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Human Game: “Those are my orders”

In publishing on October 9, 2012 at 7:50 am

What follows is an excerpt from the first chapter of Human Game.

“I have to acquaint you with a top secret matter.”

Kiel Gestapo chief Friedrich (Fritz) Schmidt sat behind his desk with a single sheet of paper in front of him. It was Wednesday, March 29, 1944.

“It is an order from the Führer. Four prisoners, who are with the Kripo at Flensburg, will be shot at a place determined by me. They are enemy agents who were condemned to death and tried to escape to Denmark. You, Major Post, will go to Flensburg and interrogate the prisoners. It is not expected they will make any statement. You will leave Flensburg by car and shoot them at a pre-arranged spot. Oskar Schmidt will see that the cremation is carried out and all formalities complied with. For the firing, service pistols will be used. If, contrary to expectations, an escape should be made, service rifles will be used, as pistols will not be sufficient.”

Thirty-eight-year-old Johannes Post was an ardent Nazi, fanatical in his loyalty to Hitler and intimidating to all who knew him. Although only five and a half feet tall, he boasted a solid physique—what some considered corpulent, and others thought imposing. His eyes—an arctic blue beneath a thick main of blond hair always brushed backward—rarely betrayed any emotion. Whatever moral convictions he possessed were solely defined by Nazi policy. He had, since the outbreak of the war and for the glory of the Reich, killed many he deemed inferior. Married with three young children, he spent little time with his family, preferring instead the company of his mistress.

Next to Post stood forty-three-year-old Oskar Schmidt and three other Gestapo officers. They received their instructions without protest, though some would later claim feeling ill at ease with their assignment. No such reservations burdened Post. He knew the condemned were British airmen, and he considered death by bullet too merciful. He listened attentively as Fritz Schmidt detailed what needed to be done. The shootings would take place in a meadow along a rural stretch of road about eight miles south of Kiel in the direction of Neumünster. The prisoners were to be escorted a good distance from the road so as to prevent any passing motorist from witnessing the murders. No official record of the slayings would be kept. Post was placed in charge of the overall operation.

“Anyone not complying with this order will have to reckon with immediate sentence of death and punitive measures against his family,” Fritz Schmidt said. “The same applies to anyone talking about the matter with outsiders.”

Schmidt walked around his desk and shook each man’s hand, binding him to secrecy. The meeting, having lasted no more than ten minutes, was over.

At that moment, unaware of the dark machinations at work, Australian Squadron Leader James Catanach sat in a cell in the police prison in Flensburg. Freedom had seemed so close just three days prior. For two years he had sat in Stalag Luft III, having arrived there after being shot down over Norway. The twenty-two year old spoke fluent German and believed, the night of the escape, that he harbored a fair chance of ultimately making it to neutral Sweden. Before the breakout, he partnered with flying officer Arnold Christensen of the Royal New Zealand Air Force. In the hours following the escape, the two men managed to make their way to the Sagan railway station and catch the 3:15 A.M. express to Berlin.

On the same train, also hoping to make Sweden, were fellow escapees Hallada Espelid and Nils Fuglesang, Norwegians with the Royal Air Force. They reached the capital shortly before 7:30 A.M., their journey having passed without incident. In the gray light of that cold winter morning, the men were perhaps satisfied to witness at ground level the devastation wrought by Allied bombers. The city was one of shattered architecture and gaunt, hollow expressions. They spent the night in Berlin, avoiding detection, and purchased train tickets the next day—March 26—to Flensburg on the Danish border. It was here, in this ancient city on the Baltic coast, that their bid for freedom came to an end. Catanach and Christensen were taken into police custody while walking along the Holm, a pedestrian thoroughfare in an area of the city that had thus far escaped bombardment. The two arresting officers were specifically on duty that night as a result of the Sagan breakout. In another part of town, Espelid and Fuglesang were apprehended at a police checkpoint on the Marienhölzungsweg. What aroused police suspicions and led to the arrests has been lost to history, the records having been destroyed by Allied bombs.

