Book Excerpt: The Decalogue

Special guest post by Mark Pettinger, author of The Decalogue

Book Summary:

DCI Jonny Priest, fresh from his recent promotion bids a fond farewell to The Metropolitan Police and heads North West for a new challenge with the Greater Manchester Police Force. He is immediately thrown into a murder investigation; a teenager brutally murdered in a nightclub. Priest soon comes to realise that this is not the first murder of its kind in the area, and with a truly sinister pattern emerging; DCI Priest and his team have a race against time to prevent further deaths.


Fresh starts never quite delivering the promises they hold; DCI Priest is met with two elements from his past - one very much welcome, the other tragic and long forgotten. Has he got what it takes to lead and inspire a new team? Can he keep his personal challenges separate to his work life? Can he catch a killer before he strikes again, and again, and.....

Excerpt:

Prologue

2^nd October 2009

William Dunn-Harper was still buzzing from the strobe lights, the intense and euphoric music, and the numerous bottles of beer that the girls had kept bringing him. He had just finished a five hour DJ set at the Meridian nightclub and now his bladder was screaming for release.

The bathrooms were situated at the opposite end of the room, and he lumbered across the now deserted dance floor towards the Gents. His legs felt heavy after five hours of continuous standing, jumping and overall crowd pleasing had taking its toll tonight. As he weaved his way through a number of tables and overturned stools, he could hear a small number of the remaining bar staff sharing a joke in the distant corner; he couldn’t see who it was as his vision was obscured by a large mirrored structural pillar.

He always found this late time of the evening to be somewhat eerie. Not thirty minutes ago, one thousand revellers had been dancing, enjoying themselves and filling the space that he now occupied. But now a solemn silence fell around him.

Perhaps it was the empty space that freaked him out, or the fact that he was slowly coming down from the higher plain of conscious that he had occupied for the last few hours. Either way, to the toilet and I’m out of here.

The Gents toilets were fairly typical of those found in most nightclubs; and especially at around 3:00AM on a Saturday morning. The pungent smell of stale urine hung in the air, empty beer bottles thrown into the stained urinals, and shards of broken glass were swilling around the water and urine mix on the tiled floor. He didn’t go near the cubicles, but could imagine them splattered with vomit. I don’t envy the cleaners tomorrow morning.

 He stood over the urinal and got down to business.

He heard a faint shuffling from behind him, coming from one of the cubicles. He lifted his head and looked over his shoulder. There shouldn’t be anyone in there; the boys always bounce everyone at 2:30AM sharp. He finished his business and continued to watch the cubicle doors whilst he washed his hands.

There were only three cubicles, one had the door wide open, and another had its door askew, hanging on by the top hinge alone. No doubt the result of some adolescent power drinker trying to show off to his mates.

The third door was closed and appeared locked.

‘Hello.’

‘Are you ok mate?’ William followed up. No reply. ‘Listen mate, it has gone 3:00AM. Time to go home.’ Still no reply.

William moved forward towards the closed door, outstretched his hand and pushed. Nothing. It was locked. He turned around and started to walk towards the exit.

‘I’ve got better things to do’ he mumbled. He would let one of the security staff know on his way out. They could have the pleasure of removing the drunken moron from the cubicle, carrying him to the front door and no doubt pouring him into a taxi head first. Although he did stop for a second and wonder where would the taxi driver take him? The Police Station? The Hospital? How would he know where to go? He assumed that the passenger, the drunken moron, would be too paralytic to communicate with the driver. Anyway, not my problem.

William didn’t hear the cubicle lock slide open, nor did the creaking of the door being pushed ajar really register with him either. What he did sense was the last two or three steps. Someone was behind him.

He had just sufficient time to turn on his heels to see a man rushing towards him, upon him, arms outstretched. He had something in his hands. What was he doing?

The two met in an aggressive grapple; William’s facial expression displaying his total astonishment at what was happening. His attacker appeared quite expressionless, aside from the strangely pursed lips that appeared to portray his determination and anger.

‘Who are you?’

