New Book for Review: Action Adventure ‘Tears in the Dust’ by Chuck Waldron

Tears in the Dust Chuck Waldron will be touring December 5 – 16 2011 with his action/adventure novel, Tears in the Dust!

Tears in the Dust is a contemporary novel with gleams of hope intertwined within the despair of life. This is a story which serves to lift the reader up, only to take him back down into the darkness that lurks around the corners of one man’s life. Alestair “Alec” Ferguson beings a journey as a young man, off to enlist in the Spanish Civil War in 1937. Samuel T. Harrison is a dark and warped detective with a deep hatred of communism. He is the dark and violent nemesis who makes his way into the ranks of the detective agency where his boss uses his violent talents. People disappear whenever Harrison comes to town. The story chronicles Alec’s journey to Spain to fight in a war filled with personal loss and disillusionment. While in Spain, Alec falls in love with Tamarah, a convoy drive for the International Brigade. The war takes a heavy toll on Alec, and he learns just how high the cost of war can be. Disheartened, Alec fights on despite the damage done to his once strongly held beliefs. When Alec returns to his home in Vermont, seeking healing and the redemption of his ideals, what he finds there instead, causes him to flee to Canada and live the rest of his life under a false identity. But, no matter how far he goes, Alec cannot outrun Harrison, who pursues him through years and countries, only to catch up with him in a stunning conclusion to the story.

360 pp.

BOOK EXCERPT

Was it fate, my becoming a party to murder the first time? Especially when it was a murder that took place without my knowledge? I do not mean that as an excuse to lighten my guilt in the matter. In 1937, a private detective was murdered with an ice pick on my account. It happened on a railway platform in Montreal. That murder, so long ago, set in motion the entire chain of my life events, events I feel now, I was helpless to escape.
I did not know the man who was murdered, or even that he meant to do me harm. Men I would never know recognized the danger that detective posed to me, and with expert skill and efficiency, murdered him in cold blood. All on my account…
A finely sharpened ice pick is an ideal weapon to slip between the third and fourth rib, finding the heart with lethal accuracy. When the detective’s revolver was passed on to me later that night, I knew nothing of its provenance.
As I sit here this very evening, that same gun lies next to a notebook on my table. It stares at me now, accusing and mocking me. That gun has been my constant reminder of that long-ago murder in Montreal.
A mere coincidence, you might say—I had no real part of that murder, as my hands are clean. I might be persuaded by that argument, but for the fact I was involved in another murder eight years later, on the side of a rain-soaked escarpment in a place called Rattlesnake Point. I was a direct party to that second murder. Some might argue I was acting to save my own life and that self-defense is not murder. That is a point I do not wish to dispute as my body succumbs to disease.
I have given you, my last and only friend, my confession. It is now yours to use, or not, as you see fit. When you write the story, and should anyone read it, I hope it will impart a better understanding of the bond between fate and free will than I had as the events in this story took place.
Signed,
Alestair Stuart Ferguson

Visit his website at www.chuckwaldron.com.

If you would like to review Tears in the Dust, please fill out the form below or email Dorothy Thompson at thewriterslife(at)gmail.com. Please mention which date would work for you.  Deadline for inquiries end November 25 or until the tour is filled. Thank you!


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