Crushed

By David Chadderton

crushed is a gripping, fast-paced story from the first sentence. it’s about the dedication of one man to right a wrong. a daytime new york financial advisor and a night-time martial arts instructor, afiz abdelfazar travels around the world to take on an overseas mission of impossible scale. he has to try to save the united states of america from an extreme sect. afiz runs the gauntlet of terrorist attacks, tribal militia and a court sentencing him to death; one man tasked to stop a new world order. crushed is a work of fiction entirely out of the imagination of the author, following on from initial world events, using some commonly known places and names, and is never a comment on any person or organization. if you are on a commuter journey, squeezed into an aluminum tube at subsonic speed, packed into a bus, on a commuter train above or below ground, laid under a sunshade on a beach, beneath shady leaves while leant back onto a tree, or relaxing at home, all of which the author has experienced, just enjoy the story and make the author very happy.

• Language: English
• Publisher: David Chadderton
• Release date: Jan 20, 2011
• ISBN: 9781458149657

David Chadderton

Cycling, weightlifting, dog walking granddad, retired from mechanical engineering and lecturing, to write humour and novels.

Book preview

Crushed is a gripping, fast-paced story from the first sentence. It’s about the dedication of one man to right a wrong. A daytime New York financial advisor and a night-time martial arts instructor, Afiz Abdelfazar travels around the world to take on an overseas mission of impossible scale. He has to try to save the United States of America from an extreme sect. Afiz runs the gauntlet of terrorist attacks, tribal militia and a court sentencing him to death; one man tasked to stop a new world order.

Crushed

David V Chadderton

Published by:

David V Chadderton at Smashwords

Copyright 2010 by David V Chadderton

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author’s work.

Author’s Advice

Crushed is a work of fiction entirely out of the imagination of the author, following on from initial world events, using some commonly known places and names, and is never a comment on any person or organization.

All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any imputation, resemblance or similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

The author claims the moral rights to this work in its entirety in its present form.

If you are on a commuter journey, squeezed into an aluminum tube at subsonic speed, packed into a bus, on a commuter train above or below ground, laid under a sunshade on a beach, beneath shady leaves while leant back onto a tree, or relaxing at home, all of which the author has experienced, just enjoy the story and make the author very happy.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 Escape

Chapter 2 Qete

Chapter 3 Agency

Chapter 4 Presidential Briefing

Chapter 5 Called Back

Chapter 6 Herb

Chapter 7Enemy

Chapter 8 Agency Response

Chapter 9 Laboratory

Chapter 10 Trial Run

Chapter 11 Response

Chapter 12 Plan

Chapter 13 Julia

Chapter 14 Flight

Chapter 15 Middle East

Chapter 16 Welcome in Sanbekistan

Chapter 17 Clerics Court

Chapter 18 Contact

Chapter 19 Report

Chapter 20 Marketplace

Chapter 21 Discussion with Haqi Mujad

Chapter 22 Export Contract

Chapter 23 Karachi

Chapter 24 Cash

Chapter 25 Telecommunications

Chapter 26 Cruise Solution

Chapter 27 Strike

Chapter 28 Death Struggle

Chapter 29 Crushed

Chapter 30 Another Escape

Chapter 31 White House

Chapter 32 Save The President

Chapter 33 Programmed

Chapter 34 Blackness

Chapter 35 Closure?

Chapter 36 About The Author

Chapter 1: Escape

Afiz Abdelfazar awoke to the fear of being inside a black plastic body bag or a coffin. Dense blackness surrounded his aching body. Crazy notions of burial flashed through his mind. He always hated losing control of his immediate surroundings. His heart beat quickened. Sweating armpits soaked what were smart business clothes. Terrorizing thoughts of why he was in such blackness evolved too slowly for him. He remembered a background noise all around him in the office. People ran for the lift, grabbed at telephones, dropped files and papers, conversations ceased. Then something moved him from his own desk into blackness. He wanted to know if there were others around him; yearned to hear anyone. Silence reigned until distant groans of concrete and tortured metal took over. He could barely breathe as his normally healthy lungs wheezed with the effort. It reminded him of the foul air of a building site, earthy and nauseously smelling of wet concrete. Nostrils clogged as he sucked in the foreign dust. Afiz desperately needed to clear his throat and tried to spit out the sandy content of his parched mouth. Attempting to move his chest to breathe more deeply brought on excruciating pain. A crushing weight worked against an attempt to expand his chest, avoided only by shallow breathing. He felt a smooth cold surface touching the tip of his nose. Was it moving down onto him? It seemed to be stable and that encouraged him.

