Category: intelligence

It was “a dark and stormy night” in 1813

A dark and stormy night 1813 edition (I don’t usually full post excerpts from my work in progress, I often put far too much into first drafts and then have to drastically cut. This episode of “a dark and stormy night”  I discovered is too good to pass up. I am working on stories about […]

Topsham Devon, home of the seafaring Pennell family

Topsham  on the River Exe, in Devon, is the seaport for the larger city of Exeter. In the past week, I have had the chance to explore one of the towns where my roots are, the Pennells, on one main branch of my father’s side of the family. There were villages in the area of […]

Prisoners of the Empire: a disappointing, cherry-picked mishmash

Earlier this summer I saw a prepublication notice for Sarah Kovner’s book Prisoners of the Empire Inside Japanese POW Camps, where the Harvard University Press promotion  called the book “A pathbreaking account of World War II POW camps, challenging the longstanding belief that the Japanese Empire systematically mistreated Allied prisoners.” I eagerly pre-ordered the book. […]