This is a column published in the Putnam Herald on Wednesday, June 5th.

Some years ago, I spent a summer vacation in Northern France. We stayed in a small hotel on the coast and I clearly remember walking along a wide, buff-colored beach in the early morning sun. It was warm, the sky was blue, the ocean calm and the sand was almost deserted apart from a few families scattered here and there below the low bluffs, above which seagulls lazily circled. It was an idyllic scene but, seventy-five years ago tomorrow it would have looked very different.

At that time Germany was in control of most of Europe. The bluffs above the beach were festooned with barbed wire, protecting big gun emplacements and numerous machine-gun nests, while at the tideline steel, concrete and mined wooden obstacles stood waiting for any unwary craft that came near them.

The craft did come, many hundreds of them, each carrying dozens of young Americans. These were soldiers of the 29^th Infantry Division and that morning they landed on the beach that, by the end of the day, would have earned the name “Bloody Omaha”.

This was D Day, June 6, 1944 and the Allied invasion of Europe was on. The landings had started in the dark hours just after midnight when around 15,500 men of the US 82^nd and 101^st Airborne Divisions dropped from the skies into the darkness of the Normandy countryside.

These paratroops, along with their British comrades, spread chaos among the German units along the coast, helping to prepare for the 156,000 allied soldiers who poured ashore from the numerous ships and landing craft.

In some places these seaborne warriors found little resistance, some of the Canadian troops were already pushing inland within an hour of the landings, but the 34,250 men who stormed on to Omaha beach the situation was different. Here, only two tanks made it ashore and the artillery, mortar and machine-gun fire from the well-prepared enemy positions was devastating.

Around four and a half thousand of the invaders became casualties that day with almost half of them falling on Omaha beach. Among those who made the ultimate sacrifice were several from West Virginia and the initial casualty list of those killed in action bore thirty-eight names from all over the state, although there were hundreds of other Mountaineers who were there of course.

One of the first to land was Sergeant Clifford Carwood Lipton, a native of Huntington. He served as jumpmaster on a C47 and parachuted into the swampy fields of Normandy with the rest of Easy Company of the 506^th Parachute Infantry Regiment, the unit made famous by the HBO series “Band of Brothers.’

Lipton landed in darkness away from his drop zone but soon made contact with other members of his unit. He was in action all through the long day that ensued and, as nightfall came he’d earned a purple heart after being wounded by shrapnel and a bronze star for his actions in silencing an enemy artillery battery at Brecourt Manor. He fought on throughout the rest of the war, earning two more purple hearts and a second bronze star as well as a battlefield commission. He finished the war as a First Lieutenant and passed away in 2001.

Lipton wasn’t the only West Virginian jumping into the unknown that night. Harrison Summers of Rivesville in Marion County was with the 502^nd Regiment of the 101^st Airborne and his unit swiftly seized their objective. Summers was then tasked with capturing a group of buildings. These proved to be a German barracks and with just two companions Summers attacked them. Five hours later he’d captured them, killed 31 of the enemy and sent many more running for their lives. He was recommended for the Congressional Medal of Honor at the time and again after his death in 1983 but received the Distinguished Service Cross instead. He too finished the war as a First Lieutenant and spent the rest of his life working in West Virginia’s coal mines.

As dawn broke and Lipton and Summers were fighting near the Normandy town of Carentan, Pierre Gunnoe from Boone County was with his unit, the 5^th Ranger Battalion, in a landing craft approaching the Dog Green sector of Omaha Beach. This was the most heavily defended sector of the whole invasion coast and the unit started to take casualties before they came ashore at around 6:30. The survivors reached the beach and stormed a pillbox to open the way for the waves of men behind them. Gunnoe was lucky, he received a minor flesh wound but the rest of his unit suffered more than 75% casualties. Gunnoe was to be wounded another 4 times and passed away in 2000.

These were just three of the West Virginians who took part in the invasion seventy-five years ago, there were many others from the Mountain State who played their part too. George Wehrle, for instance, was a seaman aboard the heavy cruiser USS Tuscaloosa. He didn’t land in France that day but he left a diary detailing the aerial assault and how his ship moved in toward the shore to provide supporting fire for the ground troops despite being targeted by enemy shore batteries.

Vincent Di Bacco from Tucker County wasn’t in the first waves of the assault, he was a medic who landed on Omaha Beach with an engineering battalion around 10:00 a.m. He later described the scene that met his eyes as “something from hell.” The assault troops were pinned down all along the shore line, the mortar and machine gun fire was incessant and there were so many wounded he worked non-stop until well into the night. Di Bacco was lucky, he survived the war, as did his two brothers, who also served.

Hundreds of West Virginian natives were there seventy-five years ago. Unfortunately most of them have gone to a better place now but their deeds will be remembered tomorrow. President Trump will be taking part in the commemorative services as will members of the Royal Family and representatives of the governments of many of the countries whose men and women played a part in freeing the world from tyranny. Once again the boats will come ashore and the planes will roar overhead, one of them carrying at least two men in their nineties who will be making tandem jumps with the British parachute display team and who last parachuted into Normandy in 1944. 

Many years have passed and the world is a different place, but it’s different because of what these men did and so it’s only right that we should remember them on this anniversary of their sacrifice. Remember them and those who continue to serve to ensure we keep our hard won freedom.

My column

As you can see, I’ve rather neglected this blog over the past few months. The problem is I don’t seem to have time, I’m always writing a novel or sometimes two and my weekly column in the Putnam Herald newspaper takes time to research and write so there just doesn’t seem to be enough hours in the day.

It’s the newspaper column that has prompted this post. I receive frequent emails from readers and twice lately people have asked if I could put my articles on a blog so they could let friends and relatives who don’t get the Herald read them.

I’m always happy to give readers what they want if I can and so here is the first of these articles. My editor used the headline, First Three Soldiers Killed in American Revolution. I simply called it April Morning.

This week marks the 244^th anniversary of the deaths of Thomas Smith, Patrick Gray, and James Hall. These men were not rich and they were not famous. Almost certainly they were not well educated, they did nothing outstanding and the only reason that history remembers their names is because they died.

They probably came from the county of Lancashire, in north-west England, and met their ends on a bridge more than three thousand miles from their homes.

So, who were these men and why did they die? They were soldiers, red-coated privates in the light company of the British 4^th, King’s Own, Regiment of Foot. The year was 1775 and their regiment, along with three thousand other soldiers, was stationed in the port of Boston.

They were not welcome guests. The Province of Massachusetts Bay, as it was then known, was considered to be in a state of rebellion and tensions were running high between the army and the citizens.

Things came to a head when, on April 14, Thomas Gage, the royal governor, received orders from the parliament in London to disarm the people, to seize all military stores and to imprison the patriot leaders.

He was told that Massachusetts was sending messages to other colonies asking for support and so he decided to act swiftly. Orders were drawn up for an expedition to capture military equipment that was said to be hidden in the town of Concord. Lt. Colonel Francis Smith was to command and he ordered the grenadier and light infantry companies from 11 regiments to be mustered on Boston Common late in the evening of April 18^th.  Privates Smith, Gray and Hall were among those who were awakened and who marched across the Common to the water’s edge where the Royal Navy’s boats were to ferry them across to Cambridge.

