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Book Review ARC ~IN PUBLIC RECORD

In Public Record: A Journey to the Truth of a Murder and Trial

by Michael Kelly

SYNOPSIS – September 1990. In Shaker Heights, Ohio, teenage honors student Lisa Lee Pruett vanishes into the night. A boy calls 911 when she does not arrive for a secret late-night meet-up. Police soon find her nearby, stabbed to death and left exposed.

Lisa had just passed an important test and earned her driver’s license. She was a Girl Scout, athlete, musician, and lover of poetry. Then her life was cut short.

Investigators quickly focused on a troubled young man who lived a few blocks away. His name leaked, the media swarmed, and the case became a spectacle. Two years later, he was indicted on controversial testimony, tried under national attention, and ultimately acquitted. His life never recovered.

Decades later, the murder remains unsolved.

Now a former police officer reopens the trail, determined to separate rumor from evidence and find the truth, if it is still there to be found.

MY THOUGHTS – This was kind of a mixed bag. A quick read about a former cop’s efforts to further a murder case that had been written about in a book that got him interested. You are left a different culprit put forth and the suggestion that a cover up of some sort was certainly afoot.

PUBLISHER – WildBlue Press – 125 pages

PUBLICATION DATE – Jan 20th, 2026

MY RATING – 3/5 STARS

ABOUT THE AUTHOR – Michael Kelly, thirty-eight, is a survivor whose life has been a remarkable journey of transformation. From a troubled teen to a soldier, criminal, and drug addict, his path was fraught with challenges and adversity. Later, as an undercover operator, Michael navigated the darkest corners of human experience. Yet, through the grace of God, he found redemption and a renewed sense of purpose. Today, Michael dedicates his life to making a difference, channeling his resilience and hard-earned wisdom into creating lasting change. He is passionately working to establish an cused on building orphanages and schools worldwide, providing hope and opportunity to vulnerable children. Guided by faith and a profound love for humanity, Michael’s mission is to bring light where there was once darkness, proving that no matter how broken a life may seem, redemption and purpose are always within reach.

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Book Review ARC ~ AlphaPussy

AlphaPussy: How I Survived the Valley and Learned to Love My Boobs

by Gina Gershon

SYNOPSIS – Gina Gershon offers cautionary (and often hilarious) tales of surviving the San Fernando Valley and Hollywood, revealing how she learned to become an AlphaPussy

From a wayward California girl growing up in the heart of the porn-born San Fernando Valley, Gina Gershon found herself on a journey that has been anything but traditional. Along the way, she had to learn how to spot the toxic types—in both her personal life and her career—and figure out how to dodge, outsmart, or hustle her way through. From the Valley to the slums of Beverly Hills to New York City, she was confronted with shady characters and sketchy situations, all the while fighting to protect her autonomy as a woman and as an actress with a decidedly unconventional path.

AlphaPussy is a collection of true stories that explore themes of experience, survival, and the art of figuring it out as you go. They include strange encounters with celebrities and film directors such as Paul Verhoeven, Tom Cruise, Sharon Stone, Prince, Jennifer Tilly, Sylvester Stallone, David Mamet, Bob Fosse, and so many others. Often hilarious, usually cautionary, and almost always wrapped in absurdity, Gershon’s tales explore how she found herself through bad decisions, awkward moments, and cringe-worthy encounters that somehow gave rise to survival skills.

Gershon stresses that while it can be important to listen to others, it’s more important to listen to oneself. To trust your gut. In a world full of bullies, predators, and people trying to tell her who she was, or who she should be, it was crucial for Gershon to become an AlphaPussy: a woman who navigates through this perilous jungle of a world with personal agency and responsibility.

MY THOUGHTS – I feel that this was an excellent read for me, I read it in one evening and liked all of Gina Gershon’s stories. From her childhood growing up, to her career and choices in life that make her unique and an AlphaPussy herself. A very cool book that shares a lot of insight into her life.

PUBLISHER – Akashic Books, Ltd. – 288 pages

PUBLICATION DATE – Mar 3rd 2026

MY RATING: 5/5 STARS

ABOUT THE AUTHOR – Gina Gershon has been starring on stage, screen, and television for over forty years. She has recorded albums and toured across America, and performed at Carnegie Hall three times, playing her Jew’s harp and singing with Sting, Laurie Anderson, Joan Baez, and Gogol Bordello. Gershon is the author of In Search of Cleo: How I Found My Pussy and Lost My Mind, which she also performed as a one-woman show with an accompanying album; and coauthor (with her brother Dann) of the young adult novel Camp Creepy Time. In 2019 she performed another one-woman show, Wild Women Don’t Get the Blues, at the Café Carlyle. Gershon’s film credits include Bound, Showgirls, The Insider, Face/Off, and The Player, among others. Her television credits include The Assassin, Elsbeth, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Riverdale, and Brooklyn Nine-Nine, to name just a few. And her Broadway credits include Sam Mendes’s Cabaret, the Tony Award–winning Boeing-Boeing, and more. She lives in New York City.

