FEATURED AUTHOR: C.S. FARRELLY

ABOUT THE BOOK

When journalist Peter Merrick is asked to write a eulogy for his mentor, Jesuit priest James Ingram, his biggest concern is doing right by the man. But when his routine research reveals disturbing ties to sexual abuse and clues to a shadowy deal trading justice for power, everything he believed about his friend is called into question. With the US presidential election looming, incumbent Arthur Wyncott is quickly losing ground among religious voters. Meanwhile, Owen Feeney, head of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, is facing nearly a billion dollars in payments to victims of sex abuse. When Feeney hits on a solution to both men’s problems, it seems the stars have aligned. That is until Ally Larkin—Wyncott’s brilliant campaign aide—starts to piece together the shocking details. As the election draws closer and the stakes get higher, each choice becomes a calculation: Your faith, or your church? Your principles, or your candidate? The person you most respect, or the truth that could destroy their legacy?

When the line between right and wrong is blurred, how do you act, and whom do you save?

Book Details:

Title: The Shepherd’s Calculus

Author’s name: C.S. Farrelly

Publisher: Cavan Bridge Press (October 2, 2017)

Genre: Mystery, political thriller

Paperback: 272 pages

Touring with: Partners in Crime Tours

INTERVIEW WITH C.S. FARRELLY

Cassie, what’s the story behind the title of your book?
At its core, the title is meant to capture the calculation each of us makes about when to do the right thing and why. In the novel, James Ingram and Owen Feeney, are lifelong friends who each grew up to become a priest. As more and more news emerges about the widespread sexual abuse and cover-ups in the Catholic Church, both are embroiled in the fall out and find themselves having philosophical debates about what it means to be a good shepherd of the faith. I think we all face moral dilemmas in at some point in our lives and have to work through the math in our head to help come to a decision about what to do. 

Where’s home for you?
Pennsylvania – after about 20 years of bouncing among New York City, England, Washington, DC, and Ireland.

Where did you grow up?
Rock Springs, Wyoming and Lock Haven, Pennsylvania.

If you had an extra $100 a week to spend on yourself, what would you buy? 
Books, loads of books. And music as well. 


What’s the most valuable thing you’ve learned?
Failure isn’t something be feared or avoided. It’s been extremely valuable in teaching me how to improve something so I can try it again, but most importantly, in helping me learn how to rally after a disappointment and keep going. 

What is the most daring thing you've done?
White water rafting on the Zambezi river in Zambia.  I’m a much more experienced white water rafter and kayaker now, but at the time I wasn’t and in retrospect, between the dangerous rapids and crocodiles, it probably wasn’t the smartest thing to do. 


What is your most embarrassing moment?
There are too many to choose from. That said, I always try to find the humor in an embarrassing situation, so here’s goes. To set the stage: growing up, I was pretty nerdy, didn’t excel at sports, wasn’t a cheerleader, and wasn’t at all shy about speaking my mind. None of these qualities made you destined to be popular in rural PA in the 1990s. My dad was (and still is) big on doing volunteer work and every year, our church, St. Agnes Catholic, would have a fundraising fair. My dad would sign me up to help, and usually we’d get to man the funnel cake booth, which was great, because who doesn’t want to smell like french fries and eat their body weight in sweet, deep fried dough?  But in 8th grade, I got assigned to the dunking booth. Words can’t capture the experience of having to sit, in all my burgeoning pubescent glory, in a public forum wearing a matronly swimsuit (Catholic fair, remember!) while classmates who weren’t terribly fond of me paid money to throw things at me. To add insult to injury, the booth had this filthy, slimy water in it . . . along with the odd few goldfish leftover from the goldfish toss two booths over, one of which got trapped in my not-yet-very-existent cleavage . . . 

Oh, I feel for you! What makes you excited?
Travel. I love the feeling of anticipation that comes with getting on a plane. I also really enjoy the way you have to rely on instinct and body language to try to communicate effectively when you’re in a country where you don’t speak the language very well. I’ve had the good fortune to travel all over the world, and I’ve found many people to be incredibly kind and friendly to travelers. There are these beautiful human moments that come with connecting through body language and other ways to communicate instead of talking at someone.

