Book Review: Lowan's Checkmate by S. E. Grosskopf

 

Book Review:  Lowan's Checkmate by S. E. Grosskopf 
Book 1 of 18: Lowan

A murder mystery and crime drama wrapped into one, Lowan's Checkmate by S. E. Grosskopf is a real page turner, keeping readers guessing and questioning their own sleuth-like skills.   Set in the early 1930's during a high level of criminal activity in the USA, then conducted by various syndicates, private consulting firm, Lowan and Sen Private Investigators, comes onto the scene after a jewel heist at Noritonia Hotel.  

Lowan is presented as a consultant to local police, seeming to have connections in the circles of the wealthy and influential.  Sen, often referred to as Uncle Sen, is inferred to have knowledge of players in the criminal underground.  Lowan's niece, Rita Nenning, is the secretary at their office.  The 3 characters are at the core of Grosskopf's mystery series along with Lieutenant Joseph Marx, who refers to Lowan when he needs help in a crime investigation.  Lowan's Checkmate is the first book in the series.

Grosskopf keeps the storytelling focused and organized, so readers can follow the trail of clues and Lowan's logic in piecing the mysterious parts together.  When new characters are introduced, the reader knows this is to make a meaningful point, such as Hiram Black who occupies the hotel room next to the room where the jewelry was stolen.  Checkmate refers to the game of chess that Lowan plays with the jewel thief, Henry Bradford, whom the reader learns had been Hiram Black.  Perhaps some parts of the storytelling require readers to accept the chain of events at face value, but overall, the tale is engrossing and written well.

Visit:  https://segrosskopf.com

Book Review: The Wrong Cowboy by Megan Ryder

 

The Wrong Cowboy is Megan Ryder’s first story in her new Granite Junction series.  She effectively pulls readers into the back stories and ordeals of the aspiring brides and grooms residing in fictitious Granite Junction based in the hills of Montana.  Her hero and heroine in this installment are Emma Holt, a school councilor during the school year and a waitress through the summer, and Gabe Buchanan, a successful mystery writer.  The two meet through their mutual connection, Cam Miller.  He is a prosperous rancher in Granite Junction.  Fortuitously, he is Buchanan's cousin and a good friend to Holt.  

While alluding to a love triangle, Ryder touches on such tropes as finding love after one's compass has gone awry, a string of one night stands with the friend of a childhood crush turns into happily ever after, and a small town romance turns into a life plan.  The characters relate to the reader on a personal level, dealing with struggles that many identify with and have experienced.  Such as, Holt creates a fantasy around her childhood crush Miller though Miller shows no romantic leanings for her.  Buchanan feels like an unwanted fruit cake at his family's gatherings, as his family treats him like a little boy indulging in a hobby or favorite pastime when it comes to his novels.  Miller is saddled with a ranch he inherited but being a rancher is not his forte or his desire.  He is struggling with failing his family while withdrawing from townsfolk that have ostracized him for his father's drunk driving accident.  The 3 main characters are a big ball of emotional turmoil and conflicting thoughts.

The witty conversations, colloquial anecdotes, and pearls of wisdom all enable the story to flow easily for the reader and offer precious insight into human nature.  Bouts of tension and drama are sprinkled with humor and charm.  A few moments in the tale are sluggish and could be focused more thoroughly but the multiple points of view between the 3 characters in the triangle give readers awareness of who the characters are.  This technique keeps readers involved in the characters plight and outcome. Discovering their outcomes is what, inevitably keeps the reader stringing along and engaged in the tale.

Visit:  https://www.meganryder.com

Book Review: Project Mind Control: Sidney Gottlieb, the CIA, and the Tragedy of MKULTRA by John Lisle

MKULTRA, a massive mind control project executed by America's CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) through the 1950's and '60s is put under a microscope in John Lisle's book Project Mind Control:  Sidney Gottlieb, the CIA, and the Tragedy of MKULTRA.  His reflections about the project and reporting of accounts obtained from Congressional investigations into the project is stunning and troubling.

Citing declassified CIA documents and the diary entries made by the scientists and agents involved in the multi-prong project, Lisle provides readers with a greater understanding of the project.  He further offers explanations into the motives behind the project, and how far reaching the project's experiments extended into other countries around the world.  

Lisle's dissection and study of the CIA's unconventional warfare activities of MKULTRA require readers to immerse their entire concentration into the collection of quotes and stories he organizes.  Sometimes requiring the reader to re-read passages, even chapters to fully comprehend the full impact MKULTRA experiments had on its subjects and targets.

Lisle plunges the reader into the work of Mr. Sidney Gottlieb at the start of the book.  He describes how Gottlieb was hired by the CIA to experiment with methods of mind control.  Through Gottlieb's research into methods used by scientists in Russia, China, and even Canada, MKULTRA projects expanded into using psychological means, chemical means, technological means, and physical means.  Sometimes causing the death or mental meltdown of the subject as well as the target.

