BOOKS BY EDWARD M. KRAUSS
Novels:
A STORY OF BAD ISBN 978-0-9798087-4-6
HERE ON MOON ISBN 0-7414-0788-4
SOLOMON THE ACCOUNTANT ISBN 1-932687-60-2
Personnel Management in Crises Situations:
ON BEING THE BOSS (co-author) ISBN 1560523093
A STORY OF BAD is about a cop and a reporter who become ensnared in a romance as they are caught up in a murder investigation.
The policeman is a homicide detective investigating a murder in a clothing factory. The reporter is a fashion columnist, involved in a story far off her usual beat. With the murder scene their only common ground, they find themselves working together, learning about each other and their dissimilar professions. When a second murder is committed, which may be tied to the first, and the investigation becomes more complicated, so does the relationship. As they grow closer their supervisors are increasingly uncomfortable with the situation, concerned about confidentiality and workplace ethics and politics.
“So this guy thought he could do this forever, never have a problem. Now suddenly he’s got a big problem, can’t figure out what to do about Victor’s questions, and in the end just kills him. Not really planned, just ran out of time and ideas.”
Terry nodded. “Possible. And the proof is....?”
June smiled. “Search warrant for his apartment. There you find boxes and boxes of potent illegal drugs, money wrapped up in rubber bands, names of contacts and dealers. He confesses in minutes, and they promote you to captain. And you take me to Las Vegas.”
“More than wonderful, except it can’t happen, the search that is. Vegas we can talk about. No search because no warrant, not near enough to get a warrant on, and even if we did I’ll tell you right now there won’t be a gram of drugs in his place. Or a list of the bad guys.”
“Money?”
“Stashed, fake I D and put it in a safe deposit box under a false name, or a storage locker, something like that.”
June put her knife and fork down, sat back in her chair. “So it really works that way, sometimes you’re pretty sure who the bad guy is, but can’t wire tap or get a search warrant because there isn’t enough hard evidence. Like on television. Or the movies.”
“The Constitution of the United States of America. Wonderful document. Occasionally makes this police work a little difficult, it does.”
“So we need to trick him. Or trap him.”
“Well, I’m certainly hoping you’ll keep this out of your story, any mention of our having a prime suspect. Make it a little hard to trap him if he reads about it first in your fine paper.”
“Nope, although I like having a big head start on that story. No, the first story will be just about the victim, and probably something about the police having no clues at the end. Joe and I are writing it together, but no mention of his name, or a clue, or a trap. This is getting exciting.”
A long moment went by, Terry eating, June picking up her knife and fork and resuming. Then “Terry, what?”
Now he put down his utensils and folded his hands in front of him. She knew by now that was his “serious statement coming” posture. “June, there are two people dead, and you’ve identified a strong candidate for one, maybe both of the murders. That’s.... I don’t know, great. Spectacular. But you can’t go any further with this, this is a police investigation, and if we’re going to set a trap you can’t be part of it. For lots of reasons.”
“The newspaper.”
“Yes, you’d be crossing a lot of lines, confusing to think about all of them, and of course I would too. Something goes wrong and we're both in big trouble.”
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Terry
asked them to come to his office. He was counting on basic human
nature; no one likes being in a police station. People get nervous,
rattled, say things. They agreed on a morning meeting, eight.
The
room looked like a movie set. Four walls, one with a large mirrored
window, obviously a one-way mirror. Unlike much of the rest of the
station all four walls were the same color, a flat beige. In the room
was a heavy metal table with a dark green top of uncertain material and
six of the hard wooden chairs from the school furniture close-out. A
room low on charm but high on utility.
Amy and Tony arrived
at the same time; they must have ridden together. While Terry was
greeting them they heard the whine and burble of Peter’s sports car,
and he came in the door a few moments later. Terry offered coffee but
there were no takers. All three were acting impatient, jumpy. Just what
Terry wanted. He guided them back to the beige room then said “Sorry,
forgot my notes, I’ll be right back.” He stepped outside the room and
moved to the window. Looking in he saw them sitting, fidgeting, not
talking to each other. No one likes being in a police station.
