Fading Echoes

By Nick Buckets

Join detective Olaf Bauer in a high-stakes game of cat and mouse to capture a deranged individual terrorizing Berlin's art elite.

 

Just as the trap is set, a heart-wrenching call from his troubled wife shatters his focus. Caught between duty and affection, Olaf Bauer must make a choice that will test the very limits of his resolve.

Introducing the character of Olaf Bauer, the short story Fading Echoes is the gripping prequel to Berlin Seeds, a tale of suspense and sacrifice set years before the events of Book 1.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Nick Buckets
• Release date: Oct 13, 2023
• ISBN: 9798224436828

Book preview

FADING ECHOES

NICK BUCKETS

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2023 by Nick Buckets

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any manner without written permission of the author except for the use of quotations in a book review.

Book design by Nick Buckets

www.nickbuckets.com

ALSO BY NICK BUCKETS

Detective Olaf Bauer Series

Berlin Seeds

Break Even

Chapter 1

TWENTY BUCKS SAYS HE WON’T SHOW up, Olaf said.

You’re gonna lose this one.

Olaf shook his head. Not a chance. He should’ve been here by now.

The alleged exhibition event was scheduled to start at 8 pm. It was well past nine, but their target was nowhere to be seen.

Olaf Bauer, Mayer said. The most nihilistic homicide detective in the history of homicide detectives. You never told me what killed the optimism in you. Was it a specific event, or was it that you grew up in the most paranoid country that ever existed?

She was right. After working with Anna Mayer for nearly two years, he hadn’t yet shared how he lost his mother. How his childhood innocence was uprooted in a single day. That’s a tale for another time. Maybe something to chat over the beers you’ll owe me after tonight.

You’re gonna lose this one.

His glance settled on a passing railway train, crossing the river bridge as it rolled toward the central station. The glow from its illuminated carriages diffused through the night like the trail of a burning fuse, until the train vanished behind the imposing