Hands lay gracelessly on concrete rubble and sharp plastic edges. His fingers were moveable, toes too. Thank God, thought Afiz, with a body still working, he could move his extremities. Shouting as loudly as he could, the sound bounced back at him from imprisoning hard surfaces. Had mischievous colleagues locked him up in a shaft? Was he upright or horizontal? Attempting to think what happened between standing in the office, dressed in a clean white shirt, red tie, pressed black trousers, polished black leather shoes, slick hair, styled fastidiously in the barbershop on basement level three of the building, and incarceration, ideas froze. Afiz Abdelfazar, daytime financial analyst and night-time martial art trainer, found himself in frightening blackness, laying on a rough concrete surface with his back resting uncomfortably on what felt like rocks. Without realizing it, he drifted back into unconsciousness.

Those alongside the windows were the first struck by shards of flying glass. Shredded window frames speared through the interior. Structural columns made of thickly concreted heavy steel, deflected debris from him. Office partitions softened the impact of countless flying missiles, originally workstations, windows, and people, shielded him during the impacts. Searching his thoughts and memories for answers, working out where he was now, Afiz reasoned that his head could be furthest away from the perimeter blast area if the initial shock wave forced him backwards. His feet were in a shallower space than his head. He started sliding across the rough concrete floor, arguing with himself to move towards the lift shaft, backwards, as a possible escape route. Thinking that route may be blocked, scared him further. He tried lifting two knees, finding that only a little movement was possible. This allowed a slight purchase for his feet on the floor, with only the heels of his shoes making any grip. Pushing against the heel hold while both knees scraped against an intimately close rough concrete surface, he could slide his entire body backwards a tiny distance. Excruciating pain shot through both knees. Repeating the knee and heel movements recreated the sharp pain and more motion. Leg muscles weakened with each straining push. Afiz worked at the heel-driving technique, raising his knees to the limit of the height restriction and sliding his head inches at a time. He lost count of how many more pushes he managed. Leg pains soon brought physical activity to a rest. It exhausted Afiz and he paused to recuperate. Each breath sucked dry cement dust into his lungs, causing him to cough, spewing out slurry of grit and saliva. After resting for what seemed ages, Afiz resumed the heel sliding technique.

‘Not found the end of this tube yet, so, rest again and then keep moving while able,’ he reasoned aloud.

The challenging problem now was to fathom how many footsteps there were from his workstation to the lift. He reckoned 25, maybe thirty feet. After around two hundred heel pushes, he depressed himself thinking of that distance. His legs were, and should still be, fit from daily stretching, aerobics and martial art kick boxing practice, but this was a new, untested, alien application for his muscles. He questioned whether to expect a lift shaft still to be there if he reached it. Air continued entering from somewhere, but he knew escape depended upon moving towards a potential rescue location; he pushed again. Afiz’s head bumped into a smooth metal surface. Alarmingly, the floor beneath him had become noticeably warmer on his back, not scalding, but hot. At first, he welcomed the warmth, relieved that he might not freeze to death, thinking he might have encountered hot water pipes from the air conditioning system, a warmed floor might come from leaks, but this warmth remained dry heat. An increased amount of headroom allowed Afiz to raise his head a little higher and feel around the surface of the metal object. Thin metal and hollow told him it had to be an air conditioning duct. It either blocked his pathway or providing a means of assistance. More head space allowed him to turn over onto his stomach and increase the speed of crawling forward. He reached a barrier of fallen rubble, splintered wood, and shards of glass. It was the shattered doorway into a lift lobby. Suffocating gases from burnt plastic and wood, wafted from somewhere below on a rising current of warm smoke. Another hazard, as if there were not already enough, Afiz realized that time was running out for him, fast.

Wiring and fluorescent light fittings encumbered his passageway as he crawled forward towards what he hoped was a vertical shaft. He pushed them aside and glimpsed brightness, in the distance. Anything seemed to be good news as it meant a connection with fresh air. The shaft formed a chimney that increased the circulation of hot air from below. Far below Afiz, gas pipes in the basement of the twenty-eight storey commercial building, had fractured and spilled energy into an environment enlivened by electricity and heat. Down there, vigorous gas fires destroyed everything in their path. Afiz lay on a time bomb.

