The Girl in the Polka Dot Dress
Connecting the Dots takes a new look at RFK’s murder, moving from the physical evidence inside the Ambassador Hotel pantry to theories involving a possible second gunman and a wider network of participants. How did your understanding of the case change between beginning the investigation and completing the book?
My investigation started with the firm foundation of the RFK Autopsy Report by Dr Thomas Noguchi. I was directed to it by Dr Cyril Wecht. I have great respect and admiration for brave and expert professionals such as Wecht, Noguchi and Dino Brugioni (the CIA photographic expert). Then I examined as many of RFK’s enemies and political opponents as I could find. There were many. I realized early that RFK’s assassination was due to purely domestic motives and did not involve Russians or Cubans. My attention was drawn to the KKK when I researched Thane Eugene Cesar’s political leanings. I came to the conclusion that the Girl in the Polka Dot Dress clearly was there and could not understand why the LAPD were so intent on denying and covering up her existence.
What standards did you use to decide which pieces of physical or testimonial evidence deserved the greatest weight?
The evidence that appeals to an average person’s common sense deserves the most attention. The number of bullet impacts being greater than the capacity of Sirhan’s gun is easy to understand and easy to demonstrate and cross check. Once the LAPD single gunman story is demolished other explanations become more credible. The direction of Sirhan’s shots that injured 5 people were similar and completely different to the direction of the 4 shots at RFK.
What do the newly accessible government records add to our understanding of how authorities investigated Kennedy’s assassination?
RFK’s autopsy photos, declassified in April 2025 confirmed and well illustrated what was in Noguchi’s autopsy report. Many of the FBI telex messages gave insight into actions and opinions of the FBI.
What evidence would you most like to see discovered, released, or independently reexamined, and do you believe modern forensic methods could resolve any of the remaining disputes surrounding the assassination?
It would be great to find a stash of Jamie Scott Enyart’s photos taken in the Kitchen Pantry. Unfortunately, much evidence was destroyed. Many witnesses have passed away. It would be interesting if Steve DuBois, Nina Roman or even Sirhan Sirhan (all still alive) would recognize the girl in the polka dot dress from their distant memories when shown various photographs.
If all the newsreel footage and other photographs from the ballroom could be reexamined and the girl in the polka dot dress or Sirhan’s presence detected, that would be great.
Following a January 2025 Executive Order by President Trump, the federal government began a massive release of previously classified materials.
This book sets out the facts of the case that the second gunman was Thane Eugene Cesar and that Cesar’s shots were the shots that fatally wounded RFK.
This book does not argue that Sirhan Sirhan was innocent. He was intercepted by Karl Uecker amongst others. Sirhan seriously wounded 5 people with his attempts to kill RFK.
While the book does attempt to draw out the other possible conspirators it is not dogmatic in it’s approach.
Peeling the Layers of an Onion
Crushed Azaleas gathers fragments of an international childhood into an intimate memoir about belonging, family wounds, cultural identity, music, and learning to understand the people who shaped us. The memoir unfolds through self-contained memories rather than a strictly chronological narrative. Why did that structure feel right for your story?
I chose the form of self-contained memories, or vignette-like scenes (as I refer to them in my introduction) because it was the only way to convey the beauty and power of each memory, and also the absence of a unifying theme linking these memories into a coherent whole. Longer chapters like “Roman New Year’s” and “A Monsoon Tale” present somewhat of a contrast because they portray entire worlds where festive and colorful surroundings take center stage.
Music appears throughout the memoir as an important emotional language. What has music allowed you to express or understand that words sometimes cannot?
Any answer to this question will be incomplete because you are asking me to describe a place beyond words. Toward the end of my chapter titled “Seeking a Spiritual Path,” I describe what listening to music does for me. It creates a sanctuary, a space beyond time where love received is perceived as light, a place of mystery, a home for my soul.
What was most difficult about writing honestly about people you loved while also acknowledging the pain within those relationships?
Writing this memoir has been like peeling the layers of an onion. Each layer has brought pain with it, and also a deeper insight. It has been an inward journey. Early on I decided to bare my soul to the reader and to show the beauty and pain inherent in loving relationships. In family, we are at our most loving and most vulnerable. I found resonance and affirmation in reading Thomas Moore’s “Care of the Soul” where he states “Family is a sometimes comforting, sometimes devastating, house of memory.”
