BVC Announces Mystique by Paul S. Piper

Mystique
by Paul S. Piper

In a game without rules, trust can be fatal.

Three people meet in rural Montana: Ariel Linnett, an insurance actuary; Alec Rust, a carpenter; and Elliott Tong, a businessman building a house. But each of these people has a far deadlier agenda.

Alec is an eco-assassin who believes in meting out justice to criminals beyond the law. Ariel is a DC-based Federal agent single-parenting a daughter. Elliott is a narcissistic African mine owner who places money above all else.

Tied together in a Gordian knot that tightens with their every move, the three seem bound to a fate they cannot control nor escape.

This slow-simmering thriller is rich in character, ambience, and twists that culminate in an inconceivable ending.

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Paul S. Piper published five novels, a short story collection, and four books of poetry.

Buy Mystique in the BVC bookstore

Read a Sample

1.

Charles Abramson killed his crystal tumbler of Balvenie.

He’d been working late, dancing around the language of an Environmental Impact Statement for a parcel of land he was keen to acquire. Playing Go, actually, surrounding and cutting off any pernicious phrases, clauses, ideas. That was his fifty-K-a-week gig, keeping the brass of Stuttart Coal out of the press; keeping them eating mountains, digging coal, wallowing in their billions.

Coal had been good, then tough, now on the rise again due to a more sympathetic White House and gluttonous Asian demand. People needed cheap energy, and coal provided it. Climate change was liberal bullshit. Even if it was true, so what? People needed cheap power now. People weren’t going away. In fact, they were rapidly increasing in population. And those people needed coal.

And then there were these fucking wackos, like the one who’d written the letter. It had arrived yesterday afternoon, delivered to his home address, signed by some environmental nut who called himself Nietzsche, ranting about what a criminal Abramson was. Into the dumpster with that shit. Fucking wacko. Clueless. Probably buys that probiotic shit at the health food store. Maybe he should get security on that. Recording who bought what.

Charles stood up, stretched, pushed the chair back, and took a step towards the bottle of Scotch perched on the minibar. Then his chest exploded. He screamed, but his scream was a muffled “UNHHH,” and he fell. Still conscious, he hit the floor, vomit erupting, blotching the dusky carpet, clogging his airway.

And then his breath stopped, his eyes slacked, and life, in whatever form existed for him, left his body and passed through the window of his Park Avenue office, pausing for a moment to stare in last wonder at the streets of New York, littered below with light and motion. And then there was nothing.

Buy Mystique in the BVC bookstore