The expedition was badly organized. Our three soldiers found there were not enough boats, they had to wait and when they finally boarded one it was so crowded they could not sit down. On top of that, when they reached the opposite shore they were off-loaded into waist-deep cold water at midnight.

That wasn’t the end of the problems. It took two hours to unload the expedition’s equipment and it was well after two a.m. before they began marching in wet boots toward Lexington where, because of the delays, the alarm had already been raised..

They reached the town at about five o’clock in the morning and our three soldiers’ company was there on the green when someone fired a shot, the British redcoats lost control, returned fire and several of the Lexington militia were killed.

Order was restored and, instead of following the wisest course and returning to Boston, Colonel Smith ordered his column on to Concord.

 By now the countryside was thoroughly alerted. Local militia had gathered in the town and their numbers were continually increasing as companies from more distant places joined them. Despite the skirmish at Lexington they didn’t seek to engage the redcoats but were ordered to hold their fire and they withdrew to a hill top north of the town to watch what was happening.

Smith now ordered part of his force to search Concord while dispatching several companies of light infantry to look for military stores on a farm to the north. This latter column had to cross the Concord River via what was called the “North Bridge”. It was here that the militia force, gathered on the hill, could overlook the crossing and so it was decided to leave three companies to guard the bridge in case they decided to threaten it. One of these was the light company of the 4^th Foot and among them were the three men from Lancashire.

The British troops in the town found some gun carriages and other stores that they were ordered to burn. Smoke rose from among the houses and the militia on the hill thought the redcoats were burning their homes. They began to move down the slope toward the bridge.

Seeing this, the British office in command of the three light companies guarding the crossing ordered his men to form a narrow column and withdraw across the bridge to the town side. The light company of the 4^th was in the front of this formation as the militia continued to advance until the two sides were only about fifty yards apart, with the bridge between them.

By now the British troops were exhausted, they’d not slept all night, they’d been wet through, had marched twenty miles carrying heavy equipment and were now facing around five times their number of heavily armed militia. Whether by accident or intent one of them, a man from the 43^rd regiment, fired a shot and immediately two more followed suit. Thinking the order to fire had been given, those at the head of the British column fired a volley and two of the militia were killed.

That was the moment when the famous “the shot heard around the world” was fired. The militia returned fire and Thomas Smith, Patrick Gray, and James Hall fell dead on the bridge.

The British were to suffer a further 297 casualties that day and many thousands more over the next eight years before the Revolutionary War ended but these three are remembered because they were the first British soldiers to die. One of them now lies beneath a monument in the centre of Concord, while the other two are together in a well-maintained grave beneath a tree on the west side of the North Bridge, casualties of the first small step that eventually founded this nation.

Free Book

Merry Christmas and a very happy new year to you all.

To celebrate the Festive Season I have two gifts for you. The first is my novel WEOLEY is free on kindle until December 30th. you can get it here:

https://www.amazon.com/Weoley-Derek-Coleman-ebook/dp/B00HJIICFQ/ref=sr_1_15?ie=UTF8&qid=1514292052&sr=8-15&keywords=derek+coleman

I hope you enjoy it. Please leave a review.

The second gift is a festive historical short story. It's called Christmas in the colonies, enjoy:

Martin Baum was hungry, lost and far from home, very far from home. When he first took up a musket to serve his Prince he had little thought within weeks he would be transported half a world away. Now he was in a country whose language he did not speak, fighting a war he did not understand against a rag-tag army who didn’t seem to know when they were beaten.

Martin had been hungry more or less permanently since deciding the army was preferable to the never-ending labor of the farm but these last few days were particularly bad. The British sent them from the great port of New York into the New Jersey countryside to wait out the winter but supplies were intermittent and those that were sent to them were subject to attack by the American rebels.

That was why Martin was lost. He’d wandered away from the camp at Trenton because these American woods reminded him of those he’d grown up in back in Hesse. He’d always been able to find something to eat when he was there and hoped he could do the same here. He was usually pretty sure where he was in the forest but here he had managed to get turned around whilst following the tracks of a deer and now it was getting dark and he was lost. He was sure the deer he’d been tracking was ahead of him but he was by no means as certain where Trenton and his comrades were.

He had little fear of the enemy finding him. The last time he’d seen them they were a sick, beaten rabble who they’d chased across the Delaware River to die in the deep snows of Pennsylvania. The idea they might come back into New Jersey was ludicrous. He was afraid of the weather though; the north wind was blowing strongly and was bringing further flurries of snow to add to the accumulation already underfoot. He had his greatcoat but Martin knew he could not spend the night out here in the forest without freezing to death.

He stopped and slowly turned in a circle. He was sure the heavy grey sky was lighter towards his right, which meant he was probably facing south. If that was so then Trenton was somewhere behind his left shoulder and the Delaware should be close in front of him. What should he do? He was sure the deer was near by and the boys in his company had been living on hard tack and rancid salt beef for a week now. Could he risk going on a little further?

The decision was taken from him. Just ahead the trees opened out into a little clearing and out of the corner of his eye he saw a heavily laden bush suddenly shed a blizzard of snow as the deer brushed past it and stepped daintily out into the open. The animal was nervous. Head up, nostrils flared and ears alert, its muscles were bunched ready to flee at the least sound. That sound was the clicking of the flintlock on Martin’s musket. The deer leapt but Martin was brought up to hunt and the animal was dead before its feet hit the ground again.

Martin ran forward as fast as the calf deep snow would let him. He was grinning with excitement and anticipation. Venison stew was just the thing to warm a lonely sentry on a cold Christmas Eve. He propped his musket against a tree and then dropped to his knees beside the steaming carcass as he took out his bayonet ready to clean the kill.

It was a messy job but he’d done it hundreds of times before and made short work of it now. He was on one knee rubbing the bayonet clean with handfuls of snow when the twig cracked behind him. His reaction was instinctive. He made a diving roll over the butchered deer, grabbed his musket and finished on one knee in the snow facing the direction from which the sound had come.

Luckily the twig had snapped before the enemy was able to see the clearing. Now he stood at it’s opposite edge, a tall, gaunt young man, his lank hair whipping in the wind, his clothes worn and ragged, his boots cracked and tied round with cloth and the Pennsylvania rifle at his shoulder gleaming, well cared for and pointed straight at Martin’s head.

For nearly half a minute neither of them moved. The Hessian knelt in the snow, the dead deer in front of him and his musket pointed at the tall, ragged American. Martin knew how lethal these rebels could be with their long rifles and he also knew how defenseless he was because he’d stupidly not reloaded his musket after killing the deer. Fear made his stomach churn and his throat feel dry.

For his part the rebel held his rifle pointed unerringly at the German’s head. This one looked young, little more than a boy, he thought. He was too young to die but he wasn’t the first of these blue clad invaders the American had seen over the sights of his rifle and the others were all dead. Somehow though this one seemed different though. He was obviously a good hunter who appeared to know how to live in the woods and what was more he was pointing a musket unflinchingly back at him. The deer distracted the American too. It lay in front of the Hessian and the gnawing pangs of hunger kept reminding the rebel of his own need, making his eyes flick from the enemy to the meat and back again.

