ABOUT THE BOOK
Inspector Lukas Richter is a San Francisco police detective with a cybernetic eye and heightened senses. Out of a dark and obscure past, he is the future of urban warfare: smarter and faster than his colleagues and more perceptive than a polygraph. If you’re guilty, he’ll see it.In An Eye for a Lie, Richter’s first full-length novel, he is accused of cold-blooded murder when a firearms analysis confirms his gun as the murder weapon. In the background, the city is aflame over Richter’s shooting of an unarmed man, an incident some are calling “the Asian Ferguson.” Has Richter gone rogue? Or, is his insanity an unintentional side-effect of his augmentations?
In prose so smooth and descriptive you’ll be lost in this devious mystery from the beginning, An Eye for a Lie delivers on the promise of unforgettable characters, unexpected technologic twists, and unstoppable action. Intrigue abounds in this police procedural with a hint of cyberpunk. Pick up your copy today!
Book Details:
Title: An Eye for a Lie
Author: Cy Wyss
Genre: mystery
Series: Inspector Richter, Book 1
Publisher: Nighttime Dog Press, LLC (May 22, 2019)
Print length: 258 pages
On tour with: Partners In Crime Virtual Book Tours
LOVE IT OR LEAVE IT WITH CY WYSS
Things you need in order to write: really, all I need is my laptop. Everything else is vanity.
Things that hamper your writing: cats! (When they’re being really loving and decide to come sit on my keyboard.) Just kidding – I love my cats. But they can be absolute pests, usually when I have finally made a writing breakthrough and am raring to go.
Things you love about writing: I find journaling very relaxing. On the other hand, if I have inspiring music playing and am lost in my own little world, it is very stimulating. I feel almost euphoric, as if I’m about to enter a battle on the losing side.
Things you hate about writing: trying to find an audience. It’s like throwing darts at a huge wall in pitch blackness and hoping they hit this tiny little dartboard that is somewhere on the wall, but you have no idea where. Marketing drives me crazy. I suppose in some kind of masochistic way it is actually fun, but I would much prefer if there was a reliable way to get to your fans. I don’t mind working for it, what I mind is not knowing what will work.
Easiest thing about being a writer: first drafts, especially when I tell myself it won’t be published. I can write 100,000 words easily in a month (or more) and in 2018 my word count was over one million. Quantity is not the problem. And, it is fairly good quality – but it could always be improved. I’m a firm believer in practice. The more I write, the smoother it gets.
Hardest thing about being a writer: revising kills me every time. I grew up being told everything I wrote was gold, so I never learned to revise properly. That talent only takes you so far. Now that I’m writing for a living, it is crucial to be able to revise efficiently. Instead, I end up rewriting, largely from scratch. I do manage to improve successive drafts until I have something publishable, but the process is time-intensive and difficult. I don’t know if it is me or the process that needs an attitude adjustment.
Words that describe you: intelligent, charismatic, friendly, trustworthy. Also, stubborn, opinionated, and headstrong.
Words that describe you, but you wish they didn’t: short, fat, lazy, and out-of-shape.
Favorite music: For writing, it is definitely the “soundtrack” (or role-playing) music of Future World Music or Epic Score. Inspiring, made up, movie-esque soundtrack music.
Music that makes your ears bleed: I’m actually quite picky. There is something from every genre I love, but there is a lot from every genre I hate. What I hate most: other people’s music, even if I would ordinarily like it – because I don’t have a say in what it is, how loud, when, etc.
Something you’re really good at: writing and databases.
Something you’re really bad at: running (although I love it) and revising.
Something you like to do: design and create my own covers. I really love graphic design, it turns out. And, I’m getting better at it the more I do it. (I did the Richter cover myself.)
Something you wish you’d never done: I got sucked into one of those spam scams where they promise a gift card, all you have to do is sign up with your email address for a hundred so-called “deals.” Now my email address gets spammed daily with something like 500 emails I just have to delete. And, it is a good email address so I can’t transfer everything and delete it. Sigh. Stupid spammers.
Things you’d walk a mile for: junk food: cookies, chocolate, chips – all those yummy things I’m not supposed to have. I suppose if I walked enough miles for them, then I’d be fine, but, of course, I don’t.
Things that make you want to run screaming from the room: crowds. I am not really a people person (at least, not an acquaintance/stranger person).