Once in custody, the men were taken to the local Kripo headquarters and briefly interrogated. Confessing to being officers of the Royal Air Force and fugitives from Stalag Luft III, they refused to surrender details regarding the escape’s planning and execution. They gave only their names and ranks, military identification numbers, and the route they had traveled while on the run. Their information was noted and forwarded to the Central Security Office in Berlin, where it followed a bureaucratic paper trail to Kaltenbrunner’s desk. From Kripo headquarters, the men were transferred to the city’s police prison and put in a cell. Three days had now past since their recapture; three days with no official word on what fate awaited them. They assumed the Germans would return them to a prison camp, as was normal protocol. The question was, were they destined once again for Sagan or a different compound altogether? On that Wednesday afternoon, an answer seemed close at hand.

The Gestapo men drove in two cars. Johannes Post and Inspector Hans Kaehler rode in a black four-seat Mercedes; Oskar Schmidt followed behind in a black six-seat Adler, with fellow officers Franz Schmidt (no relation) and Walter Jacobs. They arrived in Flensburg shortly after noon and stopped for lunch at the Harmonie restaurant. After their meal, they drove to the Polizeidirektion, where the four RAF officers were being detained. Prison officials, notified of the Gestapo’s pending arrival, retrieved the airmen from their cell and seated them in the main corridor, ready for transfer.

Post and his comrades arrived at the prison and separated the airmen for questioning, but fifteen minutes of futile interrogation failed to yield anything beyond what was already known. At 3 P.M., the prisoners were handcuffed—their wrists shackled behind their backs—and marched to the waiting cars outside. Post and Kaehler took custody of Catanach; Christensen, Espelid, and Fuglesang were bundled into the Adler with the two Schmidts and Walter Jacobs. The vehicles pulled away in a convoy, with the Mercedes leading. In the backseat, Catanach stared out the window as the gothic architecture of Flensburg eventually gave way to open road. The cars traveled via Schleswig Eckernvoerde in the direction of Kiel, the rolling country soon surrendering to a ravaged urban scene.

In the car’s front passenger seat, Post eyed his captive in the rearview mirror. He played morbid tour guide, pointing out Kiel’s once-great monuments and buildings recently devastated by Allied air raids. Catanach nodded and said he was most familiar with the city’s architecture, having flown several combat operations against Kiel before his capture. Post shrugged and lit a cigarette.

“We must get on,” he said. “I have to shoot you.”

Catanach turned his gaze from the window, puzzled. “What did you say?”

“I am going to shoot you,” Post repeated. “Those are my orders.”

It was well known in local Gestapo ranks that Post took great pleasure in telling prisoners they were doomed to die. He enjoyed their desperate pleas for mercy. Although Post knew Catanach spoke German, he addressed the airman in English.

“Do you mind?” the airman laughed, mistaking Post’s statement for a sick joke. “Another time. I have an appointment in the cooler of Stalag Luft III. I’ve done nothing wrong except go under the wire. You can’t shoot me.”

“Well,” Post said, “those are my orders.”

The car continued to navigate the city’s shattered streets. As the Mercedes turned a corner, Post barked an order to his driver, Artur Denkmann. He had tickets for the theater that night, but with the business now at hand, he was doubtful he would make the performance on time. Post directed Denkmann to an apartment building on the Hansastrasse. He pulled the tickets from the inside pocket of his gray leather overcoat and ordered Kaehler to run them upstairs to his mistress. When Kaehler returned several minutes later, the journey resumed without another word. The Mercedes left Kiel and headed south in the direction of Neumünster, along the Hamburger Chaussee. Roughly nine miles out of Kiel, where the road curved sharply to the right, the car pulled onto the right shoulder and came to a stop. Post ordered Kaehler, sitting next to Catanach, to remove the airman’s shackles and got out of the vehicle. During the car ride, when conversing with Catanach in English, Post had seemed almost jovial. Now he barked his orders in angry German and told Catanach to get out. The airman did as he was told but showed no sign of concern, apparently still believing Post’s earlier threat to be a morbid joke.

