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Vortmit, Book 2

 

Financial Thriller, Thriller

 

Published: July 2, 2021

Publisher: BookBaby

On islands off the coast of South Carolina, sisters Rainey and Gretchen go their separate ways. Gretchen disappears into a drug-addled underworld headed by Garrison Buchan, a sinister figure who hides his illegal activities behind a tree farm and an alligator sanctuary. Rainey, distracted by the upcoming sale of her app “Gotcha” to an anonymous investor with dubious plans for the company, lets her go.

But when a suspicious car crash drags the sisters back together, they are on their way to exposing secrets best left hidden!

“Gotcha” is a thriller novel about deception. The fraught relationship between two sisters takes center stage as an addictive computer app runs wild in South Carolina. Soon, nobody is safe.

Praise for Gotcha:

“[The] players are appealingly vibrant, including sympathetic Oscar, an eccentric psychic named Lenny, and Gretchen, who undergoes a transformation of sorts after repeated injections of the mysterious substance. Despite the large cast, Lytes provides a[n]… easy to follow plot that’s frequently witty…. An often entertaining series entry with several new and engaging characters.” – Kirkus Reviews

“The characters are bizarre and interesting – their wacky personalities alone are enough to move the story forward.” – The Book Life Prize

Other Books By Tom Lytes:

Clean: A Conspiracy Thriller cover

 

Clean: A Conspiracy Thriller

 

Vortmit, Book 1

Published: July 2019

Publisher: BookBaby

When police officer Peggy Whitfield receives a series of social media messages instructing her to commit murder, she is plunged into a nightmare from which there seems to be no escape. If she doesn’t obey the mysterious messenger, she herself could be killed. But if she does as she’s told, she’ll kill her estranged brother. As the bodies pile up, Peggy will have to look closely at her past relationships and work with her kind-of-honest, kind-of-boyfriend in the FBI. But can they contain CLEAN before no one is safe?

Today’s headlines are dominated by addictive iPhones, computers taking over our homes and finances, the invasion of privacy, and shadowy figures influencing our every move from afar. Clean tackles head-on one of current society’s biggest fears: what happens when we use a computer to make decisions, and the computer starts making decisions by itself?

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EXCERPT

“Why the— Why are you over here?” the smaller one asked, grasping a soft leather bag in one hand and a suitcase in the other. Spit flew from his mouth, a strand swung, pendulum-style, from his lip. Her eyes drifted towards her feet and the blood pooled seeping through her designer shoe. The man with the bags looked agitated. There were two men, actually, wearing identical charcoal suits. looking too warm on the sandy path that led to the dock where Gretchen stood. 

“You were to meet over there, ” he said to Gretchen pointing. He turned to the other suit, 

“Is this really what’s happening. Amateur bullshit with this woman—” 

“She’s attractive.” 

“Right, doesn’t look hassled, like us.” Now he pointed at Gretchen. “Really, is this who we do business with now? Is this how it gets done?” 

The other suit shrugged, “Boss says gotta keep changing.” 

“Yeah.” 

“So, he’s smarter than you, and richer, and—” 

“I get it.” 

“So, don’t worry. We do what he says. Let’s get outta here.” 

He gestured with his head past a streetlight where the dock met land, a union grimly celebrated with excessive weed growth and a battered Styrofoam “Big Gulp” cup from the Circle K, the island’s only convenience store. 

Gretchen moved her foot, leaving drops of blood to dry behind her. Didn’t she leave pieces of herself all along her life’s travails? 

“Is there anything left?” Gretchen asked, feeling hollow, shaking her foot. It was the biggest of the questions swirling in her head. There were others, too. Who were these guys? 

What did they mean she was supposed to be over there? Over where? And what was that tiny crab doing scuttling towards the end of the dock? Didn’t it know it was going to fall in? Yep. 

There it went. Right over the edge into the marsh grass. 

Big charcoal suit guy looked away, and said to the other, “Give them to her and let’s go.” 

When accepting the backpack and briefcase seemed to be an alternative to stressful conversation, she took one in each hand. Cuff links dazzled in the light, briefly, before again nesting under jacket sleeves. Gretchen thought if she was on Netflix, she’d say it was too hot for coats this time of year unless you were hiding something — like a gun. 

The men left Gretchen standing on the wood-planked dock as water slapped at the wood supports underneath. She watched their charcoal colored pants push through the weeds by the road before they turned left and continued out of sight. A minute later, Gretchen heard doors slam and a car’s engine start. The suits drove off at high speed, maybe even turbo. 

Falling forward onto the cupped wood of the dock, her head suddenly felt too heavy to lift. The empty space between two boards seemed too narrow as the rough planks of the dock pushed back at her cheek. When her eyes briefly found focus, she stared at a knot worn smooth in the wood planking. 

