Michael Beres - Chernobyl Murders (Lazlo Horvath Thriller)

Medallion Press, Inc.

Printed in USA

Rich with characters, beautifully written, and fascinating with insider details, Chernobyl Murders by Michael Beres is an unforget-table journey into one of the Cold Wars most explosive episodes.

From Kiev to Chicago, Pripyat to Vienna, youll feel the pulse-pounding threat of discovery and the white-hot heat of chase in this outstanding thriller. Beres serves up a feast of a story.

Gayle Lynds, New York Times

bestselling author of The Last Spymaster

Whenever I spend time in Chernobyl, I see ghosts. I wonder about those who once inhabited this abandoned land. In his thriller, Michael Beres unearths some of these ghosts Chernobyl Murders kept me up night after night, turning pages when I should have been turning out the light.

Michael Forster Rothbart,

Documentary Photographer, After The Nukes

Michael Beres creates a drama of revenge from the old Soviet order, leading us on a chase across Ukraine while passionately capturing the terror, confusion, and anguish of refugees of an environmental disaster we will never forget.

Mary Mycio, author of

Wormwood Forest, A Natural History of Chernobyl Accolades and reviews for Grand Traverse:

A near-future SF novel that addresses environmental concerns.

Publishers Weekly

In his thrilling new novel, Michael Beres takes us into a future racked by environmental disaster. From the devastation he spins an exciting and very human tale of intrigue, revenge, and, ultimately, hope for our future.

Carl Pope, Executive Director Sierra Club

Two women, damaged in different ways by environmental crimes

one is embittered, one ennobled. Their lives and ultimate collision form a sweeping tale of our fragile world and its challenges.

Barbara DAmato, Author of

DEATH OF A THOUSAND CUTS (Forge)

There is no question on what side of the environment argument Mr. Beres is on as his twenty-first century looks as if mankind is one step away from extinction yet a thousand points of light still shine with hope to save the world.

The Midwest Book Review

Accolades and reviews for The Presidents Nemesis:

Beres (Grand Traverse) goes one step beyond The Manchurian Candidate in this engrossing thriller, which sometimes seems too obvious but then foils expectations by twisting the readers mind along with that of the protagonist. Recommended for all popular fiction collections.

Library Journal

Conspiracy fanatics may enjoy Beress second novel (after Grand Traverse), a bizzare political thriller The denouement would be at home in the tabloids.

Publishers Weekly

A recent article in Publishers Weekly talked about how the current White House does not like that the publisher of this book has used the presidential seal on the cover because there are several bullet holes. I applaud Medallion Press for standing firm on its use of the artwork for this timely work of fiction. The novel is all about conspiracies, presidential assignations, and covert operations. Beres has written a very tense nail-biting thriller that is filled with several well fleshed out characters in tense situations. Beres sums up the discontent voters have for all politicians in this country very well in a few short sentences. THE PRESIDENTS NEMESIS is a great political thriller.

Gary Roen, Midwest Book Review

Michael Beres has written a suspenseful novel that delves into paranoia as Stanley Johnson becomes involved in a convoluted plot to assassinate the President. Readers will enjoy Johnsons plunge into madness as people and events beyond his control begin to take over his life. Beres plotting is brisk and full of twist and turns. Fans of Stephen King and Dean Koontz may want to check out this great beach read.

Bob at jabberwocky.booksense.com

Accolades and reviews for Final Stroke:

From Naples, Florida to Chicago, Illinois, conspiracies abound in FINAL STROKE. Author Michael Beres terrifyingly captures the paralysis and helplessness the infirm must deal with every day of their lives. Scary stuff.

Julie Hyzy, author of Deadly Blessings and Deadly Interest

Michael Beres skillfully leads us into the fragmented, frustrating world of the injured brain, giving us an engrossing story that blends violence with compassion, and an outcome that suggests hope is something worth clinging to.

David J. Walker, Edgar-nominated author of many novels, including the Wild Onion, Ltd. series

The Investigation by the Babes and the Feds domestic spying take a back seat to the deep look into recovering stroke victims. The communications between the Babes is incredible especially the patience of both as it must be frustrating to not be able to say what you mean to the transmitter and to the receiver. Although there is perhaps too much going on in the background (though not explored to any intruding depth), readers will appreciated this character driven whodunit starring a unique pairing of an amateur sleuth and a left brain stroke former cop.

Harriet Klausner, The Midwest Book Review Published 2008 by Medallion Press, Inc.

Th

e MEDALLION PRESS LOGO

is a registered tradmark of Medallion Press, Inc.

Copyright (c) 2008 by Michael Beres

Cover Illustration by Adam Mock

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law.

Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the authors imagination or are used fi ctionally. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Printed in the United States of America

Typeset in Minion Pro

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Beres, Michael.

Chernobyl murders Michael Beres.p>

p. cm.

ISBN 978-1-933836-29-4 (alk. paper)

1. Chernobyl Nuclear Accident, Chornobyl, Ukraine, 1986 Fiction. 2.

UkraineFiction. I. Title.

PS3602.E7516C47 2008

813.6dc22

2008009011

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

First Edition

DEDICATION:

To Chernobyl survivors and their families.

Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.

Bhagavad-Gita, Hindu Scripture, quoted by J. Robert Oppenheimer, 1945

I dont know what I should talk aboutabout death or about love? Or are they the same? Which one should I talk about?

Wife of Chernobyl Fireman, in Voices from Chernobyl, Svetlana Alexievich (1987)

Kiev, Ukraine

Kiev is unusually warm for May as a noon crowd thickens with workers on their lunch break. Some carry lunches wrapped in newspaper as they weave in and out of tourists studying brochures and shoppers carrying parcels. The workers move quickly downhill on Khreshchatik Boulevard like rivulets of water eager to reach the cool river bottom of the ancient valley. They flood onto European Square like conquering Mongol hordes, taking tourists and shoppers with them into the park, where food vendors wait in the shade of chestnut trees. Ignoring pedestrian underpasses, the crowd tightens a tourniquet on the flow of traffic. A person monitoring a spy satellite might conclude something in the city has resulted in panic, but it is simply hunger.

Queues at food vendors extend into the hot sun on the square.

Slavs with frowning broad faces lean sideways to study the length of queues. These workers from downtown hotels, museums, and shops wear faded cotton coveralls and dresses of nonprofessionals.

Although tulips bloom in European Square, locals scowl as they curse the current Eurasian heat wave.

On the other hand, thin-faced non-Slav tourists in casual dress wear grins. It is as if the Carpathians ruled out smiling for anyone born east of its slopes. Perhaps it has to do with the Great War, the reign of Stalin, and other more recent terrors. Sordid headlines of war and global climate change all around them, yet Americans, British, and Hungarians with money to spend put on contemporary