Post ordered Catanach to cross the road, where, directly opposite the Mercedes, a gate opened into a meadow bordered by hedgerow. Kaehler got out of the vehicle and followed them across the carriageway. Post stayed three steps behind Catanach and slid his right hand into his coat pocket as they approached the gate. Entering the meadow, Post marched Catanach to the left, concealing them behind the hedgerow. Catanach kept walking, not bothering to look back. Without uttering a word, Post pulled a Luger 7.65mm pistol from his pocket and fired. Catanach screamed, the slug striking him between the shoulder blades, and fell dead to the ground. As Post pocketed his weapon, he heard the second car arrive. Engine trouble in Kiel accounted for the Adler’s late arrival. Oskar Schmidt ordered his driver, Wilhelm Struve, to pull in behind the Mercedes and turned to the prisoners on the car’s folding backseat. The journey back to Sagan, he said, would take several more hours. The men would be wise to relieve themselves. He got out and opened the car’s rear left door for the airmen. Post stood watching impatiently at the gate, eager for what was coming.

Christensen, Espelid, and Fuglesang clambered out of the car—their wrists still shackled—with Walter Jacobs and Franz Schmidt behind them. Oskar Schmidt and his two partners marched the airmen across the roadway, toward the gate. It was five o’clock when they entered the meadow, and the men trod carefully in the fading light. Corralled by Post and the other agents behind them, they moved to the left of the gate. They were no more than seven steps from the gate when one of the airmen saw a dark object lying in the grass. The realization that it was James Catanach drew a panicked scream from one of the men. All three airmen jumped backward and tried to scramble as Jacobs and the two Schmidts drew their weapons.

“Shoot them!” Post roared. “Shoot them! Why don’t you shoot them?”

Three gun reports echoed across the meadow in the evening gloom. Two of the airmen fell lifeless alongside Catanach; the third hit the ground in apparent agony and made a feeble attempt to get back up. He struggled, his wrists still chained behind his back, and opened his mouth as though wanting to speak.

“He is still alive!” Post screamed. “I shall shoot him.”

He rushed at Kaehler and snatched the rifle from his hands. He approached the airman and put a bullet in his head. Satisfied the job was done, he ordered Kaehler to accompany him back to Kiel and told the others to guard the scene. Oskar Schmidt watched Post and Kaehler leave before turning his gaze to the bodies in the grass.

“He was not mine,” he said. “Mine died instantly.”

“And so did mine,” said Franz Schmidt.

Post still hoped to make the theater on time. The Mercedes sped north, back up the Hamburger Chaussee toward Kiel. Coffins were needed to transport the corpses to the local crematorium. Post directed his driver to Tischendorf’s, an undertaker at Karlstrasse 26. It was six o’clock when Post and Kaehler entered the establishment and spoke with Wilhelm Tischendorf, the proprietor. From the leather coats and long boots the men had on, Tischendorf presumed his customers were Gestapo.

“I need you to collect some prisoners who have been shot in the vicinity of Rotenhahn,” Post said by way of greeting, flashing his identification.

“What prisoners are they?” Tischendorf asked.

“French. Shot whilst trying to escape.”

Post said no more and returned to his waiting car. He left Kaehler to handle the details. Suspicious of Post, Tischendorf asked Kaehler who the prisoners were.
“They’re British airmen,” Kaehler said.

“Are they some of the seventy-six airmen I have read about in the papers?”

Kaehler answered in the affirmative.

“I shall have a car ready to leave in half an hour,” Tischendorf said.

Kaehler went outside and told Post, who nodded his approval. He ordered Kaehler to see the job through to its conclusion before demanding the driver return him to the apartment on the Hansastrasse, where his mistress waited with theater tickets.

