WHAT'S HE DOING ON THE TABLE?

"HANDCUFFS," SHE REPLIED

A Seattle fisherman has died badly–bound, tortured and set ablaze aboard his boat on Puget Sound. And with his death comes disturbing questions . . . and the key to a Pandora’s Box of evil that has remained tightly closed for over half a century.

Else Didriksen is no longer the beautiful, troubled teenager who disappeared from detective J.P. Beaumont’s life thirty years earlier. Now she is a homicide victim’s widow–frightened, desperate and trapped in a web of murderous greed that reaches out from a time of unrelenting terror. And the dark, deadly secrets that hold Else prisoner threaten to ensnare Beau and new partner Sue Danielson as well–and to rock their world in ways they never dreamed possible.

When I started writing this book, I knew it had something to do with the Holocaust, but I didn’t know what. I’ve learned through years of writing that opening my mind allows the universe to give me what I need. In this case, it was a chance encounter with a not-yet published book on a Nazi death camp called Sobibor. The author, Thomas Blatt, was one of the few survivors of Sobibor. Because it was a death camp as opposed to a concentration camp, Sobibor left behind only a handful of survivors who staged a daring escape after which the Germans bulldozed the camp, leaving behind an empty field littered with human bones.

Shot during the escape, Thomas Blatt nonetheless survived. He immigrated to the US and, after a successful career in electronics, has devoted his retirement years to letting the outside world know about what went on in Sobibor. I saw this as an opportunity to help in that regard by weaving what I learned from him into the background of this book.

Because this was a book about fishing, I also drew upon the experiences of one of my friends, a retired halibut fisherman. Champagne Al in the book is a fictionalized version of the real Champagne Al, Alan Hoviland who now spends his time framing pictures as opposed to gaffing fish.

While reading this book, readers may notice several real Seattle folks operating as characters under their own names. The right to be characters in this book was an item at several charity auctions in Seattle. That’s how, before the book was written or even had a title, it had already raised $20,000 for Seattle area charities.

JAJ