Bermuda Wedding Turns Deadly In Thriller

A longtime visitor has used an idyllic Bermuda wedding as the unlikely backdrop for murder, mayhem and an international medical conspiracy in her recently published thriller “Die Before Your Time.”

Magazine writer Elia Christie and Peruvian doctor Luis Echevarria – introduced in author Susan Mucha’s 2005 debut medical mystery “Deadly Deception” – find themselves caught up in intrigue again when they come to Bermuda to get married: one of their wedding guests, Dr. Vicente Pereda, is murdered.

Dr. Pereda had noticed dangerous side effects of a drug prescribed to treat spasticity, which was being given to soldiers with neurological impairments returning to the US from Iraq and Afghanistan.

At the time of his sudden death in a Bermuda restaurant, Dr. Pereda was lobbying to have the drug removed from the market. Luis’ research shows that the same drug had been on the market during the Vietnam War — and the same problems had surfaced.

Is this a conspiracy against American soldiers? Sloppy production methods? Or lazy executives? Elia’s brother, Father Rafael Christie, arrives to help his sister and Luis finish the detective business so they all can get on with their lives

“Who would have wanted Vicente dead, and would it have had anything to do with the paper he had been going to present [at a Bermuda medical conference]? ‘Die Before Your Time’ is fervently paced, with appealing characters …,” said an Ohio reviewer on Sunday  [Feb.20].

Ms Mucha and her Peruvian husband of 44 years divide their time between Augusta, Georgia and Kiawah Island, South Carolina. A regular visitor to Bermuda over the years, she is a wife, mother, grandmother, former emergency room nurse, holds a master’s degree in writing popular fiction from Seton Hill University in Pennsylvania.

Ms Mucha currently teaches English composition at Augusta State University in addition to being a published author of two medical mysteries, with a third on the way.

“Die Before Your Time” is available in hardback and paperback from Amazon.com.

An excerpt from “Die Before Your Time” appears below:

The view from the windows served as art work by the Master: to the right the fourth floor room overlooked the town of Hamilton with its sherbert-coloured buildings …

Luis turned the key in the lock and he and Elia walked down the path that led out of their vacation complex and emerged into a narrow lane with stucco homes edging the curb, so typical of Bermuda. They turned at the first corner. A half-block walk and they veered onto a wider street lined by tiny shops, a straight shot to the ferry.

Luis looked at his watch. “Should pull up in about five minutes.” They still had two blocks to cover to reach the ferry. It was a quiet morning; a roar of a moped startled them. When they turned to see the bike, it was racing straight at them. For a split second they stared at it, then Luis grabbed Elia’s arm and yanked her into a doorway. The bike roared past, but came to a screeching halt a hundred and fifty feet away. The rider put his foot to the ground, swung the bike around, and shoved off toward Elia and Luis.

The two left their sanctuary and ran for a narrow alley, but not narrow enough to keep the bike out. As the biker turned into the alley, Luis and Elia ran around the corner. A shopkeeper had just stepped outside his back door. Luis and Elia raced past him into the shop. Elia flew through the door and Luis followed. He grabbed the man’s arm and pulled him back inside as the moped roared past inches from the door.

“Which way’s the ferry?” Luis shouted the question. They could hear the moped rev up.

The shopkeeper pointed to the front door. Luis and Elia ran out the door and down the hill toward the water. In the near distance, they heard a bike. They turned off the main street and ran down a side street toward the ferry.

Luis glanced at his watch. “Come on. It’s time.” He held tight to Elia’s hand. They were above the ferry station and looked down on its roof as the moped flew over the crest of the hill toward them. They scrambled onto the roof as the ferry began to pull away from the dock.

“Let’s do it,” Elia yelled. “Roll when you hit the deck.”

They took running jumps and landed ten feet below. They both did as Elia said and rolled on the ferry’s deck, which saved them from injury. They looked up to see the biker stare at them; he seemed to be rubbing his right elbow with his left hand. Then he turned and roared off.

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