The author explains that after World War II, governments in Germany, Russia, and China revealed how they had the ability to control their population through multiple means.  It was a race that America, at the time, was ill-prepared to compete in or protect itself from being manipulated by ulterior forces.  CIA's activities were meant to make America competitive in the mind control field.  Instead, their activities imploded on America's population.

Following WWII, then US President Harry Truman signed the Intelligence Agency Act of 1949, which formed the CIA and granted the agency the authority to spend unaccountable/unvouchered funds and be freed from disclosing their operations into unconventional warfare to Congress or the President.  Truman gave the CIA its powers, freeing the agency of being held accountable, especially to the Americans they harmed.

Hallucinogenic drugs, hypnosis, torture, and technological gadgets developed by the scientists contracted with the CIA were some of the experiments under MKULTRA.  Some of the subprojects included Operation Midnight Climax, Operation Bluebird, Operation Artichoke, and Project Monarch.

Collectively, the tools used for experiments were dubbed Family Jewels, and Gottlieb had been named Dr. Death.  Lisle digs up the sinister plots orchestrated by the various contractors of the CIA, each working within their individual compartment, so those in each compartment could honestly say they did not know what the other compartments were doing.

Secrecy and covert operations became the key traits of the CIA.  Although, one key trait of MKULTRA became publicly known by the 1970's.  That being LSD.  Lisle devotes a large portion of his book to the LSD experiments, and the harm these experiments inflicted on the American population, especially causing the self-destructive hippy movement of the late 1960's.

There is alot of substance to unpack in Lisle's book.  All worth the reader's time.

Visit:  https://johnlislehistorian.com/

Book Review: 9/11: The Simple Facts by Arthur Naiman and Gregg Roberts

The authors, Arthur Naiman and Gregg Roberts offer a critical explanation of the attacks on 9/11 in 9/11: The Simple Facts.  The authors present the facts and observations, describing and detailing eyewitness accounts at the scene and during the cleanup of the destroyed World Trade Center buildings, which included the North Tower, the South Tower, and World Trade Center 7.

As incredulous as it should be to believe the 9/11 attacks go beyond the hijackers of Islamic faith, a fact that is important to note based on the hijackers own words, it is more inconceivable that a handful of hijackers could accomplish the massacre without the assistance, both financially and legally, of other governments including some working within the United States.  

The authors explore the facts of the event, providing intelligent and sober conclusions leading to sabotage, espionage, and conspiracy orchestrated, organized and executed by friends and adversaries with the goal to cripple, maim and kill working class Americans.  The writing style is thought out and comfortably paced, presented in a way that the reader can comprehend the critical analysis.

This book is for audiences who want to see beyond the government-approved narrative of the official 9/11 Commission.

Book Review: The Pages of Time by Damian Knight

British author Damian Knight weaves a fascinating modern day read with facets of paranormal-fantasy, time travel, intriguing thriller, and comfy romance in his The Pages of Time series.  The self-eponymous title is book 1 in the series, tracing the journey of teenager Sam Rayner, who, at the start, is an average high school student.  A series of events that come into his life, while he is a teenager, ignite a paranormal ability in him, which allows him to travel through time, offering a new twist on H. G. Wells iconic novel Time Machine.

 

Knight has the reader enter into Sam's life just as his parents move from England to America over his mother's promotion at the bank where she works.  This is the first event that upends Sam's life followed by several more events that sees him bullied in his new high school, beaten by the boyfriend of a girl he befriends at school, and peaked by being on a flight back to England with his parents that is blown up by a terrorist.  His father is killed while he and his mother are in a coma.

When Sam wakes up in a hospital, he is informed that he has suffered a severe brain injury that his doctor cannot predict how Sam will be affected by the head trauma.  The effect is revealed to the reader as an ability for Sam to see events happen before they actually happen.  To see tragedies before they unfold.

  
Dr. Lara McHayden enters the story, a scientist who is experimenting with brain injuries and psychic abilities through her Tempus Project when she learns about Sam's case.  She recruits him for her research, testing a drug she has concocted.  Luring Sam into her research with the illusion that he could change the time line that caused the tragic plane crash and be able to bring his father back to life.

Interspersing Sam's tale with the back-stories of secondary characters, Knight interweaves their plot into Sam's plight.  This gives the read greater depth and broadens the reader's perception of the patterns of good and evil and provides insight into Sam's own character and maturity.

Knight deftly blends intrigue and suspense with romance and introspection.  The narration is well articulated and written in third person, which places the reader in the role of spectator, as the plot progresses steadily to a gravely tragic outcome, only to use time travel to upend that conclusion.  

