As I approached my prime, I developed the powerful urge to write thrillers. My wife harbored the absurd suspicion midlife crisis had struck, because I was bound in those days to courtroom and desk at the U.S. Attorney’s Office. So my dream remained just that for a long time. As soon as I retired, though, we moved to Arizona and I took things in hand by enrolling in a workshop for wannabe authors. German is my native tongue, not English, and my experience as an author consisted of the publication of a couple of student papers and law journal articles, plus cranking out numberless legal pleadings and briefs. What was I thinking?

The workshop was a bust, but it did push me into tackling my first book, The Stasi File – Opera and Espionage: A Deadly Combination, in which, following the age-old advice to “write what you know,” I wove together the unlikely combination of a German upbringing, a lifelong love of opera and my experiences as an attorney. After a beginning that seemed to take forever, I was surprised when the challenge of creating characters and building a plot that was real and intriguing started to take over my waking hours, and a few sleeping ones too.

My skill and talent developed quickly, but there were many times they seemed almost superfluous--I was too busy holding on tight as "my" characters and their actions took over and went their own ways, leaving me to serve as their scribe and menial servant. What a journey!

The Stasi File was named a finalist for Book of the Year by the British-Arts-Council-sponsored website www.youwriteon.com, and is ranked a bestseller by the site. The novel was a quarter finalist in the 2011 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award Contest.

The sequel, Kiss of the Shaman's Daughter, pits The Stasi File protagonists, Sylvia and Rolf, against ruthless smugglers of Indian artifacts during Sylvia's engagement at the Santa Fe Opera, interweaving as subplot the story of thirteen-year old Indian girl, Teya, during the Pueblo Indian Revolt of 1680 that drove the Spanish from New Mexico.

The summer of 1977 finds divided Germany locked in a fierce espionage battle in my third novel, Red Romeo. West Germany's premier spy hunter, ambitious Sabine Maier, faces off against ruthless Stasi General, Werner Heinrich. Sabine has filled half a prison with her prodigious arrests of communist spies. Heinrich is the mastermind behind a small army of spy gigolos who prey on lonely women working in the West German government's most secret divisions. Caught in the middle is ladies' man Stefan Malik, a reluctant Romeo, forced to do the general's bidding or rot in a Stasi prison.

Peter Bernhardt, Author: The Stasi File and Kiss of the Shaman's Daughter;
First & Second Place 2022 Arizona Authors Association (AAA) Literary Contest;
Red Romeo, First Prize 2023 AAA Literary Contest; https://sedonauthor.com;
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