What’s one of your favorite quotes? 
"In the depths of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer." – Albert Camus, Return to Tipasa

Beautiful. If you could live anywhere in the world, where in the world would it be?
Jackson Hole, Wyoming. It’s just staggeringly beautiful, and there’s something about the landscape and animals, etc. that enable you to imagine how it all was before we came along in ways that you can’t on the congested East coast. The weather is sublime, the scenery is breathtaking, and for a writer who needs to hike or kayak to clear my head, it would be the perfect spot.

What would you like people to say about you after you die? 
That I made them feel valued and heard and that this helped them in some way.

What’s your favorite line from a book? 
"The true magic of this broken world lay in the ability of the things it contained to vanish, to become so thoroughly lost, that they might never have existed in the first place". – Michael Chabon, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
What would your main character say about you? 
That I have an irreverent sense of humor, come through in a pinch, and have good gut instincts, all of which have gotten me pretty far.   

Are any of your characters inspired by real people?
Fr. Ingram is based on a mixture of my father and a professor I had in college named Mark Massa, S.J., who was an absolutely phenomenal mentor and educator.

Is your book based on real events?
Yes and no. In terms of the election scandal and actions of the Vatican in the book, these have no basis in fact and are purely fiction. But there are certain elements of the book that were inspired by real events. For example, during the 2004 presidential election, the Vatican issued guidance urging Bishops to withhold Communion from Catholic candidates whose policy positions, such as being pro-choice, don’t follow Church teaching. That definitely inspired parts of the plot for me. Additionally, there are documented cases in which Catholic Church leaders have moved assets around to protect them in the event of civil litigation for sexual abuse. So a number of real-life incidents played into how I structured the plot and why.

With what five real people would you most like to be stuck in a bookstore? 
Elizabeth I, Jane Austen, Theodore Roosevelt, Mark Twain, and my husband, Matt. 


What book are you currently reading and in what format?
Grist Mill Road by Christopher Yates. Paperback.

What’s the best compliment you’ve ever received about your writing?
Many years ago when I was trying to figure out if I was going to really try this whole writing thing and working mostly on theater projects, I randomly emailed Gene Weingarten, the Washington Post’s Below the Beltway columnist. He’d recently written an article about New Yorkers claiming superiority over Washington, DC, and since I’d just moved back to NYC from D.C., I sent him a note to say how much I enjoyed the article. He was gracious enough to write back, and we shared some funny stories back and forth about our mutual familiarity with the Bronx and the White Castle restaurant on Fordham Road. At the end, he wrote “You know, you’re a pretty good writer.” I was positively thrilled because I love his humor and (still) read his column all the time. I actually printed the email out that day and took it home, and I can’t tell you how many times over the years I’ve pulled it out of my filing cabinet to look at it. It just goes to show how someone taking a few minutes out of their day to engage with someone else can have a huge impact.

Where is your favorite library, and what do you love about it?
The Long Room at Trinity College Dublin. I’ve always loved a library. Growing up, I spent enormous amounts of time at the Ross Library in my hometown and Stevenson Library at Lock Haven University. On one of my visits to Stevenson, I found a book about great libraries of the world that included that had all sorts of information: sketches of the lost Library at Alexandria, original floor plans for the Bodleian at Oxford, and photos of the Long Room at Trinity. My grandparents were from Ireland, and I have dual citizenship there so I was especially fascinated by Ireland and the Long Room. Years later I completed my master’s degree at Trinity College, and I’d go to the Long Room just to soak it in. The architecture is spectacular. The high ceilings, the wall to wall books, the light streaming through: it’s all so beautiful and perfect.

What are you working on now? 
Novel number two, which is more of a traditional mystery in that it centers on a murder. But, as with The Shepherd’s Calculus, it’s going to have overlapping story lines that converge and look at issues of collective responsibility as well as individual responsibility for a damaging act. For me, there’s always a much larger story to tell about a crime than just the moment the crime itself took place and the aftermath of it. I’m fascinated by all the events and factors that had to play out leading up to a crime being committed and what, if anything, might have changed the trajectory.  