The hearse—and two lidless, tin coffins—was ready sooner than expected. Tischendorf directed Kaehler to a parking lot behind the building, where he found two mortician laborers waiting in a burial van. Kaehler got in the front passenger seat and ordered the driver to get moving. The three men drove mostly in silence; Kaehler, giving directions, was the only one who spoke. As the van approached the right-hand bend on the Hamburger Chaussee, near the Rotenhahn, an inn and pub, Kaehler told the driver to slow down. The Adler was still parked on the right-hand side of the road, opposite the meadow’s entrance. Kaehler pointed to the gate, which was open, and ordered the driver to turn left into the field. He did not want passersby on the carriageway to witness the bodies being loaded. The driver, Wilhelm Boll, although worried the van’s wheels might get stuck in the damp earth, did as instructed. In the meadow, as he cut the van’s engine, Boll saw three men—one armed with a rifle—standing several feet off to his left.

Kaehler climbed out of the van; he had been gone no more than forty-five minutes. He ordered Boll and the other laborer, Artur Salau, to retrieve the two coffins from the back of the vehicle. The men did as they were told without comment and placed the caskets alongside the four bodies. Oskar Schmidt, charged with ensuring the victims were properly disposed of, ordered the bodies be stacked two to a coffin. The Gestapo men simply stood and watched as Boll and Salau commenced the morbid task. The bodies, both laborers noticed, were dressed in what appeared to be new civilian suits. Two of the dead men had bullet wounds to the head.

“If the Russians get here, they’ll do the same to us,” muttered one of the Gestapo agents.

Boll and Salau, wanting only to be done with the job, heard the comment but did not respond. They placed the bodies in the coffins and loaded the caskets into the back of the van. Oskar Schmidt ordered the bodies be taken immediately to the crematorium in Kiel. The journey back to the city was made in two cars. Boll and Salau drove the burial van, while the Gestapo agents followed close behind in the Adler. At the crematorium, on-duty engineer Arthur Schafer knew better than to question official Gestapo business. It was six-thirty when the four agents arrived, accompanied by two undertakers hauling four bodies in a pair of cheap coffins. It was Oskar Schmidt who did the talking.

“Here are four corpses to be cremated.”

“Do you have the necessary documents?” asked Schafer.

“Berlin has ordered it.”

Schafer opened the crematorium’s leather-bound register and reached for a pen.

“You will not make any entries.”

Although notified in advance that such a visit was likely, Schafer found the circumstances peculiar. Regulations, he said, dictated that names of the deceased be recorded. Schmidt told Schafer to enter each body in the register only as a Roman numeral, I through IV. The bodies were not to be assigned cremation numbers, nor were any notes to be made of the date.
“The corpses are those of prisoners who were shot whilst on the run,” Schmidt said.

Schafer did as instructed and asked the undertakers to carry the coffins to the furnace. Before consigning the bodies to flame, Schafer gave each one a cursory glance. All four victims were dressed in civilian clothing, wearing woolen underwear, woolen stockings, and woolen pullovers. He didn’t see any visible wounds. The four Gestapo men stayed until the bodies had been destroyed and the ashes relegated to four urns, each labeled with a Roman numeral I through IV. Walter Jacobs took possession of the urns, which were to be sent to Stalag Luft III for burial. By nine o’clock the agents were back at local Gestapo headquarters, their work done. Boll and Salau returned the burial van and checked in with their boss.

“Everything in order?” Tischendorf asked.

“Yes,” Boll replied.

“What kind of bodies were they?”

“They were all shot from the back.”

In another part of town, sitting with his mistress in a darkened theater, Johannes Post enjoyed that evening’s operatic performance. He had made the show on time.

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Human Game: What would you have done?

In Random thoughts on September 27, 2012 at 9:48 pm

From “Human Game”: British investigators reconstruct the killings of two RAF airman following “The Great Escape.” (British National Archives: WO 309/1369)

The great thing about writing a non-fiction book—I’m guessing the same is true for authors of fiction—is that you often come away with a different viewpoint on things. Such was the case when writing Human Game. As folks who’ve visited this blog know by now, the book is a follow-up to the events depicted in the classic 1963 film “The Great Escape,” which details the mass breakout by Allied airmen from the infamous Stalag Luft III.

The story of the escape is well known and so is its immediate aftermath. Fifty of the recaptured escapees were turned over to the Gestapo and murdered. When I started writing the book, I assumed the gunmen would all turn out to be die-hard Nazis, fanatical in their beliefs. This, apparently, wasn’t the case. For certain, many were true believers who expressed pride in what they had done—a good number of them, however, were typical policemen who had seen their departments absorbed by the Gestapo and were subsequently ordered to commit murder. The men were told that if they did not follow through, harm would befall themselves and their families.

