Try Another Sample

Hi, welcome to my website! you can call me Rik, and I’d like to introduce you to my first novel. It’s called The Rochdale Yeast and if you like fast-paced crime stories with kick-ass heroines you’ll love this story.
The published Synopsis is this: Imagine you could genetically engineer a microorganism that was able to produce LSD into its culture broth. If the microorganism was a brewing yeast you could make beer spiked with homemade LSD. Imagine how much mischief you could cause with that. If the microorganism was a bacterium that you had also engineered to transfer LSD-synthesis to every other bacterium in a person’s body, you could make some very potent live yoghurt. Imagine what sorts of mischief you could do then. Follow Karen Spencer, an investigator with the Plasmid Control Commission on her first solo field mission as she identifies such exotic microbes and pursues those who created them and put them to use. And all the while she is chasing them down, the greatest mischief these microorganisms have caused is being played out in the dizzying depths of the North Atlantic.
But did you know you can access a 10-page sample of chapter 1 from the publisher, Austin Macauley? Go to https://tinyurl.com/3f3p76nt.

AND JUST READ ON TO TRY ANOTHER SAMPLE. This short sample goes deeper into my story by showing the start of Chapter 4.
4. Just a job - five days a week
There is a pocket of deep water in the Norwegian Sea which is just a relatively short missile flight away from the European and Arctic regions of the Russian Federation. It is very deep, cold and dark, and about the size of Cornwall. With several different thermoclines between it and the surface, it is an ideal resting place for a submarine wishing to avoid detection.
On this particular day, or it may have been night, for at these depths there is no way of knowing, a hunter had spent long hours searching backwards and forwards across this region. Now the hunter was stationary. Hanging in the deep sea like a predatory black cigar. With low frequency sound waves the hunter scanned the deeper waters, sweeping her sonar ears and deep scattering radar eyes across the seabed through the temperature layers and into the sediments.
‘There’s metal moving down there. I’ll stake my reputation on it.’
‘What reputation?’
Number One ignored the jibe. ‘See, look there.’ The two men were intently studying the tactical display screen. The screen was covered in lines, each of which represented a contour of reflected radar and sound. To an untrained eye the display was an eccentric but quite pleasing pattern. The practised eye could recognise it for what it was - a soundscape and window on the world hidden deep below.
‘I’m not convinced. What about the magnetometer? And try superimposing the gravimetrics on this display.’
Number One keyed instructions to the computer. Coloured blocks began to appear on the screen, zipping across and down like well-choreographed multicoloured fireflies. The performance complete, the men studied the screen again.
‘Okay, there’s a magnetic anomaly which overlaps with a gravimetric anomaly pretty well; but they’re ten a penny around here. How do you know it’s not a whale carcase? Or an uncharted wreck?’
‘I’d say it was too large for a whale and that wouldn’t have a magnetic signature. It’s about the right size for what we’re looking for, though.’
The display on the screen dissolved and then reassembled as the data were updated.
‘How about that then?’ Number One exclaimed delightedly, ‘That wreck of yours has just bloody well moved.’
‘Right. Now I’m convinced. Tell me what it’s doing.’
‘I can’t at this resolution. I’ll have to go onto a higher frequency radar and risk alerting them. Is that alright?’
‘Yes. It’s essential that we make a positive ident.’
Number One touched his telephone headset and gave the necessary orders to his technical team who manned the consoles to his right to alter the nature of the radar and sonar transmissions. Then he keyed in more instructions to the computer and for a moment the screen flickered as the pixels of the image were updated with the higher definition data. Soon a much improved picture began to emerge, being built up as the image resolved itself from the blurred low-definition pixels to the pin-point focus of high definition. The image processing produced a much more realistic picture, but at first it was confused and full of images of equal intensity. He keyed in more instructions.
‘This is virtually a real-time display,’ he said, ‘it’s updated every hundred milliseconds. As soon as the computer has enough information it will suppress static images and emphasise moving ones. The picture should get less confused then.
