Sudetenland
by
George T. Chronis
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
BLURB:
Sudetenland©
is the premiere novel by author George T. Chronis. The book delivers
suspenseful and sweeping historical fiction set against Central
European intrigue during the late 1930s leading up to 1938′s Munich
Conference. The characters are the smart and sometimes wise-cracking
men and women of this era – the foreign correspondents,
intelligence officers, diplomats and career military – who are on
the front lines of that decade’s most dangerous political crisis.
With three million ethnic Germans in Bohemia at stake, Adolph
Hitler’s unshakeable will demands that the Sudetenland be ripped
from Czechoslovakia and joined with Germany. The novel takes readers
behind the scenes into the deliberations and high drama taking place
within the major capitals of Europe as the continent hurtles toward
the crucible of a shooting war.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Excerpt
Ros
strutted into Lasky's office, coming to a dead end in front of the
wood desk that was as long as Rhode Island. She tapped the sole of
her shoe on the floor impatiently while Lasky bellowed at someone
else in the newsroom. At least the afternoon view over Manhattan was
pleasing. Blowing in like a foul wind, Lasky slammed the door and
walked right past her.
"Boss,
I'm sorry to run a little fast with your image back there," Ros
offered up in appeasement.
Still
rounding his desk, Lasky shook her off with a wave of his hand.
"Forget it. That's not why you're here. I have a job for you."
Wondering
whether she should be concerned or happy, Ros decided to play along.
"What kind of job?"
Sitting
down, Lasky rifled through some paperwork until he found the document
he was looking for.
"Yeah,
go find this guy Lester downstairs, he'll get you all set up.
Lodging, fares, advances, the whole low-down," Lasky finished,
handing her the form.
"Who's
Lester? What are you talking about? Where am I going?" she
blurted out before taking a wild glance at the paperwork.
Lasky
thought if he could keep Ros distracted, maybe he could get the
problem child on the boat before she could cry about needing a raise.
He reached out and grabbed the form back. Throwing it on the desktop,
Lasky signed the paper with his fountain pen.
Done, he
thrust the page back at Ros. "Paris. I'm sending you to Paris."
Ros
looked down at the form, then at Lasky, then back at the form. "I'm
going to Paris? When did someone around here start liking me?"
"Stop
dreaming, no one around here likes you," Lasky taunted her while
he walked back around to the front of his desk. "That screwy
Miranda just stabbed me in the back. She found herself some guy over
there, got married, and now she's running off to some French island
in the Caribbean. I need someone to pick up the pieces in Paris.
That's you."
"Just
slow down. Miranda got hitched?" all of the angles weren't
coming together in Ros' head.
"Yeah,
nice announcement: Hi Harry,
I got married, and I quit,"
Lasky mimicked a feminine voice. These damn ditzy broads were always
letting him down. But Ros showed promise.
Pointing
his finger repeatedly at her nose, he continued his rant. "Miranda
left me high and dry, so I'm sending you to pick up the pieces. You,
I don't have to worry about. With that mouth, no one is going to be
marrying you."
"Harry!"
Ros yelled indignantly. "You're not painting a very enticing
picture for me here. What if I don't want to go to Paris?"
Lasky
stared at her incredulously. "Who doesn't want to go to Paris?
Any one of those stooges out there would kill to go to Paris but none
of them have what you've got."
With her
natural skepticism starting to boil over, Ros leaned in closer and
started jabbing Lasky in the shoulder with two fingers, slowly
backing him up against the desk.
"I
know what you're up to Harry," her tone low and threatening.
"Miranda was on a fashion beat. That means to you the only thing
I got that those mugs out there don't have, is boobs. It's another
glorified gossip beat, you rat!"
"It's
Paris! C'mon, every woman wants to go to Paris," Lasky shouted
in his defense.
"That's
not the point," Ros continued poking him. "I'm tired of
going to county fairs. I'm tired of the only labor unrest stories
coming my way having to be in washing machine factories. I'm tired of
reporting on this ditzy socialite, and that boring dolt of a
millionaire. I want a real beat like a real reporter, Harry. I can do
the job just as good, or better, as those guys out there and I cost
less."
"Stop
trying to get on my good side," Lasky retorted, readying his
counter attack. He hadn't expected this
much of a fight. But he needed her and he couldn't run the risk of
her bolting.
"Listen,
give me a chance here. You're the only person I've got who can jump
in and take over for Miranda. But you're also a hell of a lot better
than she is... err, was. You won't have to work as hard to cover her
beat. In case you haven't noticed, between the Nazis and Mussolini,
there's one crisis after another going on over in Europe. I'm sure
there's going to be some
important stories Walter
and our boys won't be able to get to. What you do with your free time
is up to you."
Somewhere
in there were a couple of compliments, but she wasn't going to let
him twist free that easily. Paris did sound kind of nice, and he was
throwing her a bone in the way of real work, but Ros was sure the
beat would take up more time than Lasky was promising, and she wanted
something else from him... for pride, and because she could. So Ros
just silently stared Lasky down, daring him to add one more carrot to
get her to sign on.
"Okay,
and I'll throw in a raise," Lasky conceded after a long
standoff.
"Done!"
Ros threw her arm out to shake hands with Lasky to seal the deal.
AUTHOR
Bio and Links:
After
years as a journalist and magazine editor, George T. Chronis decided
to return to his lifelong passion, storytelling. A lover of both
1930s cinema and world history, Chronis is now devoted to bringing
life to the mid-20th Century fictional narratives that have been in
his thoughts for years. Sudetenland© is his first novel. Taking
place during turbulent times in Central Europe during the 1930s, the
book took eight years to research and write. The author is already
hard at work on his second novel.
Chronis
is married with two daughters, and lives with his wife in a Southern
California mountain community.
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Thanks much for covering my novel and happy holidays.
ReplyDeleteThanks for hosting!
ReplyDeleteI liked the excerpt best. This book sounds like such an interesting and intriguing read. I will definitely be adding this book to my "to-read" list.
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