“I did this for personal reasons,” one killer told British investigators, “for the sake of my little daughter, the only member of my family still left to me from this tragic war.”

I’ve never accepted the defense of “I was just following orders”—but, as I worked on the book, I found myself wondering what I’d do under such circumstances. Obviously, I like to think I’d refuse any part in such a heinous scheme as described in Human Game. This, however, leads to another question: Would I have been willing to put my wife and son at risk?

It’s a tough one to answer.

Many of the gunmen, once captured, expressed remorse for their actions and claimed they only did it to protect their families. Again, this is no excuse for what they did. For every trigger pulled, there were families in numerous countries who lost fathers, sons, brothers, and husbands. But I hope it prompts those who read Human Game to ask themselves that uncomfortable question: “What would I have done?”

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Hope and Nerves: ‘Human Game’ publication date fast approaching

In books, publishing, Writing on August 16, 2012 at 9:24 am

There’s about six weeks to go before Human Game is thrust upon the reading public—whether said public takes notice is now the issue at hand. My publicist at Penguin has started pitching long-lead publications (primarily magazines), hoping to score hits in issues that come out near the time of the book’s October 2 release. Wired Magazine, which is doing an escaped-theme issue in October, has already confirmed they’ll include a write-up on the book. I’m hoping other publications take the bait. Near the time of the book’s release, newspapers will be pitched. Scoring book reviews in papers like the New York Times and Los Angeles Times is no easy task. To date, the San Francisco Chronicle is the largest publication to feature a review of one of my books. Fortunately, it was a positive piece!

This, to me, is one of the real nail-biting phases of the publication process. You can spend three years researching and writing a book, anguishing over every sentence—but that effort doesn’t guarantee you an audience. It’s been seven years since the publication of my first book. With subsequent books, I always wondered, “Will this be the one?” With Human Game, however, I’ve taken a more grounded approach. I’m incredibly proud of the book; I think it’s an important book—but I’m not approaching the publication date with overblown hopes that it will suddenly takeoff and score massive sales. I learned with my last work, which my publisher at the time said was going to be huge, that fostering such hope can bring you crashing painfully down to earth. That’s not to say one shouldn’t dream of success; it’s just important to hold firm to a healthy dose of realism.

I walked into a Barnes and Noble in the Bay Area last week and took a look at the “New Releases” table(s). It’s almost overwhelming when one considers how many new books are released on a weekly basis. Then, of course, there are e-books and the countless self-published works one can find on Amazon these days. The market is utterly swamped. It makes you wonder how any book can rise above the din and distinguish itself in the crowd.

As Human Game’s publication date draws ever closer, I do find myself falling off the wagon and surrendering to an old addiction: Sales Rank Checking. This is a syndrome defined by the chronic checking of one’s sales rank on Amazon. At the time of this writing, Human Game is hovering around the 300,000 mark. The highest I’ve ever had a book reach is 1,000. The Amazon sales rank is an albatross around many an author’s neck, for it’s the one real indication we have—albeit, a vague one—of how a book is doing. While maintaining realistic hopes about the book’s success, I’d love it if it cracked Amazon’s top 100.

I can only wait and see what happens. In the meantime, here’s the jacket copy to Human Game.

In March and April of 1944, Gestapo gunmen killed fifty POWs—a brutal act in defiance of international law and the Geneva Convention.

This is the true story of the men who hunted them down.

The mass breakout of seventy-six Allied airmen from the infamous Stalag Luft III became one of the greatest tales of World War II, immortalized in the film “The Great Escape.” But where Hollywood’s depiction fades to black, another incredible story begins . . .

Not long after the escape, fifty of the recaptured airmen were taken to desolate killing fields throughout Germany and shot on the direct orders of Hitler. When the nature of these killings came to light, Churchill’s government swore to pursue justice at any cost. A revolving team of military police, led by squadron leader Francis P. McKenna, was dispatched to Germany seventeen months after the killings to pick up a trail long gone cold.

