And now... an excerpt

Recovering today from what I can only assume was food poisoning, so instead of an original blog, it seems a good time to share an excerpt from the novel. Enjoy.
[From page 28]

Yet man is born unto trouble

As the sparks fly upward.

Job 5:7 (KJV)

A smell of gasoline. Sputtering engine. Loss of altitude. Controls not responding. Momentary panic. Think, think, think! A scan of the horizon… nothing. Think, dammit, think!

An abandoned airstrip a couple miles north popped into Marc’s head then, and he banked the plane in that direction. A glance at his passenger, sound asleep, lucky for her. No sign of the strip yet. Pinpricks of panic all over his skin. Still no sign of a landing spot. Was he wrong? Where the hell was it?

God, oh god! No more drug-running, God. No more screwing around. Please. I’ll call my parents. I’ll make it right. Just, please!

From the corner of his eye, a break in the endless sea of treetops, treetops that were getting closer by the second. Thank you, God! Thank you! He couldn’t let her sleep any longer.

“Hey lady.” No response. What was her name again? “Maggie?” She stirred and moaned but remained asleep. “Maggie! Hey, Mary Margaret!”

They were over the landing strip only seconds later. A sudden drop, a hard bump, and a long skid were each punctuated by various yelps and screams from Maggie, and Marc’s constantly muttering, “Shut up, shut up, shut up!” They hit the ground going 90, and had to decelerate so suddenly it seemed the plane might roll end over end into a magnificent tree at the end of the strip. Maggie braced herself against the seat and shut her eyes tight. Loose cargo pitched forward, something hit the back of her head, she screamed again, luggage sailed into the windshield, glass shattered, the fuselage groaned … and then… suddenly … nothing.

Eyes still closed, Maggie sensed it was suddenly darker out there. Was she dead? Afraid to move or even breathe, all Maggie dared to move were her eyes. Slowly, one at a time, she opened them and they adjusted to the lower light under the jungle canopy. They took in a crystal spider web, the mosaic of shattered glass, and a gaping hole in the windshield made by a piece of flying luggage. Then her eyes traveled slowly along the branch of that magnificent tree she’d seen at the edge of the runway. It had stabbed through that gaping hole like an immense, sharpened exclamation point, missing her head and Marc’s by mere inches. Over the top of the branch, her eyes met Marc’s, round and white before they rolled back and closed.