My story is included in the anthology, Ice Cold, along with 19 best-selling authors.

Pop quiz. Name the only two Americans who have written James Bond novels. No, not Ian Fleming. He invented 007 but he was British and has been dead since a previous millennium.

Give up? They are Jeffery Deaver and Raymond Benson. Raymond and Jeff have written lots of other bestsellers too, as you may know. And now they’ve teamed up as editors of an anthology of Cold War stories called Ice Cold (appropriate, right?) The complete title is Mystery Writers of America Presents Ice Cold: Tales of Intrigue from the Cold War.

They asked some of their best-selling buddies to contribute stories for the book, including Sara Paretsky, J. A. Jance, T. Jefferson Parker, John Lescroart and Gayle Lynds. Oh, and they also picked ten stories from the hoard of starving but competent writers in the universe. The good news is that I’m one of them.

My story, “Checkpoint Charlie,” in the book. Call it serendipity, but the timing for this book was perfect for me. I found out about it when my wife and I returned home from a trip to Germany, including a visit to Checkpoint Charlie and the museum there.

When the Berlin Wall was up (from 1961 to 1989) the only legal way you could get from West Berlin to East Berlin, and vice versa, was through Checkpoint Charlie. Many people tried to cross the border illegally, mostly from East to West. Some of them made it; some of them died in the attempt.

The museum commemorates those attempts. It’s a poignant trip back to the days of the Cold War. People tried to go over and under and through the wall. Many of the conveyances they used are in the museum. The collection includes newspaper articles by the score. There’s a movie about the demolition of the Wall. It’s difficult to understand how valuable your freedom is until you’ve lost it. A trip to the Checkpoint Charlie Museum will highlight that in bold letters.

My wife and I first visited Checkpoint Charlie in 1993, not long after the Wall came down. A piece of the Wall was still there, and sections of it are on display today, there and elsewhere. In its prime it was covered with graffiti—the graffiti of frustration. If you ever get to Berlin, be sure to visit Checkpoint Charlie and go through the museum.

And be sure to purchase a copy of Ice Cold. We don’t ever want to forget those days.

Also see my poem, "Berlin Wall," in the Poetry section.