all. Frey’s head bobbed up and down as he added, "Know what he did when he found out? Know what he did? He insisted on a month of free visits or else he would have his own cards printed up taking back the endorsement." The laughter burst forth again. "Annette’s cards started turning up all over Washington, and two other General Benjamins nearly ended up court-martialed." Frey waited for the laughter to subside. "But any girl with a hard-luck story, he was the softest touch in America—" Buck cut him off. "Nobody wants to hear that. Tell them about that time in New Orleans. Remember New Orleans, Pres?" Frey remembered. "New Orleans was the best. Everywhere we turned there was puss—pardon me, ma’am . . . there were girls. You know what that big stud over there did? He rented the grandest whorehouse you ever saw for one solid week just for the two of us. The War Department and Western Union were three days tracking us down to get a message to the General. The lucky son of a B who delivered the message spent the next two days there with us. Western Union had to send out a search party for him." The Old Man’s eyes were dancing as he picked up the story. "One of the councilmen got so damned horny waiting all that time for the house to reopen, he had the police break in and arrest us. They didn’t want to say prostitution was going on, so they accused us of ‘illegal entry.’" As the laughter died down, Frey said, with a faraway look in his eyes, "There was one city where a little girl was so sweet on the General whenever we were there we lived right in the whorehouse, like kings. And me, I never had less than two or three girls there with me at a time. They don’t make wars like that anymore." Read more: Stalking the Sky or Stalking the Sky (Kindle). ow.ly/mfX1S

How to Show First Awkwardness with Ex-wife Then Chemistry with New Love Interest

In writing my novel STALKING THE SKY, I wanted to describe the awkwardness of an ex-husband and wife meeting at a party after a number of years have passed. while also imparting a sense of their ill-suitedness. I also wanted to show how exciting a relationship might be with the man's new lover, who is giving the party.

Here's an excerpt:

As soon as Will began picking his way among the small knots of people to locate Donna, his high spirits returned. The day’s work had been a triumph. The party and the excitement of New York had buoyed him.

"Oh, my God! Will!"

He turned toward the voice. "Hello, Carla."

He had broken off with Carla the same night she asked him to move in with her, as he guessed she would; she had timed every move with exasperating precision. Will had told her he did not intend to be squeezed and bent to fit the empty places in someone else’s life.

"You’re . . . you’re in New York."

"Only for the night. How have you been?"

"I’ve been well, Will." She had regained her poise. "I’m into self-actualization now and it’s given me a great deal of confidence."

"The new hair style, is that part of it?"

"The hair style, the clothes—I think they express a freer, more open me. The best part is that I’ve been able to come to grips with my father’s role in my life—you remember me telling you about my father—and accept him and understand that he acted out of love. I can say all those things openly to him now."

"Isn’t your father dead?"

"That really isn’t the point."

A hand slipped through Will’s arm. "I see you two have found each other again. What do old lovers say to each other?"

Belinda had joined them. Her face was lit by a mischievous grin. Will refused to be drawn in.

"The really old ones talk about their grandchildren, lumbago and hospital costs. Belinda, this is a spectacular show. I had no idea you were so accomplished."

"Thank you. I’m glad you could come." She turned to Carla. "We literally bumped into each other on an elevator this morning. I was with Cassie." She turned back to Will. "Carla is engaged, you know."

"Congratulations. Do I know him?"

Will’s interest seemed merely courteous, Belinda noted.

"Dave Delauney. He’s gone to fetch me a drink."

"The way you say that bodes well for a satisfying life together."

Belinda said, "I hope you don’t mind, Carla, if I introduce Will to some people here."

"It was good to see you, Will. Perhaps we could have dinner."

"Perhaps on some other trip."

Belinda guided Will toward a large canvas. Gloomy colors formed a faint profile of the painter.

"That’s what I look like in the morning," she remarked lightly.

"I apologize for the way my compliment before may have sounded," Will said.

"It’s just that so many of Carla’s friends did nothing with their lives, and they all called themselves interior decorators or jewelry designers . . ."

"Or painters?"

"Or painters. Why do you paint your self-portrait so often? Narcissism?"

