Covert Dreams: An International Thriller by Michael Meyer Excerpt

Covert Dreams: An International Thriller by Michael Meyer
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INTERNATIONAL SUSPENSE COLLECTION BOOK ONE - from the author who involves you in a thrilling Caribbean mystery in Book Two, DEADLY EYES 

Reviewers have compared  this book to Robert Ludlum's Bourne series, and the writing style has been compared to that of Dean Koontz.

Imagine waking up remembering intimate details about a country in which you have never traveled and fluently speaking a language that you have never spoken. B.J. is living the ideal life. He has a great wife, a wonderful job. And yet he is experiencing life-like vivid dreams of Munich, a city he has never visited.

Stan Halsey is a professor in Saudi Arabia, who sends for his wife to join him. She arrives, and, in the blink of an eye, she vanishes, leaving no trace of ever being alive in either the United States or in Saudi Arabia.

COVERT DREAMS is a fast-paced international suspense thriller that moves from lively Munich to the burning sands of Saudi Arabia. 

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

Q. What inspired you to write Covert Dreams? 

Mike. I love a good mystery. I like to be thrilled. In addition, I have always been intrigued by the relationship the United States has had with Saudi Arabia, one of the most restrictive societies in the world, where I have been a personal witness to the fact that life here and life there is as different as being on two separate planets. What we take here for a given is nearly always a no-no there.
          
The area of parapsychology has always intrigued me, and where better to deal with something such as this than in a very hidden-from-the-rest-of-the-world location. The mixture of live and let live as practiced in Bavarian Munich, coupled with the fervent zeal of Arabia, enhanced by American involvement--and the plot just seemed to thicken, drawing me into it as I wrote, without my ever knowing precisely where or how it would end, but loving every minute of it.

Q. What writing technique of yours are you most proud of?

Mike. My answer can be summed up by one of the many readers who have left reviews on my Amazon website: "One last point: at the end of most of the chapters the author used an unusual and effective technique that really won my respect. I felt I was in the hands of a master. Terrific book. I would recommend it to anyone." This particular review really had an effect on me since I had worked extremely hard to perfect this specific technique.

Since COVERT DREAMS has two alternating stories that are linked in a horrifying way at the end, I wanted to keep the reader in suspense the entire journey. I especially wanted to ensure that this would be a page-turner. So what I did was to link each chapter together with endings that would titillate the reader, making one want to hurry on to see what was going to happen next.

Q. Is there anything else you would like your readers to know?

Mike. The locales I write about are real. For instance, COVERT DREAMS is set primarily in Munich and in Saudi Arabia. I have lived and studied in Germany, and I know Munich as well as I know the back of my own hands. Also, I was a college professor at the University of Petroleum and Minerals, in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. I have traveled extensively throughout Saudi Arabia and the Middle East.

Excerpt:

The Munich all around her was bustling with activity. She could hear it from all directions. Munich was a wonderful city, a fun-loving place, the live and let live ebullience of the city emanating from its every nook and cranny. She had had a lovely stay here. All of it had been so adventurous, so new, so unlike life back home in Arizona. She could vividly recall the first time she had ventured into a Munich beer garden, where the liter mugs had been so huge that she had had to lift hers with both hands, and the giggles, from him, until he too had had to use both hands.

The fumbling noises he had been making came to an abrupt halt. He began stroking her cheek again. Gus looked so happy, so young, so full of life. It was so hard to imagine that he could be so heavily involved in all this horror.

Gus smiled at her once more. His eyes were soft, so gentle, so caring, so loving.

Maybe this was some kind of huge mistake. Maybe he wasn't going to kill her after all. Maybe everything would turn out happily ever after. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe.

But then suddenly she saw it clearly. It was no fairy tale. There would be no maybe. This was real, as real as the mixture of sadness and fear that now flooded her brain.

And then she died, with her eyes wide open, challenging, piercing his to the end.