Amid the chaos of postwar Germany, divided between American, British, French, and Russian occupiers, McKenna and his men brought twenty-one Gestapo killers to justice in a hunt that spanned three years and took them into the darkest realms of Nazi fanaticism.

In Human Game, Simon Read tells this harrowing story as never before. Beginning inside Stalag Luft III and the Nazi High Command, through the grueling three-year manhunt, and into the final close of the case more than two decades later, Read delivers a clear-eyed and meticulously researched account of this often-overlooked saga of hard-won justice.

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‘Human Game’ proofs have arrived!

In Uncategorized on August 7, 2012 at 9:00 am

The uncorrected galleys of Human Game: The True Story of the ‘Great Escape’ Murders and the Hunt for the Gestapo Gunmen have finally arrived! They look fantastic. Penguin’s publicity department has already started sending them out to long-lead publications. Wired Magazine is doing an escape-themed issue in October and has voiced interest in including the book, so fingers crossed it pans out!

Hopefully, we’ll score more publicity hits as we close in on the October 2 publication date . . .

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Writing again

In publishing, Writing on July 11, 2012 at 9:31 am

As I stated in my previous post, I’ve started work on my next book project. It’s a non-fiction story set in rural England, 1945. Part mystery, part history, and part thriller, it may also have elements of a ghost story—although I’m not entirely sure about that just yet. The book is going to be something of a mish-mash. The trick, of course, is not to make it read like one.

A good amount of the research has been done. The source material for the story in question is stored at the British National Archives. Seeing as a trip to the UK won’t be possible until Christmas—when I head over there for two weeks to visit family—I ordered a bulk of documents about two months ago. They arrived on my doorstep a couple of weeks ago. I’m currently working my way through them, trying to put them in some chronological order.

As a rule, I prefer using primary—as opposed to secondary—sources. For this project, however, I’ll be relying heavily on some previously published material, including the memoirs of one of the story participants. Memoirs are a great resource for an author, as they’re the next best thing to actually being able to sit down and interview the person in question. In this case, the person died many years ago. Fortunately, said individual was a great writer and left two volumes of excellent autobiography.

Although I still have a bit of research left to do, I’ve started the writing. With past projects, I’d set a daily quota for myself—usually between 500 and 1,000 words. I’m taking a different approach with this book and have adopted a hit-and-run approach. I don’t force myself to write something every day. I simply put something down on paper when it comes to me. If a sentence—or fragment—hits me, I write it down. If something doesn’t come to me for several days, I stay clear of the keyboard. It’s a nice change of pace and a refreshing way to work. I don’t feel the overwhelming desire to produce.

How long I stick with this method remains to be seen. The contract for the book is still being ironed out, and I’m not yet sure of the deadline. Once an actual end-date is decided upon, I may have to put myself on a more regimented schedule.

I doubt I’ll be discussing the writing process too much on this blog. Generally, I don’t like revealing a lot about a work in progress out of fear I’ll jinx something or throw my momentum off track. Once I’m done with a book, I’m more than happy to discuss how it was put together.

In other news, Penguin emailed me the typeset pages for Human Game! They look great. My editor wants me to go through them and get any final corrections back to her by Monday. That doesn’t leave a lot of time! This will be, I believe, the fifth time I’ve read the manuscript. I think I know the whole thing word-for-word.

Well, I guess I better get reading. Until next time . . .

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First impressions: My opening paragraphs . . .

In Writing on April 2, 2012 at 8:41 am

It’s always fun, when in a bookstore, to pick up a random book and read the opening paragraph. Over the years, this exercise has resulted in the purchase of books I might have otherwise missed or ignored. I discovered Fred Vargas’s The Chalk-Circle Man this way, which soon led me to her other wonderful books. As a teen, the opening lines of Raymond Chandler’s The Long Goodbye hooked me instantly. I’ve been a fan of Philip Marlowe’s adventures ever since.