‘What the…’

William found himself falling to the floor. His attacker had deftly side swiped his legs from underneath him. He landed square on his back and an instant later his head cracked on to the wet tiled floor. He knew he was in trouble. He had been in a few fights during his teenage years and the one thing he had learnt was that you had to stay on your feet if you were to come out on top. Too late now.

William had barely a moment to gather himself when he felt something being slipped over his head. The attacker had placed a long white cable tie over William’s head. It had already been threaded through the returner and now formed a perfect noose.

His attacker pulled tightly and swiftly and the cable tie closed around William’s neck. William raised his hands and tried to squeeze his fingers between it and his neck, to no avail. The sharp edges of the cable tie were cutting into his skin as he thrashed his head from side to side, trying, gasping for air. William didn’t think to reach for the attacker; his natural instincts were to deal with the object that was restricting his breathing. He clawed away at his neck frantically, only succeeding in breaking the skin and drawing more and more blood. His finger nails were awash with his own skin and blood. He was fighting a losing battle; and he knew it.

His attacker, firm and steadfast; his arms locked as he knew he must only be seconds away from his victim’s death. His gaze remained transfixed on William’s eyes as they slowly turned from white to red; the asphyxiation causing a loss of oxygen to the brain and resulting in severe haemorrhaging in the eyes.

William gasped one last time. His legs stopped kicking and his arms fell limp to the floor beside him. He had fought with every ounce of being, and summoned up more inner strength than he believed possible; but he succumbed to a stronger, more determined adversary. The killer stood up and took several long deep breaths trying to fill his lungs as quickly as the adrenaline was forcing the exhalation.

‘For the eyes of the Lord are over the righteous, and his ears are open unto their prayers; but the face of the Lord is against them that do evil.’

----------

THE DECALOGUE is available in all ebook formats (Kindle, Nook, Kobo, iPad/iPhone, Sony and so on). The Kindle version can be purchased from: http://ow.ly/bSLDO.  Thank you Charlene and Bookish Whimsy for allowing me the opportunity to share a brief excerpt of my debut novel THE DECALOGUE. Please feel free to stop by my website www.markpettinger.com and send me your thoughts and comments.

Book Excerpt: Light Weaver

Special guest post by Carol Anne Strange, Author of Light Weaver

 Plot summary: Strange and inexplicable things are happening in the Lakeland fells … light orbs dance over mossy crags, symbols miraculously appear in grassy lowlands, and Cali Silverthorn keeps disappearing into other worlds.

Mobile librarian, Tom Philips, is captivated by free-spirited Cali but is struggling to make sense of her remarkable abilities and the escalating strangeness impacting ordinary rural life.

As beliefs are challenged, Tom and Cali's love becomes the only constant in a questionable reality as they face the heart-breaking realisation that Cali may soon disappear for good.

 Light Weaver Excerpt:

'Question your eyes; there are other worlds within yours that you do not see.'

Seeing a naked woman on the Lakeland fells wasn't a common sight, and certainly not before the last of the daffodils. What's the saying, 'never cast a clout until May is out'? Well, she had cast more than her outer garments, and I was sure my eyes weren't deceiving me.

I lightened my foot off the accelerator and looked beyond the mossy wall to where a copse of hawthorn idled in the sun. There she was, dancing. And she really was naked. She trailed a blue scarf as she skipped and twirled obliviously, charmingly, a slender waif, coal-black hair and all pale honey. I checked the road and slowed the vehicle to a crawl so that I could take a better look. Her wildness, her spirited dance, her audacity left me strangely breathless. I followed her movement, almost hypnotically, as she weaved around each tangled tree. Trance-like, she skipped into a hazy beam of light. The air glimmered for a second like shards of fragmented glass suspended in sunshine - and then something very odd happened. Something very odd indeed! She vanished. She completely disappeared right before my eyes. I stared into the field, blinked, and stared again. What had happened? Where had she gone?

