Character bios: Penny Castro, Esther Brookstone, and Bastiann van Coevorden…
[Note: This article is part of the new series of blog posts, “Character Bios”—you’ll find them all in the blog category of the same name.]
Penny Castro. Born in New Jersey, Penelope “Penny” Castro gave up a athletic scholarship as a swimmer to join the U.S.N. where she became a search and rescue diver. That experience landed her a job with the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department as a forensic diver. She is a survivor of the biological attack on the West Coast that soon became worldwide. In the aftermath, she managed to survive many threats and find her way to a refugee camp where she was instrumental in improving the situation for survivors. Her adventures are described in the post-apocalyptic thriller The Last Humans (will be released in 2019 by Black Opal Books).
Penny is a small, strong woman with a quick tongue who is a bit uncomfortable with her Latina features—black, curly hair surrounding a face with Native American and African American features—but she gets beyond that and even creates a family amidst all the chaos. She now lives with her husband, an old man she considers a father figure, an adopted child, and two children of her own. They own a small ranch in California’s Central Valley.
Esther Brookstone. This Scotland Yard Inspector who works in the Art and Antiques Division is art thieves and unscrupulous art dealers’ worst enemy. She’s tough and tenacious and surprisingly lethal for her 60+ years. She’s a widow three times; her current love interest is Bastiann van Coevorden, an Interpol agent who’s twenty years younger.
Her colleagues call her Miss Marple, but they don’t dare do it to her face. Her most recent case involved the search for a lost Rembrandt painting that was stolen by the Nazis in World War Two. It turned a lot more deadly than most of her cases. That case is described in the mystery/thriller Rembrandt’s Angel (Penmore Press, 2017).
Esther’s father was a vicar but her last husband was an atheist, so she’s a bit confused about religion, but all her husbands and her father gave her a moral backbone and righteous stubbornness that motivate her in the pursuit of the bad guys. Details about how she moved from MI6 to Scotland Yard are obscure. She admires the tough American cop, NYPD homicide detective Rolando Castilblanco, who still owes her a curry dinner.
Esther is kicking around the idea of retirement, starting an art gallery, and spending more time at the Scottish castle she inherited from a distant relative. Her big decision? Whether Bastiann will continue to be a part of her life.
Bastiann van Coevorden. This Interpol agent prefers to find the bad guys and let local authorities handle the rest, which is Interpol’s general business model. He’s not above the little firefight now and then when the going gets rough, though, and his current love interest, Scotland Yard Inspector Esther Brookstone has led him into such situations, as has his American cop friends, Chen and Castilblanco.
Still, Bastiann is sophisticated, not unlike Hercule Poirot (he resembles the actor who played Christie’s famous character). He’s from Belgium, though, but his mother was a French spy. He knows Esther has a background in MI6, but he’s not privy to the details. Her present focus on art crimes fits right in with hi general obsession with apprehending criminals who make Europe and the world unsafe.
Bastiann has also worked on cases with Detective Castilblanco. He hasn’t yet figured out if Esther Brookstone wants to settle down a bit and have a committed relationship, but he’s willing to bide his time.
***
Did you miss Rembrandt’s Angel? Both that novel and my novel The Collector present my unique thesis that stolen artwork can be used as collateral for other nefarious criminal activity. In Rembrandt’s Angel (Penmore Press, 2017), Bastiann van Coevorden, an Interpol agent, has to manage Scotland Yard Inspector Esther Brookstone’s obsession with recovering the Rembrandt, “An Angel with Titus’ Features,” stolen by the Nazis in World War Two. Esther’s mission becomes deadlier and different from her usual cases in the Art and Antiques Division of the Yard. The duo takes readers on a wild tour of Europe and South America before the story reaches its thrilling climax, as they find out what the stolen paintings are used to finance. In the process, the couple’s romantic interludes become a full-blown romance. Available on Amazon, Smashwords and its affiliates (Apple, B&N, Kobo, etc), and in most bookstores (if they don’t have it, ask for it).
The earlier novel, The Collector, also features Esther and Bastiann in cameo roles, and he also appears in Aristocrats and Assassins and Gaia and the Goliaths. These three ebooks are available on Amazon and Smashwords.
All of these books can be read independently.
Want free fiction? Peruse my list of PDFs on the “Free Stuff & Contests” webpage and follow the directions for downloading. (Or you can just go to the OneDrive file folder.) You’ll find many stories there—mysteries, thrillers, and sci-fi.
The Great Spring Thaw Sale still continues on Smashwords.
In libris libertas!