"Cheap model." She eyed him wryly. "People who dislike me say it’s a clever way to promote myself. Now, what about you? You live in Colorado, you said. What kind of work do you do there?"

"Legal work, for Global Universal Airlines."

"That’s interesting."

"Every time I tell people who I work for, they insist on telling me how they were bumped off a flight or lost their luggage. What have you lost?"

"Absolutely nothing. In fact, I’m still a virgin with my first set of teeth."

Will laughed unreservedly. With friends, Belinda’s funny, outrageous lines snapped the air around her like firecrackers. But with new people, especially men, enjoyment of them was a kind of test—one that Will had just passed. Particularly now, Belinda would have liked to stay with him, but she had other commitments.

Read more: STALKING THE SKY bit.ly/PojdHz

How an American Hero is Seduced by a Ruthless Financier

In writing my recent book, <ASIN: 0985314494> or <ASIN: B00GWTM998> (Kindle), I wanted to show how a certifiable American hero, who lived one of the great adventures in the history of mankind, walking on the moon, can afterward lose his way to the point that he can be seduced and manipulated by a ruthless financier seeking to take over the airline that recently employed that former astronaut.

Here's an excerpt:

J. Stephen Girard’s office was traditional in a way the French monarchy might have envied. The men took seats on facing twin Louis XVI settees that were ornately carved and upholstered in patterned silk brocade. Besides the settees, two exquisite commodes adorned with gold rococo scrollwork stood against the walls. Girard’s desk was a large Boulle writing table, trimmed with bronze mounts; it was at least two hundred and fifty years old.

All this was lost on the astronaut. He was a scientist, most comfortable with mechanics and quantitatively determinable matters, things as they were in the most basic operational and measurable sense. Despite the mystery that surrounded Girard, Craig Merrill’s first impression of him was quite unintimidating. He seemed to be the familiar sort of wealthy man who could command the presence of sports figures or movie stars or astronauts and then attempted to ingratiate himself with them. But in the next moment Merrill was forced to make a brutal reappraisal.

"Colonel, I will come to the point," Girard intoned. "Your personal finances are in disarray, and you have no present prospect of employment. As I understand it, all your debts, including the twenty-five thousand dollars loaned to you by Western Shore Savings Bank, now come to about forty-five thousand dollars."
Merrill sat bolt upright. "My debts are my own business."

"As a matter of fact they are mine as well," Girard responded with a half-smile. "One of our subsidiaries controls that bank."

Merrill’s hand moved unconsciously to smooth his thinning hair. "If you want your money back, it might take me a few days until I put out the word for some job offers, but you can be sure that—"

Girard answered quietly, but his words cut like a razor. "People would check into your credit rating, the controversy you instigated at Global Universal, the personal problems you have had, and what might be termed your present stability!"

Merrill stood up, his face flushed.

Girard halted him. "Before you make up your mind to leave, Colonel, let me tell you what I am prepared to offer." . . .

The hundred-thousand-dollar figure had a visible effect on Merrill, who dropped back onto the settee. . . .

Girard continued. "Despite your . . . excesses, I believe you are capable, and you understand airplanes and airlines. That will prove helpful to both of us. If my plans work out, you could be president of Global Universal within a few months. At times you will be called upon to do some little thing toward that end."

"Like what?" Merrill asked, but he was unable to mask his desire with wariness.

"Today we will announce at a press conference your association with Faranco and mention that you are also advising us on our investment in GUA. We own a good deal of its stock, and so that would be understandable."

"Sure, that’s fine."

Girard leaned forward slightly for emphasis. "Then you’ll mention how concerned you are about the safety of passengers riding GUA planes, and that you want to get to the bottom of the crash to find out why passenger safety is being jeopardized."

Merrill tried to object. "I fought for a lot of things in private, but we were arguing then about a matter of degree, not outright negligence. How can I—"
"The stock’s price will go down. When we finally make our move, dissatisfied or frightened GUA stockholders will welcome us with open arms—if they haven’t sold out long before that point." Girard leaned back. "Those are my terms." The words carried the finality of a steel vault slamming shut.

Read more: <ASIN: 0985314494> or <ASIN: B00GWTM998> (Kindle).

