MYSTERY SHE WROTE...
24 SUSSEX DRIVE
This suspense-thriller was manuscript number two.
But unlike the basic plot outline of my first manuscript--that came from 'where' I do not know...I know exactly from where this plot idea sprang.
After five years of writing for both weekly and daily newspapers I had gathered a shoebox stuffed with newspaper clippings that had attracted my curiosity. The AP [Associated Press] political features I cut out had piqued my interest as much for what had not been written as for what had been written.
What was truly going on behind the printed headlines?
What was hidden between the lines of the reported facts of political unrest in Europe or the outbreak of civil wars in third-world countries, what motivated various protests? And, still living in Canada, what was behind what appeared to be random cabinet shuffles or votes of no-confidence in parliament.
My enquiring mind wanted to know...
But 'building' this plot even with some imagination merged with hours of research was arduous and slow going. It was slow going because there was no internet - yet - only the public library and the Calgary Sun news archives when I began work on the first draft of "24 SUSSEX DRIVE". Stunningly, the deeper I dug the more of a shock I got. So, technically fiction [especially now] the plot is not in the least farfetched...
*****
The 'Cold-War' never really ended it just went underground and 'waited' reorganizing into a vast invisible web - far more treacherous...
*"24 Sussex Drive" is the official residence of Canada's Prime Minister. But the peaceful democratic nation that shelters thousands of the world's refugees has been infiltrated by a silent, invisible invasion.
After WWII a secret elite in Stalin's Russian military devised a strategy to gain political control of the passive North American country--Canada. By 1975 the decades-old ploy had been so effective that enough 'sleeper' agents were living and working at all levels of Canadian society to launch the unprecedented coup--except for one final element--a puppet Prime Minister.
Small town journalist Victoria Hamilton agreed to run for a town council seat in order to investigate the town manager for her newspaper, but her investigation catches the attention of the very people looking for a candidate with the qualities she has. Soon events around her she can neither ignore nor explain begin to steer her previously private, well-ordered life from local attention to national prominence, At first, puzzlement turns to frustration then to alarm - then action. Perhaps the puppeteers have underestimated their target--but that doesn't mean the plan didn't work or isn't still, somewhere else, slightly south... Enjoy...
Author website: Patchwork Publishing, LLC
Read full chapters via: Sherrie Todd-Beshore | Substack
**Every writer's journey is the same, but different...In "FROM THERE TO HERE" a memoir, [of sorts] I share more detail of 'my' unique journey that may be of some help to others who find themselves compelled to write too...