The reader needs to have patience as Knight skips between the storyline of Sam and the tertiary characters, who are vital to the plot.  The reader also needs to accept the story as it takes unbelievable turns like when Sam is shot up and bleeding profusely, yet, he lives.  Knight does keep the reader wondering where he will take the story from here, making the reader galvanized to the pages.

http://www.damianknightauthor.co.uk/

 

Book Review: The Enemy Within: Terror, Lies, and the Whiteashing of Omar Khadr by Ezra Levant

Canadian journalist and co-founder of Canada's Rebel News network, Ezra Levant lays out the documented facts regarding the violent acts and prosecution of Islamic zealot Omar Khadr in his book The Enemy Within.  Levant's narration is interspersed with his opinions about the western judicial, political and media institutions, which all protected Khadr from receiving punishment to the full extent of the law.

He explains how Khadr and Khadr's family had been welcomed into Canada and protected by the Canadian government by both the conservative and the liberal political parties.  Further, he shows how Islamic zealots have been idolized by western institutions.
 
Levant sees the facts through a clear lens, which readers who are not involved in the judicial, political and media institutions will appreciate and feel validated for not going along with the deception foisted on them.  Levant opens the reader's eyes, providing a true visual of what exists behind the curtains that western institutions put up.  His style of writing allows the reader to keep up with him, even repeating himself to drive the facts and their consequences deeper into the reader's mind.
 
At the center of Levant's book is Omar Khadr, who had been born in Toronto, Canada and introduced to Al Queda by his father Ahmed whose Islamic roots kept him tied to Afghanistan throughout his life.  Only returning to Canada for financial benefits, free healthcare, and protection from facing law enforcement outside of Canada where he committed his crimes. 
 
Levant describes the Khadr's as a crime family.  Illustrating how they are heavily involved in the criminal activities of Al Queda, making bombs, killing westerners who ironically took care of the Khadr's needs, dealing in black markets to sell drugs and weapons, and most essentially, being activists to impose the Islamic way of life and thinking on western society.
 
Levant devotes a great deal of time explaining the child soldier, who is forced into killing innocent people through gangs who take control of a community.  He demonstrates how Khadr does not fit that profile of a child soldier.  He provides accounts of how Khadr killed westerners, specifically US Army combat medic Christopher Speer,  because it pleased him to do so, as had been repeatedly documented in Khadr's own words. 
 
Khadr's shameless and unremoresely killing of US Army medic Christopher Speer in 2003 is what put Khadr in Guantanamo Bay prison.  The years proceeding led to a show trial that the media and Canadian politicians used to garner sympathy for Khadr in a most twisted and deceptive way.  Levant intelligently lays out the facts and chronicles the events that follow.
 
Levant's narration explains the deeper issues of the Islamic-driven attacks of 9/11 and Oct. 7, the Boston Marathon bombing, and the Islamic-driven killings on Bourbon Street in New Orleans on New Year's Day 2025, to name a few.  Levant provides an explanation of what drives Islamic zealots based on the words of Islamic zealots and their actions.  His book describes the core conflict and deceptive thinking that opened the 21st century and continues to plague the present century.
 
When some consider the 21st century as the Age of Technology, Levant proves that the 21st century is the Age of Islamic-driven terrorism.
 
rebelnews.com
rumble.com/rebelnews

Book Review: Follow the Science by Sharyl Attkisson

Emmy Award-winning investigative journalist and New York Times bestselling author Sharyl Attkisson provides oversight in her book Follow the Science on the corruption behind the pharmaceutical industry, which has been growing for decades.  From America's CDC, FDA and NIH to its educational and pharmaceutical complexes and all government funded media, Attkisson shows how these institutions are all intertwined, dependent on one another to keep their money-making machine going, enlarging, and controlling people's thoughts and lives.

Her research and case studies are jaw-dropping, eye-opening and mind-blowing.  She demonstrates  how deep the collusion and deception extend within Big Pharmaceutical companies, paying off elected officials, public health agents, educational masters, and high priced clinical researchers as she cites real life cases, Congressional hearings and doctors accounts as evidence.  From prescribed medication and vaccines that combat COVID, smallpox, dementia, and more, Big Pharma has been slowly and methodically toying with people's health while giving the public the illusion that they are saving lives.

Attkisson explains how some of the most trusted scholars and scientists within our society are willing to commit life-threatening ethics violations to fatten their wallets.  Once the truth starts to surface, the stakeholders marshal their forces to defend their harmful actions and take steps to silence the injured and smear those who would expose them.

Her journey through the dark underbelly of the pharmaceutical industry is an essential read to understand the forces ruling people's lives and controlling social standards.   Attkisson's compilation is vast, touching on her reports from CBS news through the 1990's and 2000's to her present day assignments for Full Measure online.  

Her book is an important resource that exposes the truth behind the spin espoused by ghostwriters and hired guns implanted in mainstream media and government bureaucracies.  Each care more about profits than the people they are supposed to serve and protect.  Attkisson supplies frightening documentation that is very relevant and very essential to see through the fog and astroturf manufactured to reorient and control people's minds with lies.

https://sharylattkisson.com/

https://fullmeasure.news/