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The Blog of Writer S.A. McCown
The Blog of Writer S.A. McCown
Category:
Action/Thriller
Type: Fiction
Pages: 257
ISBN-13: 9781465887016
An intense, frank account of Seattle surgeon Sharon Witt and her battle against a drug company that leads her into the jungle of a nation in revolution named Marundi.
In The Marundi Affair, Dr. Sharon Witt is caught up in conflict with a corrupt pharmaceutical company, leading to the disappearance of her estranged husband, a forbidden love affair, and a desperate passage into war-torn Marundi, where the resolution of her personal torment must be balanced against her commitment to the sanctity of human life, even at the risk of her own.
Along with Sharon, the plot follows four other key characters, whose stories come together in Marundi. Lee Cunnningham is the man who has become the love of Sharon’s life, but a discovery about their common past, that comes after they have been caught up in a torrid romance tears them apart. In his own anguish, Lee will throw away his life in Marundi, seeking to rescue Sharon’s husband.
Henrietta Masterson is a world class journalist who has fallen in love with Lee as well, and will prove willing to follow him to his death; Doug Witt is Sharon’s husband, whose involvement with the pharmaceutical company and his reasons for betraying her are far different from what she had come to believe.
The man named Prentiss is an unexpectedly pivotal character in the story. At first, working with the pharmaceutical company, while he claims to lust after her, Prentiss intimidates Sharon into silence about her husband’s plight, but at the end, in Marundi, he has the chance to redeem himself and salvage Sharon’s mission, or turn on her and bring about her end.
While possessing elements of a political thriller, Marundi is most of all a character-driven story, designed to appeal both to male and female readers on several levels.
Excerpt
Sharon suffered a stomach-dropping sensation, almost akin to the state of shock, going light-headed for a second or two, at realizing she had made a potentially deadly slip and Cunningham had not missed it.
“If you have a point,” she told him, “why don’t you go ahead and make it?”
“All right: if I were to pull this all together, I would suspect that our own government has you under some kind of duress to hide the fact that they illegally held you. But then I think that if that’s all there were to it, they could simply lie and not compound things by doing something to you that would be more visible, especially back home.
“Sharon, I’m not asking what all this is. Our government is engaged in a lot of really nasty stuff, and I’d give a lot to nail them for some of it, but because of what they’re doing to you, I’m taking it personally.”
The final declaration came so unexpectedly that she did not register it in the first seconds. When it hit her, her jaw dropped and she stared at him in indignant disbelief.
“What in the hell did you say? You don’t even know me—what is it to you to take it personally? I ask you to leave it alone and answer with this? What the hell do I have to do for you to go away and forget you even know me?”
“Nothing. Oh, yeah, since you insist, I will go away, but forgetting you is as impossible as giving up breathing. I couldn’t any more forget you now than I could forget meeting you two years ago.
“Sharon, there’s something about you; it’s wonderful, you’re special and amazing, I know that from your record, your reputation, but I know it even more deeply from now having enjoyed the privilege of your company for such a short time. Whoever could hurt you for any reason is my sworn enemy.”
He quickly cut her off before she could respond, assuring her he knew that all she wanted from him was silence and distance. “You didn’t come to me for help, and I recognize that for now you don’t need anyone’s help. But I have the bad feeling that whatever’s really going on here isn’t over and although it won’t be me, someone else could blunder and put you in the sights of these people no matter what you do to obey their demands.
“Thus the urgency of this rendezvous.”
The accuracy of his suppositions staggered her, and the danger he could represent was now multiplied many times, yet she sat suspended in anticipation of what he was leading toward, unable to bring herself to argue or even interrupt until he had said it.
“I know people out in the world who have all the kinds of financial resources I do, and other things I don’t. I can take you to places you’d be protected and although you’d be isolated and disconnected from everything you have here in your life, you’d be safe. Then there’d be time to go after whoever threatens you and hopefully end the threats themselves.
“You have my number. If something happens and you see them closing in, I want you to know to call me as your last resort. Even if it’s ten years or longer and I haven’t seen or heard from you, I’ll be there when you call.”
“Oh lord,” she said and it came out as nearly a moan. “I’m overwhelmed at the offer. I want to apologize for my attitude, but you have to understand, I was terrified that you’d threaten to keep digging where...I can’t stand to have anyone digging. I was afraid that you would keep trying to make me tell you more than I dare. I came into this meeting intending to be as snotty as I could be, so you’d be put off and leave this alone.
“But now, my god, I don’t find it any easier than you do, to tell you goodbye permanently. You’ve kind of touched me, Lee. But that’s what I’m doing, telling you goodbye.
“As for ever asking you for help, you’d better get it into your head that if they came after me for some reason, it would all happen too fast. I’d never have time to call you even if I dared. I’m sorry, Lee, but you’ll never have the chance to take me anywhere safe, so this has to be it between us.
“Thanks for caring, I sincerely mean it, but I’m asking you to forget me and go on with your good work and your life. I mean it.”
Visibly deflated by her words, Lee Cunningham pulled over to the curb and stopped the car. Sinking against the doorway, he covered his face, shaking his head again and again. Even with all Sharon had been through in the last few days, this was terribly distressing to her and she found it almost impossible not to reach across and hold him, awkward as it would have been in the confinement of the seats.
“Lee, will you be all right?”
“I’m going to miss you so much,” he responded.
“Oh Jesus, no, don’t leave me with that on my mind. It’s torture. And it’s insane—you hardly know me.
“This is what I want you to do: jump in your plane and go somewhere exotic, even today if you can. Immerse yourself in something exciting, in Africa, or the Amazon, bring something useful to people in some god forsaken place, while you’re out there, and try to forget me entirely.
“Please, you have to forget me.”
Sharon threw open the door and jumped out, hurrying around to his window. “I know the way back and I think I need to walk, and probably cry. You’re a sweet man, Lee.
“Be happy.”
She leaned in and kissed him softly then tore herself away, and did cry the whole way back to her car.
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