Things you always put in your books: some kind of next-generation technology, which is something from our current level of technology just taken to its logical next step. Also, cats.
Things you never put in your books: I’m not sure anything is off the table. I have first drafts with some pretty far out things in them, ranging from the improbable to the downright taboo.
Things to say to an author: “I just wrote you a great review on Amazon!”
Things to say to an author if you want to be fictionally killed off in their next book: “It’s a good thing it’s only a hobby because you’ll never make money off of writing.”
Favorite genre: mystery and science fiction.
Books you would ban: religious agenda propaganda.
People you’d like to invite to dinner (living): Michael Connelly (Harry Bosch series), Joanna Penn (big indie author), Cathy Guisewite (cartoonist), Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (literary fiction).
People you’d cancel dinner on: Donald Trump (do I need to explain?), Stephen King (he wrote that the best thing about a decent hard-boiled mystery is that it has no cats – not that cats are the be-all-end-all of fiction, but it just strikes me as rather closed-minded in a particularly patriarchal kind of way).
The last thing you did for the first time: I hired a friend to do a cover reveal for An Eye for a Lie. It went well! I’ll definitely hire her again. Love the idea of a cover reveal, where you post glimpses of the cover for a couple of days and have prizes for readers.
Something you’ll never do again: attempt to quit writing because I’m not seeing quick success. First of all, it takes effort and time. Secondly, success is in the eye of the beholder. If I enjoy it and have a niche to fit in – isn’t that ultimately all it takes?
EXCERPT FROM AN EYE FOR A LIE
"All units, active shooter in progress, be advised perp is SFPD . . ."
The police frequencies in Vessa's sedan couldn't get enough of the situation. She was hardly in her car before the address where Richter was came over the air. She headed there immediately, lights flashing, accelerator floored.
He was in a townhouse on ninth, near Tehama, only a handful of blocks from the Hall of Justice. The entire area was cordoned off and blanketed with police cars. Vessa badged her way through and got to Commander Bayes who stood with Deputy Chief Forrest several yards from the front door. The townhouse was painted lime green and the entrance stood ajar.
"Commander, what's the situation?" Vessa asked.
"He's holed up in there," Bayes shook his head toward the house. "Got a hostage."
"A hostage? You're kidding."
"Wish I was. Teenage girl, still up there. He let the rest of the family go."
Now, Bayes shook his head a different way, indicating Vessa should look near one of the ambulances. There was a man and a woman, firmly behind police lines. Both were slender with brown hair and the woman wore a red sweater. She was crying and the man and a paramedic were trying to comfort her.
"Commander, none of this makes sense. Can you imagine Richter taking a hostage? It doesn't feel right."
"C'mon, Agent Drake," Bayes said. "None of us can say we really know him now."
Vessa frowned up at the building. Between her and the front door lay perhaps twenty feet of tarmac and parked cars. Bayes turned to Forrest and they conferred. Before Vessa even knew what she was doing, she was off --crossing the street at a sprint.
"Hey!" Bayes yelled.
Forrest pointed. "Stop her!"
It was too late. She broke away from the lines and was at the door before anyone could grab her. She pushed the dark portal open and slipped inside, shutting it behind her, closing it fully so it locked. Inside, it took a couple of minutes for her eyes to adjust to the pale strobe lights coming through the front blinds and door windows. She was in an open living room. It was small and closely furnished with a dining room capping it off near the back of the building. She guessed the kitchen would be around the corner. To her right, a staircase led upward. The landing was dark.
Vessa had taken her gun out without consciously realizing it. Now, she stared at it in the undulating red and blue lights. What was she going to do with it? Shoot her lover when she found him?
She holstered the gun. "Oh, Luke," she said softly. As if in answer, something moved above her, making a dull thud on the floor. She startled.
Slowly, she made her way up the stairs. "Luke?" she called. "I'm coming upstairs."
There was no answer. At the top of the stairs were three doors. Two were dark and closed. Wan light traced the outline of the third door. She opened it cautiously.
"Luke?"
The door creaked on its hinges to reveal a seemingly empty bedroom. The air was stale although the room was tidy and sparsely furnished with a queen-sized bed and two nightstands. The fluorescent lights from the street diffused around the edges of a thick curtain drawn across a large window. The occluded light wasn't strong enough to dispel the rooms shadows.