After spending so much of the memoir searching for belonging, where do you believe our deepest sense of home ultimately comes from?
In answer to this question, I would like to quote a concept from Zen practice called “turning one’s light around.” It teaches that one’s true light (wisdom) isn’t waiting at the end of a long journey, it has been always at one’s own doorstep (within) if one simply stops looking outward. I lean towards this inward journey at the end of my first chapter titled Origins: “Maybe the way back home is to find the most intimate part of me, a part stretched thin by memory. A part that is beautiful, mysterious, and fragile, sustained by a love of dreams and origins.”
Author Links: GoodReads | Website
Born in Washington, D.C., and raised across Japan, the United Kingdom, Italy, and India, Moulik grew up amid constant motion—an outsider everywhere, yet belonging nowhere. Told through vivid vignettes, his memories capture the wonder of postwar cities, the rituals of diplomatic life, and the friendships that shaped a wandering childhood.
But beneath the cosmopolitan surface lies a more fragile world: a demanding father whose approval must be earned, a mother struggling with deep depression, and a boy searching for refuge in music, memory, and the cultures around him.
Evocative, intimate, and deeply reflective, Crushed Azaleas explores the quiet complexities of identity, family, and belonging—resonating with anyone who has ever lived between cultures or questioned where “home” truly lies.
Earth’s Last Hope
Mary L. Schmidt’s Earth’s Last Hope is an apocalyptic survival novel that starts with a frighteningly simple problem: Yellowstone is about to erupt, and humanity has almost no time to prepare. When scientists realize the supervolcano is behaving far more aggressively than expected, President Joyce Zimmerman and government leaders move quickly to protect as many people as possible. Much of the story follows retired General James Tilson and his extended family as they take shelter in a massive underground complex beneath the Denver Federal Center. Schmidt spends a lot of time showing how bunker life actually functions, from hydroponic food production and medical care to schooling, security, recreation, and daily chores. That practical detail gives the novel the feel of both a disaster story and a survival manual, while the worsening eruption, ash-filled atmosphere, extreme cold, and collapse of normal society keep reminding everyone that the world above them is changing permanently.
What gives the book its personality, though, is its focus on family and community. James may be dealing with presidents, generals, secret facilities, riots, evacuations, and classified missions, but he’s also Grandpa James, a husband and the emotional center of a sprawling family. The quieter scenes matter just as much as the disaster scenes. People cook together, work in the hydroponic gardens, teach children, fall in love, get married, play games, paint, pray, deal with injuries, and eventually welcome new babies. Those moments create an unusual rhythm for an apocalypse novel because Schmidt is interested in more than simply surviving the next catastrophe. She’s interested in what people would do with ordinary life once ordinary life has been forced underground. Faith is also central to that vision. Prayer, gratitude, marriage, childbirth, and the belief that humanity has a future become recurring parts of the characters’ response to enormous loss.
About halfway through, Earth’s Last Hope expands from disaster fiction into science fiction when the Nyard, an advanced extraterrestrial race secretly connected to humanity since the Roswell era, become crucial to Earth’s survival. Their technology changes the scale of the novel dramatically. Instead of concentrating only on how long people can endure underground, the story begins asking whether the planet itself can be repaired. Yellowstone is permanently neutralized, new technology removes volcanic ash from the atmosphere, nanobots assist with cleanup, and a new source of clean energy helps humanity rebuild. In that sense, the book reminded me somewhat of Andy Weir’s The Martian. Both stories enjoy explaining solutions instead of simply announcing that a problem has been solved. Weir tends to build those solutions through tightly constrained engineering and scientific problem-solving, while Schmidt blends scientific explanation with speculative technology, government coordination, faith, and family life. Her canvas is also much larger. Instead of one person trying to stay alive, she follows an entire society trying to figure out what living should look like after almost losing the planet.