The detective waited another minute, then pulled his notepad out of
his coat pocket. Holding it in his hand he went back into the room,
saying “Sorry, left it on my desk. OK, let me tell you what we’ve got
so far.” The “we” was deliberate, it made it sound like the system, the
Man, not just Terry Stans.
He laid his notepad on the table but
didn’t open it. Another nerve rattler, a small one, but disconcerting.
“Here is what we are certain of, or certain enough to take to court.”
He leaned forward, strong and positive, and ticked them off on his
fingers. Pleasantly neutral, but all business. Hard business.
REVIEW:
The relationship between the police and the media has always been a
strange one, but it turning romantic certainly raises some questions.
"A Story of Bad" is the tale of a cop and reporter entering into a
controversial romance, where they both try to stay loyal to each other
and their employers while respecting business ethics and trying to both
solve and cover the murder mystery that brought them together in the
first place as other chaos erupts all around the them. "A Story of Bad"
is a highly recommended and deftly composed mystery and romance blend,
for fans of either.
Midwest Book Review
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HERE ON MOON is about a woman, Carole, in her mid-30s, with a successful career in a Boston investment firm, husband Ken, and a bright and witty 14-year-old daughter.
Suddenly, unexpectedly, she discovers her husband’s infidelity, and is devastated and humiliated by his refusal to be forgiven. In spite of a visit to a marriage counselor he remains adamant, saying that he simply no longer loves his wife, and divorce is the only option.
We follow her as she travels through trauma, anger, and grudging acceptance of her new status as a divorcee. Support comes to her from a neighbor, a woman who has been divorced for several years, and from a women’s support group that invites her into their circle.
There are difficult, emotionally tricky moments: How to deal with the presence of the divorcing husband at her mother's hospital bed ... how to support her daughter's role as a "shared child" ... how to endure a book club meeting in which the ex-husband's lover unexpectedly shows up?
Learning how to deal with being a single mother, how to get over being diminished by her divorce, she gains strength to begin her search for a new life. Well-meaning friends and co-workers introduce her to the appropriate single-again dating rituals. Her neighbor is skilled in the ways of dating and eager to have the new divorcee accompany her to singles bars. A male co-worker engineers a blind date with his good buddy. At the end, a careful new beginning.
This is a book about losing and looking for love, about being a single parent, about starting over. It celebrates family and a woman who perseveres with surprising new-found spirit.
In the following excerpt from early in the novel, Carole has persuaded Ken to visit the marriage counselor, Dr. Ckeye:
Dr. Ckeye was a thin, elegant woman in her seventies, or perhaps eighties. She moved, not as much slowly as carefully, inviting them into her office, shaking hands firmly with Ken and Carole and asking them to take a seat. The doctor wore her hair tied back with a velvet bow that coordinated with her proper, tailored suit. Her office was large, with one wall almost full of books. Everything was well-worn leather, beautiful dark woods, comfortable wing chairs, and a desk in the corner that was an antique dealer’s dream. A beautiful, comfortable, wonderful office.
Two chairs, with a small table between, faced one chair. The two were identical, and the table between held a rose in a crystal bud vase and a small box of tissues. There was also a small carafe and two empty, bright-clean glasses. Under the table was a tiny, empty wastebasket. Dr. Ckeye’s wing chair was a brighter brocade than the two it faced, and her table held a small pad and bronze colored ballpoint pen, a carafe and one glass.
All the financial and insurance papers had been filled out in the outer office. Ken and Carole had been told what to bring and to be there at 2:00 with the appointment to begin at 2:30. Ken, who strongly believes people should be on time, noted that the doctor opened her office door for them at 2:24.
Dr. Ckeye picked up her pen and pad, and looked at them with astonishingly bright, turquoise eyes. “Carole, Ken” she said, looking directly at each in turn, “Please tell me why we are here.”
Ken began. “I don’t want to be here, no offense, Dr. Ckeye, but you are a marriage counselor, and I don’t want to be counseled. I’m not trying to save this marriage, Carole is. I won’t change my mind.”
