Thank you, Mayor Bloomberg!

You no doubt heard the news yesterday that New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has taken on a major threat to public safety — sugary soft drinks. According to CNN, he has proposed a ban that “would outlaw such drinks larger than 16 ounces at restaurants, food carts and any other establishments that receive letter grades for food service.” He announced the proposal with this bit of Orwellian Newspeak: “We're not taking away anybody's right to do something; we're simply making it different for them in how they do it.”

Photo source: New York Times

It was very thoughtful of Mayor Bloomberg to provide a news story with a tie-in to my new novel, Full Asylum — on the same day the print version went on sale. Here’s an excerpt from Chapter 8. I mention Jon Dunn in the scene; he’s a movie spy, similar to James Bond:

The bedroom door wasn’t quite latched. Gimbel nudged it open with his toe. Surveying the room, he saw pastel-colored fabric on his bed; it didn’t belong there…[It] was a pair of pajamas. They covered the lithe body of Miss Lacey Briefs. She sat on the bed with her chin resting on her bent knee as she daubed nail polish on her toenails. The lavender color matched the flowers on her pajamas. A curtain of honey-colored hair hid her down-turned face from Gimbel…       “Don’t think that I’m not happy to see you,” [he said,] “but how did you get in?”       “Mr. Willow. I told him you said it’d be all right.”       “That was rather irresponsible of him. You might have been planning to rob the place. Lucky for me, all you wanted was to rest in my bed and paint your toenails.”       “Oh, I’m not here to rest,” she said, her Southern accent sexier than usual.       “What about Chris?” asked Gimbel.       “Now Chris isn’t here now, is he?”       Jon Dunn would have kissed her at that point, but then Dunn was accustomed to returning to his room and finding women in his bed. Gimbel O’Hare needed time to get used to the idea. “He’s still your boyfriend,” Gimbel said.       “I have recently arrived at the realization that Christopher Scott Molson is an asshole. He indicated to me that his idea of a romantic evening is to dress up in black like a Gestapo agent and play Nazi interrogator. Looks like I need to begin anew in the romance department.”       Gimbel wondered if Chris and Lacey were engineering a trick at his expense. The Nazi interrogator story was plausible, of course. During the last couple weeks, Gimbel had heard plenty of slammed doors and raised voices in the apartment upstairs; Chris and Lacey certainly acted like they were fighting. Although that could be part of the trick.       He knew what Jon Dunn would do: dive in. “Well then,” he said, “we should celebrate new beginnings. Don’t go anywhere.” He left the bedroom and rummaged in the kitchen. When he returned he held two glasses of ice in one hand. But what got Lacey’s attention was the dusty bottle he held in the other.       “How did you get that?” she asked, impressed and excited.       “I’ve been saving it for a special occasion. I bought it before it was illegal.” He twisted the red cap off. The gentle hiss of carbonation greeted them. Gimbel poured the brown liquid into the glasses, waited for the heads to go down, and poured again. Lacey watched eagerly.       “Here you go,” he said, offering her one of the glasses. “Vintage Volta Cola. Here’s to genuine sweetness.”

To discover what happens between Gimbel and Lacey, purchase the print edition of Full Asylum here. The Kindle version is available here.

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