At Oxford Meeting A First Lover

In my historical novel Birthright or Birthright (Kindle), I wanted to show how in Deborah's early days at Oxford she comes back into contact with Rob Rowell, the son of the man she knew to be her mother's lover. 

Here’s an excerpt: 

Deborah de Kronengold walked grimly along the High Street, barely exchanging a word with the shorter young woman beside her. They shared Miss Davis’s tutorial on the history of economics and had not found a single matter on which they agreed since the term had started. Deborah had grown to her full five feet seven inches in height. Her red hair had lost none of its sunrise brightness and was still worn long and straight. She had finely fashioned features, a classic beauty that would have aroused admiration in any age, but today her chin thrust forward belligerently and her blue eyes glared in anger. The young woman who strode just as angrily beside her was Gladys Wood. Brown hair cut to utilitarian shortness, small, pretty face aggressively makeup-free, brow perpetually furrowed to match the disapproving line into which her mouth was drawn, Gladys Wood was a firmly committed Marxist. Deborah, of course, by both birth and inclination, was just as firmly committed a capitalist. Today Miss Davis had surprised them both by telling them they were very much alike; she had enjoyed their wrangles, but the debate was now tending to slip from the academic to the personal. She requested they follow the ancient tradition of no work in the afternoon and do something frivolous together for a change. "Like join the Bell Ringers Society?" Deborah had asked with some asperity, displeased at the prospect of having to socialize with the doctrinaire fanatic with whom she shared the tutorial.

Upon learning that neither of these overly serious young women had so much as taken a meal out of hall since arriving at Prinsworth, Miss Davis had ordered them to spend the next week pursuing a social life—together. As a start they were to go out to lunch at a restaurant that very day.

Looking into the window of the restaurant, which had stood on that spot for hundreds of years, they both hesitated. Nearly all the tables were surrounded by male students.

"Looks intimidating," Gladys breathed quietly.

"Rather."

The women glanced at each other for support, then grinned at their common anxiety.

"Back-to-back, my dad always says," Gladys offered.

"What does that mean?"

"If we fight with our backs to each other, they can’t get behind us."

Deborah nodded. "Back-to-back it is, then."

Gladys squared her shoulders determinedly and walked into the restaurant. Deborah followed.

"Zuleika Dobson, as I live and breathe!" a boisterous voice called out above the buzz of voices.

Other people looked up at them.

"Zuleika! Here! Here!" another agreed, staring at Deborah. Eating utensils began rhythmically tapping glassware.

"Who’s Zuleika Dobson?" Deborah whispered to Gladys.

"You. I’ll explain later."

A figure leaped up and strode toward them. "Dee?"

The face looked vaguely familiar, as if an impressionistic portrait of someone she couldn’t quite place.

"Why—it’s Bash Rowell, isn’t it?" She smiled warmly. She had not seen him in years, since before her first term at Branton. He was tall, and he carried himself with the same casual grace she remembered from his boyhood. His hair was wavy blond, and a lock of it fell Byronically across his brow. His blue eyes were disquieting. She tried not to look into them, which was difficult, because they stared deeply into hers.

"I had no idea you had come up to Oxford, Dee. Please join us. There’s rarely a table to be had in this bloody awful place. The food’s ghastly, the prices are outrageous, but it’s the place to go."

Without waiting for an answer, he led the way back to a table in a corner of the room. Deborah shrugged apologetically to Gladys. "There doesn’t seem anything else available."

"Your social life doesn’t seem a problem to me," Gladys replied with admiration.

"Childhood friend. Another exploiter of the masses, I’m afraid."

"I’ll look the other way in his case. He’s gorgeous."

Yes, he is, Deborah thought. Absolutely gorgeous. And then she knew why his eyes had bothered her so: they recalled his father’s exactly when she had spied Rob Rowell kneeling over her mother in the cottage. For an instant she was tempted to flee, but decided it was unfair to hang the son for the sin of the father.

Read more: Birthright or Birthright (Kindle). Stalking the Sky or Stalking the Sky (Kindle). A Question of Proof or A Question of Proof (Kindle); Star Time: New Version & New Introduction or Star Time(Kindle); and Deeds or Deeds (Kindle).

