By EJ Kimelman
All this week, Written Words is publishing excerpts from books by fellow author-members of the Jet and Lei Crime Kindle worlds. Today, you can get a feeling for how seamlessly Emily Kimelman has blended her Sydney Rye series with Russell Blake’s Jet in It Takes Two.
Condensation from the leaves left wet trails through the dog’s long fur. A mutt, the son of two mutts, born on the streets of Brooklyn, Blue was an exception to his lineage. His parents never had good homes. Their coats were matted and their deaths early. The height of a Great Dane with the long snout of a collie and warm fur of a wolf, Blue didn’t belong in this hot and humid environment. But he did not feel out of place. When following his master, Sydney Rye, Blue always felt right at home.
The woman who led Blue through the hot jungle was of average height with a body made hard by hours of exercise and hard-won discipline. Scars, one above and one below her left eye, were still bright pink after more than a year of healing. They followed a path worn through the thick vegetation by animals. Sydney hacked at the larger limbs of trees that encroached on the space. The scent of sap spilling into the air around them, hanging in the thick humidity. The buzz of bugs rose and fell, like the persistent waves of the ocean. The dirt under their feet was damp, sticking to Blue’s paws and filling the treads of Sydney’s hiking boots.
A low growl from Blue stopped Sydney, her arm raised above her head, the blade of the hatchet ready to descend onto a vine that crossed their path. A drop of sweat trickled from her hairline, curved around her ear, and slid down her neck, absorbing into the green T-shirt she wore. Sydney looked down at Blue. His ears were perked to the left as he stared up at her with his one blue eye and one brown. Sydney listened, closing her eyes to better hear. Footsteps, human.
Sydney lowered the hatchet, silently replacing it into the holster on her hip before removing her pistol, a SIG Sauer P226, standard issue for her agency. This was to be expected. Others out in this jungle. Different sides of the same coin. Sydney was here to protect, and the people out there were trying to kill. The man that Sydney was working to keep alive seemed nice enough.
Heavyset and tall he’d smiled at her, shaking her slim hand with his meaty one. “Glad to meet you,” he’d said, his Texas accent so thick that Sydney thought he might be faking it. But as the days passed and she’d never heard it slip, Sydney started to think that the man was for real. A genuine friendly fellow. But really, why would anyone want to kill a guy as nice as Mr. Jackson? It wasn’t Sydney’s job to question why he was in danger. It was her job to keep him alive while he vacationed, while he and his family enjoyed their cruise down the Amazon.
Sydney gave a small nod of her head and Blue ducked, pinning his ears to his skull and began to forge a new path through the jungle, running adjacent to the one they’d just been walking along. Sydney pushed through behind him, her eyes roaming over the diamonds of light that the thick foliage allowed through.
Blue stopped, raised his nose in the air and sniffed at a scent Sydney could not capture with own inferior human olfactory senses. Then Blue started forward again. Within a few minutes they reached another path. The soft imprint of hiking boots marked the ground. Blue sniffed at the spot, his tail wagging with anticipation. He wanted to go after them but Sydney shook her head. They needed to return to camp, report this to her superior. Removing her phone Sydney took pictures of the imprints, the disturbed vegetation, and then dropped a pin on her GPS so that it would be easy to return to this spot if necessary. Before leaving she placed one of the motion detectors she was carrying on a nearby tree. If the person, who wore very similar size shoes to Sydney Rye, returned they’d have warning.
About It Takes Two
Two women trained to kill, both will stop at nothing to get the job done.
Hoping to finally make a normal life for herself, Sydney Rye is trying her best to settle into her role as mission leader, but taking orders and playing by the rules has never been her strong suit.
Along with her partner, a wolf dog named Blue, Sydney has been assign to head a security team protecting an rich oil man from Texas while he and his family vacation in the Peruvian jungle. But she wasn’t expecting to come up against her most formidable opponent to date.
Jet, still reeling from a personal discovery that will change everything she ever believed about herself, is under orders to kill the man Sydney is trying to protect. If she is to have any hope of a life beyond the Mossad, she knows she has to find the strength and focus to complete her mission, to fake normalcy in her own life for those who are watching.
Pitted against one another Jet and Sydney face off in battle after battle, spreading blood and carnage as they travel the globe. Through it all they find an admiration and respect for each other’s skills.
But will it be enough? Could two such powerful women fighting on opposite sides, team up to save the innocent lives from a man so ruthless and powerful that he has evaded capture for years?
Get it on Amazon.
About the author
Emily Kimelman is the author of the Sydney Rye Series including Unleashed, Death in the Dark, Insatiable, Strings of Glass, The Devil’s Breath and Inviting Fire. This series feature a strong female protagonist and her canine best friend, Blue. It is recommended for the 18+ who enjoy some violence, don’t mind dirty language, and are up for a dash of sex. Not to mention an awesome, rollicking good mystery!
Emily splits her time between the Hudson Valley and traveling the world with her husband and dog, Kinsey (named after Sue Grafton’s Kinsey Milhone), researching exciting locations for the Sydney Rye Series. You can follow along on their adventures through Instagram, Facebook, and on Emily’s blog.
If you’ve read Emily’s work, and enjoyed it, please let her know. You can reach Emily via email ejkimelman@gmail.com, on Twitter @ejkimelman, on Facebook and on her website www.emilykimelman.com.
About Amazon Kindle Worlds
Kindle Worlds is an Amazon initiative that allows authors to publish stories set in another author’s fictional universe. The Jet Kindle World is based on the character Jet, created by bestselling author Russell Blake.