Editor’s Note: Intrigue, Danger, and Secrets Lurk in Every Shadow in this WWII Mystery. It’s 1939 and the specter of Nazi Germany has the world on the edge of war. Filomena Devlin, the smart, inquisitive, and beautiful women’s editor at The Morning Sun, the New York City broadsheet managed by her father, Archie, is determined to graduate from writing about the length of women’s hemlines to the challenge of investigative reporting. She is a woman in a man’s world—and while not assigned to cover the Nazi German-American Bund Rally at Madison Square Garden, she decides to take matters into her own hands and attends. Read the excerpt and enter to win a copy of the book signed by author Agata Stanford. 

Excerpt “From the Files of Filomena Devlin, Reporter and Nazi Hunter“

Copyright 2024, Agata Stanford. The Three Tomatoes Publishing.

Prologue

The low tide reeked of the decay beneath the calm waters of the canal and rose with the thickening fog. It hit me: I was walking into danger. Danger I was ill-prepared to

deal with. But it struck me, too, as a metaphor for the wave of putridity rolling across Europe, smothering and annihilating, and now extending its foul reach to our shores.

I was scared.

What was I going to achieve, alone, unarmed, following  these  criminals  into  an  unknown  place  other  than  to  probably get myself killed? For surely, if caught, these men would not hesitate to kill me. They’d already left a trail of dead bodies, so what was one more murder? But I’d come this far to give up now; I had to go on. I was compelled to go on. Too much was at stake.

I stiffened my spine, and with false courage, forced myself to walk quietly over the little Venetian-style bridge.

But as I passed over it in my pursuit of the men, the fog dissipated. I was vulnerable now, no trees, no vegetation–nothing to shield me If they turned their heads. I stopped, paralyzed, as they turned left onto a side street.

Off the bridge, now, I cut diagonally across a plot of sandy  soil  that  bordered  the  canal  and  ran  parallel  to  the road, scrub oak my only cover. I lost sight of the two men, but  I  scrambled  along,  spirals  of  ghostly  mist  rising  from off the black water, a visual fence from plunging in to guide.

The  foghorn  sounded  repeatedly  like  the  forlorn moans of a wounded animal, boat rigging creaked along the canal, and a buoy bell clanged somewhere at the mouth of the Great South Bay. The night was closing in on me, its cold swirling breath filling my lungs, chilling my resolve.

Suddenly,  light  punctured  the  darkness,  and  I  could see it came from within a structure across the road. I braced myself and headed toward it, stumbling over knotted grasses,  and  catching  my  coat  sleeve  on  thorny  bushes  in  my progress. A small creature skirted past and the image in my mind, if not in reality, was of something rat-like scurrying by, its gurgling squeak of surprise in response to my muted gasp.

“Pull yourself together, Filomena!”

The  man  from  Shorty’s  Garage  broke  the  small  rectangle  of  light  from  a  small  bungalow.  I  scooted  across  the road, and flattened myself against the wall of the building, invisible  from  view  of  the  window.  Gingerly,  I  crouched down and moved toward the window ledge, took a breath for  courage,  and  peeked  in.  Three  men  were  in  the  room, one,  seated  at  a  table  before  a  boxy  black  appliance  with knobs—a  radio  transmitter!—the  man  from  Shorty’s  Garage tapped a lever sitting on a small desk. I knew enough to identify code being transmitted. Where was Joe?

I  sensed  him  before  I  ever  saw  him.  The  hair  at  the back of my neck rose, electrified, and I turned to see the dark  shadowy  hulk  coming  from  around  the  rear  of  the house. It was too late to hide, even had there been a place to hide. The house sat on sand, nothing but low brush across the road near the dark water.

I turned the corner toward the front of the house, in a  dash  away  from  his  line  of  vision—or  so  I  thought.  The sharp retort of gunfire gripped my heart, took my breath, before adrenaline kicked in and I beelined toward the canal where  the  fog  was  thicker.  There,  a  lone  leaning  weeping willow, dipped its bare fingers over the water, its trunk providing a moment’s cover. But he was following my path. I willed the fog to shield me from view, but it did not obey.

This  is  the  test  of  the  Coward  verses  the  Brave  Warrior,  I  thought. I could bluster and posture with feigned heroism, but the truth was I was scared shitless, a pathetic, whimpering coward in the field of battle. 

My latent Catholicism kicked in and I prayed to Mary, full  of  Grace  and  Our  Father  Who  Art  in  Heaven  when another  gunshot  sounded,  and  then  another.  Frantically searching for a place to hide, I prepared myself for a leap in the canal, shrugging off the Mark Cross satchel to crawl in the darkness toward the timbers at the canal.

We’re giving away three signed copies of “From the Files of Filomena Devlin” signed by the author, Agata Stanford.

Enter here for a chance to win.

About the Author

Agata Stanford, author of the popular and acclaimed Dorothy Parker Mystery series, brings her storytelling talents to this World War II mystery. In addition to being a prolific novelist, she has written seven plays and two musicals. Her brilliant and witty dialogue in her novels was honed by her background as a trained actress, singer, and dancer beginning with her attendance at the prestigious High School of Performing Arts in New York City. She has acted in/or directed 14 Equity productions, performed on tour, on and Off-Broadway, as a nightclub performer in New York and resort clubs, and appeared in more than fifty films and 30 stage plays. As a native New Yorker, she loves the history of the city, especially from the last century, and her books are filled with rich descriptions of earlier times with historical accuracy.