Pembroke PInes: A Short Thriller, #1

By Vincent Zandri

They say you can't go home again. But you can go back in time. However, it's a deadly thing to do!

When a brokenhearted ad writer decides he can't take any more of his wife's open affair with a famous mystery author, he decides to escape with a road-trip. Little does he know, but the road he chooses doesn't lead to happiness. Instead, it leads to a time that existed long ago. From New York Times and USA Today bestselling Thriller Award winning author, Vincent Zandri, comes a thriller that's worthy of The Twilight Zone series.

Scroll up and grab your thrilling copy now!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Vincent Zandri
• Release date: May 5, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223343998

Vincent Zandri

"Vincent Zandri hails from the future." --The New York Times “Sensational . . . masterful . . . brilliant.” --New York Post "Gritty, fast-paced, lyrical and haunting." --Harlan Coben, New York Times bestselling author of Six Years "Tough, stylish, heartbreaking." --Don Winslow, New York Times bestselling author of Savages and Cartel. Winner of the 2015 PWA Shamus Award and the 2015 ITW Thriller Award for Best Original Paperback Novel for MOONLIGHT WEEPS, Vincent Zandri is the NEW YORK TIMES, USA TODAY, and AMAZON KINDLE OVERALL NO.1 bestselling author of more than 60 novels and novellas including THE REMAINS, EVERYTHING BURNS, ORCHARD GROVE, THE SHROUD KEY and THE GIRL WHO WASN'T THERE. His list of domestic publishers include Delacorte, Dell, Down & Out Books, Thomas & Mercer, Polis Books, Suspense Publishing, Blackstone Audio, and Oceanview Publishing. An MFA in Writing graduate of Vermont College, his work is translated in the Dutch, Russian, French, Italian, and Japanese. Having sold close to 1 million editions of his books, Zandri has been the subject of major features by the New York Times, Publishers Weekly, and Business Insider. He has also made appearances on Bloomberg TV and the FOX News network. In December 2014, Suspense Magazine named Zandri's, THE SHROUD KEY, as one of the "Best Books of 2014." Suspense Magazine selected WHEN SHADOWS COME as one of the "Best Books of 2016". He was also a finalist for the 2019 Derringer Award for Best Novelette. A freelance photojournalist, freelance writer, and the author of the popular "lit blog," The Vincent Zandri Vox, Zandri has written for Living Ready Magazine, RT, New York Newsday, Hudson Valley Magazine, The Times Union (Albany), Game & Fish Magazine, CrimeReads, Altcoin Magazine, The Jerusalem Post, Market Business News, Duke University, Colgate University, and many more. He also writes for Scalefluence. An Active Member of MWA and ITW, he lives in New York and Florence, Italy. For more go to VINZANDRI.COM

Book preview

Begin your Moonlight journey today with a FREE copy of MOONLIGHT FALLS, the first novel in the Thriller and Shamus Award-winning series.

Or visit WWW.VINZANDRI.COM to join Vincent's For your eyes only newsletter today.

PRAISE FOR VINCENT ZANDRI

Sensational . . . masterful . . . brilliant.

—New York Post

(A) chilling tale of obsessive love from Thriller Award–winner Zandri (Moonlight Weeps) . . . Riveting.

—Publishers Weekly

. . . Oh, what a story it is . . . Riveting . . . A terrific old school thriller.

—Booklist Starred Review

"Zandri does a fantastic job with this story. Not only does he scare the reader, but the horror 

Show he presents also scares the man who is the definition of the word tough.

—Suspense Magazine

I very highly recommend this book . . . It's a great crime drama that is full of action and intense suspense, along with some great twists . . . Vincent Zandri has become a huge name and just keeps pouring out one best seller after another.

—Life in Review

(The Innocent) is a thriller that has depth and substance, wickedness and compassion.

—The Times-Union (Albany)

The action never wanes.

—Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel

Gritty, fast-paced, lyrical and haunting.

—Harlan Coben, New York Times bestselling author of Six Years

Tough, stylish, heartbreaking.

—Don Winslow, New York Times bestselling author of Savages and Cartel.

A tightly crafted, smart, disturbing, elegantly crafted complex thriller . . . I dare you to start it and not keep reading.

—MJ Rose, New York Times bestselling author of Halo Effect and Closure

A classic slice of raw pulp noir…

—William Landay, New York Times bestselling author of Defending Jacob

Zandri (is) a veteran wordsmith who executes quality and quantity at superlative levels.

--Book Reporter

Pembroke Pines:

A Short Thriller

Vincent Zandri

It may be said with a degree of assurance that not everything that meets the eye is as it appears.-- Rod Serling

1

I can't take it anymore. Who the hell could? If I were to explain my situation in an advertisement for a circular my ad agency would force me to write practically at gunpoint, it might go something like this: Overused and Abused Husband in Need of Relief and Escape!

But allow me to back up a bit.

Here's the deal: my wife, Angela, moved out of the bedroom months ago, and now she sleeps on the bed she keeps in her home office just in case we have overnight visitors, which is a rarity these days since no one in their right minds would want to be around us. Not when we're living in a state of siege anyway, which sadly is our perpetual situation.

Making matters worse (and more sad), we're at one another's throats so much, our teenage daughter, Jennifer, screams at the top of her lungs for us to get a divorce already.

No one likes you anymore, Sam and Angela, she barks using our first names, having given up on the more traditional mom and dad a long time ago. We're no longer mother and father to her, so much as children.   

But deep down my heart really breaks not for me, but for my daughter. Maybe my brow will be sweating from another shouting match with Angela, my heart pumping way too fast, and my pulse elevated to dangerous levels that my doctor warned me about a long time ago. But I'll lay my eyes on a teary-eyed Jennifer, focus in on her attractive, round face, her long dark hair as long and lush as her mother's, her eyes brown and big, and maybe I won't enter into a complete myocardial infarction, but my heart will still break.

Get what I'm saying?

This is exactly what happened this evening when, just before dinner, I happened to catch an email left open on Angela's laptop (my guess is she wanted me to see it). It was from a local writer by the name of Ed Jones who'd made a pretty good name for himself as a mystery novelist.

Angela nailed a job with him as his assistant a few months back and old Ed ended up nailing her. If you get my drift (sometimes I hear them talking on the phone when Angela is in her bedroom/office with the door shut…the two of them giggling like horny teenagers. It's enough to drive you to drink. But I digress…).

The double whammy of the situation is that one, I've always wanted to be a novelist and a mystery novelist at that. And two, the closest I could ever come to making a living as a writer is penning ad copy for a two-bit local agency that's always bordering on bankruptcy. Since it's pretty much the only ad agency left alive in Albany (Fiver and Upwork have killed the industry), it means I can never ask for a raise, or the owners, a portly, late middle-aged man and wife team, will fire my five-feet nine inches, one-hundred eighty-five-pound, fifty-year-old carcass on