HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Last night the fabulous Joe Finder and I did a conversation for the Salem Literary Festival…and all in all, it was wonderful. Because I really think we forgot there was an audience. Forgot it was being taped. We are both, as it turns out, slogging through the middle of a new book. Lots of talk, as a result, about perseverance, and “the Muse only appears when you are writing” and self-doubt, and every book is a new challenge, and the glories of editing.
And also, as Debra Bokur reveals, there comes a time…when real life becomes as thrilling as a novel. When something shifts, and something changes. And you are on your way.
Take five minutes. Here is a wonderful story.
(And, whoo hoo, a giveaway below.)
Assignment in Germany
Plenty of creative people (plenty of people, for that matter) struggle with self-doubt. For a long time, I wasn’t any different. All the salient questions—is my plot clever enough, my characters compelling enough, my villain human enough?—were generally compounded by a recurring crisis of faith that I’d actually write long enough to get to those two magical words: The End.
Learning to trust my writing self came unexpectedly during an-almost missed deadline moment about ten years ago, while I was working as the managing editor at a holistic health magazine. At the time, I was deep into a binge of Helen MacInnes spy novels; a reading spree that had resulted in the purchase of a tweed pencil skirt (one that I wore at every possible opportunity, including grocery shopping in June). I had been sent back to Germany to produce a cover story on healing practices rooted in Roman settlements at the sites of natural springs that had eventually grown into small, lovely spa towns. The skirt came with me on my journey, along with a grueling travel itinerary that required substantial travel across the country.
The ensuing drama that marked the beginning of the trip was unexpected, as such events typically are. I’d been to Germany dozens of times before, and was comfortable with traveling there. The route I’d planned began at an old spa hotel in Bad Reichenhall, where the spa park in the middle of town features an inhalation wall fed by salty water that creates a mist for health pilgrims to breath in while resting on nearby benches.I completed my interviews at the hotel’s medical center, then shook off my arrival day jet lag while finishing my worn paperback copy of MacInnes’ Assignment in Brittany on one of the park benches, then stopped in at a nearby café for a cup of tea and a slice of apple cake.
As usual after an international flight, I didn’t sleep well the first night, and woke at three a.m. That was fine, as I needed to leave quite early in order to make a series of train connections that would take over eight hours to reach Badenweiler, where I was scheduled to dine with the medical director at the small wellness hotel where I’d be spending the next night.
Fully prepared for the long day of train connections, I made my way to the front desk at 5:30 to check out and was surprised to find that the hotel’s general manager had arranged for breakfast to be served to me, even though it was far too early for the dining room to be open. I wasn’t hungry, and knew that it was essential that I make my first morning train, but the staff had gone out of their way to pamper me, as they were excited at the property’s first appearance in an American magazine.
It seemed likely someone had been called in early to provide this little treat, and it felt ungracious to refuse. The desk manager took my travel bag from me and assured me she had a private taxi on standby to whisk me to the station, then escorted me to a table laid out with fresh flowers and gleaming silver.
A smiling waiter served me a plate of eggs and fruit, a pot of tea, and a basket of still-warm croissants. Glancing nervously at my watch as I nibbled at the meal, I thanked the waiter and hurried back to the front desk—only to find that my bag, stuffed with my clothing, computer, notebooks, camera and personal items—was gone.
Gone. I approached the manager, completely bewildered. She smiled and glanced beside her desk, where she’d placed my bag.
The realization hit her as my own panic rose to the surface, and she whirled around, sprinting for the lobby doors. I followed her, watching as she dashed to the street, then turned and ran back to me, questioning the doorman as she reentered the hotel. It seems that in the single moment she’d looked away, the coach driver transporting a group of holiday travelers from the hotel to the airport across the border in Salzburg, Austria, had scooped up my bag, thinking it was part of the luggage meant for his group.
A call to the coach company only added to my panic. The coach was being driven by a gentleman who was apparently the only driver in all of Europe to not have a cell phone, and was simply unreachable. My heart sank. Not only was I absolutely, without doubt going to miss my train—and, by default, all of the connections—there was no guarantee I’d be able to locate or claim my bag from whatever depository it would have been inwith at the airport.
Bad Reichenhall isn’t too awfully far from the Salzburg airport. On a good day with minimal traffic, the trip can be accomplished in about 20 minutes. My taxi driver, who’d come inside to help, stood listening as the hotel manager apologized, then began to cry—no doubt imagining a scathing piece on the hotel’s incompetence (which, for the record, would never have occurred to me to write). The driver spoke to the manager, asking for a description of the coach, then turned toward the door, gesturing that I should hurry. “Es ist gelb,” he told me—the coach was yellow, and should be easy to spot.
The driver’s gleaming black Mercedes Benz S-class was parked at the entrance, and I climbed into the back, barely clicking my seatbelt into place as he raced away along the town’s main road to the motorway.