A bright beam shone downwards, searching from side to side around him. Summoning all the physical strength left in his chest, Afiz feebly shouted.

‘Help, I am here.’

His voice sounded unrecognizable. Such effort precipitated him into a fit of wheezing and coughing. The searching light dropped to his level, accompanied by a whizzing sound from the ropes of an abseiling fire fighter, to focus directly at Afiz, blinding him. He covered his eyes with a forearm. A gravelly welcome voice spoke reassuringly into the escape cavern.

‘Hang on buddy; I will soon have you out of there. Is there anyone with you?’

Afiz’s relief at being able to talk to someone emboldened him.

‘Not that I know of, not heard or seen anybody; it’s getting hot around here.’

The rescuer's voice boomed from inky blackness, comfortingly, but brought new terror.

‘Gas fire in the basement boiler plant room. I need to get you out of here, crawl toward me.’

Afiz scrabbled forward as the rescuer pulled on the harness, and he entered the shaft, hanging in space, swinging and bumping into concrete and rebounding into the heavily suited fire fighter.

‘Pull him up,’ the rescuer ordered into a radio microphone. ‘Keep pushing off the walls, the shaft has bumps in it.’

‘I owe you for this,’ said Afiz.

‘Sure, buy me a beer next time you are in Broadway,’ said the voice of the rescuer as it faded into the background.

Afiz rose through blackness in a draft from the basement as it rushed past him with increasing temperature. He felt for what passed as walls and pushed them away. The lifting decelerated to a halt. Stabbing shafts of torchlight illuminated the devastation around him. Hands pulled him across to the side of the shaft. It may have been safety, but the floor was at a steep angle. A new voice from the gloom greeted his arrival at the landing stage.

‘Can you stand?’

Experimenting with standing became a fresh experience for Afiz, not knowing whether it was possible again. He collapsed into a heap on the rubble floor. His last recollection was to hear a rescuer call for a stretcher.

* * *

Afiz awoke to the background hum of human activity. Medical staff attended to other casualties in a temporary field hospital. A saline solution dripped into his right arm. His throat felt coarse like the granite chippings on the road where he crashed off his bike as a twelve-year old stunt rider. An army of volunteers smiled at patients and one noticed him.

‘I will get you something to eat; drink as much as you can, it will help recovery. Anything special to eat?’ asked the nearest uniformed attendant.

Afiz was grateful for living; eating anything seemed fine.

‘Whatever you have thanks.’

Afiz’s heart thumped even harder at a more horrendous thought, mouthing the words almost silently

‘Oh God, is Julia alive?’

* * *

Night fell on New York City. Nobody noticed the Azio Vertical Transport Corporation white truck that peeled away from streams of traffic evacuating Manhattan Island. It doubled back through deserted alleyways and drove into the underground service area of the Dorsey Building. A citywide camera network failure was unsurprising. The minor blast that cut their fiber optic cable remained untraceable among the overall mayhem. The Azio mechanic, who had placed the small charge, grinned with satisfaction at the thought of such an easy entry. Their escape would remain equally undetected in the public confusion and blackout. This sleeper cell of activists became activated a month earlier by the expected coded letter of invitation to meet together. It was time for the four to drop their day jobs and deliver the terror they had trained for in the desert two years ago. Captain Mustafa Jamaal sealed their destiny with highly believable threats to their families in Sanbekistan. They would do what he asked.

Shamael parked the truck alongside the basement lift motor control box. He opened it with the correct key and deftly connected a notebook computer into the communications port of the lift controller. All six lifts responded to Shamael and did exactly what they were instructed. Two were to perform normally allowing residual workers to leave the building but none would allow new entry to the Dorsey Building. His three partners loaded their chosen lift car with wrapped items. Toolboxes and heavy cartons were all destined for the roof-level lift motor room. Their plan was to introduce panic to the devastation below. Their cause was a new world order.

* * *

‘You are cleared to leave Mr. Abdelfazar, take it easy for a few days, make an appointment to see your doctor and get a full health check,’ said the administrator checking people off the list.