People Who Escape Air Crashes Because of a Premonition

In writing my book Stalking the Sky or Stalking the Sky (Kindle), I wanted to introduce another suspect as the air crash's saboteur, one who refused at the gate to walk down the ramp to board the doomed plane because she claimed to have gotten a premonition that it would crash. She would later remember something that occurred at the gate that would prove to be crucial in identifying the actual saboteur.

Here's an excerpt:

Through the opening the men could see the back of a blond-haired woman in a black leotard sitting cross-legged on the floor. . . . A murmuring sound emanated from the room as if she were speaking to someone. . . .

Off the screen and without makeup, the famous seductress's face seemed fresh and wholesome, her large eyes clear. She rose gracefully and approached them. The sex-symbol promotion upon which her early career had been built left her visitors unprepared for the intelligence in her voice.

"I usually meditate in the nude, so I thank you for telephoning first."

Clayton wondered how much more there could be to see. The deep V-neck of her leotard exposed large expanses of breast, and the nipples pressed visibly through the taut material.

"You were talking to someone?"

"To Rolf."

Both men looked stunned.

"Or trying to," she continued in explanation. "But he's probably holding off contacting me out of pure spite."

"You've heard from him since the crash?" asked Clayton sharply.

"No, have you?"

Clayton was confused. "Why would he contact me?"

"He was rather an admirer of the Bureau." Darlene gestured toward the large pillows spilled randomly about the floor. "Why don't you sit down?"

Clayton dropped clumsily onto a pillow after great exertion. Will followed with more grace, accustomed to lowering himself on the strength of his single full leg.

"I have a feeling we're not speaking the same language," Clayton said.

"His spirit must be quite confused. They often are, after an accident. It's difficult for them to make the transition when they've had so sudden and violent a passing."

Clayton took a deep breath. "Let's start again, Miss Valentine. Is your husband dead?"

"That's what your people told me. They found his physical body."

"Then who were you talking with before we came in?"

"I was trying to contact his spirit. He's probably wandering around out there."
"In Utah?"

"In confusion. Space and time don't exist in the spirit world. He's having difficulty making the transition, I just know it."

"Please, Miss Valentine, let's keep the conversation to this world. Was your marriage unhappy?"

She nodded.

"Unhappy enough for you to place a bomb aboard his plane?"

Her eyes snapped wide open in apparent astonishment. "Why would you think that?"

"Witnesses at the airport reported hearing you tell people the plane would crash."

"Yes, I knew it would happen. Oh, not the way you're thinking. I suddenly had a vision in my mind of the plane bursting into flames. It was terrible!"

Will spoke up for the first time, sarcasm edging into his voice. "You seem quite composed for someone who has just lost her husband so 'terribly.'"

"Once I could no longer stop him or all those others, it was clear to me that they were all meant to make the transition."

"Miss Valentine," Clayton interjected harshly, "the ramp agent told us that your husband walked aboard the plane with a large attaché case. Do you happen to know what was in it?"

"Of course, promotional materials for the interviews. Greater Good—the picture we just made together—opens around the country tomorrow, and we had a string of TV and newspaper interviews coming up. Denver was the first. We thought announcing the divorce right now would hurt the film."

Will bent forward, his prosecutorial training surfacing. "So you continued to live together—and hate each other. . . . Perhaps it was to your benefit to have him dead: more profits, no worry about dividing up community property." . . .

Her face grew very sorrowful and then began to twist in anguish.

"I'm so sad for you, Mr. Nye. I'm so sad for everyone who lost a loved one on the plane. You have so few real friends. You trust so few that each is particularly precious."

Her eyelids lifted. "I'm sorry. I really am."

Will realized that his fingernails were digging into his thighs and that he could not speak.

"Perhaps if your friend had been psychic," Darlene added, "he'd have been alive today."

Read more: Stalking the Sky or Stalking the Sky (Kindle).  bit.ly/PojdHz

Reconstructing a Downed Airliner to Learn the Cause of the Crash

I've written a number of novels, including Stalking the Sky or Stalking the Sky (Kindle). A Question of Proof or A Question of Proof (Kindle); Star Time: New Version & New Introduction or Star Time(Kindle); Birthright or Birthright (Kindle); and Deeds or Deeds (Kindle). In writing my book Stalking the Sky or Stalking the Sky (Kindle), I wanted readers to know how National Transportation Safety Board investigators reconstruct a downed airliner to aid them in discovering the cause of a crash.