READ AN EXCERPT

When Peter Merrick’s cell phone rang around ten on a Monday morning, his first instinct was to ignore it. Anyone who knew him well enough to call that number would know he had a deadline for the last of a three-part series he was working on for the Economist. It was his first foray into magazine writing in some time, and he’d made it clear to his wife, his editors, and even the family dog that he wasn’t to be disturbed until after the last piece was done and delivered.
Several months had passed since his return from an extended and harrowing assignment tracking UN peacekeeping operations on the Kashmiri border with Pakistan, where violent protests had erupted following the death of a local Hizbul Mujahideen military commander. The assignment had left him with what his wife, Emma, solemnly declared to be post-traumatic stress disorder. It was, in his opinion, a dubious diagnosis she’d made based on nothing more than an Internet search, and he felt those covering the front lines in Iraq and Afghanistan deserved greater sympathy. He’d been a bystander to tragedy, he told anyone who asked, not a victim.
One morning as he’d stood drinking strong Turkish coffee on the terrace of his apartment in Jammu, he watched as a car bomb detonated in front of the school across the road. No children were killed. It was a Saturday, and teachers had gathered there to meet with members of a French NGO dedicated to training staff at schools in developing nations. The arm landed on his terrace with a loud thud before Peter realized what it was. Pinned to the shoulder of what remained of its shirt was a name tag identifying Sheeraza Akhtar, presumably one of the teachers. At the time, he marveled at his complete lack of reaction to the torn limb, at the way his response was to read the letters on the tag, grab a pen, and start writing down details of the event—a description of jewelry on the woman’s hand, the streak of half-cauterized flesh running from where it tore from the arm socket to the bottom of her palm, the way smoke curled from the remains of the school’s front entrance, and the pitiful two-ambulance response that limped its way to the scene nearly twenty minutes after the explosion.
Even now as he recalled the moment, he wouldn’t describe what he felt as horror or disgust, just a complete separation from everything around him, an encompassing numbness. His wife kept telling him he needed to talk to someone about what he was feeling. But that was just the point, he thought, even if he couldn’t say it to her. He couldn’t quite articulate what he was feeling, beyond paralysis. Making the most rudimentary decisions had been excruciating since his return. It required shaking off the dull fog he’d come to prefer, the one that rescued him from having to connect to anything. The pangs of anxiety constricting his chest as he glanced from the screen of the laptop to his jangling cell phone were the most palpable emotional response he’d had in recent memory. The  interruption required a decision of some kind. He wasn’t certain he could comply.
But in keeping with the career he had chosen, curiosity got the better of him. He looked at the incoming number. The area code matched that of his hometown in central Connecticut, less than an hour from where he and Emma now lived in Tarrytown, but his parents had long since retired to South Carolina. He made his decision to answer just as the call went to voice mail, which infuriated him even more than the interruption. For Peter, missing something by mere minutes or seconds was the sign of a journalist who didn’t do his job, who failed to act in time. Worse, he’d allowed a good number of calls to go to voice mail while under his deadline, and the thought of having to sift through them all made him weary. The phone buzzed to announce a new message. He looked again from his screen to the phone, paralyzed by the uncertainty and all-consuming indecision he’d begun exhibiting upon his return from Kashmir. After several minutes of failed progress on his article, the right words refusing to come to him, he committed to the message.
He grabbed the phone and dialed, browsing online news sites as inconsequential voices droned on. His editor. His sister. His roommate from college asking if he’d heard the news and to call him back. Finally, a message from Patricia Roedlin in the Office of Public Affairs at his alma mater, Ignatius University in Greenwich, Connecticut. Father Ingram, the president of the university, had passed away unexpectedly, and the university would be delighted if one of their most successful graduates would be willing to write a piece celebrating his life for the Hartford Courant.
The news failed to register. Again, a somewhat common experience since his return. He tapped his fingers on the desk and spotted the newspaper on the floor where Emma had slipped it under the door. In the course of their ten-year marriage, Peter had almost never closed his office door. “If I can write an article with mortar shells falling around me, I think I can handle the sound of a food processor,” he had joked. But lately that had changed, and Emma had responded without comment, politely leaving him alone when the door was shut and sliding pieces of the outside world in to him with silent cooperation. He picked up the newspaper, scanned the front page, and moved on to the local news. There it was, in a small blurb on page three. “Pedestrian Killed in Aftermath of Ice Storm.” The aging president of a local university was the victim of an accident after leaving a diner in Bronxville. His body was found near the car he’d parked on a side street. Wounds to the back of his head were consistent with a fall on the ice, and hypothermia was believed to be the cause of death.
To Peter’s eye the name of the victim, James Ingram, stuck out in bold print. An optical illusion, he knew, but it felt real. He reached for the second drawer on the right side of his desk and opened it. A pile of envelopes rested within. He rooted around and grasped one. The stamp was American but the destination was Peter’s address in Jammu. The script was at once shaky and assured, flourishes on the ending consonants with trembling hesitation in the middle. Folded linen paper fell from the opened envelope with little prompting. He scanned the contents of the letter, front and back, until his eyes landed on the closing lines.