It was Martin who broke the impasse. He knew he could not hurt the American so he would have to use his wits to save himself. He’d seen the enemy soldier’s eyes flicking to the deer and noticed the way the tip of his tongue came out to moisten his lips as if he could already taste the meat. He guessed the rebel was starving and that gave Martin an idea.

Swallowing his fear, he forced himself to smile and slowly raised the muzzle of his musket until it pointed at the sky. Turning it sideways he showed the rebel he was lowering the lock to make it safe, then, keeping his hands in sight, he stood up and propped the weapon against the tree again.

The American tensed when Martin began to move but he didn’t fire. Instead he watched in wary puzzlement as the Hessian put his weapon aside and stood smiling at him. Martin was grinning but inside he quaked with fear. Now he was helpless. The rebel could shoot him, take the deer and be off but he had no other choice except to hope the man would go along with this idea. Silently he pointed at the carcass then in turn he pointed at the American, at himself and finally he made a chopping gesture over the deer.

What was the German doing? The American was puzzled. The enemy had deliberately disarmed himself and was now making signs, what for? What did he want? He was offering to share the deer. The rebel grinned, the thought that he could squeeze the trigger and take the whole animal had already occurred to him but he admired the enemy’s courage. He grinned, raised the muzzle of his own weapon and nodded.

The sweat was icy on Martin’s brow but he felt a surge of relief at the American’s nod. He nodded back and reached for the bayonet still lying half buried in the snow where he’d dropped it.

‘Wait!’

Martin didn’t understand the word but he froze and raised his eyes to the rebel. The tall American reached for his belt and pulled a long-handled tomahawk from it. Carefully he tossed the weapon so it landed flat in the snow beside the deer.

‘Use that,’ he said, ‘It’s better for getting through the bones.’ Again Martin didn’t understand the words but he recognized the tomahawk and, after testing the edge with his thumb, he nodded. Raising it high he brought it down onto the carcass.

In a few minutes it was done. The sweat was running from Martin’s brow and he felt warm now as he looked up to see the American leaning on his rifle watching him. Slowly he stood up, gripped the leg of one half of the deer and hefted it onto his shoulder. Retrieving his musket with his other hand he looked into the rebel’s eyes. Neither of them spoke for a moment then Martin glanced down at the other half of the deer in the snow before raising his eyes again and saying,

‘Ist das alles in ordnung mit dir?’ The American shrugged, he’d got a notion it was a question but he didn’t understand it.

‘That’s fine,’ he replied. ‘You get the hell out of here now.’

Martin glanced round at the deepening shadows. Darkness was coming fast, he’d got turned around and now he had no idea where his camp was.

‘Trenton?’ he said hopefully. The accent was harsh but the American recognized the word. He pointed to a barely discernible game trail that disappeared behind his left shoulder.

‘Trenton’ he repeated. Martin nodded and, hefting his half of the deer, trudged off without a backward glance. As soon as he was out of sight a second rebel stepped from the bushes to one side of the clearing.

‘Why’d you let him go?’ he asked. ‘That musket wasn’t loaded.’

‘I know but it was his deer,’ the first American shrugged. ‘Besides, it’s Christmas.’

The German’s ate well that night. During Martin’s absence, a supply train came in. There was fresh beef, fresh bread, cake, beer and wine to go with the venison stew. They went to bed replete and happy.

The American’s weren’t so lucky. They stayed out in the snow on the north side of the river. The night was freezing and it snowed again but the day dawned cold and clear. With the coming of the light the rag-tag army George Washington had smuggled across the Delaware in the darkness erupted from the trees, their bayonets gleaming red with the rising sun as they charged into Trenton to wish Martin Baum and his sleeping comrades a Merry Christmas.

New book

Who said I can’t meet my deadlines?

“MISSING”, the 6^th in the Dean and Steph detective series is now available on Amazon. As usual the pair find themselves facing foes dedicated to wrongdoing. This time there’s a difference though, they’re in Britain and they have to free a computer scientist before the terrorists can sell him to the highest bidder.

MISSING

  

ONE

Peter Houseman is what we Americans would call a towhead back home. His hair’s platinum blond and his eyes are blue. He’s six feet tall, slim and athletic. He plays amateur soccer, looks younger than his twenty-nine years and the fact he has a doctorate in computer science doesn’t show. He’s also single, has a grin that makes women swoon and is the big brother of Nicky Houseman, who is going to marry my cousin, Alex Mitchell, in a few days.

Alex is an international journalist and I’m Dean Witton. Together with my wife, Steph, I own Teay’s Valley Investigations, a private investigation company with two offices in West Virginia and a third in Ohio. The business always keeps us busy and it’s not often we get a chance to take a vacation, but we’re not in the States now. Nicky is British, and she and Alex are due to be married in a nine-hundred-year-old church in West London this coming Saturday.

Alex and I were sitting in the bar of The Albion, an old world English pub, waiting for Peter, who was late. When it comes to weddings British traditions are similar to ours, brides have bachelorette parties, which for some strange reason they call “hen do’s”, and bridegrooms have bachelor parties, dubbed “stag nights”. Nicky was having her bachelorette party at Smiffy’s, her mother’s restaurant and Steph was with her, together with about twenty of her female friends.

I guess you could say Alex and I, together with Peter, were his bachelor party. It wasn’t because Alex doesn’t have friends, it was the fact he was four thousand miles away from most of them. Although some were coming to the wedding, which was still nearly a week away, they hadn’t made it in yet. We would have dinner and perhaps a drink or several with the ones who did get here before the big day, but tonight’s outing was for Peter and me to get to know each other and, more importantly, to get us out of the way while the girls were partying. I’d seen Peter for a minute or two when we first arrived but I was going to be best man and, since their father passed away a few years earlier, he was going to be giving the bride away. We needed to get together to co-ordinate our speeches and decide how much we were going to say to embarrass the happy couple.

According to Alex, Peter is a nice guy when you get to know him but it looked as though I was going to have to take his word for it because Nicky’s brother was now over an hour late.

I glanced at my watch. ‘Are you sure he knows he’s supposed to come to this pub?’ I asked.

‘I know he does. He’s been here before,’ Alex replied. ‘This is where Nicky first introduced me to him. He likes it here. Liz, the barmaid, has a thing for him.’

‘Maybe he’s trying to avoid Liz the barmaid,’ I said with a shrug.

Alex took out his cell phone. ‘No,’ he replied, ‘they flirt. Liz flirts with all the guys. She knows Peter isn’t after her, she’s even flirted with me, and she helped me out when I was on the run over here in the summer.’ He touched the screen. ‘What I don’t understand is why he hasn’t phoned or sent a text. It’s not like him. I spoke to him yesterday and he said he was looking forward to getting to know you and Steph and being away from work for a few days.’

‘What’s he do?’ I asked.

Alex shrugged. ‘I’m not really sure. From what Nicky says he has something to do with the computer parts of airplane auto pilot systems.’

‘So, computer genius runs in the family?’ I said. Nicky also had a computer science degree and after she and Alex were married she was coming to work for our company, running our new computer forensics section.

Alex shrugged. ‘It seems so,’ he replied. ‘Peter has his doctorate in computer science and, from what his mom and sister say, he can make computers do things you wouldn’t believe. He works for Gresham Aerospace, they’re about twenty miles west of here. He lives near there but he’s supposed to be coming in to stay at his mom’s place for the rest of the week.’