Here's an excerpt:

Sunday morning in Fort Wayne, Indiana, is for church or sleeping late. For Will and Clayton, the morning was for viewing a reconstructed section of a 747 in a drafty hangar at the edge of an airfield.

Hunks of debris from 211, the first plane downed, were marked with chalk or tags and scattered about the floor, while the tail, still miraculously whole, towered high into the steel joists, emphasizing the devastation of the rest.

Tal's plane would look like this one, Will realized with a start. As a boy dragged along to church each week, he had pictured the Apocalypse like this—cemeteries littered with the broken toys of the forever departed.

"It's the most perfect flying machine ever built," Bill Ewing said softly as he led them around the twisted metal wired on wooden scaffolding into the rough configuration of what used to be the front end of a 747. "So perfect it can take off, guide itself across country, land and end up within twenty feet of the gates with the flight crew playing gin rummy all the way. Every system has a backup. It can fly routinely on three engines and land on two. It has even made it safely down on one. It flew two billion miles without a fatal accident."

Ewing pointed to the far end of the empty hangar. "Those engines can lift over three quarters of a million pounds of fully loaded plane forty-five thousand feet into the sky and fly six hundred miles an hour carrying between four and five hundred people. But if only ten or twenty pounds of that load is high explosive, this is what you have left."

Bill Ewing had spent half of his sixty years designing and building ever larger, more sophisticated airliners, and the last ten years putting bits and pieces back together.

"Where exactly was the bomb placed?" Clayton asked.

Ewing pointed. "Right about there. Above the left lavatory in first class. Whoever put it there unscrewed a ceiling panel that shields the light fixture, placed the bomb inside and put back the panel."

Read more: Stalking the Sky or Stalking the Sky (Kindle). bit.ly/PojdHz

Mutual Distress Over a Plane Crash Begins a Love Affair

In writing my book STALKING THE SKY, I wanted to show how, in the course of talking about her feelings about the death of her co-worker in their airline's recent plane crash and her fears about flying again, flight attendant Donna Harney can develop a rapport with the novel's protagonist, Will Nye, an executive with the airline, that can blossom into an intimate personal relationship.

Here's an excerpt:

Donna was standing in the doorway.

"Can I speak to you?" she asked.

He nodded.

She closed the door behind her. The blue eyes were anxious.

"You were kind before . . . and I have to tell someone."

The words seemed to hang back, like outnumbered soldiers. "Now that I know you’re with the company, maybe you can tell them for me."

She was leaning against the wall, relying on it. "I’ve never been afraid to fly. I never really thought about anything happening up there. The evacuation drills, the oxygen masks and life vests were just something you did as part of the job, not because you might need them." She paused to refocus her thoughts. A hint of her fear was beginning to quicken her words. "I should have been on that plane last night. Jeanne would be alive. I barely knew her. Jeanne was just a stew who happened to live in my new building and was willing to switch trips with me."

She turned on her listener. "You can’t understand what it’s like knowing you’ve caused another person’s death, and this isn’t the end of it. Every day I’d have to wake up to a job of flying in something that can kill me and hundreds of other people in an instant."

"Whether I understand or not isn’t the point," Will responded. "If you want to quit, I’ll call Personnel for you and advise them. Do you have another way to pay for your apartment?"

"We’re talking about my life!"

"Your home seemed awfully important a few hours ago."

"A lot has happened since then. I’ll just have to get another job. With a normal schedule maybe I can go to college."

"How are you getting back to Denver?"

"What difference does that make? Train. Bus."

"They take a long time. If you wait a few hours or so and can bring yourself to fly one more time, I’ll be able to tell you when the Westwind is heading back."

"You really are an annoying bastard," she said, anger beginning to replace the fear and the sorrow. "I was right about you last night, I really was."

"I gather then you don’t want a lift back to Denver."