The result is a hopeful kind of apocalypse story. There’s tremendous destruction here, including mass death, ruined cities, toxic ash, starvation, psychological trauma, and the near extinction of humanity, but the novel keeps returning to rebuilding. By the final chapters, survivors are confronting what remains of Denver, salvaging materials, restoring communities, welcoming new life, and imagining a society built differently from the one that disappeared. The birth of Georgy near the end works especially well as a symbol of that direction, arriving just as the characters finally face the physical remains of their former homes. The epilogue carries that idea forward three years into reconstruction, with salvaged stone, granite, new infrastructure, and green energy becoming the foundations of another civilization. Earth’s Last Hope is ultimately a story about catastrophe as a test of cooperation. Its biggest interest is the question of what people preserve when nearly everything familiar is taken away, and its answer is remarkably consistent: family, knowledge, faith, useful work, community, and the determination to build something that can last.
Pages: 221 | ASIN : B0GX36GXN2
Brokenness Becomes Beautiful: Inspiring Pieces of Poetry
Terence Ang’s Brokenness Becomes Beautiful is an intimate collection of poetry and personal reflection shaped by his recovery from a stroke and his experience of aphasia. Its eight chapters trace a thoughtful progression from self-discovery to self-empowerment, giving the book the feeling of a guided inner journey. Ang writes with openness about a body that has changed, words that no longer arrive easily, and the difficult work of meeting the person he’s becoming. The result is tender, candid, and deeply attentive to the small acts of courage that recovery requires.
The poems are spare and accessible, often building their meaning through images drawn from nature and everyday life. A cracked vase still holds flowers, a seed grows while hidden underground, and a tiny flame contains the possibility of transformation. Mirrors, wounds, rivers, stars, and light return throughout the collection, gathering emotional weight as the book unfolds. These familiar objects become a language for experiences that can be hard to name, allowing Ang to speak about grief, patience, self-worth, and hope with striking clarity.
Each group of poems is followed by a longer reflection that brings Ang’s lived experience into sharper focus. Here he writes plainly about frustration, vulnerability, physical limitations, and the loss of his former fluency. He also shows how writing has given him another way to listen to himself and reach other people. The contrast between the compact poems and the conversational reflections works especially well, creating a rhythm of feeling, pause, and understanding. Aphasia is part of the book’s very texture, making each act of expression feel deliberate and earned.
This is a companion for readers rebuilding a life, identity, or sense of possibility after an unexpected change. Ang’s encouragement feels personal because it grows from ongoing struggle, not distant hindsight. He understands that healing can mean taking one better step, finding one clearer word, setting one necessary boundary, or simply refusing to disappear. Brokenness Becomes Beautiful offers a warm, honest vision of wholeness as something spacious enough to include every scar. Terence Ang turns the language of brokenness into a new vocabulary for beauty, courage, and becoming.
Pages: 136 | ASIN : B0HC87NGHP
Poems For the Military Veteran, the American Worker, and the American Spirit
Brian Taylor’s Poems For the Military Veteran, the American Worker, and the American Spirit is a patriotic poetry collection centered on service, freedom, work, family, perseverance, and civic responsibility. Across more than eighty poems, Taylor moves between tributes to military personnel, reflections on constitutional freedoms, celebrations of working Americans, and encouragement to pursue personal goals. The collection opens by presenting America as a place of opportunity and endurance, declaring, “Keep celebrating what America offers / Remember the word united in the USA and learn to get along.” That emphasis on gratitude and unity establishes the book’s central perspective and continues through poems about the American flag, free enterprise, government, religion, speech, and national traditions.
Military service is one of the book’s strongest recurring subjects. Taylor writes about soldiers not only as defenders of the country but also as people shaped by loyalty, discipline, sacrifice, hardship, and fellowship. Poems such as “Accomplishing the Mission,” “Veterans,” “Honor,” “Oorah,” and “Thanking Soldiers” stress the bonds formed through service and the respect veterans deserve. The later poem “A Soldier’s Return Home” gives this theme a more personal dimension by acknowledging the difficulty of returning to ordinary life after combat. Its call to “Be a good listener without interruptions” presents support for veterans as a practical responsibility shared by families and communities.
The collection also devotes substantial attention to American workers and everyday life. Construction workers, plumbers, firefighters, teachers, business owners, Uber drivers, police officers, and farmers all receive individual poems, giving the book a broad view of labor as a source of usefulness, independence, and community strength. Taylor combines these occupational portraits with poems about board games, mealtimes, the Super Bowl, the Fourth of July, fireworks, friendship, and apple pie. These subjects create a picture of national identity built not only through public institutions and military service but also through ordinary routines, recreation, family relationships, and shared customs. The book’s frequent use of limericks and acrostics adds variety to its short, direct poetic forms.