"Luke?" Vessa noticed she was whispering. She cleared her throat and spoke with as normal a voice as she could muster. "Luke? Where are you?"
"Here," came a reply.
She was practically on top of him by that time. He sat with his back to a wall across from the foot of the bed.
Vessa jumped. "Oh! You startled me."
He was staring at her. She half expected his evil eye to glow in the dimness but instead, she saw only normal dark eyes glittering from his outlined face. He sat with his knees bent and his arms resting between his legs. In his hands was a mass of blackness-his gun. That ugly piece of metal was a cursed reminder of what was going on and why they were here, facing each other in this shadowed space.
Vessa craned her neck around but didn't see anyone else. "Where's the girl?"
Richter watched Vessa intently for several seconds before answering. "The couple's outside. I let them go."
"No, apparently there's still a teenager in here somewhere."
Richter's gaze dropped to the carpet in front of him. "That would explain why it's just you and not SWAT. They think I have a hostage. Well, I don't."
"You have me."
His head snapped up. "You're not a hostage. Why are you here, anyway?"
"I'm here to get you. I don't want them gunning you down."
"You're here to arrest me, Special Agent Vessa Belle Drake?"
"Oh, Luke. We'll figure this out."
Richter brought the gun up in his right hand and pressed it to the underside of his chin, angled back toward his brain.
Vessa gasped. "No!" She was rooted to the spot, eyes wide.
He stared at her. "I guess whether I do it or SWAT does it, it's still death by cop."
Tears burned her eyes. "No, Luke. No. Why would you even think it? There must be some mistake. There must be some reason why those bullets matched."
"I won't be locked up. I won't be put back in the cage and poked and prodded, and studied to death this time."
Vessa remembered the shaking man sweating beside her in his bed at night. Even though he didn't speak of them, she knew he was having nightmares. Was it possible he was actually capable of pulling that trigger? Her chin throbbed where he'd bitten her. She couldn't stand this. How could she have been so wrong? She was never wrong. She swallowed. Never before had she fallen for a guilty man. How was she so blinded by hubris that she could feel this way about Richter when he was a merciless killer?
He stared at her, gun in his hand. He didn't move. She shook slightly with the emotions flooding her. Here she was, at the cusp of what she felt was the most important moment in her life. The man she loved sat before her, ready to take his own life if she didn't do or say the right thing next. She was paralyzed-absolutely paralyzed. All her training, and here she was, a shaking, paralyzed ball of nerves.
She burst into tears. How utterly professional.
Richter frowned.
Vessa's nose and eyes ran uncontrollably and she heaved great sighs. She didn't dare wave her arms around and wipe her face. Instead, she simply stood there and let her emotions pour down her cheeks.
Richter sighed. He lowered the gun. He dropped it with a thud to the carpet and kicked it toward her.
"How am I supposed to kill myself with you crying like that?"
She rushed to pick up the weapon and tucked it into the small of her back, under her blazer. She faced Richter, this time allowing herself to wipe the fluids from her face with her hands and sleeves. She could only imagine how many shades of fired she would be if Bully Benson had seen her outburst. She almost felt like declaring herself unfit for duty on the spot.
"I can't stand it," she said. "I can't lose you this way."
He said nothing. What was there to say? They stared at each other. Tears fell from her eyes until the momentum of her outburst ran its course and she finally managed to get a grip on herself.
Richter sat, inordinately relaxed, leaning against the wall, hands folded innocently between his legs.
"What now?" he asked.
She glanced toward the thick curtains shielding them from the snipers across the street.
"I'll have to cuff you. Then you won't be seen as a threat. Keep your head down, and I'll stay between you and them."
He craned his neck and looked over the bed toward the window. He watched the dark cloth for several seconds.
"Is your eye working? What do you see?"
"It's working," he said. "And, I see only reflections. Your temperature is up, though."
She came over and stood beside him. "Stay low," she said softly.
He got up and they crossed the room with him crouched low. They entered the windowless landing. Vessa closed the bedroom door behind them. She looked at the other two doors. The girl was probably behind one of them, asleep or with her headphones on, completely oblivious. Vessa pulled her cuffs out. Richter stood tall.
"All right?" she asked. She needed him to cooperate. She wasn't about to subdue such a large man in such a small space.
"Just a second," he said.
