#Excerpt from BIRTH OF AN ASSASSIN by Rik Stone @Stone_Rik #Suspense #Thriller #Mystery

Adrik waited in the guard’s room a couple of corridors along from Kornfeld’s cell. There was only one way out, so the Jew had to pass this room. He spun a Makarov on his finger, aimed at imaginary targets and thrilled at the thought of using it. The gun was standard issue, but he would’ve chosen it anyway. Totally reliable, pull the trigger and out pop the bullets. The blowback design expels the spent case to the right and loads the next cartridge into the chamber – easy. And fully armed with eight rounds, he would use them all.

This wouldn’t be his first killing and sure as hell wouldn’t be his last. Kornfeld was a pain, and it was Otto who mattered. He would do anything for him. Why should he care about some Jew who got in the way?

But time dragged, and Kornfeld hadn’t yet made a show. For one horrible minute he thought there might be another way out – but no, that isn’t even possible. Calm down, be patient… Try as he might, he couldn’t, and the idea ran around his head, irritating him beyond measure.

He left the guardroom and paced the corridor outside. At first a short distance and then a bit further into the next passageway. No good – he had to find out what had happened. With gun in hand and footsteps stealthy he reached the cell door – it was slightly open. Oh shit, did that mean there was another way out? Or maybe Kornfeld had gone deeper into the prison block. Or maybe he was in the cell hoping the element of surprise would be with him.

Possibilities ganged up. Kornfeld knew Lubyanka well. What if there was another way out and that little bastard knew it? If so, Otto would kill him, never mind the Jew. He kicked the door fully open, slammed it against the cell wall, stood back and then moved in, pointing the gun around to make sure Kornfeld wasn’t hidden on either side of the opening. The cell was dimly lit and he found it difficult to see. He would stay put until his eyes got accustomed to the light. A body, he saw a body. It was covered with a greatcoat, on the bunk facing the wall.

He was clearly supposed to think it was Kornfeld. In that case he’d be under the bunk waiting… But then that’s obvious too, so he might be on top with the guard pushed underneath. That made more sense – it would be easier for him to make an attack from on top – but, shit, wouldn’t that be what he wanted him to think?

To be sure of the kill, Adrik wanted to shoot above and below – but he couldn’t. How would he explain the soldier’s death? Oh, Otto, if only Otto was there to tell him what to do. But he wasn’t, he had to make up his own mind. The Jew was on top – yes, definitely on top.

Cautiously, he edged forward, pointed the pistol to the back of the person’s head and pulled the body towards him with gun steady and ready to fire. As quickly as his huge form allowed, he pulled the greatcoat away.

Fuck! The guard! No time to react. A leg came from under the bunk with incredible speed and wrapped around the back of his. At the same time, the Jew’s other foot came against his knees and pushed. Adrik had brought his legs together when he tore the coat away and Kornfeld used the imbalance to his advantage. Adrik’s arms went out. He hovered awkwardly, then almost regained control, but Kornfeld pushed harder and Adrik went flying backwards with his legs in the air. A sense of suspension ended and he fell heavily, striking the hard stone floor. His head bounced, shudders chased through his brain and he found himself staring at the ceiling, wavering between conscious and unconscious.

The pain pierced his skull and he noticed his head had rested in a pool of warm liquid. He hadn’t seen that when he came in. Numbness consumed his body; he couldn’t move. But then his blurred vision saw the bleary outline of the Jew. Awareness came that his body was being rolled over. He was paralyzed, but it didn’t stop the surge of fear that ran through every fibre of his being.

Set against the backdrop of Soviet, post-war Russia, Birth of an Assassin follows the transformation of Jez Kornfeld from wide-eyed recruit to avenging outlaw. Amidst a murky underworld of flesh-trafficking, prostitution and institutionalized corruption, the elite Jewish soldier is thrown into a world where nothing is what it seems, nobody can be trusted, and everything can be violently torn from him.

Buy Now @ Amazon, B&N, Kobo & Waterstones

Genre - Thriller, Crime, Suspense

Rating – R

More details about the author

Connect with Rik Stone on Facebook & Twitter

Website http://rik-stone.simdif.com

@_William_Knight Shares an #Excerpt from GENERATION #Crime #Thriller

The monk-like Hubbard sat against an oak partition with a half-full pint glass in front of him and a collection of crisp packets littering the top of the round table. He looked tired, with his brown eyes encircled by dark rings and a sallow complexion. He seemed to be aware of being watched, and his gaze appealed for Hendrix to come over.

