Okay, so the Berlin Wall in my living room doesn't quite match the real Wall's dimensions. But it comes close. The last generation of the Wall before it came down on November 9, 1989, stood about 12 feet tall, which is a bit too much for my living room. My replica of...
What in the world does the University of Illinois have to do with REO Speedwagon, Dan Fogelberg, Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven," Billboard magazine's most powerful person in music, and the most prolific Grammy-winner living today? You can find out in a cover...
BBC Radio 4 ran a compelling show last Friday about The Stasi Jigsaw Puzzle--the shredded documents that form the core of my novel, The Puzzle People. As the Berlin Wall was coming down so dramatically in 1989, East German secret police, the Stasi, began shredding...
Ted Johnson, a wonderful actor I got to visit with at this year's Gideon Media Arts Conference, plays a small but very important role in the upcoming Stephen Spielberg movie, Lincoln. He has pointed out an excellent Entertainment Weekly article that goes through the...
Few people probably remember the sinking of the iron-hulled Union ship, USS Hatteras, off the coast of Galveston, Texas, during the Civil War. But the ship played a key role in the struggle over the port of Galveston. The USS Hatteras was sunk by the Confederate ship,...
One of the highlights of 2011 was the One Book, One Community program in Canton, Ohio, which adopted The Disappearing Man as its featured book. The Canton Repository newspaper continues its support with a nice article about my Berlin mystery, The Puzzle People. Check...
The fence you see in these photos has to be the wickedest looking fence I have ever laid eyes upon. It is perhaps the most dangerous non-electrified fence in the country. My wife and I encountered this fence last spring during our walking tour in Charleston, South...
Chicago politics was alive and well in May of 1860 when the Republican party nominated Abraham Lincoln as its presidential candidate at the convention in the Windy City. Check out this fascinating article, which shows how trickery got Lincoln nominated on the third...
In my novel, The Puzzle People, I place one of my main characters, Stefan Hansel, at a pivotal point in the history of the Cold War. I place Stefan at the Bornholmer Strasse border crossing in East Berlin on the evening of November 9, 1989. The following YouTube video...
HISTORY BY THE SLICE--Washington socialite Rose Greenhow was arrested for spying for the Confederacy on August 23, 1861, 151 years ago today. Greenhow's information on Union troop movements was believed to have aided the Confederate victory at the first Battle of Bull...