Kristen Elise, is a drug discovery biologist and long-time resident of San Diego, California where she lives with her husband, and step-son. The Vesuvius Isotope is her debut novel and today she shares a little bit of the novel with us.

A Very, Very Bad Week

I am having a very, very bad week. Five days ago, I found out that my husband was probably cheating on me. The day before yesterday, I found him murdered. And today, I have just learned that he was also a drug addict.

I am biologist Katrina Stone, and my husband was Jeffrey Wilson – yes, the Jeffrey Wilson. Jeffrey Wilson the world-renowned, Nobel laureate chemist. I know what you’re thinking, but I did not kill him. I only hid his body.

It all started five days ago. I was clearing the dishes from the kitchen table when our home phone rang. It was Jeff’s best friend, our family physician, wondering why Jeff had skipped out on a scientific conference the previous week. I found our physician friend’s question interesting, because Jeff had, in fact, been gone from our home for the entire four days during which the conference took place. Which, of course, begged the questions: Where was he and what was he doing during that time? When I confronted Jeff, he would not tell me.

Three days later – the day before yesterday – I found him dead. In our home. Shot. With my gun. Leaving me millions of dollars and even more questions. And that was when I knew I had to hide his body.

So I bribed a mortician. His name is Larry Shuman, and I forked over one million dollars to Shuman to embalm my husband without notifying the police. Shuman was highly skeptical of this arrangement, but the wads of cash I poured onto his desk seemed to ease his concerns.

Yesterday, I found the phone number of Alyssa Iacovani, a woman whom I had never previously heard of. Her number was in Jeff’s cell phone, of course, where it appeared fifty-six times in five weeks. When I called the number, to my surprise, Alyssa insisted upon meeting me. And so, last night, I flew to Italy.

Imagine my confusion when I arrived here this morning, hungry, sick, and sleep-deprived. The beautiful Alyssa Iacovani claimed to be a former classmate of Jeff’s, and currently, an Egyptologist with the Naples Archeological Museum. Almost as soon as my plane touched down, Alyssa directed my attention to an ancient document. She claimed this document is the first text in existence written by Queen Cleopatra. And she indicated that it was also what led my husband here for four days.

I had no idea why my husband would care in the slightest about ancient Egypt. Alyssa tried to convince me of the importance of this text: a lost fragment of history that – she believes – represents only one of many similar documents yet to be discovered. Cleopatra – Alyssa insisted – was famous for her education and knowledge, her fluency in nine languages, her diligent proprietorship of the Great Library of Alexandria, her flair for the sciences and her eagerness to dazzle an audience. Alyssa was animated as she marveled again that nobody had ever previously found a single document penned by the ambitious last pharaoh of Egypt.

But I still could not understand why my husband would betray my trust and fly to Italy to learn this.

It was only when I saw the content of the document that I began to understand how it might have lured Jeff here behind my back. Cleopatra’s document detailed a medical phenomenon that successfully treated an aggressive form of cancer in women. And that phenomenon – a two-thousand-year-old remedy – eerily resembled the advanced biomedical technology that had earned my husband the Nobel Prize.

At last, I had found something – a shred of evidence that might lead to my husband’s killer. But I could take this lead no further, because then my cell phone rang inside my purse. The call was from Larry Shuman, who had just been conducting post-mortem work on my husband’s body. And Shuman had just learned that Jeff was a drug addict.

Jeff was a drug addict.

It is impossible, and yet, here I am. Nausea overwhelms me, and I sit on the dusty concrete stairs in a stairwell of the Naples Archeological Museum. I tilt my head back against the wall and close my eyes.

Suddenly, it all makes sense. The secrecy. The paranoia. The total, abrupt change in thinking and behavior. My husband’s need to run away from me and toward a stranger.

Stinging tears well to the surface, and I blink them back violently. It all makes sense. But it makes no sense. There is no way.

Jeff was a drug addict. And there is no way this is happening.

———

Katrina Stone is the protagonist of The Vesuvius Isotope, the debut novel by Kristen Elise.

 Here is the Back cover blurb:

When her Nobel laureate husband is murdered, biologist Katrina Stone can no longer ignore the secrecy that increasingly pervaded his behavior in recent weeks. Her search for answers leads to a two-thousand-year-old medical mystery and the esoteric life of one of history’s most enigmatic women. Following the trail forged by her late husband, Katrina must separate truth from legend as she chases medicine from ancient Italy and Egypt to a clandestine modern-day war. Her quest will reveal a legacy of greed and murder and resurrect an ancient plague, introducing it into the twenty-first century.

Please visit her website at www.kristenelisephd.com.  You can find Kristen’s book on Amazon at:  http://amzn.to/14qLL9n

If you have a minute, leave Kristen a comment.  Thanks.