As he spoke the predicted change took place. Most of the view faded in intensity; these were the reflections being received from the seabed. Over this background one particular object in the field of view was enhanced in intensity. It was shaped like a cigar with a small upward projection about a third of the way along.
‘There,’ he said with satisfaction, ‘how many whales do you know that have conning towers?’
‘Okay, whiz kid,’ the Captain replied, ‘you’ve found me a submarine, now identify it.’
‘I can do that, too.’ he said with arrogant confidence, ‘Just give me fifteen minutes.’
It was less than fifteen minutes later when he triumphantly announced, ‘Allow me to introduce you to H.M.S. Courage.’ He was pointing towards a display on another screen. It had columns of figures laid out side by side for comparison and also bore outline drawings of a submarine. ‘The mass and dimensions are right for a Royal Navy boat,’ he went on, addressing the Captain, ‘and the geometry is a perfect match for the Courage.’ He pecked at a few keys on the keyboard and an outline drawing of the submarine was superimposed on the sonar display. It was rotated to match the perspective of the object they had detected and then reduced in size to the appropriate scale. The two images were merged. The outline drawing
precisely matched the outline of the target. ‘So; we’ve found her.’ He was immensely pleased with himself.
‘Nice going, Number One.’ said the Captain. ‘I’ve never seen the Courage from this viewpoint before.’ He tapped the real-time display of the outside world. ‘Though I’ve been on the boat often enough.’
‘Really? How have you managed that? I’ve almost had to sell my soul to get a decent look around a missile boat. They don’t seem to take kindly to those of us who work in the hunter-killer fleet.’
The Captain laughed. ‘Yes, I know. They say that just seeing us sends a shiver down their backs. My secret, though, is that my kid brother serves on the Courage. He’s one of the
Missile Control Officers.’
‘That’s useful.’
‘More than you know. It’s because of what he told me some time ago that we’ve been sniffing around this area for so long. When we were told to find the Courage, I remembered him telling me that he had a set of readymade flight programmes for his missiles assuming launch from a few set positions which were his captain’s favourite hidey-holes. He said that one of them was round about here. So here we are.’
‘Let’s hope he hasn’t told anyone else.’ said Number One, grinning.
‘He hardly told me. Paul and I have always been close. Our parents died while he was still at school, so I’ve had to look out for him for quite a while. But he didn’t tell me this position, the tight-mouthed git. He gave me the hint, sure enough, but I had to work it out for myself from dead reckoning of missile and boat characteristics.’
‘Seems like you did reasonably well.’
‘Well,’ he said grudgingly, ‘I suppose you contributed a bit.’
‘Is there,’ asked Number One of nobody in particular, ‘a single word which describes murder of one’s Captain? I mean like matricide and patricide.’
‘The word is suicide.’ offered the Captain. ‘Enough of this jollity. Now we’ve found the Courage let’s find out what the Admiralty wants us to do next.’ He picked up a microphone and gave instructions to the Communications Officer. ‘Deploy the radio buoy and tell the Admiralty that we’ve found the Courage. Get the position from the Tactical Plot.
Ask for instructions.’
The Captain turned back to the First Officer, ‘Now, tell me what she’s doing.’ ‘I really don’t know.’ he admitted.
‘Does this mean you acknowledge a limit to your powers?’ asked the Captain in mock surprise.
The First Officer gave him a fair imitation of a withering look and went on, ‘She was almost perfectly concealed on the seabed, but now she sticks out like a sore thumb. She’s continuing to rise. She’s in perfect trim and she’s not venting gases. So, whatever is happening, it’s not happening by accident.’
They continued to watch the flickering display. For a long time, the Courage continued to rise, and they patiently shadowed her. At a depth of thirty metres, she stopped.
‘She’s stabilised at thirty metres.’ said Number One, unnecessarily.

Buy the book to find out what happens next!!

Do let me know what you think of The Rochdale Yeast! And, even better, help me to spread the word further by putting your own brief review
on Amazon.com at https://tinyurl.com/yf5z9ksk
OR Amazon.co.uk at https://tinyurl.com/bdftddar

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