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Drink with a Stranger: Aftermath
Take a trip with young English journalist Ned Day into the strangest place on earth he’s ever seen.
It’s 2020. He’s jet-lagged, alone and lost in a foreign city - Delhi, India - searching for his missing, mentally ill brother. A mesmerizing stranger steps from the night and offers him a helping hand. Why not take it?
The streets soon blur into a bizarre Bollywood cityscape for Ned. In the back alleys of the ancient city, he starts joining the dots of his brother’s fate. It will take every bit of his wit and physical strength if Ned is to see the light of a future day.
It’s 2020. He’s jet-lagged, alone and lost in a foreign city - Delhi, India - searching for his missing, mentally ill brother. A mesmerizing stranger steps from the night and offers him a helping hand. Why not take it?
The streets soon blur into a bizarre Bollywood cityscape for Ned. In the back alleys of the ancient city, he starts joining the dots of his brother’s fate. It will take every bit of his wit and physical strength if Ned is to see the light of a future day.
47 pages, ebook
Published September 30, 2018
2 people are currently reading
2 people want to read
About the author
Mark Furness
18 books12 followersHi. I'm a bestselling author of thrillers, mysteries, and dark comedy crime. I live in Sydney, Australia.
Before writing fiction, I worked as a foreign correspondent in the US, the UK, Australia, and East Asia. I draw on these experiences to inform my crime stories which often feature journalists.
My major novel featuring journalists is the international conspiracy thriller, Under Eden. While fiction, this three-part series has many parallels with the real and deadly world in which investigative journalists operate.
Unlike Gar, I did not carry a gun on the job. But there were occasions when that type of defence would have been handy. I might have gone in harder on my subject matter, as Gar does. Ha.
In creating my story, I considered the real perils faced by contemporary investigative journalists.
In Putin's Russia, the Communist Party's China, and the Kim family's North Korea, there is little dissent from the local media. Dictators who control the dark forces of the State are rarely sleepless about internal criticism.
External criticism is another matter. The Saudi Arabian regime, unhappy about its King and Prince being accused of corruption by dissident journalist and The Washington Post columnist, Jamal Khashoggi, lured him to the Saudi embassy in Istanbul, Turkey, where he was literally butchered a couple of years ago.
The Saudi's make Donald Trump's signature cry of 'Fake News' look like a soft approach to dealing with media critics.
But for plenty of powerful people, murder or 'disappearance' remain the ultimate methods to shut up journalists.
Of course, not all journalists are saints.
I've met a few who have taken a rich man's coin to publish good things about their subjects and ignore the dark. And there are others in the mould of the late American publisher Arthur Kasherman who portrayed himself as a "vice crusader" publishing fearless exposés about corruption and gangster rule. Others, however, called him a blackmailer who threatened to write defamatory articles about them if they didn't pay him off. Kasherman owned his own press, so he had a free hand to say whatever he wanted. Until he was shot dead while dining out.
If you read my stories, you'll find they're all veined with gritty, dark humour.
I can't be sure of the source of this. But as a 21-year-old, I flew a hang-glider into high voltage wires, sustaining electrical burns which left me hospitalized and in rehabilitation for over a year. My body still bears a few physical scars, but I believe my brain fully recovered. This belief is disputed by some of my friends and family members.
Most recently, I published, Justice Machine, Book #1 of a dark comedy crime thriller series titled Firefly Electrics. The books feature suburban electricians, Lennie and Joe, and a cockatoo named Rawcus, who fight on behalf of society's underdogs against corrupt elites of the Establishment.
The British Crime Writers Association Debut Dagger competition long-listed my international conspiracy thriller, with the working title FBEyes. It is a follow-on to Under Eden in which journalists uncover corruption at the high-tech frontier of the global arms industry. FBEyes is also slated for publication in late 2020.
You can learn more at: markfurnesswriter.com
All the best, Mark
Before writing fiction, I worked as a foreign correspondent in the US, the UK, Australia, and East Asia. I draw on these experiences to inform my crime stories which often feature journalists.
My major novel featuring journalists is the international conspiracy thriller, Under Eden. While fiction, this three-part series has many parallels with the real and deadly world in which investigative journalists operate.
Unlike Gar, I did not carry a gun on the job. But there were occasions when that type of defence would have been handy. I might have gone in harder on my subject matter, as Gar does. Ha.
In creating my story, I considered the real perils faced by contemporary investigative journalists.
In Putin's Russia, the Communist Party's China, and the Kim family's North Korea, there is little dissent from the local media. Dictators who control the dark forces of the State are rarely sleepless about internal criticism.
External criticism is another matter. The Saudi Arabian regime, unhappy about its King and Prince being accused of corruption by dissident journalist and The Washington Post columnist, Jamal Khashoggi, lured him to the Saudi embassy in Istanbul, Turkey, where he was literally butchered a couple of years ago.
The Saudi's make Donald Trump's signature cry of 'Fake News' look like a soft approach to dealing with media critics.
But for plenty of powerful people, murder or 'disappearance' remain the ultimate methods to shut up journalists.
Of course, not all journalists are saints.
I've met a few who have taken a rich man's coin to publish good things about their subjects and ignore the dark. And there are others in the mould of the late American publisher Arthur Kasherman who portrayed himself as a "vice crusader" publishing fearless exposés about corruption and gangster rule. Others, however, called him a blackmailer who threatened to write defamatory articles about them if they didn't pay him off. Kasherman owned his own press, so he had a free hand to say whatever he wanted. Until he was shot dead while dining out.
If you read my stories, you'll find they're all veined with gritty, dark humour.
I can't be sure of the source of this. But as a 21-year-old, I flew a hang-glider into high voltage wires, sustaining electrical burns which left me hospitalized and in rehabilitation for over a year. My body still bears a few physical scars, but I believe my brain fully recovered. This belief is disputed by some of my friends and family members.
Most recently, I published, Justice Machine, Book #1 of a dark comedy crime thriller series titled Firefly Electrics. The books feature suburban electricians, Lennie and Joe, and a cockatoo named Rawcus, who fight on behalf of society's underdogs against corrupt elites of the Establishment.
The British Crime Writers Association Debut Dagger competition long-listed my international conspiracy thriller, with the working title FBEyes. It is a follow-on to Under Eden in which journalists uncover corruption at the high-tech frontier of the global arms industry. FBEyes is also slated for publication in late 2020.
You can learn more at: markfurnesswriter.com
All the best, Mark
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
December 10, 2018
This was a great story. The story was shorter than what I normally read, but it wasn’t short on action or suspense. The author created a vivid and intriguing story with believable characters - a story that hits home even in today’s world. It was a nonstop thrill ride and I ended up reading the story in one sitting- it was that intense. Fantastic read!
June 20, 2018
Little on the strange side but not bad for a quick read.
September 23, 2018
Short but sweet and very strange! Enjoyable very quick read if you have a half hour to spare.
January 22, 2019
This was an enjoyable short story. My first taste of what Mark Furness has to offer, and I will certainly be looking for more.
Drink with a Stranger follows Ned as he searches the back streets of Delhi in search of his missing brother. Quite surreal in places, but also eye opening as to the all too real dangers that many of us are blissfully unaware of today...
Drink with a Stranger follows Ned as he searches the back streets of Delhi in search of his missing brother. Quite surreal in places, but also eye opening as to the all too real dangers that many of us are blissfully unaware of today...
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews