Unwitting Accomplice A Kim Barberi Thriller: Can a homicide be prevented when it’s still only in some stranger’s head? It’s up to crime reporter Kim Barbieri to think like a killer—or someone’s going to get away with murder.

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BLURB: Unwitting Accomplice

How can a homicide be prevented when it’s still only in some stranger’s head?  Kim Barbieri, a tough, street-smart New York City crime reporter unfazed by fragile male egos and mangled bodies, is sent an anonymous note with an ominous message: I intend to commit a murder.She doesn’t know who the killer is. She doesn’t know who his victim will be. She doesn’t know where, when and how he will strike. But there is one thing she does know: If she doesn’t learn to think like a killer, someone’s going to get away with murder. Does she succeed in stopping the homicide? Or does she become complicit in it?

EXCERPT: Unwitting Accomplice

She was no delicate flower who shied away from the darker side of crime reporting, especially when the crime was homicide. Victims were sometimes thoughtlessly left outside in the middle of the night, in the middle of the street, in the middle of a driving rain. The story must still be filed. Murderers did not keep office hours. Homicidesdid not always take place in weather cold enough to freeze bodies, and victims were not always found right after death. The potent stench of decomposition mixed with fermenting body waste she was sometimes exposed to stayed on her clothing long after she sent in her story and went home. Nevertheless, she persisted.

This particular Monday, three days after the mystery letter landed in her mailbox, she was sitting in an all-night coffee shop near the Seventy-Ninth Street boat basin on the West Side, nursing a cup of hot mint tea as she struggled to write a story about two bodies found taped together in the Hudson River. It was 3:40 a.m., with the temperature hovering just above freezing. She did most of her work outside, talking to cops and witnesses, and lousy weather never made her job, or her mood, any better. She had forty-five minutes before deadline, and her mobile-office-slash-diner was empty except for her and her journalist tool kit—Macbook, iPhone, batteries, chargers, earphones, notepads, and a dozen or so pens and markers—arrayed on the table. The officers at the scene and the EMT team who hauled the stiffs off to the morgue had already been dispatched to parts unknown to handle the next 911 call.

All she saw staring back from her screen was “Today the bodies of two unknown females, bound face-to-face with tape at their waists and ankles, were found on the Manhattan side of the Hudson River.” Good start, although a little skimpy on the details. It was not nearly enough to satisfy her own standards, let alone her editor’s demands. She knew exactly what she had to do to whip it into shape, but her mind was otherwise engaged.

Nothing in the mail today. Again. Why? Has he aborted his mission? Did he actually go out and kill someone? Nothing in the paper or on the local news. Is he going to communicate with me again? Or with someone else?

Try as she might to keep them separate, her personal life sometimes threatened to barge its way into her professional life. As the mystery letter was now doing. She thought of such distractions as a contest of wills, and hers was pretty powerful. She was always able to summon the inner strength to block them out and get the job done. “Iintend to commit a murder.” So what do you want from me? Commit it. I’ve got a story to write.

After being briefly hijacked by thoughts of the letter, Barbieri went back to the task at hand. She knew the drill. With a few quick calls to all the first responders who caught the 911 call about the floaters, she coaxed the details she needed from each one while they were busy first-responding to the next emergency. She managed to cobble together a professional-grade story, proofread it to make sure she had told the whole truth and nothing but, and submit it with five minutes to spare. Cool as a cucumber. No feathers ruffled. She closed the computer, filled her messenger bag with all her stuff, finished her cup of tea, and headed home. Factory shift over.

Nobody at the paper cared how she did it, as long as it got done.

KEYWORDS

Female vs. psychopath, Planning murder, Psychopath, Getting away with murder, Tough woman

Website URL: Will get one when author name is set. (I let the site I’d created for my copywriting career expire.)

Blog URL: Will create when author name is set

Facebook page: facebook.com/sid.meltzer.7

Twitter handle: @MeltzerSid

LINKS

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08PY4RCH2

Barnes and Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/unwitting-accomplice-sid-meltzer/1138440745?ean=2940162910305

Apple: https://books.apple.com/us/book/unwitting-accomplice/id1544287699?itsct=books_toolbox&itscg=30200&ct=books_unwitting_accomplice&ls=1

Kobo/Rakuten: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/unwitting-accomplice-2

Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/books/details/Sid_Meltzer_Unwitting_Accomplice?id=SzUNEAAAQBAJ

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