Here are two excerpts from my new novel The Privilege of The Dead…

From Chapter One:

Enough moonlight was coming down the hall that I could see around the empty living room and foyer at the bottom of the stairs. Everything looked in order. I stepped from the carpeted landing out onto the hardwood floor and turned to face down the hallway towards the rear of the house. I paused again to listen.

It was then that I heard what sounded like muffled conversation roughly below me on the basement stairs. I gritted my teeth and cursed silently to myself. I was too late to try to keep them out of the house. I went back up the stairs as quietly as I could, carefully avoiding the creaky step. In the hallway just off the top of the stairs, I flattened myself into a small alcove, hoping it would provide a measure of concealment from anyone coming up.

With my night vision intact, the end of the hallway and the top of the stairs were fairly well lit by the moonlight coming in through the guest room window off to the right. I froze and listened. Whoever they were, they were now on the first floor. I could hear a few whispers and then some footsteps in the hallway below. At least three men. And then I heard a slightly different sound—someone had stepped from the hardwood hallway floor onto the carpeted landing.

I concentrated to control my breathing. I moved the Beretta to my left hand just long enough to wipe my right hand on my jeans. I tensed and released my leg muscles just to make sure I could move when needed. I checked that the hammer was back on the Beretta and that the safety was in the off position. I remembered a gunfight mantra that an instructor had taught me years ago: In a fight—front sight. In a fight—front sight. I heard footsteps coming up the stairs, and then time slowed down to tenths-of-a-second increments.

I heard the creak of someone reaching that fourth step from the top. I took a breath and stepped out from the alcove, pistol first in a two-handed grip…

And from Chapter Thirty-Five:

It was close to daylight as we started down the road headed east. My plan was to get at least twenty or thirty miles behind us and then stop at the busiest truck stop we could find for coffee, food, and gas.

In ten minutes of driving I had only seen one other car, which passed us headed in the opposite direction towards Fargo behind us to the west. Then I saw something in the rearview mirror. A spot way behind us was getting closer and starting to take shape. I cursed to myself as I realized that it was a yellow Mustang. I figured it had to be him, awake, sore, and very unhappy. He must have had some kind of key finder or maybe a spare set that I’d missed. I was impressed with his determination.

The yellow spot got larger, maybe a half mile back. I accelerated past eighty, then on through to ninety.

I looked over at Jenny and saw that she was leaning against her window and appeared to be asleep. I stretched my arm around to feel for my backpack to make sure I could grab the forty-five auto in a hurry if I needed it. The silencer was in the trunk with the rest of the armory, but I didn’t think there would be any need for that out here in the middle of nowhere.

The Mustang was coming up on us fast. My speedometer read a solid ninety-five so I figured he must be doing better than a hundred as he worked to close the gap. Very reckless, I thought to myself. He must be in a rage. He came up fast like he was going to ram us and then backed off. And then he did that again. He was toying with me.  

The road had been very straight for several miles, but up ahead I could just make out what looked like a substantial curve to the left; almost like a bank turn at a racetrack, but flatter. We’d been driving through a landscape made up primarily of cleared farmland, but as we got closer to the curve I could see that just off to the right of it was a thick line of sturdy old trees. Part of someone’s property line maybe, or perhaps defining a rocky area not suitable for plowing and planting. The trees looked to be less than a hundred feet from the road. I checked my mirror and saw that Glen had backed off again after one of his rushes. I started to formulate an idea that I thought just might work.

I dropped back to about eighty-five to let him get closer, then accelerated quickly as we came up to the curve. The big Mercury was about at its road-holding limit but I knew that both the tires and the road conditions were as good as they could get.

Just starting into the beginning of the curve, I saw that he’d taken the bait and was zooming up fast to ride my rear bumper again. With my left hand at the nine o’clock position on the steering wheel, I adjusted my grip so my index and middle fingers were firmly planted on the little rubber pressure switch that Tommy’s mechanic friend had added. As I held steady into the left curve at just north of ninety, I stole a glance in the mirror. The Mustang couldn’t have been more than ten feet off my rear bumper.

We were halfway through the curve and the line of trees was just off the road to the right.

I pressed the switch…