Hendrix ordered a pint of cold Carlsberg for himself and asked the barmaid for a pint of whatever Hubbard was drinking. The barmaid grimaced, nodded, and pulled the pints in silence.

To his left a group of students sat around a large table, and the jukebox was playing electro-pop, a Soft Cell song the name of which he couldn’t remember and hadn’t heard since law school. Not a drinker then, but he had made up for it since. It was difficult to avoid drink during long hot periods just waiting in the services, and sober journalism was an oxymoron.

Hendrix picked up the drinks and strolled between empty tables to the monk and sat down, putting the pint glasses on the table.

“Barry isn’t it?” He offered his hand in greeting, “I’m Hendrix Harrison.”

“Man, I knew it was you when you came in. It’s really great to meet you. You’ve got a great name.”

They linked hands above the assorted crisp packets, and Hubbard gripped to the point of discomfort, keeping eye contact and nodding his head like one of those rear-window animals from a cheap gift shop. He had a glimmer of perspiration across his brow and a pained smile – almost a contortion – accented by a pearl of saliva nestled in the corner of his mouth.

“You don’t look anything like your picture,” Hubbard said, still nodding.

Finally releasing Hendrix’s hand, Hubbard turned his magazine around to show a picture of Hendrix in the Opinionssection. It was an old issue, three years or more. Hendrix smiled.

“Yea, well. I don’t really want to be recognised in this line of work. There’s loads of weirdos out there.”

He wanted to say, and you’re one of them, but managed to stop himself. Instead, he laughed, and found his gaze returning to the saliva.

“Right,” Hubbard said, nodding in fierce agreement. “It must be dangerous exposing all of these conspiracies.”

Hendrix was always amazed when he met a true fan. He entered a world where UFOs, ghosts, and global-plots intertwined and Elvis played regular gigs as his own double. It was fantasy designed to amuse and sell magazines, not dangerous. And while he hoped he might illuminate some esoteric point of science, the magazine’s remit was to entertain on a theme of the unexplained.

A man emerges from the sodden undergrowth, lost, lonely and starving he is mown down by a speeding car on the edge of a remote forest.

Rumours of ghostly apparitions haunt a rural Northumberland community.

A renowned forensic research establishment is troubled by impossible results and unprecedented interference from an influential drug company.

Hendrix ‘Aitch’ Harrison is a tech-phobic journalist who must link these events together.

Normally side-lined to investigate UFOs and big-beast myths, but thrust into world of cynical corporate motivations, Hendrix is aided by a determined and ambitious entomologist. Together they delve into a grisly world of clinical trials and a viral treatment beyond imagining.

In a chase of escalating dangers, Aitch must battle more than his fear of technology to expose the macabre fate of the drugged victims donated to scientific research.

Buy Now @ Amazon

Genre – Crime, Thriller, Horror

Rating – R-16

More details about the author

Connect with William Knight on Facebook & Twitter

Website http://www.williamknight.info

#AmReading #Free - Maximum Insecurity: A Doctor in the Supermax by William Wright M.D.

After three decades as a successful ear surgeon, William Wright, MD is bored beyond belief. He dabbles with retirement, but finds idleness infuriating. He has to do something.

Then he sees an ad for a doctor’s position from the Colorado Department of Corrections at a supermax prison. Now that, he thinks, would be different. His wife has some thoughts on the matter too. She thinks her husband just lost his mind and is on a collision course with a prison shiv.

After his first day on the job, he wonders if she wasn’t onto something. His first patient is an arrogant, callous youth convicted of five cold-blooded murders. Dr. Wright has to steel himself not to bolt.

Nothing prepares a doctor for life at the Colorado State Penitentiary. He quickly discovers treating maximum security convicts is like treating recalcitrant murderous four-year-olds. Always willing to threaten their doctors with bodily harm, they are more interested in scamming drugs than treatment.

Told with self-depreciating humor and scathing wit, Maximum Insecurity describes Dr. Wright’s adventures practicing medicine in a supermax correctional facility without, he’s glad to say, getting killed even once.

Maximum Insecurity: A Doctor in the Supermax by William Wright M.D.

Amazon Kindle US

Rating – PG-13

Genre – Non Fiction

4.4 (21 reviews)

Free until 4 February 2014

#Author Rik Stone & the #Books He Grew Up With @stone_rik #amreading #bookclub

Can you tell me about yourself: where you’re from, where you grew up, and what you have done with your life?