It goes without saying that a great opening sets the tone of a book. Ian Fleming and John Steinbeck are responsible for my two favorite opening paragraphs. Fleming’s introduction to Casino Royale, the first James Bond novel, is brilliant for its sense of atmosphere:

The scent and smoke and sweat of a casino are nauseating at three in the morning. Then the soul-erosion produced by high gambling–a compost of greed and fear and nervous tension–becomes unbearable and the senses awake and revolt from it.

The opening to Steinbeck’s Cannery Row is wonderful for its vivid evocation of setting:

Cannery Row in Monterey in California is a poem, a stink, a grating noise, a quality of light, a tone, a habit, a nostalgia, a dream. Cannery Row is the gathered and scattered, tin and iron and rust and splintered wood, chipped pavement and weedy lots and junk heaps, sardine canneries of corrugated iron, honky tonks, restaurants and whore houses, and little crowded groceries, and laboratories and flophouses. Its inhabitants are, as the man once said, ‘whores, pimps, gamblers and sons of bitches,’ by which he meant Everybody. Had the man looked through another peephole he might have said, ‘Saints and angels and martyrs and holy men,’ and he would have meant the same thing.

While I’m certainly not attempting to compare myself with the likes of Fleming and Steinbeck (!), I thought I’d share the opening paragraphs to my previous books. I hope you enjoy . . .

On the House (Berkley, October 2005):

This story is true. Names have not been changed to protect the innocent, for nearly all the participants were perpetrators of nefarious schemes and bodily harm. They were low-rent thugs and booze-addled crooks surprisingly incompetent in their criminal undertakings. This is not a tale of smooth operators in silk suits. It is, instead, a story of bungling ineptitude, of a crime so convoluted, authorities were “admittedly skeptical” of its veracity when it first came to light. Once the facts were established, Bronx District Attorney Samuel J. Foley declared the scheme to be “the most grotesque chain of events in New York criminal history.”

In the Dark (Berkley, November 2006); Published in the UK as The Blackout Murders (JR Books, March 2008):

A dark, cramped space of stagnant air, the bomb shelter’s interior smelled of cold mortar and stale sweat. A stone seat ran the length of one inner wall, while, on the floor, an electric lantern cast a pallid circle of light across the morbid discovery made earlier that morning. The brick-built shelter was one of several on Montague Place, Marylebone—near Regent’s Park in Central London—and one of countless similar structures that lined the streets of the capital. It was just shy of nine o’clock, and a harsh winter’s sun backlit the city’s shattered skyline. Daybreak came hard to London, a metropolis whose landscape had been forever altered by incendiary and high-explosive—but the air-raid sirens had remained silent the night before.

War of Words (Union Square Press, May 2009):

A profession not without risk, the job of newspaper editor attracted men of stern stuff in the testosterone-rich days of old San Francisco. Nearly fatal beatings and bloodletting by pistol and bowie knife were regularly occurring phenomena outside (and sometimes inside) the sanctity of the newsroom. Gunpowder and steel proved highly effective in expressing one’s displeasure with an article–more so than a letter to the editor. An angry reader gunned down a reporter in the autumn of 1852 outside Sacramento after the scribe penned an editorial criticizing the governor. One editor got the picture and posted the following notice on his office door: “Subscriptions received from 9 to 4; challenges from 11 to 12 only.”

Dark City (Ian Allan, London, October 2010):

Christmas shoppers crowded narrow Birchin Lane in the early afternoon hours of Friday, 8 November 1944, their collars turned up against the heavy fog that hung over the city. They paid scant attention to the Vauxhall that turned into the street shortly after two-thirty and came to a stop outside Frank Wordley’s jewelry store at number 23. Three young men, one of them carrying an axe, clambered out of the vehicle and approached the store’s front window.

The Killing Skies (Spellmount/The History Press, London, March 2006):

Memories still lingered. A generation of British men wiped out in the mud-swamped, rat-infested trenches of the Western Front. A war not yet far removed by the passing of time. Now, on a Sunday, a mere two decades after the Great War’s guns fell silent, the BBC carried the subdued tones of Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, broadcasting from the Cabinet Room at 10 Downing Street . . . At 11 a.m. on 3 September 1939, as barrage balloons ascended above London, Big Ben tolled the hour of war.