He bent and kissed her. They embraced. Vessa wanted the floor to open up and swallow them so they could stay like this forever. Of course it did not, and the moment had to end.
He straightened up again, turned his back to her, and extended his arms behind him so she could easily cuff him.
"I didn't shoot him," he said.
Before she could even think about it, Vessa responded.
"I know. I believe you."
***
Excerpt from An Eye for a Lie by Cy Wyss. Copyright 2019 by Cy Wyss. Reproduced with permission from Cy Wyss. All rights reserved.
The police frequencies in Vessa's sedan couldn't get enough of the situation. She was hardly in her car before the address where Richter was came over the air. She headed there immediately, lights flashing, accelerator floored.
He was in a townhouse on ninth, near Tehama, only a handful of blocks from the Hall of Justice. The entire area was cordoned off and blanketed with police cars. Vessa badged her way through and got to Commander Bayes who stood with Deputy Chief Forrest several yards from the front door. The townhouse was painted lime green and the entrance stood ajar.
"Commander, what's the situation?" Vessa asked.
"He's holed up in there," Bayes shook his head toward the house. "Got a hostage."
"A hostage? You're kidding."
"Wish I was. Teenage girl, still up there. He let the rest of the family go."
Now, Bayes shook his head a different way, indicating Vessa should look near one of the ambulances. There was a man and a woman, firmly behind police lines. Both were slender with brown hair and the woman wore a red sweater. She was crying and the man and a paramedic were trying to comfort her.
"Commander, none of this makes sense. Can you imagine Richter taking a hostage? It doesn't feel right."
"C'mon, Agent Drake," Bayes said. "None of us can say we really know him now."
Vessa frowned up at the building. Between her and the front door lay perhaps twenty feet of tarmac and parked cars. Bayes turned to Forrest and they conferred. Before Vessa even knew what she was doing, she was off --crossing the street at a sprint.
"Hey!" Bayes yelled.
Forrest pointed. "Stop her!"
It was too late. She broke away from the lines and was at the door before anyone could grab her. She pushed the dark portal open and slipped inside, shutting it behind her, closing it fully so it locked. Inside, it took a couple of minutes for her eyes to adjust to the pale strobe lights coming through the front blinds and door windows. She was in an open living room. It was small and closely furnished with a dining room capping it off near the back of the building. She guessed the kitchen would be around the corner. To her right, a staircase led upward. The landing was dark.
Vessa had taken her gun out without consciously realizing it. Now, she stared at it in the undulating red and blue lights. What was she going to do with it? Shoot her lover when she found him?
She holstered the gun. "Oh, Luke," she said softly. As if in answer, something moved above her, making a dull thud on the floor. She startled.
Slowly, she made her way up the stairs. "Luke?" she called. "I'm coming upstairs."
There was no answer. At the top of the stairs were three doors. Two were dark and closed. Wan light traced the outline of the third door. She opened it cautiously.
"Luke?"
The door creaked on its hinges to reveal a seemingly empty bedroom. The air was stale although the room was tidy and sparsely furnished with a queen-sized bed and two nightstands. The fluorescent lights from the street diffused around the edges of a thick curtain drawn across a large window. The occluded light wasn't strong enough to dispel the rooms shadows.
"Luke?" Vessa noticed she was whispering. She cleared her throat and spoke with as normal a voice as she could muster. "Luke? Where are you?"
"Here," came a reply.
She was practically on top of him by that time. He sat with his back to a wall across from the foot of the bed.
Vessa jumped. "Oh! You startled me."
He was staring at her. She half expected his evil eye to glow in the dimness but instead, she saw only normal dark eyes glittering from his outlined face. He sat with his knees bent and his arms resting between his legs. In his hands was a mass of blackness-his gun. That ugly piece of metal was a cursed reminder of what was going on and why they were here, facing each other in this shadowed space.
Vessa craned her neck around but didn't see anyone else. "Where's the girl?"
Richter watched Vessa intently for several seconds before answering. "The couple's outside. I let them go."
"No, apparently there's still a teenager in here somewhere."
Richter's gaze dropped to the carpet in front of him. "That would explain why it's just you and not SWAT. They think I have a hostage. Well, I don't."
"You have me."
His head snapped up. "You're not a hostage. Why are you here, anyway?"
"I'm here to get you. I don't want them gunning you down."
"You're here to arrest me, Special Agent Vessa Belle Drake?"