A sudden jolt catapulted me sideways. The mobile library lurched and bumped and juddered as the tyres lost contact with the road. I steered but it was too late. I missed the ditch by a fraction, clipping a hedgerow, and the vehicle shuddered to a halt in an abandoned pasture. I re-started the engine and eased the vehicle into reverse but the wheels spun, sucked into the field's dark muddy ruts. I was stuck. Here I was, newbie to the job, and already in danger of hearing my boss say, 'Tom Philips, you're fired.' I turned off the ignition and fumbled in my coat pocket for my mobile phone. I didn't relish the prospect of having to ask for help, though. I kicked the door panel in frustration as I made my rescue call.

While I waited, I sat in the day's stillness, wondering whom I'd just seen. What kind of a woman danced naked on the fells and disappeared like a magician's assistant, causing me to run off-road in the process? I sank my face into my palms. A crow settled upon a weathered gatepost, feathers oily-black beneath the climbing sun. It glared at me curiously, and then cawed in a mocking tone. 'You can laugh, you scrawny bird!' I shouted. It flapped its wings with a great flourish and took to the sky, circling a couple of times, before disappearing into the woods.

'Life is an illusion. You are the dreamer and the dream.'

It's not easy driving a mobile library on the steep inclines and narrow passages of the Lakeland fells. You need to know the roads for this job, especially on those frequent foggy days when the sky's caved in and lost sheep roamed. You'd think that having lived at least eighteen of my thirty years perched on the side of one of these unforgiving fells would give me an advantage but, as I'd demonstrated, there wasn't much room for error. One moment of poor judgement and you could end up in a ditch or, worse, careering off the fell-side into an uncertain predicament or, in my case, stuck in the mud.

A tow-rope snaked from the front of the mobile library to the back of my brother's tractor. The tractor slowly rolled forwards, the cable snapped to life, and the library lurched. My chin banged against the steering wheel and I bit my tongue. Slowly, the library freed itself from the rutted loam into which it had sunk half a wheel deep. Pete looked over the back of his tractor at the cable, at the library, and at me. I did my best to avoid his eyes. He's shaped to that tractor, born to it. He had Dad's ox-like back and shoulders and even the same straggly hairline.

The tractor laboured but slowly released the mobile library from its muddy confines. We parked up on the roadside. I knew questions would follow.

'How the hell did you manage that, Tom?' Pete released the tow-rope then stared at the straight road in front and behind us, the lines of his forehead creased. 'You weren't reading at the wheel again, were you?'

He gave me a knowing look and I was eleven again, helping Dad plough the bottom field, so engrossed in Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four that I misjudged the turn, and plunged the tractor into the stinking ditch. That little episode had cost me a whole year's pocket money, and a lifetime's worth of family jibes.

'Well, Pete…' I paused, wondering if I should be economical with the truth. 'I was distracted by something in the field over there.'

Pete eyed me suspiciously, and then laughed, 'Distracted, hey? What was it, a pink giraffe?'

He patted me on the back with his large land-worn hand, and stared at the field. 'You'll be telling me you've seen a bevy of naked dancers next.'

'Well, actually…' I started, slightly flummoxed by how close he was to the truth, but he was already stepping up on the tractor, ready to leave. I decided it was better not to say anything.

'Got to get back to the farm, bro. You owe me a drink later.'

The tractor gurgled and off he went, without a backward glance. I realised I was a good hour late. It wasn't a great way to start the week, nor worth stressing about. As long as the Hawkdale locals received their regular fix of printed or digitised entertainment, that's all that mattered. I relaxed, happy to be travelling on, with the lake gleaming silver in the distance, and fells feathering the horizon in such a way that you couldn't be sure if they were real or imagined. The air in the van was filled with the evocative aroma of books, new print mingling with ageing, well-thumbed pages. As for the naked woman doing her disappearing trick, I guessed the circus must have been in town. Maybe she'd show up again later. Yes, maybe she would...

-----

Read more: Light Weaver is available in paperback and Kindle formats and can be purchased from Amazon.