"Well, Peter my boy, it’s time for me to close this missive. You may well be on your way to Kabul or Beirut by the time this reaches you, but I have no small belief that the comfort it is meant to bring will find its way to you regardless of borders.
You do God’s work, Peter. Remember, the point of faith isn’t to explain away all the evil in this world. It’s meant to help you live here in spite of it.
Benedictum Nomen Iesu,
Ingram, SJ

Peter dialed Patricia Roedlin’s number. She was so happy to hear from him it made him uncomfortable. “I’d be honored to write a piece,” he spoke into the phone. “He talked about you to anyone who would listen, you know,” she said. “I think he would be pleased. Really proud.” He heard her breath catch in her throat, the stifled sobs that had likely stricken her since she’d heard the news.
“It’s okay,” he found himself saying to this complete stranger, an effort to head off her tears. “I can’t imagine what I’d be doing now if it weren’t for him.” He hoped it would give her time to recover. “He was an extraordinary man and an outstanding teacher.”
Patricia’s breathing slowed as she regained control. “I hope to do him justice,” Peter finished. It was only when he hung up the phone that he noticed them, the drops of liquid that had accumulated on the desk where he’d been leaning forward as he talked. He lifted a hand to his face and felt the moisture line from his eye to his  chin. After several long months at home, the tears had finally come.
***
Excerpt from The Shepherd's Calculus by C.S. Farrelly.  Copyright © 2017 by C.S. Farrelly. Reproduced with permission from C.S. Farrelly. All rights reserved.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

C. S. Farrelly was raised in Wyoming and Pennsylvania. A graduate of Fordham University, her eclectic career has spanned a Manhattan investment bank, the NYC Department of Education and, most recently, the British Government’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office. She was a 2015 Presidential Leadership Scholar and obtained a master’s degree from Trinity College Dublin, where she was a Senator George J. Mitchell scholar. Her debut novel, The Shepherd’s Calculus, was released in October 2017.

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Spotlight on: Tom Avitabile

About the book:

When the smallest imagined particle of matter threatens to destroy all that matters, science and religion collide on the world stage and within the corridors of power. Presidential Science Advisor William “Wild Bill” Hiccock and his top-secret Quarterback Operations Group (QUOG) have already faced down some of the most sinister high-tech rivals imaginable. Now they must face one that can eliminate all life on Earth in an instant.

The God Particle is a super-kinetic thriller that pits brains, religion, political power, and common humanity against the onslaught of extremely dangerous, narrowly focused scientific exploration into the fabric of creation, complete with a plot to shoot down one of the President’s helicopters. Fringe religious groups – but not the usual suspects – engage in terror. Ugly espionage is set against the beauty of the Cote D’Azur. The romance of Paris offsets the grit of Boston’s South of Roxbury while the Euro-pop discos of Switzerland punctuate the quest.

