“LOVE In the Shadows,” the final book of the Passaic River Trilogy, takes the reader from 1947 Newark through the dark shadows where mindless brutes of all classes preyed on the helpless. Women were fighting back and for the first-time muscular feminism was changing the world with Rosie the Riveter pumping her biceps on posters from coast-to-coast. Men were no longer the only ones using their fists. Four battered women panic the city’s elite when they enlist a mafia gangster to help exact vengeance on powerful men who escaped punishment despite years of brutal behavior. Newark’s Police Homicide Chief is astonished to discover there is no difference in the battery and mayhem affecting the rich and poor. A physically abused rich and beautiful woman goes on a two-continent search after her wealthy aristocrat husband fatally beats a household member she had loved since childhood. Also tracking the husband are two international killers hired by the mafia after it was discovered he had embezzled mob money earned by investing in Hitler’s war machines. The reader discovers that evil often masquerading as love lurks in the shadows around the world.
Genre: FICTION / CrimePublished on May 15, 2024, just beginning sales.
On the evening of Monday, August 18, 1947, everything became clear for Margie Bruning, she had to kill her husband before he killed her. His brutal assault that morning finalized her decision.
It had been months in the making. The progression was predictable. Shared frustration as days of fruitless job hunting grew into weeks, then months and Ned’s drinking began. He had become a lush and her once bottomless love for him evaporated as his verbal abuse gave way to violence.
“Do you think I haven’t been looking?” Ned said, as he was about to leave their apartment on another futile job search. He pulled up short, turned and grabbed Margie by the hair as slaps seared both her cheeks, “That’s what you fucking think, that I’ve been out there playing around?”
The force of the blows spun Margie over the kitchen sink where she blindly reached for the faucet to keep her balance. Once again there was the taste of blood on her tongue.
Margie’s rage controlled every move she made. No, god damn it! Not this time. He’s not getting another cheap shot, she muttered to herself and without thinking, she turned from the sink and in one fluid motion drove her right fist into his left temple.
“Now get the hell out of here. Yeah, you can beat the piss out of me, but it won’t be easy. Go on, scram!”
He turned and tenderly rubbed his swelling temple. This can’t happen. What the hell did she just do?
He was poised to throw his six-foot-two, two-hundred-and-ten-pound frame at Margie, but stopped when confronted by the woman in classic boxer stance, legs shoulder-width apart, both fists at the ready.
“To hell with it. Don’t think this is over yet cuz it ain’t,” Ned said, and shed of any dignity, slammed the door behind him as he left the kitchen. It was all over in fifteen seconds.
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French
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Already translated.
Translated by Tiphaine Soyez
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Author review: thorough and good communication |
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Italian
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Translation in progress.
Translated by Paola Merlotti
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Spanish
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Translation in progress.
Translated by Guillermo Barrera Gómez
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