Gretchen’s last thought was about missing the final moments of her imploded legal career. Whatever punishments the disciplinary board was about to mete out for bribery, jury tampering, perjury, misappropriation of client funds – there was more but those were the big issues— would be justified. Planning to attend the hearing and deny it all vehemently, it wasn’t meant to be, and she blacked out thinking about what led up to her assumption of a prone, dock-splatted position. 

Before breakfast, Gretchen took enough pills to care very little about her impending disciplinary proceedings. It happened to be the same number of pills needed to make her forget she already took her medication, so, as she drove, she popped a fresh round. Swallowing a few innocuous tablets from this bottle, half a dozen from another bottle and so on, made driving a bad idea. 

Gretchen didn’t see the other vehicle, and the collision felt like imagination until she tried to exit her car. Something, it took both hands to shove it aside, pressed the blown airbag into her. 

A man’s face – mousy with a cleft chin, long nose hairs, and a missed spot under his lip during the last shave momentarily paralyzed her. Then her flight response took over. 

“Aaaaa—” she whispered, flutter-kicking and squirming to get away. She yelled an obvious question only half wanting to know the answer. “Where’s your body?” 

Her Audi seemed reluctant to release her but finally relented in a flutter of arms, airbags, seatbelt straps, shattered glass and dizziness. Stumbling around the wreckage, she noticed the other cars flung-open glove box. Shuddering, thinking about the head, she inspected the depths of the cavity for clues about whose face she’d just seen. No paperwork could be found, just a meat sandwich with runny tomato and mayonnaise in a fitted Ziploc bag. 

Gretchen saw her wallet and consciously left it in the wreck. Emerging from the fog of pills, and no doubt a concussion from the crash, came the idea. This could be her opportunity, her moment. She could disappear. She pulled a lighter from her pocket. Turning her back to the cars, she walked, thrusting her thumb at the lighter’s spinny ignitor until it lit, finally tossing it into the puddle of gas gurgling from beneath the cars. Expecting an explosion, she was left with something less dramatic. It took maybe two minutes for both cars to bathe in enough flame to look like a star. 

She began to wonder when she’d become capable of her actions. Maybe the exact moment was when her husband left. Or when her law practice began to fail. At some point, right and wrong stopped mattering, but it seemed like it  should. It wasn’t like she didn’t know the difference between the two. It was more like she just didn’t care as she gradually needed more pills, prioritizing feeling pretty popped over everything else. 

As she walked down the street, away from the wreck, a vehicle slowed behind her. 

“I saw you torch the cars.” A stranger spoke across an empty seat and through the open passenger window of a blue car. His voice found her again. “That was a good move, no loose ends. Garrison will be pleased. Are you still okay to do the drop? I can bring you the rest of the way.” 

Gretchen vaguely thought the stranger assumed she was doing the job of the dead guy from the wreck. That was the goal of leaving her wallet by his head too, wasn’t it? To confuse identities and roles? Hell, she’d pick the dead guy’s life over hers— well, maybe or maybe not. 

Another look at the guy driving the blue car made her wonder. 

“Yeah,” Gretchen said, swooning from the change in light as she moved into the shade of the stranger’s car and settled into the passenger seat. 

“Good,” the stranger said. “Just do everything like you would have if there wasn’t that accident.” 

Gretchen nodded a while, agreeably, before the stranger dropped her off at the side of the road a few miles north. A dirty white truck sped past, pulling a trailer filled with pine straw, kicking wind and sand in her eyes until she stumbled backwards. She found her footing on the weathered planks of a dock that continued far into the marsh until it ended at a meandering tributary of deeper water. Gretchen followed the lines of the dock back from the end to where she was standing, and that was when she noticed the blood leaking from her calf. And then the charcoal suit guys showed up. 

She knew she should be asking all those questions swimming in her head, but the darkness clipped at the sides of her vision. The sun went out. 

About The Author

Tom Lytes

Born and raised between Manhattan and a farm, Tom Lytes graduated from Harvard before enjoying careers in fashion and real estate. A husband and father, Tom’s writing gravitates towards multiple character thrillers where normal people find themselves thrust into intertwined, extraordinary circumstances.

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Gotcha Blitz

 

Gotcha cover

 

Vortmit, Book 2

 

Financial Thriller, Thriller

 

Published: July 2, 2021

Publisher: BookBaby

On islands off the coast of South Carolina, sisters Rainey and Gretchen go their separate ways. Gretchen disappears into a drug-addled underworld headed by Garrison Buchan, a sinister figure who hides his illegal activities behind a tree farm and an alligator sanctuary. Rainey, distracted by the upcoming sale of her app “Gotcha” to an anonymous investor with dubious plans for the company, lets her go.

But when a suspicious car crash drags the sisters back together, they are on their way to exposing secrets best left hidden!

“Gotcha” is a thriller novel about deception. The fraught relationship between two sisters takes center stage as an addictive computer app runs wild in South Carolina. Soon, nobody is safe.

Praise for Gotcha:

“[The] players are appealingly vibrant, including sympathetic Oscar, an eccentric psychic named Lenny, and Gretchen, who undergoes a transformation of sorts after repeated injections of the mysterious substance. Despite the large cast, Lytes provides a[n]… easy to follow plot that’s frequently witty…. An often entertaining series entry with several new and engaging characters.” – Kirkus Reviews

“The characters are bizarre and interesting – their wacky personalities alone are enough to move the story forward.” – The Book Life Prize

Other Books By Tom Lytes:

Clean: A Conspiracy Thriller banner

 

Clean: A Conspiracy Thriller

 

Vortmit, Book 1

Published: July 2019

Publisher: BookBaby

When police officer Peggy Whitfield receives a series of social media messages instructing her to commit murder, she is plunged into a nightmare from which there seems to be no escape. If she doesn’t obey the mysterious messenger, she herself could be killed. But if she does as she’s told, she’ll kill her estranged brother. As the bodies pile up, Peggy will have to look closely at her past relationships and work with her kind-of-honest, kind-of-boyfriend in the FBI. But can they contain CLEAN before no one is safe?

Today’s headlines are dominated by addictive iPhones, computers taking over our homes and finances, the invasion of privacy, and shadowy figures influencing our every move from afar. Clean tackles head-on one of current society’s biggest fears: what happens when we use a computer to make decisions, and the computer starts making decisions by itself?

Amazon

About The Author

Tom Lytes

Born and raised between Manhattan and a farm, Tom Lytes graduated from Harvard before enjoying careers in fashion and real estate. A husband and father, Tom’s writing gravitates towards multiple character thrillers where normal people find themselves thrust into intertwined, extraordinary circumstances.