Afiz dressed back into his dusty, crumpled business suit and walked shakily onto Vesey Street. Evacuees moved hesitantly, uncertain of their homeward journey. Some searched faces; others carried on stretchers or wheeled ambulance trolleys heading into the temporary medical centre. Afiz saw the flash of light come towards him from across the city square; its’ source had to be the top of the Dorsey building. The dull grey concrete edifice to 1960’s design looked to be undamaged. Somehow, the flash penetrated all-encompassing clouds of dust, then a second and a third flash. Afiz accelerated into a sprint, putting the greatest distance between himself and the hotel in Vesey Street as possible. He stumbled over debris and smashed glass. His lungs choked on putrid air as he rounded the next street corner. Behind him, three thunderous explosions rocked Vesey Street. The missiles struck home on the temporary hospital. His life had changed. This was a personal war to Afiz now. It had become something to deal with. This was for real.

Afiz turned into Venus Ally heading against the flow of escapees. Much of the city power supply remained blown out of functionality, traffic lights and illumination for the murky air remained obstinately blank. Lift systems that relied on public utility power, sat frozen, having trapped many in a mid-journey. Afiz told himself, through labored breathing, that war zones did not come to New York; they were overseas, somewhere else, but not here. He grabbed the attention of a State Trooper alongside his military truck.

‘I saw the rockets fired from the top of that building,’ said Afiz.

The trooper nodded in acceptance and radioed instructions to others. Afiz kept running. He clambered over the car park ramp walls into the rear of the Dorsey building, hoping the troopers would get there quickly. The almost empty basement car park lights remained fully on. He reasoned that there must be a diesel emergency generator and that a fire fighter’s lift had to be working. Breathlessly, Afiz approached the basement lift lobby. He dodged past the lift mechanic’s truck and found one lift car operational with lights on and doors open. It patiently awaited the New York Fire Department. He guessed they had no reason to come here. Bypassing a small number of evacuees who headed for their cars and the street, he entered the empty lift car. Afiz pressed the up level button and prayed that he did not need a fire fighter’s key.

A computer-generated voice challenged him, ‘Enter Fire Department access code.’

‘Shit, the bloody lift speaks, try this,’ said Afiz as he pressed the number sequence 911 and then the close door button.

‘Access code accepted,’ said the computer voice.

‘Not such a smart freaking computer.’ He allowed himself a snigger at being able to outwit the machine.

The voice came again, ‘Enter the arrival floor level.’

Afiz pressed the top button again causing the car to accelerate strongly, cruising at high speed to the roof level. He looked around the bare lift car for what might be available to use. He expected at least three armed assassins on the roof because of the three rockets in such quick succession, plus someone on guard. An elbow strike to the glass emergency red panel, provided access to the fire fighter’s axe in the car. He pulled the large carbon dioxide pressurized water portable fire extinguisher from its mounting straps, and pocketed the other, smaller, halon gas extinguisher.

‘Three weapons are preferable to none. There might be a hose reel nearby. A good strong jet of high velocity water will provide a deterrent.’ He talked himself into a positive attitude.

Confident of his unarmed combat skills, it always helped to have some additional help against armed attackers. The lift car swayed and screeched to a halt. Squeaky steel doors slid open. Afiz scanned the dull grey air conditioning room from the relative security of the lift car doorway. No guard was in sight but with only exit emergency lighting in use, he could not be sure who else was around. He moved silently close to the bare concrete wall to the door of the plant room, cracking it open and saw several galvanized air conditioning ducts that extended into the gloom. The assassins neglected their escape route and had not left anyone on guard. They made the beginners mistake of giving no thought to a possible counter-attack. He told himself these people were arrogant, incompetent or knew they had no way back, settling upon incompetent. Sliding around several large diameter water pipes, valves and pumps, he concealed himself alongside a room-high hot and noisy water-chilling compressor. He found the exit door onto the roof and peered first through its louvers, seeing no one. The door opened between water-cooling towers, facing away from the location of the missile launchers. Rushing air from the cooling tower propeller fans and splashing water gave covering noise against early discovery. He moved onto the smooth tar covered roof, peered around the corner of a cooling tower toward the north parapet, and saw two shooters studying their handiwork on Vesey Street through binoculars.

Automatic rifles rested on tripods facing downwards over the city. Missile launchers lay on the roof. He could see only two people; no hand guns were in sight but thought there may be others on the roof of the plant room. Afiz flicked the switch of the window-cleaning crane and watched as the giant gantry commenced trundling around the perimeter of the roof, soon reaching the shooters position. Both jumped back out of its inexorable path but the gantry swept the nearest rifle over the edge of the parapet; it disappeared silently towards the street while the second shooter lifted her rifle and swung it inward.

