darling books: the violin by nightfall

  "How long is this going to take?" he snapped at Harry, who was reading the form upside down and making helpful suggestions.
  "In a hurry, huh, Murph?" He raised his eyebrows and winked. "She must really be somethin'."
  "How long does it take?"
  "Most ladies like the long-type ceremony."
  "You got a short one?"
  "Sure. We can do short. As short as you like."
  "How's thirty seconds?"
  "It'll cost you extra."
  "You're charging me five hundred as it is, you little crook!" Murphy reached across the counter and pulled Harry up on his toes by his polka-dot tie.
  "That's because you want the passport tomorrow!" Harry wailed. "Nobody gets a passport in one day."
  "For five hundred? Bah!" Murphy's eyes were bleary from lack of sleep. "I want a quick passport and a quick wedding ceremony!" He shoved Harry back.
  Harry looked at Murphy sideways. Love had definitely had a bad effect on him. "Sure, Murph." He sounded hurt. He smoothed his tie and thought for a minute. "And I'll even throw in a cigar."
  "I'm not having a baby," Murphy scowled.
  "Oh. I thought maybe - " Harry stopped short when Murphy looked daggers at him.
  "And I don't smoke." He shoved the forms over to Harry. "And for five hundred smackers, you can fill these out."
  "But I don't know any of the information!" His voice trailed off; he looked past Murphy as the door behind him opened and Elisa came in. "Well, helllooo!" He gave a low whistle, then whispered, "No wonder you're in such a hurry, pal."
  Murphy did not hear him. He turned to look at Elisa and for an instant he thought his heart was going to stop. She looked like something off the cover of a magazine. A picture from Fifth Avenue in New York. He had seen the Garbo movie Ecstasy three times, but Garbo was never so beautiful as Elisa Linder in the royal blue suit.

I don't like novels set in war-time Europe. Yet I have reread the Zion Covenant series, and many other series by Bodie and Brock Thoene, countless times.

This first book in the series, Vienna Prelude, contains the haunting sound of a Guarnerius violin, fairytale snow in Vienna, candles lit on a horrible night in Dachau, and the American journalist Murphy who gives his beloved bride a cigar band for a wedding ring.

The rest, as they say, is history.