Amber Blood — Mirna Pierce

See Mirna Pierce's Amazon Author page for biographical information & photos. AMBER BLOOD, a romantic historical thriller by Mirna Pierce. (Amber Blood is a historical thriller within a more romantic parallel novel.) Amber Blood is an action-packed historical thriller about a man and a woman whose contemporary lives are marked very differently by the legacy of World War II and the evils of the Holocaust. Yet, the feelings that grow between them in their dangerous quest for the truth become a triumph over hatred and murder. American diplomat, Peter King, arrives in Vienna, Austria, and sets a trap to catch the Nazi criminal who destroyed his aristocratic mother during World War II. But it is Angie Brown, half American, half Austrian, a divorcee and widow with a young daughter, who must escape the clutches of the old Nazi criminal. Unscathed, the Nazi has become fabulously wealthy through globally organized criminal activities in South America and has now returned to Europe to claim the secret treasure he stole during the war. Peter and Angie's final encounter with this beastly man brings shocking revelations. Over all of that hovers the memory of the original and priceless Amber Room, lost during World War II while in Nazi hands. *** AMBER BLOOD: What follows is an annotated list of MAIN FICTIONAL AND HISTORICAL CHARACTERS in this historical thriller. A. MAIN FICTIONAL CHARACTERS �" IN VIENNA, AUSTRIA. 1. Angel “Angie” Brown is a pretty 35-year-old divorcee with a 9-year-old daughter, Silke. (Angie's father is American, a history professor, and her divorced mother, Trudi, is Austrian.) Angie inherited an antiques shop in Vienna from her Austrian grandfather, ironically active on the German side during WWII. 2. Peter King, mysterious American diplomat, is interested in a bejeweled amber clock Angie received from her Spanish diplomat ex-husband, Manuel, shortly before Manuel is brutally murdered. B. MAIN FICTIONAL CHARACTERS IN THE PAST. 3. Jessica Singer, Krakow, Poland, thriving Kazimierz, 1906. Beautiful young member of the Jewish community some years before WWI. 4. Count Karl Hoerner, 1906, heir of a replica of the legendary Amber Room. (A true-life replica is near St. Petersburg, Russia.) 5. Halina “Ala” Hoerner-Koenig, heiress of Count (Graf) Karl, his twenty-eight-year-old daughter (unknown to her until just before WWII, also child of Jessica Singer). Ala is the loveliest wealthy aristocrat in Austria in 1935. 6. Gregor Koenig, Count (Graf) von Bruckfeld; his wife is Ala. 7. Kurt Koenig, son of Gregor by his abusive first wife. Kurt is the main villain, first 15 (in 1935) then 23, then elderly. 8. Heinz Ziegler, Kurt's best friend. Both youths join the Schutzstaffel, Hitler's SS bodyguards turned hateful race guardians, both darlings of SS Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler. C. HISTORICAL CHARACTERS ACTIVE IN THE FICTIONAL PLOT. 9. Nazi SS Captain Joseph Mengele, M.D., aka the Angel of Death. Infamous for his so-called medical experiments in death camps Auschwitz-Birkenau near Krakow, he is a friend of Kurt's. 10. Heinrich Himmler, Reichsfuehrer, practical Head of the SS. Kurt is his closest, potentially richest and favorite protégé. ***