Thank you, Charlene and Bookish Whimsy, for allowing me the opportunity to share a brief excerpt of my debut novel, Light Weaver. I write to feed the soul and fuel the imagination so it's always a pleasure to connect with readers interested in my contemporary fiction with a fantastical twist. For more information about my writing, please visit http://www.carolannestrange.com and follow me on Twitter @CarolAStrange

Book Excerpt: Reinventing Mike Lake

Special guest post by R.W. Jones, Author of "Reinventing Mike Lake"
Plot Summary:
When Mike Lake’s wife unexpectedly passed away, he needed a change to help overcome his despair. He chose to hit the open road with his faithful dog, Bahama, as his co-pilot. During his travels, Mike rekindled with estranged family members, soaked up some sun in the Florida Keys, and got lucky in Las Vegas. Along the way Mike searched for his direction in life, reinventing himself to be the man he was meant to be.

First of all, I would like to thank Charlene and Bookish Whimsy for allowing me the opportunity to share with your readers a brief excerpt of my debut novel “Reinventing Mike Lake.” Following the excerpt I will leave links to my website, twitter, contact info, and where you can purchase the book if you think it’s something that may interest you.  The following comes from the fifth chapter of my book.  Mike Lake, the main character has stopped at his sister’s house and the niece he had never met. Because the niece, Cassidy, had taken to Mike’s dog Bahama so swiftly, the group (including Bahama) head to a local SPCA in hopes of finding a new best friend for Cassidy before Mike and Bahama hit the road again.

--

I have never had the experience of taking a child to Disney World, but I imagine an SPCA is a close alternative. Especially after you tell her she can have her pick of the litter, so to speak. To an adult the SPCA resembles a prison. The sad commercials you see while flipping through the channels late at night don’t help either.

                At first she ran through the hallways of the SPCA scaring most of the dogs, while some of the other ones scared her.  During all this her mother was trying to explain to her that we need to make sure she doesn’t pick a dog that is too big, and that it has to be a bit older. She explained to Cassidy that by picking one that was a little older she’d be doing a good thing because everyone else would be picking the puppies, so they would be sure to have a good home. I didn’t want to see Cassidy have to turn down a puppy she really liked, but luckily the puppies were in a separate section of the facility and Cassidy never asked about them, so we were never faced with that decision. The only thing I added was that we also wanted to make sure the new doggy got along with Bahama since we would be visiting often.  Bahama was currently in a “meet and greet” room in the front of the building garnering the attention of a handful of volunteers. While all the humans involved in the decision of bringing a new dog home for Cassidy held an important say, Bahama held the biggest. Her reaction to the potential new addition would make or break the deal.

                The first dog Cassidy took outside was a Chihuahua named Killer that didn’t stop barking from the time we took him out of his run with the help of a reluctant volunteer. Chloe shot me a look that said, “If she picks this dog, I will never forgive you.” Unfortunately for the Chihuahua mix, Cassidy was pretty fearful of the dog once she got a closer look, so Killer’s outside portion of the talent show didn’t even make it to the Bahama part of the program. Cassidy said something to her mom about being afraid of the dog, and Chloe, trying her best not to look to thankful, whisked the dog back to his run. 

                The second dog, who had yet to be given a name from the staff, had potential right from the start. We took the beagle-mix to the side of the building where they had a fenced in section. I then walked back inside to get Bahama to see if we would be getting her approval. Cassidy, Chloe, and I all knew that the decision rested solely in her paws.

                When I walked back to the yard I saw Cassidy and the no-named pup playing with a rope, with the beagle-mix taking it easy on her end of the toy. I took it as a good thing that the dog knew her own strength when playing with a child as small as Cassidy. 

                When Bahama saw the beagle, her tail beat against my leg. Her fur didn’t stick up, so I knew she wasn’t scared, like how I had seen her react around some of the dogs in my neighborhood. Bahama was so excited to go play with Cassidy and the new dog that I thought there was a chance she’d break the leash on our way over to them. The commotion got the attention of the beagle-mix, so the volunteer met us halfway, trying to not lose hold of the leash. After preliminary introductions, they both ran back towards Cassidy, with what can only be described as doggy smiles. 