‘Maybe there was a problem at the factory,’ I suggested. ‘Perhaps he couldn’t get away.’

‘It’s not really a factory. Nicky told me it’s a big old country house and they’ve converted part of it into computer labs. She says they don’t make anything physical there; in fact, they don’t do anything except design the software. I can’t think what could go wrong with that apart from a server crash, but even if there was a problem I’d have still expected him to ring.’

At that moment the barmaid came to where we were sitting on a couple of tall bar stools. ‘I thought you said my boyfriend was coming in tonight?’ she said.

‘I guess he stood us both up,’ Alex apologized.

‘Story of my life,’ she replied with a mournful sigh but then she brightened up. ‘Still, while he ain’t here you and me can get cozy, can’t we?’

‘Sorry, Liz, I’m getting married on Saturday so I have to behave myself,’ Alex replied.

She turned her attention to me. She was somewhere around her mid-thirties, her hair was an unnatural shade of auburn and her makeup was heavy, especially around the eyes. She was not the type I’d have gone for even before Steph, but she was pretty enough, and as she leaned closer I got a hint of some subtle, pleasant smelling perfume.

‘How about your friend?’ she said, staring deep into my eyes. ‘I bet he’s not getting married on Saturday.’

I lifted my left hand from the table and waggled the third finger in reply. My wedding band caught the light.

Liz sighed again. ‘You Yanks are no fun.’

‘Sorry Liz,’ I said, ‘if I’d known you were available I swear I’d have waited for you.’

‘Yeah, right,’ she replied, her voice full of disdain. ‘I’ve heard it all before. Are you pair going to have another drink or do I have to come around there and throw you out for taking up space?’

‘We’ll have another drink,’ Alex laughed. ‘And since it looks like Peter’s a no-show, we’ll go ahead and order food too. If he makes it later he can eat while we drink.’

The food was very good and I found I had a liking for British beer, even though we didn’t drink a lot of it. The two of us didn’t make for much of a party but we did get chance to catch up and have a few laughs. Alex was concerned about the silence from Nicky’s brother and he tried calling and then texting him again but the phone went straight to voice mail and the texts were left unanswered. After finishing the meal with a very good cognac, we agreed we were both tired and neither of us wanted any more to drink so we said goodbye to Liz and left.

We were staying in the same hotel and it was getting on for eleven o’clock when we walked back to find Steph already sitting in the lounge reading a book.

‘Hey Beautiful,’ I said, sitting beside her and leaning over to kiss her cheek. ‘I thought you’d still be out partying with the girls.’

She smiled and closed her book. I glanced at the title. It was “A Standard Guide to Forensic Pathology”. This is typical of my wife. She takes her work very seriously and never misses an opportunity to continue learning.

‘No,’ she said. ‘They said they were going on to a nightclub. I’m a country girl from West Virginia, big cities aren’t my scene and neither are night clubs. I must be getting old because I prefer coming back to spend quality time with my husband.’

‘You’re not getting old but your husband is very happy you came back,’ I said, taking her hand, raising it to my lips and kissing it.

‘So, how did you guys get on?’ Steph asked. ‘Did you have a good time?’

‘We ate dinner and had two or three drinks,’ Alex said. ‘Peter didn’t show up, so it was just the two of us. Dean isn’t the sort I usually date and he’s the kind of party-pooper who wouldn’t let me make out with the barmaid, even though she was coming on to me, so we came back here.’

‘Peter wasn’t with you?’ Steph said.

‘No. I talked to him yesterday and he said he’d definitely be at the pub tonight but he wasn’t.’

‘He wasn’t at his mom’s place either. She said he was supposed to drop his bag off there, and then go on to meet you guys. When he didn’t show, she thought maybe he was running late and had gone straight to the pub. She tried to call him but he didn’t answer.’

‘I tried to get him several times as well but I couldn’t get a reply either,’ Alex replied.

‘That’s odd.’ Steph frowned. ‘I wonder what’s happened to him?’

‘Hmm, maybe we could investigate and make this trip pay for itself. We could call it the case of the missing brother of the bride.’ I grinned.

‘Don’t joke,’ Steph said. ‘This could be serious.’

‘You, Sweetheart, have been reading too much of this stuff,’ I said, tapping the cover of her book. ‘He could have been delayed and maybe his phone has no battery left. He’ll most likely come first thing tomorrow, so there’s no use getting riled about it tonight.’

She smiled tiredly. ‘You’re probably right. I’m sure he’s fine and I’m still suffering from jet lag. I guess I’m not thinking straight.’

‘Okay, let’s go to the room. We can phone your folks to make sure our favorite little boy is behaving himself and then go to bed.’

Our favorite little boy was our son, Jake. We’d decided he was too young to fly, so Steph’s mom and dad get to spoil him for a week or two while we’re in England. We liked to talk to them at least once a day, just to say hello and to put our minds at rest he’s alright though.

‘Sounds good to me,’ she replied, stifling a yawn.

‘I guess I’m going to bed too,’ Alex said. ‘See you both for breakfast at nine tomorrow? Nicky’s coming over and she said she’ll take us sightseeing.’

‘Her friends dragged her off to the night club with them,’ Steph said. ‘I doubt whether she’ll make it out of bed for nine.’

Alex grinned. ‘She’ll make it, she said she wants to impress her new bosses so my guess is she’ll ask her mom to wake her no matter what time she gets home.’

End of this excerpt from MISSING.  Click on the links below to see the full book;

US: https://www.amazon.com/Missing-Dean-Steph-Book-6-ebook/dp/B0784VGWYP/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1512235746&sr=8-2&keywords=derek+coleman

UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Missing-Dean-Steph-Book-6-ebook/dp/B0784VGWYP/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1512235925&sr=8-2&keywords=derek+coleman

My books

In the past couple of weeks three separate people have asked me what my books are about. I don’t mind telling them, in fact I love talking about them but, just in case any of you are too shy to ask, here’s a brief synopsis of each of them:

Dean and Steph Witton, are private eyes based in the Teays Valley area of West Virginia. They seem to be my readers’ favorite characters and appear in a series of five books;

“Guilty?” begins the series. It’s the story of their first case, how they came to be together and how they nearly lost each other due to a deranged killer.

In “Beneficiary” they’re trying to protect a young girl from a clandestine organization that seeks to control America. They find themselves hunted by the law and they nearly pay with their lives before the case is closed.

“Traitor” brings the investigation closer to home as Dean’s sister’s husband, who they’d thought to be dead, suddenly reappears and brings a terrorist plot to assassinate the president to their doorstep.

A man is accused of murder in “Innocent?” and Dean and Steph are hired to prove he is guilty of more than one killing. Instead they find he’s innocent and they have to risk their lives to unmask the real killer.

“Cheating” starts as a simple divorce case. Their client asks them to prove her husband is having an affair but when she turns up dead it becomes a murder investigation that leaves a trail of bodies before they find the true killer.

Ian McCloud is the hero of both “The Lichfield Conspiracy” and “Da.” In the first of these books he is a major in the Royal Military Police and he suspects there is a plot to assassinate the President of the United States and the Prime Minister. No one except an aging civilian policeman agrees with his suspicions and he has to fight his own side’s skepticism while trying to prevent an atrocity.

