I followed through by giving my wastebasket a noisy kick, sending its contents flying, and punctuated my angry retorts by slamming my fist into the wall so hard that the plaster cracked. She did so in my office, her accusations about my excessive drinking loud enough to carry through the walls to the dental offices next door. This morning, it was Millie’s turn to pick the fight. Had wondered out loud whether our marriage was on the rocks. Our friends had started asking what was wrong. The last few weeks had been hard on her as we engaged in an ever-rising tide of public displays of discord. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught a couple of friendly waves, but I ignored them, focusing my attention instead on Millie, who was slowly crumbling a sourdough roll into pieces small enough to feed to the birds. The place was packed with a lunchtime mix of tourists and locals, most of them talking about the upcoming municipal elections and the likelihood that Clint would be the town’s next mayor. We were seated on the patio of the Hog’s Breath Inn, the downtown Carmel restaurant owned by Clint Eastwood. The action is non-stop as Damien and Millie risk their lives to eradicate the spectre of violence and racism from their community. Left alone to run their detective agency while maintaining a brave front, Millie dives into an investigation of a friend of the new mayor of Carmel-by-the Sea, a local resident she suspects of being a Nazi war criminal in hiding. When Damien reappears in California, it’s in the guise of a former cop with neo-Nazi sympathies. Millie covers his absence by spreading the news that they have separated, while he travels back to Atlantic City. I hope you’ll drop by and read the stories behind the story.ĭamien and Millie take on their most dangerous assignment yet.Īfter a string of arson fires drives migrant farm workers from their homes and threatens Millie’s daughter-in-law, Damien agrees to go undercover to infiltrate the white-supremacist, neo-Nazi militia responsible for the fires and unmask the identity of their leader. I’ll be sharing pieces of that history from time to time on my blog. Although fiction, the story is grounded in history. At times, I was afraid of shorting out my keyboard!Īlthough set in the mid-1980s, The Silver Star Caper embraces themes that are relevant today: racism, domestic terrorists, white supremacy militias, and neo-Nazi movements. There were nights when Damien and Millie entered my dreams, and days when the emotional content of the plot was so overwhelming that I had to stop and open a fresh box of tissues. The first draft of The Silver Star Caper wrote itself in only four months-an extremely fast pace for me. The dynamic detective duo started clamoring to return late last fall, and have been with me ever since. In December 2019, I bade a temporary farewell to Damien and Millie Dickens and shooed them out of my head while undertaking a non-fiction project.
Once a story starts to develop inside my brain, I feel as though I am simply a reporter, taking dictation from the main characters.
Writing fiction is a very intense experience, at least for me. Phyllis introduces The Silver Star Caper (isn’t that a great title?), the latest in her Damien Dickens Mystery series. I’m thrilled to welcome award-winning author Phyllis Entis to the blog.
0 kommentar(er)