Poems For the Military Veteran, the American Worker, and the American Spirit is a collection of affirmations about citizenship, service, ambition, faith, and appreciation. Taylor’s style is plainspoken and accessible, often addressing readers directly and encouraging them to value freedom, support others, work toward meaningful goals, and recognize the contributions of people around them. Poems such as “Courage,” “Inspiring Others,” “Being Steadfast,” and “Fear” extend the book’s patriotic themes into personal character, connecting national strength with individual determination and responsibility. The result is a sincere collection that treats patriotism as something expressed through military service, productive work, gratitude, family life, personal effort, and active participation in American civic life.
Pages: 90 | ASIN: B0F9C6CW8H
Lily and the Tooth Fairy
Lily and the Tooth Fairy by Latia Smith, RDH, turns the familiar experience of losing a baby tooth into a playful story about family, imagination, and the mystery of the tooth fairy. Lily spends a sunny day at the beach with Papa, building an elaborate sandcastle, enjoying a picnic, and pretending she’s part of a royal celebration. The story shifts when Lily bites into a blueberry scone and discovers that her loose tooth has finally fallen out. Papa helps her care for the spot where the tooth was lost, then takes the experience in a magical direction by sharing the story of the tooth fairies and what happens to children’s teeth after bedtime.
One of the book’s strongest qualities is the warm relationship between Lily and Papa. Their beach outing feels affectionate and relaxed, with small details such as Papa preparing food, joining Lily’s pretend royal banquet, helping her clean her tooth, and later telling her a family story about tooth fairies. Those moments make the book feel like more than a story about losing a tooth. It’s also about the way adults can turn an ordinary childhood milestone into something memorable. The rhyming text keeps the story moving, and the progression from beach adventure to bedtime fantasy gives young readers plenty of changes in setting and mood.
The fairy mythology adds an imaginative layer that gives the second half of the picture book its own personality. Papa explains that fairies have different jobs and that one group collects children’s fallen teeth, which leads naturally into Lily dreaming that she’s a fairy herself. In her dream, she can turn gold into coins, while the real tooth fairy arrives to collect her tooth. By morning, Lily finds shiny gold coins under her pillow, connecting the dream world neatly with what happened during the night. That sequence should be especially fun for children who are already curious about the tooth fairy tradition because it gives them a whole hidden world to picture.
The illustrations are a major part of the book’s appeal. The beach scenes are bright and busy, with umbrellas, waves, sandcastles, food, families, and playful background details that give children plenty to look at beyond the main action. Later, the nighttime fairy scenes switch to deeper skies, glowing wings, moonlight, and sparkling magic, which helps the fantasy section feel visually distinct from Lily’s everyday world. Lily’s expressions remain cheerful and easy to read throughout, and Papa’s friendly presence helps the more practical moments, like dealing with the lost tooth, feel reassuring.
Lily and the Tooth Fairy is a cheerful and imaginative take on a childhood milestone that blends family warmth, dental awareness, and fairy-tale adventure in a way that feels accessible for young readers.