I remember the sinking feeling I had, kicking myself for not insisting upon taking the bag into the dining room with me; for not politely declining the offer of breakfast. But at almost the same moment, my anxiety vanished. I was participating in a high-speed chase across a European border in a Mercedes. I was wearing my MacInnes-worthy tweed skirt and an actual trench coat (beige, belted, with tortoiseshell buttons). I was pursing a missing bag (not an attaché, but close enough), and I had missed my train, just like all good spies do on occasion.
What did I care if I had to replace my belongings? My computer was backed up, and my credit cards and passport were in my shoulder bag. This wasn’t a nightmare—it was sort of a dream come true. In another dimension, I might have been behind the wheel of Nancy Drew’s powder blue convertible on my way to a haunted mansion, or racing along the autobahn in an Aston Martin like James Bond intercepting an international villain. This was nothing I couldn’t handle.
The speedometer climbed past 150 kph and edged toward 160. The traffic was still light at this hour, and we sped along, the driver’s hands gripping the wheel as I watched for the yellow coach. We reached the airport without ever catching sight of it. Once there, both the driver and I went inside to see if a piece of unclaimed luggage had been picked up.
None had. As we set off to return to the hotel, my taxi driver’s phone buzzed. After a brief conversation, he laughed, and spoke to me over his shoulder. The driver of the yellow coach had realized his mistake when my bag went unclaimed by his passengers, and had delivered it back to the hotel.
After retrieving it and thanking everyone who’d helped me—and reassuring the hotel manager that all was well—my taxi driver took me to the station, refusing the tip I tried to give him. “We made a movie,” he told me, grinning, and I nodded in agreement.
I arrived in Badenweiler on the last possible train of the day at the small station in Müllheim, the closest option to my destination. I was the only passenger, and had fallen asleep by the time we pulled in. The station was dark except for a single light over the platform. The conductor roused me, asking if I had transportation, as taxis were unlikely to be circulating at this time of the evening.
I didn’t care. I walked along the platform, noting the empty avenue. A single car was approaching—the hotel owner arriving to meet me, having already heard the story of the morning from the hotel manager in Bad Reichenhall, who’d called to explain I’d be late and unable to keep my meeting. “Sounds like you’ve had quite a day,” he said. I smiled in agreement, then headed to my room, where a plate of sandwiches and a bottle of wine had been left waiting for me.
I filed my story with days to spare. I kept the tweed skirt for years, even after it had become a bit tatty and a little too tight in the hips. I don’t know where it is anymore, but Assignment in Brittany is on my shelf, right next to my other ManInnes favorite, The Salzburg Connection. I re-read them every now and then, whenever I want to relive those few hours searching the motorway for the coach that disappeared over the border with my bag, when I felt, just for a little while, like I’d stepped out of the pages of a novel.
HANK: I am swooning simply reading this. Oh, what a fantastic story. Thank you! And I need a tweed skirt like that. Some articles of clothing just have—magic. I have a jacket like that, but I can’t tell you which one or the magic will vanish.
Reds and readers—do you have an article of clothing that makes everything work? (And a copy of THE FIRE THIEF to one lucky commenter!)
The Fire Thief
By Debra Bokur
Under a promising morning sky, police captain Walter Aakai makes a tragic discovery: the body of a teenage surfer bobbing among the lava rocks of Maui’s southeastern shore. It appears to be an ill-fated accident, but closer inspection reveals something far more sinister than the results of a savage wave gone wrong. Now that Aakai is looking at a homicide, he solicits the help of his niece, Detective Kali Mahoe.
The granddaughter of one of Hawaii’s most respected spiritual leaders, and on the transcendent path to becoming a Kahu herself, Kali sees evidence of a strange ritual murder. The suspicion is reinforced by a rash of sightings of a noppera-bō—a faceless and malicious spirit many believe to be more than superstition. When a grisly sacrifice is left on the doorstep of a local, and another body washes ashore, Kali fears that the deadly secret ceremonies on Maui are just beginning.
To find the killer, and ferret out a motive, Kali leans on her skills at logic and detection. But she must also draw on her own personal history with the uncanny legends of the islands. Now, as the skies above Maui grow darker, and as she balances reason and superstition, Kali can only wonder: who’ll be the next to die? And who—or what—is she even on the trail of?
Debra Bokur is the author of THE FIRE THIEF (Dark Paradise Mysteries, Kensington), and has traveled the world as a writer, filmmaker and journalist for various national media outlets. She’s won multiple awards, including a 2015 Lowell Thomas Award for Travel Journalism. For more than a decade, she served as the poetry editor at a national literary journal, and her poetry and short fiction have been widely published. She continues to travel in her capacity as the Global Researcher and Writer for the Association for Safe International Road Travel, and as a monthly columnist and feature writer for Global Traveler Magazine.