                “So does Mommy have any say in your new addition’s name?” I asked Chloe.

                “No, I’m going to let Cassidy name her. Isn’t that exciting?”

                After paperwork that took an hour, and waiting for a long line of volunteers to say goodbye to the no-named beagle they had fallen in love with, we headed back to Chloe’s place. I didn’t have much time to get to know the newest member of the family because there was food, leashes, and a crate to be bought. I went to the pet store solo, and the entire trip took about an hour. When I returned to the house the no-named beagle-mix was still a no-named beagle-mix.

                “She wants to name it ‘Uncle Mike’,” Chloe reported as I walked back into the house with an armful of bags.

                Holding back laughter, but feeling flattered, I dropped the bags on the kitchen table and said, “I’m not sure she would appreciate that,” emphasizing the word “she,” as in the sex of the dog.

                “I told her she’d have to change it, she’s thinking about it now. The whole clan is in the yard playing.”

                Around the dinner table that night, our feet surrounded by worn out doggies, Chloe asked Cassidy if she had come up with a name.

                “Ummmmmm, how ‘bout Bahama?” she asked, causing Bahama to perk her head off the floor, hoping for a table scrap.

                “Well that’s her name, how about something else?” her mom asked her, while pointing to my confused dog.

                “Okayyyyyy, how about Pink,” which I guessed was her favorite color based on the color scheme of her bedroom and most of her clothes.

                “What about Pinky?” her mom suggested.  She later told me she suggested this name because it flowed off the tongue better. I mentally tested her theory in my head – “Here Pink, Pink, Pink” versus “Here Pinky, Pinky, Pinky.” She had a point.

                Throughout all of this the beagle kept an eye on her, and tilted her head every time someone mentioned the name Pinky.

                “I think she likes it” I said around the same time Cassidy ran out of the living room with Pinky and Bahama in tow yelling “Pinky” over and over.

                “I guess that’s that,” said Chloe.

                And, that was that.

--

Thanks for checking this out, and if you are interested in purchasing the entire book you can purchase it on Kindle or Paperback at http://www.amazon.com/Reinventing-Mike-Lake-ebook/dp/B0084P3W1M

For more information about me you can check out my website at http://rwjonesauthor.com/

Additionally you can follow me on Twitter at https://twitter.com/RWJonesAuthor

Book Excerpt: A Fine Likeness

Hi! I’m Sean McLachlan and Charlene has been kind enough to ask me to give you an excerpt from my Civil War historical fantasy novel A Fine Likeness.

I lived for many years in Missouri and became fascinated with the state’s Civil War history. It’s not very well known. The action in places like Virginia get most of the attention, yet Missouri’s Civil War had its own unique character. Missourians were divided, with most people in the cities supporting the North while farmers were generally secessionist. The many German immigrants (called “Dutchmen” by other Missourians) enthusiastically supported the Union. The Union army quickly occupied Missouri but had to fight against Confederate guerrillas called bushwhackers for the rest of the war. The bushwhackers used to brag that Union soldiers controlled the town square and they controlled everything else!

I’ve written numerous articles and books about the conflict and that inspired me to write A Fine Likeness, which takes place in central Missouri during the Confederate invasion of 1864. It follows the adventures of a group of teenaged bushwhackers tricked by a strange old man, Lazarus Grimes, into murdering a Unionist civilian. Neither the victim nor Grimes are what they seem, and their crime sets off a chain of events that will change every one of them, and perhaps the outcome of the war. This scene comes from an early chapter of A Fine Likeness. To learn more about me and my books, visit my blog Civil War Horror.

“You need to kill Lars Schmidt,” Grimes announced.

“Who?” Jimmy asked. “What did he do?”

“Who cares who he is?” Morgan said. “He’s a damned Dutchman.”

The others nodded. German immigrants all took the North’s side. They’d shed the first blood in the St. Louis Massacre back in ‘61 and ever since had been the main tool of Northern aggression in Missouri.

