Dozing Through "Public Enemies"
My daughter and son-in-law had warned me last year, after they viewed it on the big screen, that this clearly is not intended to be a realistic account of the Dillinger-Purvis record. Surrealism is...
View ArticleAn Old-Fashioned Mystery "Reader" Magazine
Just launched: The Illustrated Harper & MacTavish Reader, a quarterly e-magazette distributed online in .pdf format. Each issue features a story from "The Harper Chronicles" and "The Casebook of...
View ArticleThe "Lost Patrol"
Each December I'm reminded of Flight 19, the so-called "Lost Patrol"—five Avenger torpedo bombers tbat vanished while on a training flight, 5 December 1945. The group took off from the Fort Lauderdale...
View ArticleThe Mystery of the Empty Tomb
The History Channel, the Discovery Channel and other cable networks, as well as mainstream networks and print media, are relentless in trying to undermine Christianity at Christmas and Easter season...
View ArticleBiography of an Enigmatic G-Man
Alston Purvis has achieved a remarkable thing: write a son’s perspective of a “hero” father with neither biased glorification nor unveiled animosity. The Vendetta: FBI Hero Melvin Purvis’s War Against...
View ArticleMysterious Mr. Booth
Every American knows the essential details of the Lincoln assassination: shot in the back of the head by actor John Wilkes Booth while attending a play in Washington, DC. It occurred on 14 April 1865,...
View ArticleThe "Pretty Boy" Question
Which Bureau of Investigation agent was on the scene when Pretty Boy Floyd was slain by law enforcement officers in an Ohio farm field in October 1934?a) Ray Caffrey, b) Sam Cowley, c) Melvin Purvis,...
View ArticleThe Unsolitary Cyclists
Have you noticed that in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's story "The Solitary Cyclist" . . . there was no solitary cyclist? Sherlock Holmes solved the mystery of the two Charlington bicyclists—the tutor Violet...
View ArticleA Man Who Loved His Work
The term “I love my work!” is a delight to hear in modern times—when so many workers don’t. As a catchphrase, it turns up in varied contexts. For example, it was uttered by Porthos the Pirate in a...
View ArticleThe Difference Between Holmes & Gandhi
I don't typically offer negative reviews, but after ordering up a small fortune in archival Sherlock Holmes audio recordings earlier this month (as belated Christmas gifts to myself), I have to report...
View ArticleThe Many Voices of Sherlock Holmes
I discovered this week the wonderful cassette sets of Sherlock Holmes stories recorded by Edward Hardwick during the 1990s, as well as the more recent DVD sets read by David Timson. Inspired, I probed...
View ArticleDining With a Ghost
A favorite routine during our occasional weekends in the Gatlinburg, TN, vicinity is dinner at the Greenbrier Restaurant. Situated on a small mountain slope on an obscure, winding lane off Highway 321,...
View ArticleSearchable Dickens
Speaking of A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens' 1843 classic seasonal ghost story, the folks at askSam have posted a free, searchable e-book version of it, including illustrations. It's at...
View ArticleA "Dickens" of a Ghostly December
A Christmas Carol not only is (possibly) Charles Dickens' most famous work of fiction but is, as you undoubtedly know, a ghost story. Unless you've dabbled more deeply into Dickens' legacy, you may not...
View ArticleHistorical Mystery Quiz of the Week
What was young Sherlock Holmes first case?a) "The Musgrave Ritual," b) "The Gloria Scott," c) "The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton," d) "The Bravoes of Market-Drayton."
View ArticleA Lunar Mystery
Have you noticed that in the “Radiance” image of the moonscape (one of the desktop backgrounds available in Windows), along with the myriad pockmarks of various-sized meteor craters is the partial rim...
View ArticleAdditional "Vintage" Stories Online
Two short stories have been added to the "Vintage Short Mystery Classics" series this month. "The Dancing-Partner" is English author/playwright Jerome K. Jerome's horror tale of entertainment gone...
View ArticleGhastly Gatlinburg
Apologies for the interruption in these history/mystery notes, quiz questions, etc. We were long-weekending near Gatlinburg, Tennessee, where a friend periodically lets us stay at his mountain...
View ArticleGhosts of the Upstate . . . & Downstate
Yes! We have our share of “haunts” here in upstate South Carolina. For our entries into the plethora of seasonal spookiness this day, might we submit our mysterious rocking chair at Limestone College...
View ArticleSix Stories Added to Vintage E-Book Collection
October additions to the "Vintage Short Mystery Classics" series of free e-book downloads include: "The Mystery of Essex Stairs" by Sir Gilbert Campbell, "Talma Gordon" by Pauline E. Hopkins, "The...
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