A Hog in a Log is about a young wild hog named Pog, who faces many obstacles while looking for a place to weather a bad storm that is approaching. This probably wouldn't bother most hogs but Pog is unique in the fact that he doesn't like to be cold or get wet.

WeWillFindYouaMatch.com, a computer romance, was written by your author when his son started looking for a mate and found a wife. As you might expect, computer dates often don’t work out. Your author thought it might be interesting if Angus Morgan, our computer dater, had five dates that were disasters before he found success. Their romance started in Oroville, California, and continued in the British Isles and, eventually, in Paris. In 1992, your author and his editor wife, Bobbi, spent t...

The New Guy in Town Episode Seven The Case of Uncovering Undercovers The setting is a roadhouse, The Lumberjack Inn, located in Cypress, a coastal town in Northern California. Cypress’s only entertainment is drinking at the inn on Friday nights. The Friday night crowd includes a reserved table for four of the surviving members of Cypress’s 1999 League Championship basketball team, including four of the cheerleaders. The missing teammate died in Iraq, allegedly by friendly fire. An empty ch...

The Case of the Erroneous Homophone In the first of two episodes of The Blues of Portsmouth PD, your author introduces the nine fictitious but charismatic members of the Portsmouth, New Hampshire, Police Department: Chief Wesley Frey, fair and definitely in charge but facing retirement; the veterans, Desk Sgt. Joe Cooper and dispatcher and sergeant Sally Thorne, who have a love-hate relationship, add comic relief; Detective Lt. Tim Slone, who has a stammer until he deals with pressure; Det...

“The Case of the Connected Palindromes” In the second episode, the PPD officers are joined by additional regular characters, which give a broader stage of interaction outside the station house: Hon. Judge Robert McLiams, who demands the officer follow the probable-cause rule; ADA Susan George, who insists the officers follow the book; Betty and Lou Wilkins, who operate a breakfast restaurant, where the officers start their day; and Rufus Malone, who provides the officers their favorite wat...

Asked and Answered: Episode Three The Case of the Acrimonious Alliteration Nearly six years have gone by since a quartet of psychopaths were brought to justice. The crime-free years in Portsmouth brought Chief Wesley Frey high praise from the press and the citizenry alike, but his retirement banquet is planned. Who will be the new chief? Will it be someone promoted from the ranks or will the mayor and the city council bring in an out-of-town candidate? In either case, most thought it was t...

Your author would like to make three points. First, he believes if he can visualize the exciting climax occurring in the last chapter of a book, he can write the chapters leading up to that ending. Not so with The Last House on the Left. You author thought that the title could lead to an exciting plot he started writing without an ending in sight—a different approach. We will let you decide if it worked. Second, the plot did develop. The series of murders occurred when the leader of a Russ...

If you haven’t read episode 7, The New Guy In Town, you should. Between 2001 and 2012, your author penned six mysteries using Portsmouth, New Hampshire, as the setting. The Portsmouth police force was very small—a chief, a lieutenant, two detectives, several other officers, and a dispatcher. They worked night and day, weekday and weekends, trying to solve a very compelling crime. The villains included two serial killers, a serial kidnapper, a pair of very wealthy sociopaths, a corrupt mayo...

This compilation is designed to be a companion to the author's History of Greece. It is hoped that it may fill a want, now felt in many high schools and academies, of a short and clear statement of the rise and fall of Rome, with a biography of her chief men, and an outline of her institutions, manners, and religion. For this new edition has been entirely rewritten, additional matter having been introduced whenever it has been found necessary to meet recent requirements. The penults of pro...

In William Shakespeare’s play, Hamlet, a speaker, Marcellus, a guard, talks to his philosophical comrade, Horatio, saying, “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.” The reason of his saying this is just not that Denmark was facing dirt, but the situation in Denmark was similar to a fish that rots from head to tail, or in other words, it shows that everything was not good at the top of the political hierarchy. A similar situation is happening in Portsmouth as Chief Tim Slone is battlin...

Penelope and Antigone Travails of a German Immigrant Family Years ago, the author was acting in a college play and mispronounced Penelope as Pene-lope. The cast chided then laughed. The author thought the mispronouncing was worth remembering. Years later, when studying Greek mythology, the author came across the character Antigone and realized that using Penelope and Antigone as characters might prove to be humorous. Twin sister, but what about a surname? Once again, the author goofed. Whe...

The Truth Book In 1995, the author was invited to attend the fiftieth reunion of the eighth grade class of School No. 54 Indianapolis, Indiana, located at Tenth and Dearborn streets. It was a marvelous evening filled with connecting name badges with faces (and bodies) that have changed greatly during that period of fifty years, remembering long, almost-forgotten experiences, laughter, and dancing, but all came to an end too quickly. The author, a writer of murder mysteries and is in need o...