What must it feel like to drown?
Dying to save his life, the best man Tom ever knew swam out to sea and went under not once but twice. Without a buddy to keep your head above water, you sink like a rock. Eyes open or shut, Tom still can see Peter and his fateful lover, Katja, as they looked fifteen years ago. How improbable, how tragic, that the two should ever meet, much less, fall in love. They never would have, if in 1968 Tom and Peter hadn’t dodged the draft and thus combat in the Vietnam War by enlisting in the U.S. Army to become linguists. After a year-long Russian course at the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California, they are sent on a top-secret mission along the Iron Curtain to eavesdrop on Soviet forces in East Germany. What a blunder to believe this assignment was their good fortune.
At once a Cold War spy novel, a tragic romance, and a murder mystery, DOUBLE EUCHRE was inspired by the author’s own military experiences, learning Russian at the DLI and serving in West Germany as a voice intercept operator. He studied foreign languages and literatures at UW-Madison, both as an undergraduate and graduate student, and has published thirty-eight short stories in literary journals. |