In “Da” there is a serial killer on the loose. Soldiers are dying in a very brutal way and McCloud has to work fast to find the murderer before he too becomes a victim.

We meet Nicky Houseman and Alex Mitchell, a cousin of Dean and Steph, in “Hunted.” Alex sees something he shouldn’t, accidently involves Nicky, and the two of them are chased across two continents before they nearly meet their deaths at the hands of an assassin who also appears in “Beneficiary”.

“Weoley” is the story of a place. Won by the sword in a bloody battle that changed England's history, it is a place that evolves over nine hundred turbulent years. It’s a story full of heroes and villains; the good, the bad, the beautiful, the wicked and the ordinary. Peasants and their lords, nobles, commoners and kings; Theirs are stories of seduction and romance, of adultery, forgiveness and passionate love that defies understanding. Bloody battles pit brother against brother, fortunes are made, and lost, while unfaithful wives and political intrigue stir the mix, all of it set against the background of a great fortress.

“Hessians” is a Revolutionary War novel set in the winter of seventeen seventy-six. The defeated remnants of George Washington’s Continental Army are retreating into the wastes of Pennsylvania while their British and Hessian enemies take up winter quarters in New Jersey.
The Americans need time to rest and re-equip but supplies are scarce. They know there are stores hidden in New Jersey and Washington decides to send inexperienced militia to fetch them with Lieutenant James Holte’s company of veteran riflemen accompanying them.
It should be an easy task but there is a traitor in their midst and the quest for stores turns into a desperate fight for survival against the might of the Hessian army.

“Liberty” is set in Boston, in April of 1775, a time when the American colonies are on the eve of revolution. For the army the course they must take is clear, but the civilians have to choose loyalty to the king or to their country. For some the choice is easy because they are patriots who love America, but some patriots also have another love and when that one wears the red coat of the enemy the decision is harder. She cannot have both so which will she choose, America or the love of her life?

“The Prince’s Puzzle” is the tale of a Prince, far from home and leading an army in a bloody civil war. He meets a lonely lady, seeks comfort in her arms and unwisely puts his feelings for her into a series of letters. Then the unthinkable occurs. She tells him the letters have been stolen and they have to be found quickly before her husband returns and goes over to the enemy. Captain Richard Croxall is dispatched to hunt for them. He has just three days but before the time is up blood will be spilled and people will die.

“Tapestry” begins in 1937. Joanne Mason is nearly fourteen, she’s bored with school and her life in the quiet city of Lichfield. Twenty miles away Barry Sullivan is the same age but he likes learning until he has to leave it behind when tragedy strikes his family. At the same time across the Atlantic the snow is deep but Jimmy Woodall doesn’t mind. He hates the life he’s leading and at seventeen considers himself already grown up.

These are the threads of three young lives. Each has reached a place where they are ready to change and the weavers of all our fates take them, twist them together, tear them apart again and then cross and re-cross them until they have created the tapestry of their lives

Finally we have Missing. This is another Dean and Steph novel due for release in the next few weeks. In this one they are on vacation in England to attend Nicky and Alex’s wedding. Unfortunately the bride’s brother has gone missing and the trail of bodies leads them from one end of Britain to the other and then back again in an effort to rescue him from international terrorists.

All of these books can be found at:

https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&field-keywords=derek+coleman&rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Aderek+coleman or

https://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&field-keywords=Derek+coleman

Missing

Let’s face it, when it comes to writing a blog I’m not very consistent. Some people seem to be able to find something to write about every day whereas I manage a post every couple of months. It’s not that I’m being lazy. I have a house to maintain, three children to feed, clothe and transport, and a full-time day job, so my writing time is restricted. When I do get to write I need to put out a weekly article for my newspaper column and I always have a novel on the go so I’m afraid blogging comes a poor third.

It’s novels I want to talk about today. I have some good news for those of you who are kind enough to read my books.  The first draft of, “Missing”, the sixth in the Steph and Dean detective series, is done. I’ve typed the final period, read it through twice and it’s now with my proofreader who will no doubt cover it with red ink. That’s not a problem, it happens with every book I write. I shall get it back in a few days and look at the changes she suggests. Usually I accept most of those concerning spelling, grammar and the overuse of certain words but I hope I’ve managed to avoid a lot of the latter this time. I specifically looked for the redundant “that’s” and took out as many uses of “had” as I could. I’m sure she’ll find other instances though, she’ll also want to clarify certain passages and I know she’ll comment on my use of adverbs. She adheres to the Stephen King “Adverbs-are-bad” school of thought whereas I like to think they are necessary in some places.

Anyway, making the corrections usually only takes me a few days and then the manuscript will go back to be proof read again for any final changes. Once these are done I’ll read it through one last time and, as long as I’m happy with it and the cover is ready, it will go for printing. It’s a long process but I can promise you that it will be available as a paperback and an e-book well before Christmas.

So, with that done, what’s next? Well, I have several projects in the pipeline. The prologue for a follow up to my novel “Hessians” is already written, as is the first chapter of an, as yet, untitled sci-fi, time-travel novel. The second book in the “Liberty” series is already at 60,000 words and has been on the back burner for a while. I have ideas for a couple of modern-day thrillers and yet another Steph and Dean as well as a possible short story collection.

I guess I have a lot of options. My only constraint is time to do them and so I’m going to finish this and get back to one of them….but which one? Any reasonable requests will be considered.

Reviews

I’ve just held a promotion for one of my books on Amazon. 

For five days Guilty? the first book in the Dean and Steph detective series, was completely free. I promoted it daily on social media and the response was good with more than 150 copies being downloaded. This is pleasing, it introduces people to my work and hopefully some of them will like it enough to want to purchase other books in the series.

What is less pleasing though is the readers response to the last line of the ad telling them book was being given away. This was simply a plea for those who read it to go to Amazon and leave a short review. It seems people either missed that line or didn’t feel the need to do it because so far there have been no new reviews.

Reviews are important to authors. They are what attract the readers to a book. They also tell the writer what they have done right, where they’ve gone wrong and what the public think of their work. Guilty? already has six, five star, reviews on the US Amazon site and five on the UK site (why Amazon won’t show all reviews on all sites I don’t know). I’m very grateful for these and for those for my other books too.

Personally I  always leave reviews for every book I read. They are never very long and I don’t go into great detail but I do say whether I liked the book or not and I always sat why I've given it the marking I have. Giving a review doesn’t take long, two minutes at the most, and it not only gives the author important feedback but provides other potential readers with someone else’s thoughts on the book.

That being said I sincerely hope those who downloaded my book enjoyed it and, if any of you who read this have read my work and have a couple of minutes to spare a review would be much appreciated.

Holiday reading

This blog is an unashamed  ad to try to sell books.