In the end it comes down to one question: Can former FBI agent Brooke Burrell, now QUOG’s lead operative, choose between her personal and professional life in time to solve the puzzle and stop it all?

Excerpt from The God Particle:

At 7 p.m., Brooke was getting dressed. At 8 p.m., Brooke was still getting dressed. She and Mush were only two floors apart at the Washington Marriot.

The phone rang. “Should I swing by and pick you up?”

Brooke was nowhere near ready. In fact, she was in the middle of her fourth outfit change. She was about to say, “Give me a half-hour more,” when she caught sight of herself in the mirror. She still had the new boots on, but had removed her dress. Looking at herself she said, “Yes, I’m ready. Come get me.”

She ran to the bathroom and checked her makeup. She gave the hair one more brush, checked her teeth for lipstick smear, gave herself one more look-over and headed for the door. On the way, she tenuously reached for the hotel robe. As she held it in her hand, she considered it and then placed it back on the bed. At three steps from the door, she turned to retrieve it. There was a knock, she started to put it on, but then carried it to the door. She thought to check the peephole, lest she give some poor bellboy a very wrong message. Even distorted by the fisheye lens of the peephole, Mush looked good. She breathed in and went for it.

Mush had his hat in his hand and was fingering the brim. When the door swung open, he was walloped with a thud of invisible energy that literally knocked the air out of him. The hat hit the floor. It took a half a second, but he managed to shut his mouth and put his eyes back in their sockets. Standing before him was the object of many nights of desire. His circuits overloaded as he took her in in her lacy black bra, panties, and tall boots with giant heels. She was pure sex. The epitome of every male fantasy he had ever dared dabble in. Her physique was cut, but not bulky. Her curves were perfect and the shape of her legs and tapered thighs just invited him to explore — but instead he stepped into the room, shut the door with his foot, grabbed the robe and draped it around her. “We need to talk.”


* * *


There are many reasons men don’t wear leather pants anymore, but in the after-hours clubs of Switzerland, the diffused euro-sexual gender ambiguity was in full view. In this case, the view was that of Raffael Juth’s simulated-cowhide-covered butt. The observer was Hanna Strum, an attractive woman whose long curly blonde locks dangled and played peek-a-boo with her pushed up breasts that Victoria was not trying to keep secret. Raffey, of course, exhibited all the male characteristics of trying not to stare while staring that tickled Hanna at a level she dared not let on. After he caught her looking a few times, he drummed up the courage to walk over to her breasts and ask if she’d like to dance. She made sure not to look at him approaching; however, another woman watching would have noticed the subtle “girls up” pose she morphed into.

“Hi, I am Raffael,” he said as he bobbed and weaved a little to place his face in her line of sight as she was scanning the room.

“Hi.” She gave him a quick glance then continued her not-interested investigation of the gyrating room.

“I was wondering if you would like to share a dance with me?”

“You were?” She said without looking at him.

“Yes, unless you are here with someone?”

“Would that matter to you?” She said, finally locking eyes with him. “It would be a pre-condition of which I was not aware and therefore acceptable to me as your preference.”

“I don’t understand a word you just said. What are you, some kind of word nerd?” She turned her attention back to the dancers on the floor.

“No I assure you, words are not my craft.”

“No kidding.”

“I am more of a theoretical physicist.”

“If I dance with you, will you talk like a normal person?”

“Most assuredly — eh, yeah. Sure.”

“You’re learning,” she said as she offered her hand.

She sounded like she was from the U.S., but there was something else, something Germanic mixed in. Raffey couldn’t discern it over the throbbing bass of the music.
They hit the floor as the DJ changed to a popular house music cut that any American would have known was five years old, but the crowd let out a collective “whoo” as the first slamming drum beats were instantly recognized. Hanna’s hand flew from Raffey’s fingers as she became a writhing, flame-like entity, wavering to the seductive beat. Raffey maintained his two-step, stiffly choreographed routine, one that most girls let pass for some kind of dance. In her throbbing bass-induced dance trance, Hanna was in a world of her own. Raffey was drawn to her indifference, as if she were beckoning him to her boudoir with a come-hither finger gesture. He was hooked.


