Stranger Than Fiction

 

 LAUNCH!

Taken from my driveway, the trail of this week's Falcon Heavy launch and a pic I've never managed before, the plunge of the two boosters back to their landing pads at the Cape - a feat that boggles the mind. I saw them later on the news, sitting almost dead center on pads that looked to be not more than a football field apart. Amazing! (Although my camera didn't pick it up, I could actually see the course-correction burn on the boosters as they descended through that gray cloud.)

Launch trail over neighbor's house

Descent of Falcon Heavy Boosters

And for those of us who are constantly amazed by the language we speak . . .

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STRANGER THAN FICTION

The Remarkable Course of Justice

On the surface, this is a short blog. That's because I have a included a link to a 16-minute YouTube video I strongly feel is worth sharing. Why? Read on.

Every morning I make coffee, feed the cat, then sit down with a cup of coffee to watch the news on CNN and MSNBC before making the bed and walking the length of the house to my office and sitting down to write the next scene of whatever book I'm working on. But . . .

On Wednesday, January 18, the news was interrupted by a "Live from Quincy, Massachusetts," and there was the Probable Cause hearing for Brian Walshe, whom the police had just arrested for murdering his wife - an act some questioned as there was no body.

And there I sat, utterly fascinated, as the female Prosecutor began to read a litany of facts, timed out to the minute, that went on and on and on. If a mystery author used such a litany in a novel, no one would believe it. (Although I strongly suspect scenes of this type will begin to crop up in TV mysteries in the not-too-distant future.) 

The list - from google searches, to cleaning purchases ($450 worth, including a hacksaw) to bits of the wife's clothing and jewelry, to DNA evidence - was astonishing, damning, and a triumph for the investigators.

Why should we care? 1) a belief in justice; 2) interest in how the law works; 3) the sheer drama of the Prosecutor reading the list with Walshe's frozen face ever-present in the background.

Yes, the video is 16-minutes long, but it's well worth your time to take a look.

 

To access the YouTube link to Brian Walshe's Probable Cause hearing,  click here.

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S A L E !

 After spending a lot of time at home over the past week, coping with the aches & pains of a fall suffered while scrambling out of the way of a falling 4-drawer filing cabinet(!), I realized I don't put books on sale as often as I should. So here is a 99¢ special for the next couple of weeks. (Usual retail - $3.99)

In this spin-off of the Blue Moon Rising series, the Crucible Kingdom, an obscure planet far, far away, is suffering from an ancient curse—periodic bouts of violent storms, earthquakes, floods, tsunamis, and wildfire. To break the curse, a widowed duchess and a starship captain from the disintegrating Regulon Empire (which her ancestors fled centuries earlier) are forced to work together. Although the duchess grudgingly accepts that the captain is highly capable in emergencies, she scorns the idea that a hard-headed Reg who does not believe in the power of sorcery can be helpful in breaking a curse. And then the captain comes up with an idea no one thought of, setting off a quest that turns out to be more dangerous than the curse itself.

For a link to The Crucible KIngdom on Amazon, click here.

For a link to The Crucible KIngdom on Smashwords & affiliates, click here.

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For a link to Blair's website, click here.

 For a link to Blair's Facebook Author Page  click here.

 

Thanks for stopping by,

Grace (Blair Bancroft)