“He’s an informant,” Grimes said, not taking his eyes off Jimmy. “His word is law in these parts, and he’s sent more than a few patriots to Gratiot prison. A couple of days ago he got Stephen Chambers sent to the gallows.”

“Mr. Chambers?” the Kid gasped. “He gave us supper just last week!”

“That Dutch viper has been sneaking around nights, spying on supporters of the Cause. He’s more dangerous than the militia or General Brown himself,” Grimes said.

“What is he, a militia commander or something?” Jimmy asked.

Grimes shook his head.

“No, he’s lame in one leg. He’s a photographer who keeps a business outside of Columbia.”

“A civilian?’ Jimmy asked.

“Well, if you want to call him that, but he’s got Southern blood on his hands.”

Jimmy hesitated. He saved his bullets for Union soldiers or Kansas Jayhawkers, who robbed and killed Southerners without even a uniform as an excuse. Sure, he took what he needed from Unionist civilians, but he had never killed one.

“Now Jimmy, I know what you’re thinking, but you got to be practical,” Grimes went on. “What’s the difference between a militiaman and this Dutch snake-in-the-grass? Hell’s bells, boy, your typical milish has pulled off barely two shots at a Confederate and missed both times! This so-called American has killed half a dozen patriots and sent scores to prison besides. You want someone like that in the district? What would the folks back home think if they heard you let someone like that breath Southern air? When they write the history of Missouri’s liberation, do you want them to say, ‘Schmidt was the worst enemy to the Cause in Boone County. Jimmy Rawlins could have killed him in ‘64 but he shied away and the Dutchman sent twenty more patriots to the gallows before a real—’”

“All right! All right!” Jimmy shouted, throwing his hands in the air.

A smile crept across Grimes’ face. “Don’t fret, boy. You’re doing the right thing.”

Jimmy shook his head, taking the jug the old man handed him.

“Now, I got something else for you,” Grimes said, reaching for a volume on the bookshelf and opening it. He pulled out half a dozen slips of paper and handed one to each of them.

“Passes,” Grimes said. “Schmidt lives only two miles outside Columbia, so chances are you’ll be stopped.”

Hugh read his paper and gaped.

“This is signed by Provost Marshal Harris! How did you get these?”

“Never you mind how I got them, but they’re the real deal. Memorize those names, boys, and you’ll be safe from any militia or soldier.”

Jimmy examined his own pass and whistled. Damn, but the old man is good. He must know what he’s doing. If he says that Dutchman needs to die, well shoot I guess the cuss deserves it. Still doesn’t sit with me, but this is war, and in war a man’s got to do his duty. Right?

*          *          *

The jug went around several more times, and although Jimmy wasn’t as much of a drinker as Morgan or the Milligan brothers, he downed his fair share. If he had to spend the night under Grimes’ roof, he wanted some liquid courage. Later that evening the others started bedding down and with a buzzing head he rolled himself up in his blanket on the floor and shut his eyes.

But sleep eluded him. Long after the rest had fallen asleep, Lazarus and Elijah sat together at the table, poring over piles of old books by the light of a lone candle. Eventually he drifted off, strange fragments of dark dreams making him toss and turn.

Sometime in the small hours he snapped awake. The cabin was swathed in darkness, the table unoccupied, the candle snuffed out. Jimmy sat up and looked around. Morgan lay stretched out in the middle of the floor, snoring with gusto. The Milligan brothers lay nearby on their sides, facing one another. The Kid was to his right all curled up, his fist pushed up against his mouth. Of Grimes and Elijah he saw no sign.

Some faint sound at the edge of his hearing made Jimmy throw on his coat and pull on his boots. Trying to tread softly on the warped, creaking floorboards, he crept to the door and slipped outside.

The night had turned chill, the stars shining hard and distant in a clear sky. A crescent moon hung low in the west, swollen and red. The distant singsong of chanting voices made Jimmy peer into the night, searching.