Unexpectedly, she laughed. "I hoped you would at least give me the satisfaction of talking me out of quitting."

The laugh had been warm, her distress genuine. Will was caught off-guard by the unanticipated intimacy. His own tone softened.

"If it’s cheap advice you want, I’ll give it to you. But let’s get some lunch. I’ve got a two-thirty appointment I can’t be late for."

He held the door for her. She did not move.

"You know," she said, not bothering to mask the surprise in her voice, "it just occurred to me that you’re probably important enough to get me fired, the way I talked to you last night."

"You just said you were quitting."

With a smile she allowed the surprise to burst on her features again. "I knew I heard that somewhere."

Donna did not bother to change out of her uniform, but while she washed up, Will read newspaper accounts of the crash. With a sinking feeling Will realized that the intimations of a criminal cause could lay the blame for failing to prevent the mass deaths at his own door.

Read more:  STALKING THE SKY bit.ly/PojdHz

How the FBI Investigates Suspects in Airliner Sabotage

In writing my book Stalking the Sky, I wanted to show in a brief way the slogging person-by-person investigation that must be undertaken to find possible motives behind the sabotage of an airliner that killed hundreds of passengers by describing the FBI agent's visits to relatives of three of the deceased. 

Here's an excerpt:

Clayton’s last stop was at the home of Sandra Guerin, the wife of the late SEC official. Grief was slowly evolving into resentment at having been left behind to cope with raising children, paying the mortgage and the taxes, not having enough insurance money to stay in graduate school, and worst of all, having to live out every day, from rising till sleeping, alone.

They had spent Thanksgiving weekend with her mother. She and the kids had planned to spend the rest of the week at Grandma’s before returning to Washington on Friday. He had left for the airport at eight, attended a meeting there and caught a later plane than he had originally planned to take.

Charles Guerin had received a telephone call that morning, his wife explained. She had overheard snatches of a conversation that seemed to deal with the Senate confirmation hearings. He appeared to be angry after he hung up, and said only that he had agreed to an airport meeting and would have to change his reservation.

No, she didn’t have any idea whom the appointment was with. No, she didn’t have the name of anyone else who might know.

Clayton’s colleagues had already questioned dozens of people who had been at O’Hare the night before. They had all been shown a photograph of Guerin, but none could recall having seen him. Clayton held out little hope that more information would be uncovered.

Occasionally Owen was struck by the realization of how superficially even the most intense investigation scanned a person’s life. Markowitz might have been hated by a mistress no one would ever know about. Evelyn Flein might have had a secret suicide compulsion. Charles Guerin might have had a shoe-box full of thousand-dollar bills stashed in a closet. And there were three hundred and thirty-six other passengers and crew members whose lives would ultimately remain as much a mystery as these. Clayton knew that his best chance was to stumble after motives and hope he bumped into the real one, like a grown man playing blind man's buff.

As Clayton was about to leave Guerin’s house, Sandra Guerin added to the mystery by remarking she was sure that when Charles left the house that night he told her he was flying to Washington, not New York.

Read more: Stalking the Sky bit.ly/PojdHz

How a Banker Capitalized on the Suez Crisis

In my historical novel BIRTHRIGHT, I wanted to show how Samuel Kronengold, the dominant figure in the British Kronengold bank, could try to maneuver political leaders to his will, while simultaneously deciding where to place the bank's investment bets. I chose the Suez Crisis. Egypt's President Nasser had just ordered the seizure of the Suez Canal from Britain and France. Along with Israel, they countered by attacking Egypt to retake the Canal, infuriating U.S. President Eisenhower. Within days, Britain's weak-willed prime minister, Anthony Eden, would cave in to the U.S. and end the invasion.

