Magic Island Literary Works

Sample Chapters of Our Books

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Chapter 1, MURDER AT MARCHE HOUSE: Four unloaded freighters strained at anchor like Dobermans pulling at leashes. A stark moon chiseled their silhouettes over Maryland's Chesapeake Bay. Gusting breezes coaxed frothy whitecaps from the murky bay surface. Atop a cliff on the western shore, a shadowy figure shrouded in black turned away from churning waters to face the old mansion. The black haversack slipped from a tilting shoulder to the ground. Gloved hands removed a folded grappling hook tied to a length of throwing line. With most of the line coiled in one hand, the other hand spun the hook in a wide circle until the momentum peaked. At that instant, the hook flew to the balcony above, over the rail, bursting open to hang fast on a wrought iron baluster.....	Chapter 1, GREAT ESCAPADES The outrageous caper took place in suburban Denver, where a branch of the Alpine State Bank occupieda strip-mall space much like a narrow volume in library stacks. A drive-through alley passed between the bank and Mattress Heaven next door, leaving the appearance of a book borrowed. But certainly nothing was borrowed that morning. Inside the bank, an elfin woman in her mid-thirties tapped out a personal letter on her IBM typewriter. Branch Manager Dora Ireland typed to look busy, to fill the glacially paced minutes, for no one had come through the front door in the past hour. She reached for her half-eaten sugared doughnut, took another bite, and washed it down with cold coffee from a mug bearing the bank logo.....	Chapter 1, BREATHTAKING: Gregg Upshaw couldn't move his legs. His chest heaved. Instinctively, he reached for his throat, but normal breath refused to come. At first, he didn't realize what had transformed his perfectly peaceful dream into this frightening pit of wee-hour pain. His sight strained to focus on the cause. Delylah's wretched cats lay sprawled across his calves as if they owned the whole bed. Or owned him�which the two cats did, of course. Their dander assaulted his asthmatic lungs, polluting the air, the comforter, the sheets, drapes, rugs, and clothes in the closets. At every hour of the day and night in this house, the airborne irritants invaded his body, traveling down his trachea, taking up residence in every millimeter of the bronchi, the bronchioles, the alveoli.....
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Chapter 1, DEATH OF A RAINBOW: Hank Pualoa leaped in the air and spiked the volleyball into a waiting two-hand block. He watched it spin out of bounds toward the picnic tables. "Side out! Over here, hon!" Hank called from the makeshift court staked out with towels and sneakers in the grass. Malia stopped the ball with her bare foot, and her husband loped over to retrieve it. But as he reached for it, she pressed down harder to get his attention. He snatched the ball out from under her foot and defiantly stood eye to eye with her, his craggy face brick-red from playing hard under the afternoon sun. She scowled. "Hank, we gotta go." "Your timing's lousy, Malia." He tucked the ball under one arm. "We're only behind by one point." "It's never a good time for you. If you're not winning big you're desperate to get even. Believe me, it's time to quit."	Chapter 1, Miriam, Her Legacy, Her Gift: On the day she was murdered, on the day she fell 31,000 feet to her death, my only child left us all a profound legacy. I call it Miriam's gift. Miriam herself would have dubbed it friendship, because it came so naturally from her. But the gift extended far beyond the expectations of any camaraderie I have ever known. I hesitate to call it a "power," because that might sound as though it were forced or imposing, which it never was. Perhaps it was a God-given talent--to animate others' lives with brightness despite despair, with freshness in lieu of fatigue, with renewed purpose to replace floundering or misdirection.....