Pages: 38 | ASIN : B0H6NN6B75
New, Strange Properties
The Last Missioner follows humanity’s surviving Remnant a thousand years after a catastrophic event as distinct cultures struggle to preserve civilization in a world shaped by technology, theology, and biblical prophecy. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
The story evolved rather slowly. It all started when Salvador Dali’s The Last Supper came to the Dali Museum in St. Petersburg, FL in 2005 or 2006. I was living in Tampa at the time and already knew the painting well. When I saw the original at the museum, something in me clicked on, and I had stuck in my mind the “flavor” of an exotic far-future world. I had already completed 2 feature film screenplays and wanted to think about another project. That painting got me going. Around the same time, I saw something about a city … I can’t remember which city (this was 18 years ago!) and how its name evolved over time. And I got caught up with that notion. I remember cutting grass on the church property where I lived and imagining how American city names might evolve over the next 100, 200 years. One was Atlanta, Seattle, New Orleans, St. Louis, etc. Eventually, all this came together. The far-future look (in my mind) of the Dali Last Supper made me think of Revelation 20:1-3 … the Christ reigning one-thousand years passage, which always fascinated me. For a long time, I had indulged in my meditations how that might look and how the Devil might be let out for a short time upon the completion of that utopian period. This spurred me into thoughts in terms of story. I immediately imagined a child being raised in the conventions of this age and being “pulled out” of it, instigated by the Devil. I jotted notes down as details emerged. Eventually, by 2009, I had enough ideas and direction to begin drafting my third feature film script. I completed it, got some reaction in Hollywood (the script placed in the top 20% in the Nicholl Fellowship of the Academy of Motion Pictures- but didn’t place). I did have a major Hollywood director’s attention, but his final verdict was that it was good, but too religious for the budget size in Hollywood. Finally, I came to “novelize” it and completed the novel in 2017. Over the years since—over the Covid lockdowns, especially—I rewrote and tweaked and spruced up, and added stuff on here and there, etc. while at the same time completing and rewriting its prequel. So, THE LAST MISSIONER is the first of two novels I have ready for the publication process. The second, waiting in the wings, is AWAKEN ELECT! … which takes place at the beginning of the thousand years, where the Eclecti (elect) awaken and come to know this changed Earth with its new, strange properties.
How did you develop the three charisms of the Jurans, Lewans, and Noochi, and what do their different abilities reveal about their cultures?
These three “nations” came about as my geography of a far future USA evolved. It was something that I was just fixated on and toying with in my head at the time (2006/2007) as I did manual work like cutting grass, mopping the parish center floor, walking on the treadmill, etc. Some cities I thought about were Atlanta, Georgia (Atalan Jur… Jurans), St. Louis (Lews.. Lewans), Chattanooga (Nooga… Noochi), New Orleans (Orlen’s Gate… Orlen), Seattle (Sydyl… Sydylis XII) a thousand years in the future. It was a silly, inane game, but it fired my imagination. The names become different, but the cities are in the same locations as in pre-tribulation times (our time). So, the charisms of the citizens in the three nations developed as I tried to grow a story concerning these three of these locations. So, that imagined far-future geography I conjured up was the springboard. The three charisms (reflecting the persons of the Trinity) followed gradually as I created the story. Then, while I was writing the screenplay and even more so while fleshing out the novel in 2016/17, details about the individual cultures and distinctive features began to take shape. I had LOTS of time and no pressure at all, and I was constantly thinking things out …. so, lots of ideas brewed and matured. I should mention that I was the vocation director for my province of Capuchins at the time. So, I had to make long drives for candidate interviews a couple times a year. 15-18 hours alone in a car, going from NJ to Louisiana to Florida and everywhere in between. I carried with me a digital recorder and brainstormed for long hours on those trips. This alone generated a wealth of detail regarding worldbuilding, plot and character development.
How did you balance the novel’s detailed theological and philosophical ideas with the demands of adventure and storytelling?
Much of the theological details, philosophical and scriptural references come from my background as a religious brother who is engaged daily in community prayer and private prayer and had a thorough formation during my initial years within the community. As a semi-contemplative, much of this is in the air I breathe. The adventure and storytelling are very much the result of me trying to make a great feature film! As a screenwriter writing spec scripts, I adhered faithfully to the screenwriting three-act structure: 1 minute per page, 120 pages complete with inciting incident, plot points, the Act II Curtain (low point in the protagonist’s journey), final drive and resolution in Act III, denouement, etc. So, when I made the novel, I kept that structure intact and expanded on it to make a larger, more detailed read of the same proportions, which was a lot of fun!
Ultimately, what do you hope readers take away from John Micah’s journey and The Last Missioner as a whole? I aimed to portray familiar tenets of faith (those familiar tropes that we are so accustomed to that we might take them for granted) and apply a fresh angle or shine a different light, bringing new relief to the established truths. The exotic quality of THE LAST MISSIONER’s world should inspire and engage readers who are looking for an experience of fantasy, but in the end realize that THIS fantasy is really a metaphor for what exists in reality, now in our present time! How many high school kids, for instance, read Dune or Lord of the Rings, and afterwards say, “Wow, I wish Middle Earth or Arrakis actually were real. I wish I could live in that world.” Well in my book, I offer a far-future, exotic place and story and the reader could conclude, “Wow, that was a fun excursion and it’s a reflection of what is really here among us now! I can live in this world by embracing the Church or the synagogue or the mosque. There is an intentional blend of Christian (particularly Catholic), Jewish and some Muslim elements in my world-building. This is to demonstrate that we are all children of Abraham living under the same loving God—like under the constant sunrays falling upon the Grat-hemis in my story. I hope this comes through for every reader.