It took a moment to spot them—two silhouettes against the firmament, each standing on one of the mounds that dotted the ridge. They chanted in some language Jimmy didn’t recognize, not that he’d heard many, but it didn’t sound simply foreign like what the German settlers jabbered, or ancient like the Latin he’d heard Catholics reciting in their prayers; it sounded different somehow, like it was not a real human language at all. The pair raised their arms to the stars, calling, supplicating, and as a light breeze blew, Jimmy swore it carried to his ears a faint return call, a response in the same strange tongue.

Suddenly Jimmy realized he’d forgotten his guns. Feeling naked, he hurried inside, threw his blanket over him, and clutched a pair of pistols. He did not sleep the rest of the night, and did not hear the two return until the first faint rays of dawn fingered through the chinks in the shutters.
                                                             *          *          *

                                                   Buy the novel on Amazon!

Book Excerpt: Pushups in the Prayer Room

Pushups in the Prayer Room 

by Norm Schriever

Available at:

www.NormSchriever.com or Amazon.com or BarnesandNoble.com

Facebook: Norm Schriever

Twitter: @NormSchriever

Email: hi@NormSchriever.com

"Pushups in the Prayer Room is an account of a year I backpacked around the world.  It's not religious at all, but a wild, irreverent, and funny memoir that chronicles my personal maturation and consciousness about the world as it goes, as well as detailing a lot of history and culture from the inside out."

Excerpts from the Introduction of 'Pushups in the Prayer Room:"

In the spring of 1999, I left my old life behind and backpacked around the world for a year. I didn’t return until the spring of 2000, a profoundly changed man coming back to an unfamiliar home in a new millennium. Along my journeys I touched down in Costa Rica, Venezuela, Brazil, Peru, Uruguay, Chile, Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador, New Zealand, Australia, the Philippines, Thailand, China, Japan, Israel, Palestine, Sinai, Egypt, Jordan, Germany, and the Netherlands. I stepped foot on the continents of North America, South America, Africa, Australia, Asia, and Europe, with only Antarctica left out.

I purchased a round-the-world ticket through United and the Star Alliance, which was ridiculously cheap — only $2,500 for 35,000 miles. That was good enough to drop me in the theaters of the world that I wanted to explore, and from there I took trains, motorcycles, commercial airlines, little puddle-jumper planes, buses, taxis, ferry boats, high-speed hydrofoils, bamboo rafts, horses, camels, and elephants to get to my outlying destinations.

I read somewhere that the circumference of the globe at the equator is about 24,000 miles. I sat down once to track all the legs of my travels that year, not only the big intercontinental flights but every jaunt to remote locales, and I estimated that I traveled around 70,000 miles total, or almost three times around the globe…

Traveling was not easy; I figured that on average I was on the road every two days, and believe me when I tell you that even a two-hour bus trip can be an excruciating, all-day affair in a Third World country. It was dirty and difficult and constantly uncomfortable. I got sick everywhere I went and had to fight off thieves, hustlers, and scam artists at every turn. I never had enough money and was constantly trying to keep my past life and relationships in the U.S. from unraveling. Most people in the States thought I was crazy and didn’t understand what I was doing. Most people I met while traveling thought I was crazy and understood full well what I was doing. I was a pariah, an outcast, a citizen only of the world, blazing a trail that had very few footprints ahead of me. Was I scared? Hell yeah — every moment of every day, but it got to the point where I couldn’t tell the difference between fear and feeling alive, and true happiness was having a front-row seat to watch the death match between the two…

In my idealistic youth I thought that I would conquer the world, when in fact the world changed me, giving me empathy for the millions of people whose existence I came to witness…

So what could I do to help? How could I possibly touch people’s lives, not only giving them hope but breaking down some of the walls that separate us as human beings? How could one little person make a difference to the whole wide world? I didn’t have the answers yet, but I was asking the right questions, pure questions, and that meant I was on the right path. What was I looking for on my odyssey around the world? I wasn’t sure yet, but that really didn’t matter because it was going to find me anyway.

Thank you Norm, for sharing your book with my little blog!  I hope everyone will check out your inspiring book!