The slightest shrug. The doctor’s voice was soft but clear. “But you came so that?--”
“Carole insisted. I feel like I have to do this so we can get on with it.”
“The divorce.”
“Yes.”
Dr. Ckeye turned her head, her shoulders just a little. Carole noticed that the doctor’s legs were crossed at the ankle. “Carole?”
“I thought about this, about why I wanted to come. OK, first, I am hurt and angry. He was unfaithful to me. In our bed. I am very hurt. He doesn’t begin to understand what he has done to me.” A long pause. “I love him.” Another pause, a ragged breath. Ken sat looking at Dr. Ckeye, not at his wife. “I am very mad, very hurt, angry, insulted, angry -- I want, here is what I want. Two things. I want to be sure, both of us to be sure, that it is over. And if we both are sure, then I guess I need some advice, because I sure don’t want to be in love with Ken if he isn’t in love with me. I don’t want that.” Carole could feel the tears almost starting, but she raised her chin and arched her eyebrows high and tight and talked on, quickly. “So I want to hear him tell me that. I heard him say ‘I love you’ enough times, I guess I want him to tell me he doesn’t.”
“And the second thing?”
“Why. Just, why. Why?”
“Please, why what?”
“Uhh, everything, all. Why did he have sex with another woman? Why does he want a divorce? Why won’t he try to save our marriage? Why?”
“Please, Carole” Ken said, turning to look at her. “I am still sorting things out, but I really know I don’t want to go on with this. I want you to get a lawyer. I want us to be decent to each other and get on with our lives. Maybe I’m sorry I came here because I don’t want you thinking I will change my mind. You know, Carole, that’s just the point, and I’ve told you that a dozen times.”
“What is the point?”
“That my mind is changed. I have changed. I don’t want to be married anymore. Over and over I keep saying these things, and I’m tired of saying them. I’m not coming back here, or doing more counseling. I did this for you. I guess I should have refused.”
“And you don’t think I deserve to know why.” A statement.
“People fall in love, people are in love, they fall out -- they fall out of love, they go on to the next thing. Some people stay forever, and that is great. Maybe I’m jealous of them, I don’t know, but that’s not me or what happened to me. I fell in and I fell out and here we are. What do you want from me?”
“My goodness, Kenneth” Carole said, not looking at him. “You sound like an acrobat, in and out and on to the next. Or maybe a rabbit.”
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SOLOMON THE ACCOUNTANT is the story of a young man who falls in love with Molly. He first meets her at the funeral of her husband, killed in an accident after less than a year of marriage. She is heartbroken and devastated, with a new love the last thing on her mind. Solomon’s effort gently, carefully to win Molly’s heart is the core of the novel.
The story is set in a middle-class Jewish community in Toledo, Ohio, in 1950. References to television shows, automobiles, the price of clothing, popular music, and other items have been carefully researched. The thread of Judaism, and Jewish home life, is woven throughout.
A side story involves Solomon’s best friend, Herman, and his girlfriend Deborah. She is ready to marry, he is almost but not quite, and Solomon is caught between them as they seek his advice and support.
The novel celebrates respect for family and elders, true love and long marriages, young love with an unusual situation to overcome, all with a sprinkling of Yiddish.
In the following excerpt, Solomon, after waiting an appropriate time, has asked the young widow on their first date - he is escorting her to Friday night services. The excerpt is then followed by a review.
Services started at seven-thirty. Solomon had promised he would pick her up at seven, and he pulled up in front of her apartment building at six-fifty. Actually he had left his apartment so early that he had driven slowly the entire way, cars passing him, and still had to sit a half block away for five minutes.
Solomon felt a strange combination of giddy excitement and absolute calm. He went to her door, knocked twice, not too hard, and soon she opened the door. This time she had on a dark blue suit with a silk blue blouse in a lighter, complimentary shade, and a thin gold necklace. Her only other jewelry were her engagement and wedding rings. They greeted, then he walked behind her to the car. He wanted to be a gentleman, to take her elbow, but didn’t want to be too bold, maybe she wouldn’t want his touch. So he walked close, opened the car door. They drove the short distance to the synagogue in silence, each with their heads so full of thoughts they couldn’t decided what thing to say first, so they said nothing, the silence growing until it became impossible to break. Molly noticed how clean the car was, as she had noticed the cleaned office and the new cushion. When they arrived he parked then got out and walked around to her side of the car. When he opened the door he offered his hand to help her and she took it, her gloved hand light in his.