Afiz’s portable fire extinguisher water jet met her full in the face. Blinded, she dropped the rifle onto the crane railway only to hear it crunched beneath the heavy railway rolling wheels. The shooter stumbled backwards, holding both hands in front of her face. The combination of blindness and stumbling across raised railway tracks, proved fatal. She toppled over the edge and down towards the street, twenty-eight floors below, screaming uncontrollably. Remaining pressure in the extinguisher spurted foamy water weakly as Afiz stood calmly holding the red metal canister, waiting. The second lift mechanic rushed straight at Afiz flashing the blade of a military knife. He met the underside of Afiz’s shoe directly onto his jaw and nose, cracking both. Bloodied and in pain, the enraged terrorist rushed forward. Afiz side stepped the onslaught. He swung the heavy canister onto the back of the shooters head, opening a bloody spurting gash. The victim propelled into the water reservoir in the open-sided base of the cooling tower, diving face down into the foaming water. The inert body created a tide of blood red turbulent water spreading through the cooling system. Afiz briefly admired his work before climbing the vertical ladder to the plant room roof. He peered over the edge of the flat roof. A third shooter, a sniper, laid comfortably on sacking, firing downward at personally selected targets. This murderer was unable to hear Afiz due to the fan noise from the cooling towers just below. An incessant drone of emergency helicopters and strong wind howling past, added to the cacophony on the roof. The sniper had no view of the roof fight below. Afiz thought that, hidden between cooling tower chemical drums of biocide acid, the terrorist was in for an unpleasant surprise. The sniper’s rifle could not be swung around or quickly withdrawn from its tripod mounting. Afiz saw his chance.

‘Time up, you are under arrest. Move away from the gun and show your hands,’ Afiz shouted an order that could have come from police.

The shocked sniper scrambled backwards from the gun emplacement, rolled sideways, jumped to her feet and pulled a small pistol from grubby workman’s overall pocket. Afiz grabbed the outstretched arm, swung it around towards the attacker’s forehead, drawing blood with a glancing blow of the pistol. Afiz’s grip loosened, allowing her to wriggle away. Then she brought the pistol up towards a firing position. Afiz struck with an upward kick to the gun hand, sending it clattering across the roof and over the edge. She slid a long serrated-edge hunting knife from a leg pocket and lunged straight at Afiz. He sidestepped, deflected her outstretched right arm, grabbed the wrist and pulled her forearm against the elbow joint in a painful submission hold. The terrorist screamed in response. Incensed by her failure, she aimed untrained kicks and punches at her target. Afiz let her go, spun on the ball of his foot with a spinning heel kick that knocked her off balance. She stumbled over the edge of the roof. The fall was not far. The landing was directly onto the powerfully rotating sharp-edged propeller fan blades of the cooling tower. Bones broke, a hand severed, and an advancing blade sliced open her neck artery, further dosing the cooling tower water circulation with blood. Annoyed at himself for not having anyone captured, he looked around for any other threats.

A fourth terrorist climbed the ladder and pulled himself onto the roof behind Afiz. He inaccurately fired an automatic pistol. Afiz dived behind the chemical drum hideaway. Bullets spattered into the drums. Concentrated sodium hypochlorite acid gushed out of the new holes. Liquid acid absorbed energy from the projectiles, and they failed to pass through to his side of the drums. Afiz leapt to his feet while the

Reviews for Crushed

[kathy89_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Margaret and her 8 year old son Davy own a small winery in Napa along with her brother Handel who lives with them. The next winery is owned by Billie who is engaged to Handel. Margaret younger brother, Adam, arrives looking for a job and is immediately attracted to Margaret. I did enjoy this book; however, it was about 2/3's into the story before the mystery started when Davy's father shows up and Billie's father is released from prison after serving a sentence for pedophilia.