Vacation time is getting near. What better way to spend your time on the beach, by the pool or simply lounging at home than reading a good book? Or perhaps five books. The Dean and Steph box set is now available at the bargain price of $2.99. Nearly 1600 pages at less than 50 cents a book. Available in the USA for $2.35 at:

https://www.amazon.com/Dean-Steph-boxed-set-Beneficiary-ebook/dp/B00Z4N2EJS/ref=sr_1_9?ie=UTF8&qid=1494785584&sr=8-9&keywords=derek+coleman

In the UK the price is around £2.35 and the books are available at:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=derek+coleman

Of course if you want a little romance with your mystery I can recommend My Katherine, by Lori Lambert available at:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Lori-Lambert/e/B01N7NT3FI/ref=dp_byline_cont_ebooks_1

https://www.amazon.com/Lori-Lambert/e/B01N7NT3FI/ref=dp_byline_cont_ebooks_1

If you try them I hope you enjoy them and I would be really pleased if you left a review for them.

Tapestry

Well, at last I have managed to get the timing of a book right. That’s surprising really because the first four months of the year is a busy time for us. In my last blog though I said “Tapestry” would be in the book stores and on Amazon in the spring and I was right. Mind you, to paraphrase the Duke of Wellington, it was a close run thing.

The editing went as well as I expected, although I did have to do some rewriting on one chapter. I was concerned about finding the right cover picture too, but that proved easier than I thought it would. Lastly there were a couple of small hitches with the printing process and the conversion to Kindle but they’ve now been sorted and the book is out there.

I guess everyone who works on a project for some time gets that sense of achievement when it’s finished and it’s the same for authors. I always love it when I hold a new book in my hands for the first time, It’s nearly as good as the moment you see the first reviews on Amazon, although I must confess. I’m a little nervous about those this time.

As I’ve said before, “Tapestry” is not like my other novels. There are no super sleuths, not serial killer and, although it is history it’s recent history. There are people still alive today who remember these things and I wonder what they are going to have to say about this story of three ordinary people growing up against the back ground of a world war.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06WWKFM1B/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1487977129&sr=1-1&keywords=derek+coleman

Merry Christmas everyone

I realize it’s been a while since I wrote this blog but I’ve been busy on other writing projects that I’m sure you’ll find more entertaining.

As promised “Hunted” was published this fall and I’ve been getting some great feedback on that, although I could do with a few more reviews on Amazon if anyone feels so inclined.

A follow up to “Hunted”, tentatively called “Missing”, is coming along nicely at the moment and should be ready in the Spring, or, judging from past experience, the summer of 2017.

You won’t have to wait that long for something new to read though because “Tapestry” is nearly ready.

This book is very different to my others, it’s not a crime novel or an historical saga, it’s more a coming-of-age story from the 1930s and 40s. The manuscript is finished and it’s currently undergoing corrections. I think it’ll probably need one more read through by my editor then I just have to decide on the cover picture and hopefully it will be out there early in the new year. I have to admit I’m already kind of impatient to see how it’s received by you guys.

That’s about all of my news for now but, as I said at the beginning of this piece, it’s Christmas and so, as my gift to you, my 600 page blockbuster e-book, “Weoley”, will be free on Amazon from December 23 to December 26.   

'Weoley' is the story of a place. Won by the sword in a bloody battle that changed England's history, it is a place that evolves over nine hundred and fifty turbulent years. 

It is a story full of heroes and villains; the good, the bad, the beautiful, the wicked and the ordinary. Peasants and their lords, nobles, commoners and kings; theirs are stories of war and betrayal, murder, seduction and romance, of adultery, forgiveness and passionate love.

Bloody battles pit brother against brother; fortunes are made, and lost, while unfaithful wives and political intrigue stir the mix, all of it set against the background of a great fortress. If you are into history then give it a try, it’s free so you have nothing to lose. If you do read it I’d love for you to leave a review and, as an incentive this is how it starts:

Weoley

The story of a castle and its people

Prologue

Sussex, England, October 14, 1066

The night was dark, there were few clouds and the comet was clear for all to see. Was it an omen? Perhaps it was, but none knew whether it was for good or evil. Nor could any man say for whom the portents were intended. Then it was gone, its twin tails vanishing over the horizon to leave a world of darkness in their wake. Darkness the dawn seemed reluctant to break.

When it did rise, the watery sun spread its light over a cold, damp terrain shrouded in mist. It was a place of grassy ridges, marshy valleys and tall oak trees. A rich land where a man could live and grow; a land worth having; a land worth fighting for, worth dying for.

And men would die for it; Many men. It was a good day to be alive, but for some it would be their last. It was a day to fight, and there was going to be a mighty one. The army was marching; the enemy was standing on their ridge waiting for them. When they met arrows would fly, blades flash, shields shatter. Men would scream war cries, beg for their wives and mothers, or choke on steel while their life blood enriched the dark earth and they died in agony. It would happen thus because today was a day for killing. War had cast its shadow over England and there was a kingdom to be won.

The long column of men halted just below the summit of the hill. Considering their number they were strangely quiet, each man lost in the thoughts, hopes and fears of what was to come. Some were there because their lord commanded it, some for glory, others came for loot. Some relished the excitement of battle whilst others feared the icy bite of steel. Guy de Layon was there for many of these reasons. His lord had pledged service to Duke William and where Anscoul led, Guy would follow. He was eighteen years old, a younger son with no hope of inheritance. His father’s gift to him had been his horse, his armor, his weapons and arranging for him to serve Anscoul, to whom he was vassal. He would get naught else unless he made it himself by force of his blade.

As he waited, Guy gently rubbed the nose of his horse, Alis. She was his only mount and instead of riding he had led her since they left the camp an hour before. She would have enough to do before this day was over.

Looking past the knights in front of him, he could see a huddle of men talking to several light horsemen off to one side. Duke William himself was there with his half brother, Bishop Odo. Like the rest of the Norman knights, Guy had gone to the bishop to receive his blessing in the night. He had also gone to a smith who had taken a silver coin and sharpened Guy’s sword, dagger and lance. Guy had spent more time with the smith than with the priest. He was pious when needs be but he fancied God would be busy this day and each man would have to look out for himself.

Suddenly the conference on the brow of the hill broke up and Guy’s lord, Anscoul, walked back towards him.

‘They’re over there,’ he grunted with a jerk of his head back the way he had come, ‘on the next hill, thousands of them. Better arm yourself.’

Guy lifted the linen bag containing his hauberk from the saddle and took off his leather jerkin.

‘How’s it look, my lord?’ he asked Anscoul, who was arming himself with the aid of a couple of his men at arms.

‘They’re on a ridge,’ Anscoul replied. ‘There’s a valley between them and us and it’s a nasty slope up to them. The valley bottom is marshy according to the scouts but they’ve found a place to cross in the centre.’

‘Shield wall?’ Guy asked pulling his coif over his head and reaching for his sword sling.

‘Of course,’ Anscoul confirmed. ‘Can’t see much of it but the scouts reckon on six to eight thousand. Harold’s there, his standard’s in the centre.’

Guy had served Anscoul for three years and had yet to see a proper battle. He had fought raiders and had seen twenty or thirty trapped Danes form a small shield wall but that was nothing. This would be his first real fight. He pulled his helmet on, adjusted the nose guard, then unslung his big, kite-shaped shield with its diagonal black diamonds on white insignia

Anscoul was already armed and waited impatiently for him.

‘Don’t bother with the shield yet,’ he said. ‘Sling it on the saddle till we get closer.’

‘My lord,’ Guy acknowledged, doing as he was bid.