People were arriving, single people, couples, families, older people helped by their adult children. Molly was known to many of them, Solomon to some, since his family belonged to B’nai Israel, and that’s where he usually attended, but easily half of those attending knew Molly or Solomon or his parents or her deceased husband’s parents, and those people looked and noticed and tried not to stare, although a few did, and a few of those already seated even pointed discretely behind their prayer books and made short, whispered comments. Molly noticed but had expected, anticipated the looks and whispers, so she said hello to some, introduced Solomon to others, and he took her lead, relaxed a bit and greeted friends and acquaintances. Soon the service started, and they both got into the rituals, the familiar songs, the comfort of the prayers in Hebrew and English, the worship based on beliefs from so long ago, the days of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. L’dor Va’dor, from generation to generation. During the sermon, their prayer books closed, Solomon’s brain screamed at him to take her hand, but he resisted the urge, the desire.
The Oneg Shabbat was, as always, a calm, pleasant way to finish the week, first the service and then some time to chat with friends, sip tea or coffee, punch for the children, and eat from a display of twenty or more styles of cookies. Solomon favored the almond cookies, a swirled design with a drop of chewy cherry candy in the center. Molly loved the tiny squares of lemon cake, only a bite or two each, a single piece of walnut on the top of each square. As they walked into the large room that was used for wedding receptions, bar and bat mitzvah receptions and Purim festivals and lessons in Israeli folk dancing and other occasions of Jewish sharing, people worked at not noticing, not staring. Solomon asked her if she would like coffee or tea and she said tea, so he poured a cup for her and one for him. They walked towards the trays of cookies and as they chose he was approached by one of his clients. Talking a bit of shop after services was not unknown. At that moment Molly saw one of her friends, a woman who had attended her wedding, now very pregnant with her first child. Molly walked to her.
"Hello, Susan. Looks like you’re serious about this pregnant thing.”
“Oy, Molly, I can’t sit long, he presses on my bladder, I can stand only minutes until my swollen feet kvetch, forget about sleeping, all night long he’s doing pushups and running track like his father did. He should wait until high school to do his sprints, it would be fine with me, but no, three in the morning his little legs are churning.”
“I hear a lot of ‘he,’ Susan. You sure?”
“I think so, my mother thinks so, the doctor thinks so. So of course it will be a little girl.”
“Of course.”
“How soon?”
“Three weeks, twenty-one days exactly, that’s the prediction. A little early is fine by me. Meanwhile Harvey has the room all ready, we don’t know a boy a girl, so we found some light blue wallpaper with pink flowers, that should work for either sex for a few years. Did I just say sex? Nine minutes for the man, nine months for the woman. Such a deal! And for the first six months Harvey was still finishing his residency, so I never saw him. Which was good for him, he was spared three months of listening to me throw up. Oh, sorry, terrible thing to say as you try to eat lemon cake.”
Molly laughed. “That won’t stop me. Watch” she said, finishing off the small yellow square. “So how is the doctor?”
“He’s fine, knock wood. Look at him over there with his head together with Toplosky and Miller. Three doctors. Wonder if it’s medicine or golf they’re talking about? Not that he got to golf much the last year, but next summer he’ll be out there.”
“Best place to get sick is a hospital, next best is a shul.”
“Yeah, and Miller’s OB - GYN. I go into early labor he can deliver the baby right here.”
Molly laughed again.
“So Molly, are we good enough friends for me to ask about the man you were sitting with?”