[madmoosemama · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Crushed is book two in the Fredrickson Winery Series.Margaret Parker is a single mom who is just trying to do what is best for her son. Margaret and Davy live with Margaret's brother, Handel. Handel is a lawyer who is dating their next door neighbour and winery owner, Billie Fredrickson. Margaret also owns a small winery and labels her wine, 'Margaret's Wine', but it is her dream to run a major distillery and has steered her education in that direction.Adam Fredrickson is Billie's younger brother who has returned from his drifter lifestyle to settle down and help Billie with her failing business. Upon arriving he first meets Margaret and sparks ignite as the two become drawn to one another. Though Margaret tries to steal her heart to his advances, she finds herself falling in love with Adam and his guitar playing, laid back attitude. However, Margaret's past has come back to haunt her, with the return of Davy's horse breeding/racing, playboy of a father, Agnosto Salvatore. He needs a legitimate heir in order to inherit his father's vast and wealthy estate and he will stop at nothing to guarantee this, even stooping to hire Margaret and Handel's child molesting father to help put his machinations in motion.When a body shows up during "Crush", the annual harvesting of the grapes, and Davy goes missing, everyone must deal with the horror that surrounds them. With emotions high and the future uncertain, everyone must pull together in order to maintain the right blend to achieve their success.I didn't have the opportunity to read the first book of the series, 'Entangled', and though it wasn't truly necessary, it does play a part in the 'Crushed' back story, just enough, that you wish you had. You really don't know the hows and the whys of the child molestation story, however, enough of a description is given that you can get the gist without having to read the first novel in order to enjoy the second.I didn't mind the story, it was easy to read, had great flow and enough narrative and dialogue as to keep a good balance. I found Adam to be a bit unbelievable, given his age and his amount of depth in character and maturity, although, to have a kind, considerate man to share your life with, isn't a bad thing. I found Margaret's going back to work, as well as, going to sleep, while her son was missing was quite inappropriate, at least for myself anyhow. Others may not have found that a hindrance, but the lack of motherly instinct was present in Margaret, she came off more like a big sister than a parent.Handel, Billie and Sally were excellently written and believable in their actions and attitudes, especially Sally. She gave the comedic edge to the book that was needed to have an edge to the book that was needed. I found the ending to be predictable and a bit cliched, but all in all, it was a good read that any mystery reader who likes some romance thrown in, would enjoy!

[haymaai · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

‘Crushed’ is the second novel of the mystery/romance trilogy by Barbara Ellen Brink. Because I so love the wine setting of Napa and am intrigued by wine making, I decided to read the second novel in the series. For me, this story was slightly more well developed and seemed to flow better than the first book. Billie, the owner of Frederickson Winery, has a younger brother, Adam who moves into Napa. Next door to her vineyards, Margaret and her ten-year-old son, Davy, reside with their uncle Handel, who is Billie’s significant other. I enjoyed the romance that develops between Margaret and Adam, as the author portrays their interesting personalities through amusing banter and witty dialogue. After ten years of complete abandonment, Margaret’s former boyfriend, who is also Davy’s father, returns to Napa from Italy to try to establish a relationship with his son and eventually take him back to Italy. Margaret’s unsavory father also presents himself at her door after being paroled from prison following a crime for sexual molestation. The tension is suddenly heightened, when Davy comes up missing during crush time, as the plump grapes are being harvested for crushing into wine. ‘Crushed’ is a very satisfying diversion from more complex and challenging text, and it is enjoyable without becoming excessively demanding.

[rtb_3 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Reviewer: Judy NicklesSource: ebook provided by author for reviewBlurb: When Adam Fredrickson shows up at his sister’s California winery, footloose and carefree, looking for a temporary job and a chance to play his music, he doesn’t expect to meet the girl of his dreams. But the best things in life are usually unexpected.Margaret Parker, a single mom, newly hired as Chief winemaker at Fredrickson’s, finds her simple world put to the test when her father is allowed an early release from prison, and the man who got her pregnant when she was fifteen, shows up from Italy wanting to play daddy nine years too late.It’s crush time at Fredrickson Winery and everyone is working feverously to get the grapes in and ensure a great vintage. No one expects murder and kidnapping to be part of the joyous harvest season.Review: Ms Brink sets up the suspense immediately and continues to up the ante throughout Crushed. Two parallel love stories add unexpected twists. The characters are well-drawn and believable, and the setting in the lush California Napa Valley is described with enough detail to bring the reader into it, but not over-written. The author weaves the details of wine making through the story narrative, providing bonus information to readers unfamiliar with industry.Her villains are villainous enough for the most discriminating suspense reader—a father convicted of child molestation but released too soon from prison; an ex-lover who took advantaged of a rebellious teen struggling to get past her early years in a dysfunctional family. Her heroes and heroines are heroic enough for the most discriminating romance reader—a loyal brother and first-class attorney; a woman who has moved from victim to victor; a free-spirited young man searching for his place in life; a young woman who, as a single mother, has had to grow up too soon.This novel is one of those stories that you enjoy most— short enough to promise a quick resolution, long enough to provide all the action (romantic and suspenseful) that satisfies the reader’s soul.