They moved forward, Guy leading Alis beside Anscoul’s three mounts. The nobleman did not speak but watched the youngster’s face as they breasted the rise and the scene across the valley unfolded.

Guy stopped and drew in a sharp breath. He felt his stomach tighten and his throat was suddenly dry. The ridge top opposite was full of men. They stood in a line perhaps a thousand paces long, rank after rank of them. In the centre, under a hoar apple tree, the fitful breeze stirred two standards. Anscoul saw him staring at them.

‘The dragon of Wessex,’ he said, ‘and Harold’s fighting man.’ Guy pursed his lips and nodded unconsciously to himself. ‘And what does that look portend, young Layon?’ Anscoul asked. Guy felt himself flushing.

‘If that’s where the Saxon king is then that’s where I must be,’ he replied. ‘A man without fortune must make his own and that’s where the greatest opportunity will be.’

Anscoul laughed and clapped him on the shoulder.

‘Don’t be too anxious or you may not need a fortune,’ he said. He pointed to the Saxon line. ‘You see them?’ he asked. ‘The solid looking fellows standing in the front line?’ Guy nodded. He could see them. Big men clad in hauberks, with helms and big round shields. Their spears stood like thickets of saplings, the heads glinting as they caught the early morning sun. Many of them carried battle axes, fearsome looking weapons with double heads and four foot hafts. Guy nodded.

‘I see them,’ he said.

‘Housecarls,’ Anscoul said. ‘Harold’s bodyguard. Don’t underestimate them. They’re no Viking raiders. They’re warriors. They’ll stand there till hell freezes over before they give ground. You’ll need to go through them before you can get at Harold and if you fight one and come away with all your limbs you’ll be lucky.’ Guy looked at him in surprise. It had sounded almost as if Anscoul was afraid of the Saxons yet Guy had never known him to show fear before.

Anscoul caught the look and understood its meaning. He shook his head.

‘I’m not saying you need fear them but you should respect them. They’re good, but we’re better. Stay close to me. When we meet them keep your shield up and use the lance, don’t let them close with those damned axes.’ Guy nodded, his throat suddenly too dry to let him speak. The excitement was gone leaving in its wake an anxiety about what the day would bring and a determination that whatever happened he would not dishonor his name.

The army filed down the slope, crossed the marshy ground through a narrow gap and began to deploy left and right. Anscoul took his place to the Duke’s left and a little behind him and Guy, now mounted on Alis, sat to his rear and watched as the spearmen and archers filed past him.

Occasionally, he looked up at the enemy and wondered why they did not charge down from their ridge and attack the Normans while their formation was disrupted. Then he looked at the steepness of the slope he would soon have to climb and back to the strength of the Saxon line. He understood. They were in a good position. Why would they leave it? It was going to be a long hard fight and they would be hard to break. Both he and his mount would need all their strength. Unlike most of his companions he only had one horse so, despite his orders, he swung out of the saddle to rest her.

For USA, Canada etc. get Weoley at:

https://www.amazon.com/Weoley-story-castle-its-people/dp/1494803119/ref=sr_1_16?ie=UTF8&qid=1482370442&sr=8-16&keywords=derek+Coleman

Or for UK at:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Weoley-story-castle-its-people/dp/1494803119/ref=sr_1_16?ie=UTF8&qid=1482370442&sr=8-16&keywords=derek+Coleman

Broken promises

I guess I’m not really very good at keeping promises.

Several times I’ve said a book would be available by a certain date and almost invariably I’ve been wrong. “Hunted” is no exception. I promised it for Christmas and once again I’m way out. This time though I’ve erred in the right direction, I was a little distracted by an election but, despite this, my latest offering is ready before Thanksgiving.  You can read a taster below and then find the rest on Amazon. Createspace, Goodreads and in any good bookshop.

Enjoy.

CHAPTER ONE

My name is Alex Mitchell. Most of you won’t recognize it but I’m prepared to bet a lot of you have seen it, even though you didn’t take any notice at the time. I’m a single, thirty-two year old male who stands six feet tall, weighs in at around a hundred-seventy-five pounds and has blue eyes and brown hair that usually looks tousled because I have a habit of running my fingers through it when I’m thinking.

I own a house and a few acres in Putnam County, West Virginia but I’m rarely there because of what I do for a living. I’m a freelance journalist and, although I say it myself, I’m a pretty good one. That’s why you’ve probably seen my name without paying attention to it.

I’ve won some of the big prizes, had pieces in all the better magazines and most of the national newspapers. My stories have been used on TV and my pictures can be found on the internet.

Editors like to use me because, if it’s a big story, they know I’ll cover it and give them a piece they can use, usually with an angle no one else has seen. I’ll also go anywhere, no matter what the story, how dangerous it is or where I have to go to get it. In my time I’ve covered drug cartels in Columbia, poverty in India, Argentina and Brazil, wars and epidemics in Africa and riots in Europe. I’ve also been to Russia twice, Iraq five times and Afghanistan three. I’ve been shot at, bombed, threatened and have a few scars to prove it.

Today, I’m covering an easy one for Time Magazine. It’s in London, England and the chances of violence are negligible.

It’s an appeal against extradition by a man with the unlikely name of Kgosi Gebhuza. I seriously doubt it’s his real name – apparently it means something like King Butcher.  I can’t imagine his parents calling him such a thing, but you never know, they may have done so and it is apt.

Gebhuza was a warlord who led an army in Central Africa. For more than five years his men caused mayhem in several countries. They bombed churches and school buses, shot politicians, raided villages, massacring the men and kidnapping the women and children. Male children were inducted into Gebhuza’s army but women and girls were not so lucky.

There are stories that he slept with a different female every night, choosing anyone over the age of twelve, and each morning he personally executed each of them by cutting their throats. There are even rumors he drank their blood but I’ll need to see some hard evidence before I really believe there’s any truth in them.

Anyway, his own people couldn’t stop him and neither could the neighboring countries, but then he made the mistake of raiding a convoy of European aid workers. Eight men were shot in cold blood, including a priest and two doctors. A dozen women, including nurses and nuns, were kidnapped.

The decapitated body of the first nurse was found a few days later. After the body of the third one was discovered the UN stepped in. It took three weeks, several drone strikes and a landing by Special Forces, but Gebhuza’s makeshift army was gone. The man himself was supposed to have been killed in a drone strike. I remember doing a story on the boy soldiers he used and being told he’d been in a house when it was blown apart.

That was five years ago and Gebhuza was virtually forgotten by all except his victims. Forgotten until last year, when a black male was stopped for speeding on London’s orbital motorway. The driving license he produced at the scene was genuine enough but it had been reported stolen by its real owner. The man was arrested and, protesting his innocence, was taken to a West London police station where he was fingerprinted and had his photograph taken. Normally, the authorities would have checked his address, found it to be genuine and let him go with instructions to attend a magistrate’s court later. No doubt if they had done that he would have just vanished again. It took less than an hour for Scotland Yard’s computers to match his details however. They realized who they’d caught, the news leaked out and all hell let loose.

When word Gebhuza was alive and in custody was officially confirmed the world went crazy. Five countries, including France and the United States, both of whom had lost citizens in the raid on the aid convoy, applied for his extradition. The African state of Rwanda got in first. They counted his victims in thousands and a judge ordered him to be returned to them.