“Is there some way I could say no to that question?” As Susan looked a bit stricken Molly hurried to assure her. “I’m teasing, Susan, yes we are certainly good enough friends, and I’m glad to tell you. His name is Solomon Wohlman, he’s an accountant, has his own shop. He came to the house when we were sitting Shiva, knew someone in Darren’s family, I think. Anyway, we didn’t… I don’t have an accountant, never needed one, but Darren, may he rest in peace, had an insurance policy and I didn’t know what the best thing was to do with it. Not that it’s a fortune, it isn’t… who buys that kind of insurance? But it was enough that I wanted some good advice, so I asked him and he gave it, really good, clear advice.”
“So then… wait, the feet just quit on me. Please, come sit a minute.” They walked over to where padded folding chairs were lined up against one wall and sat, one chair between them so they could turn toward each other. “OK, so if this is not a good question, now you really could tell me to get lost.”
“You want to know what giving me investment advice has to do with Friday night services.”
“Yes, I should be so bold.”
“He asked to take me, I said yes. There’s really nothing else to say.”
“I’m sorry, that was a tacky thing for me to ask.”
“No it wasn’t. Lots of other people here wondering, I see their eyes turning then turning away. Think it looks like a date to them? Looks like one to me.”
“You know, we, some of the girls and me, we thought you’d move back home, Chicago, right?”
“Yes, I thought about it, but I don’t want to go through packing and moving and looking for another job, and my mother would mother me to death, it just wouldn’t work. I like being a school secretary, and I’m thinking maybe I’ll go back to college, get a teaching degree. At least I’m going to go talk to them, see what it would take, how long.”
“Good for you. You know if you ever need anything….”
“Thank you. Everyone has been so kind. It’s really amazing.”
“We look after our own.”
“Yes we do, but the warmth, the love, its not just yiddishkayt … it’s also been others, Darren’s co-workers, even though he was there such a short time, and my people from school. Lots of love from everyone.”
Susan reached over, patted her hand. “Good…good.” She paused. “Well, time to take the doctor home, I can spend a few minutes with him. You know what’s good about being married to an orthopedist? They give great massages, know all those muscles and connecting parts.”
“Those muscles and connecting parts can lead to more children, I’ve been told.”
“Five, no more. Oy, listen to me, four more times I’m committing to!”
They hugged briefly then separated. As Molly walked toward Solomon he saw her coming and seemed to conclude his conversation, shaking hands with the man he was talking to and starting to walk towards her.
“You didn’t have to stop for me, I’m in no hurry.”
“No, thanks for rescuing me…. I’m happy he’s a success already, enough with the celebration. I’ve heard the story twice before. Are you ready to leave?”
“Yes.”
On the way home they talked briefly, mostly Molly talking about Susan and the impending birth, Solomon listening, driving oh so carefully. He walked her to her door, his brain screaming at him again, this time to take her in his arms and kiss her sweet mouth, but reason prevailed, and when she offered her hand for a shake and said “Thank you” he shook it and said “You’re welcome” and then she was in her apartment and he was heading back to his car, happy and a little dizzy from how much he wanted to speak to her of love.
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Reviewed by Stephanie Garber, Contributing Writer
Cleveland Jewish News
December, 2007
Solomon the Accountant is a tender love story set in Toledo, Ohio, in the 1950s. Solomon is a rather nebbishy fellow who falls in love with the beautiful, newly widowed Molly. He is painfully aware of her recent loss, yet she becomes the focal point of his life. He hopes that someday - regardless of how long he has to wait - the broken wings of her spirit will mend and she will soar toward a new future with him.
While Solomon wrestles with his feelings for Molly, she is dealing with her own emotional issues. Facing life after the death of her beloved husband less than a year after they stood under the chupah (wedding canopy) seems almost incomprehensible to the young widow.
In addition to portraying a touching love story, the author beautifully recreates a bygone era - a time when a silk tie cost $1.60, a “comfortable house in a good neighborhood” could be purchased for $12,000, and nice Jewish boys still nervously asked the father for his daughter’s hand in marriage.
Krauss, a writer and professional mediator, probes gently into the emotional psyche, exploring with clarity the crushing loss of death, the tenuous struggles to begin anew, the joys and complications of relationships, and the wonder of newfound love.
A surprisingly poignant book.