I grew up in the slum-lands of 50’s North East England and left school at 15 years of age without any form of qualification. From school I went to work in the local shipyards on the River Tyne. At 19, I went into the merchant navy, drifted, or bobbed, through life until it became pointless, gave it up in favor of working in a quarry in Essex. When I married, I realized my life was plodding along without horizons; it looked bleak. I started studying. After completing O and A levels, I began a degree course and obtained a Bachelor of Science degree in mathematics and computing. The qualification got me a job in the Ford Motor Co. IT dept where I became a project business analyst. I took an early retirement at 50 and that was when I began writing seriously.

How did the idea of the book come to you?

I have relations who lived in ‘The Pale’ (a barren place where the Jewish population was forced to live – think Fiddler on the Roof). They escaped the czarist pogroms in the late 19^th century. Some came to England, others to the US and Canada.

Because of them, I looked into Jewish history in Russia and was shocked to learn of the suffering there. But it gave me an idea for a story. However, 19^th century Russia didn’t fit. I trawled through Russian/Soviet history until I came to the post-war period. The setting was perfect for me, but I had to take away the protagonist’s Jewish religion. First, to fit in with his military ambitions and also to demonstrate that it isn’t only about religious belief – prejudice is prejudice.

What made you want to become an author?

Being an avid reader, I’ve always had an aggravating yearning to write something serious, I wanted to replicate, or do better, than what I was reading. Of course, when you start, you don’t do it right, but I’m the type of person that can’t leave a thing alone until I feel I have a handle on it. I’m not sure if I intended to write a full length novel, but the learning process became all consuming and here I am.

Is this the only book you’ve written? Do you have others planned?

Birth of an Assassin is a debut novel and is the first in a series. The second episode is complete, but needs a final sweep to smooth it. I’ve also written the third in the cycle, but that needs at least one more draft. The time period of the second book runs in parallel with Birth of an Assassin; this time the setting is in Turkey. As for the third novel, it pulls the previous two together to create a single unit.

What made you want to write about human trafficking, prostitution and organized corruption in Russia?

It was because of one of the episodes I’d learned about early in my research. A child was reported kidnapped, and later found murdered. The czarist state pointed the finger at the Jewish population. Why? To avert a growing hatred from ordinary workers against the fat cats who exploited them. And the state succeeded; pogroms began, culminating in1903at a place called Kishinev. Later, it came to light that the child’s family had been guilty of the murder, but by then the state had achieved its objective: diffusing the worker’s anger. I moved this story to a place in history that fit, the post-war period, but I needed an analogy for the child’s death. That my protagonist was framed for human trafficking and murder because of corruption within the state seemed the perfect conduit.

You enjoyed writing the book, but were there times you found it difficult or harrowing

Yes, of course. My research travelled from 1900 to 1960 and took in too much of the inhumanity practiced between human beings during that time. To feel it as you read it is distressing, whatever color, creed or religion of the people involved.

How important do you think education was for your writing and is it ever too late to learn

I studied the sciences, but it expanded my mind enough that I could embrace other disciplines, so I can’t emphasize how important education is. I think I’m a good example of how it’s never too late to learn, as I was in my early thirties before beginning my degree. I got a reasonable career out of it and now spend more hours writing than I ever did working in harness – and I love it.  What more can I say?

Is there any special reason you chose a Jewish protagonist

In the main because of the respect I have for my wife’s family.

Can you give any advice to aspiring writers?

Each time you fall, and you will, pick yourself up, dust yourself off and start all over again. In other words keep on keeping on.

What books did you enjoy growing up with?

Huckleberry Finn, don’t ask why, but in my mind’s eye I always saw myself in his shoes and my best friend as Tom Sawyer; he was Tom because his family had more money than mine.

Who is your favorite author?

Too many to say, but I do get particularly absorbed reading John Connolly.

What book should everybody read at least once?

Reading is subjective, so one book can’t appeal to all. All I can say is that if a book lives on in your mind, there will come a time that it will be worth reading again.

Set against the backdrop of Soviet, post-war Russia, Birth of an Assassin follows the transformation of Jez Kornfeld from wide-eyed recruit to avenging outlaw. Amidst a murky underworld of flesh-trafficking, prostitution and institutionalized corruption, the elite Jewish soldier is thrown into a world where nothing is what it seems, nobody can be trusted, and everything can be violently torn from him.

Buy Now @ Amazon, B&N, Kobo & Waterstones

Genre - Thriller, Crime, Suspense

Rating – R

More details about the author

Connect with Rik Stone on Facebook & Twitter

Website http://rik-stone.simdif.com