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Win a copy of “War of Words” . . .

In books on January 13, 2012 at 10:22 am

There’s a giveaway going on at Goodreads.com, where five lucky folks can win a copy of my book WAR OF WORDS. Here’s the link to the contest . . . Who wouldn’t want a free book!

What’s the book about, you ask?

When the news business was literally a matter of life and death. A real-life Barbary Coast, WAR OF WORDS details the bloody birth of the San Francisco Chronicle, when verbal blows traded between two of the town’s most powerful men escalated into violence on the streets of 1880s San Francisco. Gun-toting newspaper publisher Charles de Young won circulation wars by spilling ink that destroyed political candidates he didn’t like and Isaac Kalloch, a hellfire preacher whose lust for the ladies equaled his craving to be mayor, was an obvious target. First angry words flew, then bullets, when de Young ambushed Kalloch and shot him. Miraculously, Kalloch survived and won the election, only to see his son enact revenge on his behalf five months later by walking into the newsroom and fatally shooting de Young. The trial lasted 28 days, featured over 200 witnesses and made headlines coast to coast. The verdict? Not guilty, by reason of “justifiable homicide This sensational tale of sex, murder, and muckraking enthralled San Franciscans and is sure to captivate modern readers as well.

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What happens after “The Great Escape” . . .

In author, manuscript, publishing, writers, Writing on January 12, 2012 at 1:49 pm

As I try to get back into the swing of blogging (and maintain the necessary discipline), I’ll also be experimenting with various designs—so please forgive me if I keep changing the appearance of the blog. I’m pretty happy with the current design, but we’ll see how long that lasts.

The past year has been spent working on the manuscript to my upcoming book, HUMAN GAME. If you’re a fan of the movie THE GREAT ESCAPE, you know how the film ends. For those of you not familiar with this Steve McQueen classic, here’s a brief synopsis: In Stalag Luft III, a prison camp for Allied airmen deep in the heart of Germany, a group of inmates decide to orchestrate the breakout of 250 prisoners. Each escapee is equipped with fake travel documents, German money, rations, identity cards, civilian clothing, compasses, etc.

The men built three tunnels, codenamed “Tom,” “Dick,” and “Harry.” To avoid the camp’s underground microphones, vertical shafts to each tunnel were dug 30 feet down before horizontal digging commenced. Construction of the tunnels continued around the clock and required the requisitioning of nearly 1,219 knifes, 582 forks, 408 spoons, 246 water cans, 1,699 blankets, 192 bed covers, 161 pillow cases, 1,212 pillows, 655 straw mattresses, thirty-four chairs, the frames of 90 bunk beds, 3,424 towels, ten single tables, fifty-two twenty-man tables, more than 1,200 bed bolsters, nearly 1,400 beaded battens, seventy-six benches, 1,000 feet of electrical wiring and 600 feet of rope. Four thousand bed boards were used to shore-up the tunnels. Lights wired into the camp’s electrical supply provided illumination underground; air pumps made of discarded kitbags, empty powdered-milk tins, wood-framing, wire mesh and tar paper supplied fresh air to those doing the digging.

Let’s jump ahead in our narrative a bit . . . The escape took place on the night of March 24/25, 1944. In the event, only seventy-six airmen got away before a guard discovered the exit to Harry—the tunnel ultimately used in the escape. Three of those seventy-six made it safely back to England; the others were recaptured. Fifty were handed over the Gestapo, taken to desolate killing fields throughout Germany, and gunned down.

The movie ends with the execution of the fifty. HUMAN GAME picks up immediately thereafter and details the Royal Air Force’s hunt for the Gestapo gunmen. It took three years of researching and writing to complete, and is based primarily on the official records kept by the RAF’s Special Investigating Branch, which handled the investigation. The Caliber imprint of Penguin will release the book in October. I’ll post more details as they become available.

In the meantime, here’s a trailer to THE GREAT ESCAPE—one of the greatest movies of all time!

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