Author Links: GoodReads | X | Website
John Micah Leers XIV was born into a utopia of unceasing light, a boy raised within the rituals and discipline of the Juran people. But when famine and rebellion threaten his world, he is called to leave the only life he has ever known. Guided by the enigmatic Orlen and his golden eagle, John Micah must journey into the uncharted dark side of the globe, where his powers of light falter and mystery and menace reign.
Pursued by Satan himself and a team of shadowy conspirators, John Micah’s path continually tests his faith and his endurance. With the support of a ragtag crew, he ultimately comes to discover the true heart of his mission in an act borne of trustful obedience and stalwart self-denial.
The Last Missioner is a scriptural fantasy of adventure and redemption, blending theological depth, imaginative worldbuilding, and pulse-pounding suspense to explore the cost of faith and the power of grace.
DEATH TAKES A KNIGHT: A Cotswold Crimes Mystery, Book 4
Death Takes a Knight by Sharon Lynn is a lively British cozy mystery that blends murder, archaeology, Arthurian legend, and a generous amount of character-driven humor. American archaeology student Maddie McGuire is visiting Glastonbury when she and her friend Lily discover a dead man dressed as an Arthurian knight, complete with a broadsword through his chest. The theatrical crime scene quickly becomes more personal when Detective Inspector Parikh, one of Maddie’s closest allies, emerges as the leading suspect. From there, this Cotswold mystery gives Maddie plenty to untangle as she tries to clear Parikh’s name while balancing coursework, her job at the Roman Baths, friendships, and her relationship with constable Edward Bailey.
One of the book’s strongest features is how naturally the mystery grows out of its setting. Glastonbury, Bath, the Roman Baths, local pubs, old buildings, blacksmithing, medieval weapons, and Arthurian history all become part of the investigation rather than simply serving as scenery. The chess motif is especially effective. Maddie begins viewing the people involved as pieces on a board, with an unseen mastermind moving pawns, knights, bishops, and rooks into place. That gives this amateur sleuth mystery a playful structure while also reinforcing the idea that the murder is part of something much larger. Lynn keeps the historical and archaeological details approachable, so the book works equally well as an archaeological mystery and a cozy mystery for readers who simply enjoy an atmospheric English setting.
Maddie herself gives the novel much of its personality. She’s curious, impulsive, funny, academically gifted, and remarkably capable of talking herself into situations that sensible people would avoid. Her first-person narration keeps the tone conversational even when the stakes rise from suspicious clues to kidnapping, violence, forgery, and organized crime. The supporting cast adds just as much energy. Simon’s restrained aristocratic manner plays beautifully against Maddie’s Arizona directness, Dolly and Lady Vivian bring their own versions of competence, James adds an unpredictable edge, and Edward’s relationship with Maddie gives the story a warm romantic thread. Even Milo the border collie becomes an important part of the action. The result is an ensemble-driven cozy crime novel where friendships and relationships matter as much as discovering who committed the crime.
What I enjoyed most about Death Takes a Knight is the way its many ingredients fit together. The Arthurian murder, Parikh’s apparent guilt, the chess imagery, forged antiquities, hidden compartments, Maddie’s architectural instincts, and the larger criminal scheme gradually converge into a satisfying solution. The later chapters increase the danger without losing the humor and warmth that define the book, and the final revelations reward details planted throughout the story. Readers looking for a British cozy mystery with an amateur sleuth, historical intrigue, archaeology, light romance, and a twisty murder investigation will find plenty to enjoy here. Death Takes a Knight is a character-rich Cotswold cozy mystery with a strong sense of place, an engaging puzzle, and a heroine whose curiosity keeps the story moving.
Pages: 320 | ASIN : B0GQDH2S31