Contact Links

Amazon Profile

GoodReads Profile

BookBuzz

Purchase Links

Amazon

BookBaby

a Rafflecopter giveaway

RABT Book Tours & PR

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The Assignments Blitz

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Thriller, Financial Thriller
Published: June 2019
Publisher: Booklocker
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Jonathan Black, the notorious Wall Street equity trader, runs his desk with an iron fist. Without warning, unpredictable events turn his world upside down. Following a “friendly” corporate merger, Blackie learns the desk he used to run is gone forever. The job he cherishes has yielded to computerized, algorithmic formulas. Adding salt to the wound, he must defend himself against charges of felony insider-trading, having made $2.5 million using non-public information. He is on the street, without a job and under the gun.
Agent Margaret Stark of the FBI’s white-collar crimes unit, known for her “take no prisoners” approach, investigates Blackie. Maggie is certain that, after many frustrating months trying to unlock an insider-trading ring, she has found the key. Blackie had the means, motive and opportunity to commit the crime. The reader learns of deep personal reasons fueling her desire to take him, and all like him, down.
A direct attempt, forcing him to come clean is a complete failure. Maggie must accept that Blackie is no ordinary felon. She adopts a more subtle approach. On the surface, she will offer him a chance to clear his name by working several stings, including insider trading, mortgage fraud, jury tampering and a Ponzi scheme, where Blackie is the bait. She calls them Assignments. In reality, she designs her projects to give her adversary the maximum opportunity to trip up. When Blackie initially resists the deal, Maggie uses a carrot and stick. She argues a court would look kindly on his cooperation. On the other hand, if he refuses, she vows to continue to use all her resources to take him down.
As the assignments progress, Maggie learns there is far more to this man than his hostile trading-desk persona. While searching for clues about the illegal trade, she discovers that he is hiding his past and leading a secret, second life, including an insatiable and unexplained need for money. The mystery of the man only intensifies her desire to uncover the truth. Concurrently, the target criminals behind each assignment grow progressively ruthless. The stings are thus, increasingly dangerous. Lives, including Blackie’s are at risk.
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 Excerpt
Chapter 1
I grimace when I see her anywhere near my trading desk.
“Good morning Blackie, how was your weekend?”
Deidra’s voice is pure as if she’s never screamed-out a single word in her life. She sashays across the room in
a blue business-like skirt with a white blouse and a scarf, as if ready to pose for one of those model magazines. Her
dark red nails match her lipstick. She must use a tanning machine. I can’t imagine how much time she spends on that
big jet-black hair. Most female traders I know put their hair in a ponytail at work.
That’s my point, she glams-up every day. It’s all wrong. Why spruce yourself to mud-wrestle? The traders sit
at identical, adjacent workstations. There is little space and no walls. Soon after the market opens at 9:30 a.m., it’s a
scene of messy hair, rolled-up sleeves and undone collars. No one gives a shit how you look. They all understand,
once they put their headset on and their butt in a chair they are to produce trades. When an order comes in, they
shout out the name and the size. By the end of a busy day, half of them are hoarse. There’s the constant hum and
heat from the equipment and the smell of too many bodies close together. After a while, they stand up to stretch; the
chairs kill your back. Don’t you dare miss a trade while you’re in the can. Somebody comes by with coffee and the
lunch cart.
I’m studying the three large LED monitors, each flashing arrows, symbols and headlines in white, red, green
and yellow, giving me valuable market insight.
That’s the only reason any of us are here.
She’s waiting for my response. I don’t acknowledge her. I’ll never understand why some people can’t figure
out what’s important. If this woman replaced her hair dryer with a computer screen and studied the overnight news
instead of filing her nails, she could get a jump on the competition. I wonder how many times I’ve told her that–
enough so I won’t again. That she’s standing next to me wasting time is a clear sign she’s out of touch.
I suspect Deidra and I are close to the same age. I’m thirty-two. Over the years, I’ve picked up wrinkles and
extra belly roll, because I sit all day. Yes, there are things called gyms. Once the market closes, I’ve no energy for
that; I am done like dinner, put a fork in me.
“Blackie?”
Does she think I didn’t hear her? She should know better than to come between my screens and me as I
prepare for the market opening.
I scowl at her.
“Deidra, one of us is working. See if you can figure out which one.”
My voice sounds like sandpaper compared to hers. She makes a feeble gasping noise and shuffles over to her
workstation, where she should have gone. Now, just because she’s a woman, don’t jump to conclusions. I will work
with anybody: female, male, white, black, if you’re green and from Mars, it’s the same. But, if you want to talk
when I’m on the desk it better be about a trade. Besides, I’m not a person you can just walk up to and flap your
gums for no reason. Don’t bother me with the weather, politics or what an over-paid professional athlete did or
didn’t do. I couldn’t care less how your night was or whether you got laid.
Understand this. We sit on a trading desk not at a birthday party. We’re here to help our clients buy and sell
stocks. What we do is cutthroat; the rest of Wall Street does the same thing. We fight for every single transaction.
When you miss one, that commission goes into someone else’s pocket. You can never get it back.
My former boss hired and trained me. Then, without warning, at forty-four years old he keeled over. This
business can take its toll. It sucked, but it got me promoted. He was a weak manager anyway and didn’t run the ship
as tight as he could. Soon after I was in charge, I fired two deadbeats and with Deidra, I’d have had a hat trick, but I
can’t touch the beauty queen. Every time I try, the Human Resources department–HR–says I have to train her and
give her a fair chance. I keep saying, “Impossible. You can’t teach a sense of urgency. We’d be doing her and us a
favor.” They keep saying, “Do it.”
The job requires you to read people, listen between the lines. When I speak with a customer, my view on the
market’s direction, a news flash, or the president’s latest tweet isn’t important. Only the client’s opinion is. I hear
their tone of voice. Do they sound unsure? I try to figure out which way they are leaning, never forgetting they are
all, always motivated by greed or fear. You can’t believe everything they say, because there’s more bullshit on Wall
Street than on a farm. Sometimes the customer is trying to screw you into doing a losing trade at the wrong price,
maybe to cover a mistake he made. If he has paid us lots of commissions, you let him.
Trading takes backbone. When the shit hits the fan, it’s more-often-than-not pointing at you.
My team doesn’t like me. Ask out of my earshot, and stand back. They will call me every name in the book,
which is fine. We aren’t here to make friends. They should thank me; I trained them. They’re now in a league with
the best traders on Wall Street.
My phone bank contains sixty clear plastic buttons, all direct lines. One lights; it’s our biggest client. It’s only
9:15 a.m., which is odd since trading hasn’t started yet. I punch it.
“Blackie here.”
“Blackie, it’s Rocky. We have a huge stock holding for sale. I wanted to show it to you first.”
About the Author

 photo The Assignments Author P.T. Dawkins_zpsmo3bu8o2.jpg

While P.T. Dawkins writes about “crimes of deception,” his primary goal is to create characters the reader will remember long after the book is finished. He studied English at Dartmouth College, and is an active post-graduate learner including MBA and CFA degrees and creative writing training from acclaimed authors.
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