"Oh, Luke. We'll figure this out."
Richter brought the gun up in his right hand and pressed it to the underside of his chin, angled back toward his brain.
Vessa gasped. "No!" She was rooted to the spot, eyes wide.
He stared at her. "I guess whether I do it or SWAT does it, it's still death by cop."
Tears burned her eyes. "No, Luke. No. Why would you even think it? There must be some mistake. There must be some reason why those bullets matched."
"I won't be locked up. I won't be put back in the cage and poked and prodded, and studied to death this time."
Vessa remembered the shaking man sweating beside her in his bed at night. Even though he didn't speak of them, she knew he was having nightmares. Was it possible he was actually capable of pulling that trigger? Her chin throbbed where he'd bitten her. She couldn't stand this. How could she have been so wrong? She was never wrong. She swallowed. Never before had she fallen for a guilty man. How was she so blinded by hubris that she could feel this way about Richter when he was a merciless killer?
He stared at her, gun in his hand. He didn't move. She shook slightly with the emotions flooding her. Here she was, at the cusp of what she felt was the most important moment in her life. The man she loved sat before her, ready to take his own life if she didn't do or say the right thing next. She was paralyzed-absolutely paralyzed. All her training, and here she was, a shaking, paralyzed ball of nerves.
She burst into tears. How utterly professional.
Richter frowned.
Vessa's nose and eyes ran uncontrollably and she heaved great sighs. She didn't dare wave her arms around and wipe her face. Instead, she simply stood there and let her emotions pour down her cheeks.
Richter sighed. He lowered the gun. He dropped it with a thud to the carpet and kicked it toward her.
"How am I supposed to kill myself with you crying like that?"
She rushed to pick up the weapon and tucked it into the small of her back, under her blazer. She faced Richter, this time allowing herself to wipe the fluids from her face with her hands and sleeves. She could only imagine how many shades of fired she would be if Bully Benson had seen her outburst. She almost felt like declaring herself unfit for duty on the spot.
"I can't stand it," she said. "I can't lose you this way."
He said nothing. What was there to say? They stared at each other. Tears fell from her eyes until the momentum of her outburst ran its course and she finally managed to get a grip on herself.
Richter sat, inordinately relaxed, leaning against the wall, hands folded innocently between his legs.
"What now?" he asked.
She glanced toward the thick curtains shielding them from the snipers across the street.
"I'll have to cuff you. Then you won't be seen as a threat. Keep your head down, and I'll stay between you and them."
He craned his neck and looked over the bed toward the window. He watched the dark cloth for several seconds.
"Is your eye working? What do you see?"
"It's working," he said. "And, I see only reflections. Your temperature is up, though."
She came over and stood beside him. "Stay low," she said softly.
He got up and they crossed the room with him crouched low. They entered the windowless landing. Vessa closed the bedroom door behind them. She looked at the other two doors. The girl was probably behind one of them, asleep or with her headphones on, completely oblivious. Vessa pulled her cuffs out. Richter stood tall.
"All right?" she asked. She needed him to cooperate. She wasn't about to subdue such a large man in such a small space.
"Just a second," he said.
He bent and kissed her. They embraced. Vessa wanted the floor to open up and swallow them so they could stay like this forever. Of course it did not, and the moment had to end.
He straightened up again, turned his back to her, and extended his arms behind him so she could easily cuff him.
"I didn't shoot him," he said.
Before she could even think about it, Vessa responded.
"I know. I believe you."
***
Excerpt from An Eye for a Lie by Cy Wyss. Copyright 2019 by Cy Wyss. Reproduced with permission from Cy Wyss. All rights reserved.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Cy Wyss is a writer based in Indianapolis, Indiana. She has a Ph.D. in computer science and her day job involves wrangling and analyzing genetic data. Cy is the author of three full-length novels as well as a collection of short stories and the owner and chief editor of Nighttime Dog Press, LLC.
Before studying computer science, Cy obtained her undergraduate degree in mathematics and English literature as well as masters-level degrees in philosophy and artificial intelligence. She studied overseas for three years in the UK, although she never managed to develop a British accent.
Cy currently resides in Indianapolis with her husband, daughter, and two obstreperous but lovable felines. In addition to writing, she enjoys reading, cooking, and walking 5k races to benefit charity.
Connect with Cy:
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