* * *


Hanna’s gyrations weren’t attracting Raffey’s eyes alone. Prince El-Habry Salaam, nephew of the Saudi King, was unwinding in the VIP section of the club. His father had sent him to study banking in Switzerland so he could better administer the Royal Family’s billions. Across the velvet ropes, Hanna’s undulations made him don his hated glasses, which he never wore in public, in order to see if she was the vision she appeared to be. Upon more focused inspection, he nodded to Abrim, his head of security. Abrim knew the drill.

As Raffey and Hanna were in the middle of their fifth dance, the six-foot-three-inch guard of the Prince appeared and, in English with a hint of Arabic accent, asked for forgiveness. “Pardon the intrusion, but my employer wishes for you to join him.” He pointed in the direction of the roped off area.

Hanna shot a quick glance at the thin, dark-skinned man wearing dark glasses in a dimly lit corner of the club. “No, thank you.”

Abrim pushed, “He is a prince of the Royal Family Saud. His intentions, I assure you, are the most honorable.”

“Not interested.” Then she turned away and danced even more seductively.

Raffey moved in close, “Who was he?”

“An errand boy. Want to get a drink?”

Raffey smiled and led her to the bar. It being three deep, he decided to get the drinks while Hanna found a small table. She removed her right shoe and rubbed a complaining instep. When she sat back up, Abrim was there.

“You again?”

“With apologies.”

“Look, why doesn’t he just come over here himself?”

“He is a Prince. He could not be seen making an overture to a... a... “

“Commoner? Is that the term you are looking for?”

Abrim just half smiled.

“Well, my father always called me Princess when I was a little girl, so what’s he so high and mighty about?”

“The Prince has a great interest in you and would be happy to pay you for your time.”

“Oh he would, would he?”

“Yes. Ten thousand dollars, U.S.?”

“Fuck off!”

Abrim imperceptibly twitched his hand, the result of the conflicting instinct to strike this infidel bitch, and the training that the social dictates of these Western countries demanded, which immediately stopped him. He just nodded and walked away.

“What did she say, Abrim?” the Prince asked.

“She declined your offer.”

“No, I mean what exactly did she say?”

“A crude woman, I’d rather not repeat it.”

“What did she say exactly?”

“She said, “Fuck off!”

He turned to admire his new interest. “Brilliant. She is full of spirit. One to be tamed.”

Abrim just rolled his eyes.

Raffey came back with the drinks. “I saw him from the bar; he came over again. What did he want this time?”

“He didn’t want anything, he was sent by someone with no balls. At least you had the courage to approach me yourself. Let’s get out of here.”

“But our drinks...”

Hanna reached down and grabbed Raffey between the legs, “You’d better have a set.” Then she walked off.

Raffey followed like an obedient dog.


* * *


Outside the club, Raffey took out his ticket stub for the valet; Hanna stuffed it back in his pocket. “My place is just on the corner. You can pick up your car in the morning.”

Raffey liked the sound of that, especially the “in the morning” part.

As they walked off down the street arm in arm, Abrim emerged from the club and watched.

In the hallway of the flophouse hotel, Hanna fumbled with the key as Raffey started kissing her neck. She laughed and shook him off to better focus on the lock and key. Once inside she went straight to the cabinet and pulled down a bottle of vodka. “The bathroom is through there. I’ll fix us a drink.”

“That’s okay; I don’t need to use the bathroom.” He plopped down on the couch and started to unbutton his shirt. Because her back was to him he didn’t see the slight mask of frustration wash across her face. He grabbed the remote for the TV and turned it on. Behind him, a man emerged from the bathroom with a rolled towel between his two fists. As Raffey yawned, the man brought the towel down across Raffey’s mouth. Startled, the young man started to scream, but the towel heavily muffled it. Hanna was tapping the air out of a syringe when the doorbell rang.