Here’s an excerpt that occurs just after the three countries attack Egypt:

EGYPT'S SEIZURE OF THE SUEZ CANAL from Britain and France in July of 1956 set into motion events on a scale far larger than a single person's or a single family's destiny. The resulting crisis four months later would threaten world peace; would shake the Atlantic alliance; would humiliate Britain, dishearten it, and hasten its decline, its self-absorption, and the fall of its prime minister. It would frustrate France and accelerate its loss of Algeria, the end of its Third Republic, and the return to power of Charles de Gaulle; and provoke hostility to Britain as a future Common Market partner. It would endow Israel with more secure borders for the next decade and a port on the Gulf of Aqaba, leading to the Indian Ocean; would safeguard Egypt and make a hero of Gamal Abdel Nasser, that nation's chief of state; and would sow the seeds of a pan-Islamic oil policy based on nationalistic needs and concerted action, which would someday bring to once poor countries wealth and power beyond their wildest hopes and shake the foundations of the industrialized world.

The first retaliation for Egypt's seizure of the Canal occurred on October 29, 1956, when Israel attacked Egyptian positions in the Sinai. Two days later, in accordance with a secret scheme previously agreed to with Israel, Britain and France began bombing Egyptian airfields, alleging they were acting to protect the Suez Canal, an essential international waterway. Israel had swept across the Sinai on schedule to prearranged positions near Suez while pressing southward to free the Gulf of Aqaba to Israeli shipping.

As the days passed Anthony Eden, Britain's prime minister, hesitated to give the word that would unleash the French and British troops waiting on Cyprus and Malta and begin the full-scale attack. He faced a host of pressures: a popular outcry against the bombings in his own country, blustering condemnation from a Soviet Union allied with Egypt and trying to divert attention from its own invasions of Poland and Hungary, and perhaps most telling, United States President Eisenhower's fear that his own NATO partners were bringing the world to the brink of war. With only days remaining before the U.S. presidential election, Eisenhower, in order to force Britain to back down, was exerting both diplomatic influence in the United Nations and financial muscle by weakening the British pound.

Fearing that Eden was about to get cold feet and leave his secret Jewish allies militarily and diplomatically high and dry, Israeli high officials cast about for someone who might approach the British prime minister and allay his fears about Eisenhower's ability to undermine Britain's currency and economy. When they learned that Eden and his wife, Clarissa, were scheduled to attend a dinner at the home of Baron Samuel de Kronengold on that very night of November 4, 1956, they asked Pierre, his French cousin, to telephone Samuel about speaking to Eden.

Although Samuel was a contributor to Israel, the Israelis were far closer to Pierre, who spent a good deal of time in Israel and funded numerous projects there. The two cousins had been in negotiations for months about merging their banks into a larger, unified financial institution—after a century of separation—now that it appeared Britain would soon join the Common Market. Both men feared, among other things, that a failure to retake the Suez Canal and topple Nasser would result, instead, in toppling both the French and British governments. That would put an end to British acceptance into the Common Market for the time being and, thus, to the merger of the French and British Kronengold banks.

Samuel needed little convincing by Pierre, viewing Britain's refusal to knuckle under to Nasser as a reassertion, at last, of British greatness. He spent the day rehearsing the arguments he would use to stiffen Eden's backbone.

Only after dinner, when Samuel led the men, erect in black tie and tuxedo, to the Trophy Room, was he able to talk alone with Eden. Although they sat in a corner and conversed for a very long time, all of Samuel's persuasion proved fruitless; he found himself facing a very ill, very frightened man.

Read more:   BIRTHRIGHT bit.ly/PojdHz

The First Things an Airline Does When a Plane Crashes

I've written a number of novels, including Stalking the Sky or Stalking the Sky (Kindle). A Question of Proof or A Question of Proof (Kindle); Star Time: New Version & New Introduction or Star Time (Kindle) and Birthright or Birthright (Kindle) and Deeds or Deeds (Kindle). In writing my book Stalking the Sky or Stalking the Sky (Kindle), I wanted to describe the processes that are put into motion when a jetliner goes down without making the description tedious, so I had an executive in charge concisely describe to the CEO the steps his people had taken.

Here's an excerpt:

Conway handed Buck a folded computer printout and took a seat. "One of the guys at the Tech Desk asked me to bring up the plane’s maintenance log. I also thought you’d want to see the flight crew records. I’ve already been on the phone with our Chicago and New York people. We’re doing everything we can for the families and friends. Not three months ago I had every airport office review the procedures in case something like this occurred, so you can be proud your people are on their toes."

Read more: Stalking the Sky (Kindle). bit.ly/PojdHz