The butcher appealed on the grounds that if he were sent there he would not receive a fair trial but would be tortured and executed. He also applied for political asylum in Britain and the rumor was he might actually get it.

Personally I wouldn’t give a plugged nickel for his chances if he were released. He had so many enemies someone was bound to get him eventually but the British like to appear to be doing things fairly. He’d been granted bail, was living in the penthouse of a luxury hotel and was attending the hearing each day surrounded by half a dozen hand-picked bodyguards. As I said, Time Magazine, were paying me to cover the story and I’d been negotiating with Gebhuza’s legal team to get an exclusive interview with the man.

At first they’d demanded a stupid fee for a chance to talk to the General, as he liked to be called, but I can be very persuasive and pointed out telling his side of the story might help his appeal. Time recognized this could be the story of the decade and authorized me to spend up to ten grand on buying ten minutes of his time. They’d wired me the money and I’d managed to get his lawyer to agree to three thousand British pounds for thirty minutes. It was going to cost me another thousand for NKambi Jacobs, Gebhuza’s right hand man but it was worth it.

I’d done my research and knew their strange story. Gebhuza was a giant of a man, standing at six-four with the muscles of a professional wrestler. Jacobs is a little weasel of a guy. He’s a good foot shorter than the warlord and probably weighed around one-thirty but they were born in the same village and grew up together. When Gebhuza went into the bush and began gathering his army Jacobs graduated from mission school where he excelled, was given a church scholarship to high school and from there went to college in Britain. He graduated with honors around the time his old buddy was beginning his reign of terror in Central Africa.

Their lives could not have been any different but it seems they kept in touch and when Gebhuza’s army began looting and pillaging much of the proceeds somehow found their way through devious channels into Jacobs’ hands.

A source at the Solicitor General’s office told me Jacobs was suspected of providing the funds for the warlord’s weapons and also of secreting millions of stolen pounds away in numerous bank accounts. He hadn’t been caught however and nothing connecting him to the rapes and murders in Africa was found and so he was still a free man.

It was he I was going to see now. We’d met twice before, once with Gebhuza’s lawyers and once here at the hotel. The last time was when he told me a small gift of perhaps a thousand pounds would smooth the path to seeing the warlord.

He’d started in by asking for five times the amount but I’d beaten him down and we’d finally agreed on a thousand in cash and today would be the day. Normally on an assignment like this I’d take a photojournalist to handle the pictures but it seems the butcher is shy and would only talk to me if there was no one else there. For this reason I was carrying my trusty Nikon and was hoping to get some pictures of the man’s luxury suite. I already had plenty of archived photos of the devastation he’d left behind in Africa and had the start of an idea for a comparison article.

I entered the hotel lobby and immediately spotted two of Gebhuza’s goons sitting at a table nursing coffee cups and looking bored. They were hardly inconspicuous. Both were black. They wore dark suits, white shirts and ties and, despite being indoors, both had sunglasses on. Presumably they were trying to emulate secret service agents and were there as an advance guard to warn their boss if anyone he didn’t want to see arrived. They looked up when I walked in and one of them raised his wrist to his mouth and said a few words.

I suppressed a smile, they really did think they were secret service and I wondered if I could get a picture of them. I thought they might object so I’d ask Gebhuza, if I finally managed to get in to see him.

I went to the desk and had to stand in line behind an American couple who were checking in. They were having some hassle about their room and I was getting impatient but then one of the elevators dinged, the doors opened and I saw the tiny figure of Jacobs emerge.

He greeted me with a smile and a handshake then put his hand on my arm and gestured to a couch near one of the big front windows of the lobby. ‘Shall we sit down, Mister Mitchell?’ he said.

Immediately I was suspicious. ‘Aren’t we going up to see General Gebhuza?’ I asked.

‘There will be a small delay,’ he replied. ‘If we can just sit here I can perhaps give you a little background while we wait.’

I got a feeling the guy was about to lean on me for more cash before he’d let me see his boss. I had his thousand in an envelope and there was about three grand in British pounds left out of the Times’ bribe money. Knowing how these things worked, I had it in a coat pocket but I wasn’t going to give it to him unless I absolutely had to. We’d agreed a price and if he tried to change it I’d tell him I would write a story which would make General Gebhuza look worse than Hitler and Stalin rolled together. Reluctantly I stepped over to the couch he indicated and sat down.

‘Have you any idea how long the general will be?’

He shrugged and grinned, showing large, startlingly white teeth. ‘He has been entertaining a lady to lunch,’ he replied in perfect Oxford English. ‘One cannot rush these things.’

In other words the Butcher had enticed some floozy up to his suite. Fleetingly I wondered if she’d leave with her head still attached to her body but I dismissed the thought. Even Gebhuza would not be stupid enough to try the same sort of thing in Britain, especially with his extradition appeal pending. I pointedly looked at my watch.

‘I hope he won’t be too long,’ I said. ‘I have an appointment at the Home Office later and I’d really hate to have to just write their side of the story.’

It was a lie but it brought another big smile and Jacobs said, ‘No, no. I’m sure the General will be with us very shortly.’

The man had almost certainly not spoken a truer word in his life. Even as he finished speaking there was a brief, piercing scream from outside followed immediately by a crunching explosion of sound like a car wreck.

Instinctively we both turned to look out of the window. There was a black London taxi cab at the curb. All its windows appeared to be smashed and its roof was caved in. Lying grotesquely upside down, his legs on the roof and the rest of him where the windshield used to be was the naked body of a big black guy. His face was towards us, the eyes wide open and staring and blood flowed freely from his mouth, nostrils and ears.

Jacobs gave a little, almost feminine screech and came to his feet. ‘General…’ he gasped. I was as shocked as he was but I’ve been a reporter a long time. Instinct took over and I found the camera in my hands, lens cap off and finger pressing the power button. I got to my feet and got off a number of shots as I edged toward the main door. There was a crowd gathering around now, standing about a dozen feet back from the horror on the cab’s roof. I turned slightly and got a picture of NKambi still staring disbelievingly out of the window then I looked around for the two bodyguards I’d spotted as I walked in. They were no longer at the table where I’d seen them so I turned to scan the lobby.

The staff and people around reception had all rushed forward to look at the scene outside so the area in front of the elevators was clear. As my eyes swept across the space one of the elevators made a dinging sound, the indicator above it lit up and the doors slid open.

A man and a woman emerged. He was about thirty, big and muscular with cropped dark hair and a closely trimmed beard. Wearing a dark suit and black polo shirt he looked like any other young business man but it wasn’t him who grabbed my attention, it was the girl.

She would be twenty-nine years old on July fourteenth and was tall for a woman, five feet ten in fact. Her hair was shoulder length and dark with a hint of auburn in certain lights, her face was oval, her eyes cornflower blue and she had a wonderfully slim figure with a small, star-shaped mole on the top of her left hip. Not that she was showing her body now; she was wearing a mid-thigh, red dress with a short, black jacket over it. I knew every inch of her perfect form intimately though. I’d kissed every smooth, supple part of it and I’d dreamed about it a thousand times.

Her name was Rachel Darcy, we had been lovers for three hot, passionate nights three years ago and it was absolutely impossible for her to be here because four months after we met she took her own life.