She and her accomplice were stunned. “Hold him.” She put down the syringe and went to the door. “Who is it?”

“It is Abrim. I have a message from the Prince.”

“Scheisse. It’s the goon from the club,” she said in a whisper to the man who was trying to stop Raffey from making any noise.

“Get rid of him,” he whispered loudly.

“Go away — I am not interested,” she yelled to the door.

“The Prince has asked me to tell you he will pay fifty thousand dollars if you’ll just agree to have dinner with him tomorrow night.”

“Fine, I will. I will be at the club tomorrow at eight. You can pick me up there. Now go away.”

Abrim didn’t know whether to believe her or not. But he didn’t really care. He had done his “pimping” for the night. He could report back that he had made the offer and she accepted. If she didn’t show up, it would only make the Prince more smitten and he’d up the sum to one hundred thousand. He turned to walk off.

Raffey had started to kick and caught the coffee table in front of the couch. It swung his body sideways and his next kick toppled the ginger jar lamp on the end table. It hit the floor with a terrible crash. In his attempt to stop him, the man had loosened the grip on the towel and Raffey’s scream accompanied the crash.

Abrim stopped dead in his tracks when he heard the calamity and went back and pounded on the door, “Is everything all right in there?”

The man behind the couch punched Raffey in the face as hard as he could and Raffey slid down to the floor like a sack of hammers. Rubbing his fist, the goon nodded to Hanna to open the door and let the man inside. He stepped to the right of the door and snapped open a stiletto-type knife. Hanna saw the shiny blade and knew at once what she had to do.

“No, please help me, he’s passed out,” she said as she opened the door. Abrim saw Raffey barely moving on the floor. “Could you just help me get him on the couch to sleep it off?”

Abrim was no more than four feet into the apartment when the blade entered his lung between the sixth and seventh vertebrae. The killer’s hand came down on the man’s mouth at that same instant to stifle the scream. But Abrim was a big hulk, and even though fatally wounded, he shook off his attacker like a rag doll. Hanna grabbed the vodka bottle and hit him hard on his temple. The bottle shattered and he went down on his back. She thrust the broken end of the bottle into Abrim’s neck, severing both his carotid arteries, which sprayed blood all over her. The man held his hand over Abrim’s mouth. In ten seconds his legs kicked one last time. He was dead.

When Hanna rose to wipe the blood from her face, she saw that Raffey was gone. The window to the fire escape was open. She turned to her partner, and cursed in German, “Verdammte Scheiße! You idiot.”

Raffey, choking, spitting blood, and gasping for air, was hobbling with a limp from jumping the last six feet off the fire ladder. He bounced off cars and storefronts as he staggered down the empty 3 a.m. Genève streets.

Praise for Tom Avitabile:

“Frighteningly realistic. Most of Washington really works this way. Homeland Security had better read this one and take corrective action.”
– U.S. Ambassador Michael Skol on The Eighth Day

“Awesome. I could not go to sleep last night because I couldn’t put it down!”
– Donna Hanover, WOR Radio 710 on The Eighth Day

“The Hammer of God is a tightly plotted, fear-filled and all-too-realistic thriller that is finely written, in fact the best this reviewer has read in a long time. It should be a best seller and will make the reader anxiously awaiting the third and final novel in this thriller trilogy! Great job, Tom Avitabile!”
– Crystal Book Reviews

“Well done and insuring that the reader will grab book three as soon as available.”
– Bookbitch on The Hammer of God

 

About the author:

Author Tom Avitabile, a senior creative director at a New York City advertising firm, is a writer, director and producer with numerous film and television credits. He has an extensive background in engineering and computers.

Avitabile’s work on projects for the House Committee on Science and Technology helped lay the foundation for The Eighth Day, his first novel. In his spare time, Avitabile is a professional musician and an amateur woodworker. He is currently at work on his next novel featuring William “Wild Bill” Hiccock.

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