So I’ve got some exciting news for you all today:

THE BOOK will be available for purchase on November 15th on Amazon! Barring any unforeseen setbacks, of course.

To celebrate, I’ve decided to share the first chapter. You can find it below. Thanks for reading ladies and gents!

 – M

Chapter One

“You’re making a huge mistake!” He said as they shoved him into the gunmetal gray prison cell. His narrow frame skidded along the cold, smooth concrete floor and his eye throbbed in pain from where the guard had struck him.

Immediately Richard Mitey stood back up, wiped the dust from his prison-issued jumpsuit as the heavy door of the cell closed with a screech. He walked up to the door and put his hands around the thick bars. “Stop! Come back!”

He banged against the solid steel bars until his knuckles began to bruise deep purple, then he started to yell at the top of his voice, a shrill sound which was like a tornado siren.

Finally, a guard came back to check on him.

“Oh thank God you’re here!” Dick said. “There’s been a mix-up. You see your friend was a bit rude and hit me when I tried to explain before –“

The guard silenced him with an abrupt motion of his hand.

“Hör auf mit dem Radau,” said the guard.

“I’m sorry, but I don’t speak German,” Dick said quietly. “Do you speaken zhe English?”

Dick took the intense glare of the guard as a “no.”

“You’ve got to help me out here, okay? Can you take a note or something? This’ll get sorted out soon enough, I’m sure. Hey, wait! Where are you going? Damn it!”

Now, Dick didn’t usually swear, but being locked up in a prison cell by mistake seemed like an extenuating circumstance.

He hoped that the ghost of his Mama would forgive him.

After the guard left, Dick picked up the clamor again, beating his shoe against the bars and hollering at the top of his lungs.

But nobody came.

Finally, he sat down on the thin cot in the corner of the room. He could feel the criss-cross pattern of leather straps which functioned as a box spring on his back as smoothly as if the mattress hadn’t been there at all.

Of course there weren’t bed springs.

“Cause people would use them to shank people,” Dick guessed. He sighed deeply and laid down on the uncomfortable bed.

How had he ever gotten himself into such a situation? Half a world away from his home, in a foreign place where people spoke a foreign language.

Dick glanced over at the toilet, positioned dangerously close to the cot. Years of less than adequate maintenance had left brown calcium deposit rings around the bowl of the porcelain.

He looked around, but there were no cleaning supplies to be found.

“At least it’s just me,” he said, trying hard to look at the positives. Having to share a cell with another person would be terrible with a toilet mere feet from his bed.

That’s how it all started, though, Dick realized, thinking of the interconnecting network of pipes under the floor. If it hadn’t been for that one night, that blocked pipe then none of this would have happened.

Would they execute me? Dick wondered with a gulp. He couldn’t remember off the top of his head whether or not Germany still used the death penalty.

Not that it would matter much anyway. If they wanted him dead, he would die. Simple as that.

It wasn’t a very reassuring thought.

Dick passed a long, spindly finger over the text emblazoned on the front of his orange jumpsuit.

“54373. I guess that’s me, now.”

But why? He had done nothing wrong. As far as he knew, anyway. Dick sighed. Maybe it was his fault, after all.

It was his fault for getting in over his head, for not just going home and continuing his dull life. He should have known better than to get involved with charming secret agents and beautiful women.

That wasn’t him, after all. All he had ever wanted was a friend.

“You’ve got the wrong person!” He shouted to a passing guard, who didn’t even slow down in his stride.

“I don’t even think that they speak English,” Dick said, heavy tones of sadness in his voice.

He could still remember those faces, all looking at him, looking more like beast than man in that great hall with the heavy wooden door.

“Deep breaths,” Dick told himself. “You’ve got to stay positive.”

But the stress of imprisonment in a foreign country where no-one understood him was too much to take.

                Dick put his hands on his face, turned towards the wall and sobbed silently.