Authorpreneur Dashboard – Phyllis Duncan
Blood Vengeance
Mystery, Thriller & Suspense
A collection of linked short stories and one novella about the adventures of two cover operatives for a fictional U.N. spy organization.
Book Bubbles from Blood Vengeance
Justice
The War Crimes tribunals in The Hague do the work of justice, and their emphasis is on being impartial, even in the face of obvious guilt. That's something we like to ignore, that the defendant has rights until he or she is convicted. Convictions for crimes against humanity often rely on in-person witness testimony, a lot of it. When you're in a courtroom surrounded by strangers, confronted by the people who maybe raped you and murdered your husband, father, brother, and/or sons, testifying can be an ordeal. The people who bring war criminals to justice are heroes, but the witnesses for the prosecution are just as brave.
Best Served Cold
There's an old (or maybe a future) Klingon proverb: "Revenge is a dish best served cold." The original title of this story of vengeance was "Best Served Cold," but the concept of "blood vengeance" in the Balkans was a more apt title. In the Balkans grudges are held for generations. If one family kills someone from another, there is reprisal, and it becomes an unending cycle of revenge. As much as ethnic issues played their part in the Balkan wars of the late 20th century, blood vengeance had a leading role as well.
Ways to Embarrass Your Teenager
As if parents don't do enough to "ruin" their teenagers' lives, add an unusual occupation to the mix. You can tell your kids you're a cop or a soldier. If you work in counterintelligence just having a family can be dangerous for them, but there comes a time when a curious and intelligent teen will put two and two together and ask the question, whose answer you'll both regret.
Forensics
The forensic identification of the remains of the Muslim men and boys massacred at Srebrenica continues even today, seventeen years later. This story was an homage to the efforts of a former colleague of mine, Dr. Clyde Snow, once head of the FAA's Civil Aeromedical Institute, who has identified thousands of victims from plane crashes, the Oklahoma City Bombing, and Srebrenica, among many other. He even confirmed a corpse found in South America was Dr. Joseph Mengele. Dr. Snow has given many dead back their names.
When History Repeats Itself
The horrific murder of Sikhs in their temple by an avowed white supremacist may seem like something new to the uninformed. The sad truth is, white supremacy has been around far too long and will stay around unless we acknowledge its dangers.
Means to an End
The power of terrorism is that it instills fear, and it is particularly harrowing when terrorists use a person's family to get someone to do something that benefits their cause. A cynical approach, but terrorism has no ethics. This story, "A Father's No Shield for His Child," shows just what a father will do to avenge his child and just what a spy will do to get someone beholden to her.
Truth or Lies?
What do you tell an impressionable child about your work? Not usually problematic unless your job is being a spy. Take two covert operatives who want to raise a child the right way and that child, who is now a curious teenager, and you get a conversation no one really wanted to have.
The Last Brush With Ethnic Cleansing
After the Dayton Accords, the world thought ethnic cleansing in the Balkans was over, but Slobodan Milosevic had one last massacre in him--in Kosovo in 1999. This is the title story, "Blood Vengeance," for this collection, and it is based on the massacre at Racak, Kosovo. A young boy does manage to survive the massacre, and his mother asks Mai Fisher for vengeance. Fisher has seen enough of the Balkans' cruelty and is all too willing to comply. I write about the cruelty we do to each other because I hope, in some small way, it will help stop it.
Why the Balkans?
I studied the Balkans as an undergrad in college, and the history always fascinated me. Its recent history is a mixture of tragedy and triumph, but the former Yugoslavia's flirtation with ethnic cleansing has left a stain that will take a long time to eradicate. The stories in this collection about the Balkans strive to show the human side of war--mothers who've lost husbands and sons and what they ask for in return; and one U.N. spy who keeps being drawn back to this troubled area of the world in the interests of justice.
Fences
Literature & Fiction
A collection of short stories about women who make non-traditional choices to survive.
Book Bubbles from Fences
It's Choice Only if you Have Options
I didn't learn of my grandmother's distaff profession until she'd been out of it for nearly two decades. She made a casual comment about a newspaper article on Roe v. Wade, and in doing so told me she was an abortionist. She was proud of the fact she never lost a patient and that many of the women she "helped" (her word) came to her later for her midwifery services. I think because she lived with domestic violence, she considered what would happen to a woman with an unwanted pregnancy at the hands of a father or a lover and decided the woman's life was worth saving. Needless to say, she was my feminist hero.
Parallel Universes?
I'm a frustrated astrophysicist, and one of my favorite interests is the concept of parallel universes and multi-verses. The latter is the simultaneous existence of many universes, each just "out of phase" with the others. Just how different would each of those 'verses be? Maybe we're just one giant computer game manipulated by an adolescent. Seems that way sometimes.
Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow
I originally wrote this story in 1994 in response to the Republican takeover of Congress in the mid-term elections. If you didn't know that, the story reads as if it were written today. Some of the names are still around and made a run for President this year, and, unfortunately, their message of hate has renewed life.
Judge, Jury, and Executioner?
Our justice system is punitive, something I don't think the Founders really intended and something which contradicts the Ten Commandments some courts display. What is beyond being punitive? Can you truly forgive someone who has destroyed what you love? Or can compassion motivate a victim? Where's the satisfaction or closure in compassion? The victim in this story may have an answer to that.
Doing the Right Thing
The irony here is that I wrote this story some twenty years ago, and it's loosely based on a true story. So, it's sad to see that politics haven't changed--politicians still get into office and then do anything to stay there and not necessarily what the people need for them to do. Occasionally, someone does come along and do the right thing, and these are people we should be electing. Though this story is mostly fiction, I always felt a certain amount of vindication on re-reading it.
The Things We Do For Love
You're twelve years old, and your mother sends you away because her new husband only wants his children in the house. You hate your stepfather, and when you learn he hit your mother, you know there's only one thing a boy on the verge of manhood can do--protect her any way you can, even if it means killing the man who sent you away. That is poignant enough as fiction, but this is true. The young boy bent on murder was my father.
If You Could Have One More Conversation...
We all dream of talking to relatives we've lost, and I did just that--have a dream conversation with my long-dead Irish grandmother. We cleared the air, we did, though she had been my refuge in a troubled adolescence. As always, she managed to put things in perspective.
Family as Burden and Inspiration
Many of the stories in this collection are based on family events and legends--the boy who walks miles intent upon killing an abusive stepfather, a woman who performs abortions to put food on the table for her children, and a woman who finally stands up to her husband's overbearing family but pays a horrific price. One of the ways to overcome the burden of family is to fictionalize your life and make things go your way. Some of what you'll read is true, and some is pure fantasy. I'll let you decide which.
Spy Flash
Mystery, Thriller & Suspense
A collection of flash fiction espionage stories, featuring two covert operatives for a fictional intelligence organization in the United Nations.
Book Bubbles from Spy Flash
Blackmail...and Justice
Sometimes blackmail is just blackmail, and it's one of the oldest tools for a spy. Catch someone doing something unsavory and use that knowledge for your own good--or, as in the story "Honor," to achieve a greater good. When you can exact a little justice, all the better. I like to write about situations where a decision made in the past comes back to haunt you when you least expect it. The unnamed Ambassador here was the one caught in the honey trap from the previous story, "A Little Romance." Revenge is always a dish best served cold, even if a cold op isn't supposed to get her emotions involved. When it comes to justice, Mai Fisher can't help but mete out some justice--and just a little revenge.
The Honey Trap
The excerpt is from the story "A Little Romance," which explains in some explicit detail an ancient piece of tradecraft. The process is called a "honey trap," and it involves a beautiful woman, called a "swallow" who seduces a man (or a woman in some cases, and swallows come in both sexes) usually to use as blackmail against him for a specific purpose. The swallow has to make the mark believe there's real love involved, but it's usually the ultimate betrayal, as this story shows, but with a unique twist--the swallow gets to exact a little revenge.
Best Interests
This excerpt is from the story "Another Brick in the Wall. (Yes, I'm a Pink Floyd fan.) Mothers-in-law can be an issue, but when someone imagines she's the mother figure, it can be even more difficult for a husband who'll never live up to her standards. "Best interests at heart" can go a long way.
The Next Step
"Family Matters" is the story from which this excerpt comes. Mai Fisher's training as a covert operative has progressed to the point where she has to recruit someone, a typical task in this business. The person selected to test her skills is a member of her family, and the lesson is double-sided: You do what you need to do, and family means nothing in the profession she's chosen.
Legacies
In the first story in this collection, we learned how Alexei Bukharin defected to the west, and in the second story, "Footsteps," we learn how Mai Fisher decided to become a spy. Living with a parent's legacy can be difficult. Just ask my brother. Everyone assumed he'd be a farmer, like our father, but all he wanted to do was build and race cars. There was no pressure from our Dad--it was just what the rest of the family expected. I'm not sure if he ever stopped feeling guilty about not following in Dad's footsteps. Mai Fisher has no such issues. Once she learns what her parents' real legacy is, she embraces it with a passion they never had.
In the Beginning...
KGB Agent Alexei Bukharin defected to the West at the height of the Cold War because the Soviet system caused the death of his young wife. The KGB thinks he's their mole in a western intelligence organization, but what the KGB doesn't know is that Bukharin is a member of a secret organization called the Red Circle, whose mission is to bring down Communism in Mother Russia.
