Washington Navy Yard: Some Tough History
For someone writing a book about James Madison (that’s me), yesterday’s mass shooting at the Washington Navy Yard has powerful echoes. While the new national capital was being hacked out of forest and swamp in the 1790s, Congress arranged to buy land for a naval support facility. Soon the navy yard at Washington City was…
Read MoreJohn Bingham: American Founding Son
Today marks the launch of a new biography of Congressman John Bingham of Cadiz, Ohio, American Founding Son, by Gerard Magliocca of University of Indiana School of Law. It’s great to have this fresh and excellent examination of Bingham, a key force in helping to shape the America that emerged from the Civil War: Bingham…
Read MoreE-Books and Libraries: Not So Fast!
The Montgomery County Council, which presides over my home jurisdiction and which includes my favorite person (my wife Nancy), is considering a resolution demanding that various state and federal government organs act immediately to ensure that the county’s library users have access to e-books in a “reasonable and non-discriminatory manner.” The only problem with this…
Read MoreAaron Burr on Staten Island
Aaron Burr’s final days on Staten Island are the subject of a delightful new volume by Martha Smith Kakuk and Ray Swick: Aunt Abby and Aaron Burr’s Last Days: Staten Island, the Summer of 1836, and the Death of America’s Most Notorious Man. Brought out in a limited addition by the Printing Press, Ltd. of Charleston,…
Read MoreLooking for America in World War I
On a recent trip to France, as part of research for a novel I hope to write next year, my long-suffering wife endured several days in northeastern France looking for traces of America’s role in World War I. The weather was just right for imagining nasty, soggy trench warfare, where half the casualties were from illness,…
Read More"The Lincoln Deception": One step closer!
I just received a few “advanced reader copies” (i.e., copies for reviewers) of my forthcoming novel, The Lincoln Deception. It’s a great pleasure to see them, though the book doesn’t go on sale until August 27. You can reserve a copy by pre-0rder from Amazon. I dedicated this one — a historical mystery that tries to unravel the secrets of the…
Read MoreBurr's Corsets . . .
Aaron Burr’s devotion to the charms of the fair sex is the apparent justification for a new exhibition at the Morris-Jumel Mansion in Upper Manhattan, where Burr lived for a few months during his short-lived second marriage at age 77. The show is titled “The Loves of Aaron Burr: Portraits in Corsetry and Binding.” I did…
Read MoreThey Don't Get It: "Enemy Combatant" = Terrorist Win
With the oh-so-welcome arrest of apparent terrorist bomber Dzokhar Tsarnaev, and the killing of his brother/accomplice, some Republican senators are perversely urging a policy that would award the terrorists their greatest possible victory. They urge that Tsarnaev be declared an “enemy combatant” in order to allow the use of summary legal procedures against him, and…
Read MoreThe Lincoln Deception
Well, there it is! The cover of my first novel, which will be released on August 27. Sink into the crepuscular gaslight of Washington in 1900 as our mismatched heroes struggle to scrape away the myths, misunderstandings and lies surrounding the John Wilkes Booth Conspiracy, while dodging the powerful secret forces that need to keep the…
Read MorePirates Ahoy!
I don’t think these pirates look much like Captain Jack Sparrow, though it might be more entertaining if they did. Nah, it wouldn’t. I was blown away by a recent notice from Simon & Schuster, publisher of my three books to date, reporting the number of pirated e-copies of my books that they have bullied off the Internet. What’s…
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