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Book Review ARC ~ THE CAVE

The Cave: The True Story of Two Mysterious Deaths in an Underwater Labyrinth

by Dan Frolec

SYNOPSIS – “I remember being so enamoured by this fantastic tale when Dan verbally told me a few years ago. Once I recovered from the amazing twists and turns of the story, I remember thinking this has to be a book, and now here it is, for everyone to be taken on this breathless journey.”

–Kipper Eldridge, Grammy and Emmy winning music producer

Do you know why we ask questions about Michael’s death?

Do you know that he was stabbed with a knife?

Did you know it was murder?

It was 2002. My friends and I embarked on what should have been a fantastic sailing and scuba diving adventure along the Croatian coast. We discovered an underwater cave and went exploring. Through a cruel twist of fate, a mix of coincidence, a mistake, and bad luck, one of us vanished into the darkness. We searched for him, without any success. The following day, the authorities deployed two navy divers who seemed not to have been in any cave before to find our friend. One diver never came back.

Two days later, the nightmare intensified. One of my friends and I were accused of murder and thrown into custody. Croatian police needed someone to blame. They claimed they had found our deceased friend with his diving knife buried in his chest.

Could they manufacture the evidence to sentence us?

Our fight for freedom started.

MY THOUGHTS – This was a good story about the author’s experience being falsely accused of murdering a fellow diver on a trip to Croatia. The diver had become lost and ran out of air, killing himself with his knife right at the end. The author and another passenger were both jailed for weeks while the investigation happened. This book relates their time on the trip and being locked up.

PUBLISHER – Cameron Publicity & Marketing Ltd – 164 pages

PUBLICATION DATE – Jan 31st, 2026

MY RATING – 4/5 STARS

ABOUT THE AUTHOR – Dan feels that hyperactivity is his superpower, enabling him to do a crazy number of things at the same time. He is a father of two brilliant kids and is aspiring to be a good husband. He loves sports, adventure, spending time with friends, reading, writing, being in the ocean, and (too) many other activities. He also continuously searches for peace of mind, with mixed results. He started scuba diving 30+ years ago, visited many countries and locations to explore the underwater world.

In 2002, he was a board member in a multinational company in Prague. In summer that year, Dan and his friends from scuba club went on a regular sailing-scuba diving holiday to Croatia. Story depicted in his first book ‘The Cave’ is a tragic, yet true account of the events from 2002 that unfolded after Dan’s friend got lost in an underwater cave in Croatia, and then, out of the blue, Dan and one of his other friends from the group became falsely suspected of murder and thrown into custody. Croatian police needed someone to blame. They claimed that they found the deceased friend with his diving knife in his chest. Dan had to summon all the energy to fight for truth and his freedom.

Life took Dan from his birthplace in Prague to many corners of the world. He has built a successful career in large, multinational companies. Then, in 2016, he quit the corporate world and moved to Bali with the whole family. The reason? Green School Bali for the kids — a truly special place with a unique approach to education. He started his own advisory firm and works with a small number of clients, helping them build better businesses. He also created an online fitness programme for better management of lower back pain called ExFitt.

Dan loves reading, writing, freediving, sailing, and riding motorcycles. Last, but definitely not least, three dogs and a cat are all part of the family.

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Book Review ARC ~ BLAME

Blame: Death, Disability, and the Search for Justice for Guy Mitchell

by Dustin Galer

SYNOPSIS – Dramatic nonfiction that reads like a legal thriller, the story of the life and death of a man with developmental disabilities in a care home unfolds in flashbacks to reveal a complex web of culpability.

On April 29, 2012, a private world of deceit and neglect came crashing down when Guy Mitchell, a 38-year-old man with developmental disabilities, died confused and alone, thrashing in a dark underground tank on the rural property where he lived

When police arrived, they found a far larger crime scene: a house of horror where Guy had been living with two other vulnerable individuals under the care of a young woman with serious psychological issues. The home had no running water and no heat. Human waste filled the toilets and covered bathtubs, walls, and floors. There was no food in the kitchen, and mounds of dirty laundry and garbage cluttered most rooms. Yet the agency overseeing the home gave it a pass just two days before Guy’s death.

Blame: Death, Disability, and the Search for Justice for Guy Mitchell attempts to find meaning and justice in the tragic death of a vulnerable individual whose circle of care failed him. Moving between the coroner’s inquest and flashing back to real-time events, author Dustin Galer explores what happened to Guy Mitchell in meticulous detail. As each layer of Guy’s support system is peeled back and examined, new facts emerge that reveal yet another missed opportunity to intervene in a rapidly deteriorating situation. Dramatic nonfiction that reads like a legal thriller, Blame resists easy answers, exposing a tangled web of negligence, indifference, and systemic failure and probing the deeper structural forces behind Guy’s death. What emerges is a powerful indictment of a broken system and a strong argument that the duty to care for society’s most vulnerable ultimately lies with us all.

MY THOUGHTS – A startling story about a case in Canada where a young, developmentally disabled man was found dead in an underground cistern. He was just 38 years old, staying with a family who was part of a care system that took in people who needed a place to stay with trained caregivers. The woman who had originally accepted him into this home had recently passed away, and her daughter had been grandfathered in as a replacement. Lots of explaining of agencies and bureaucracy surrounding cases like this.

PUBLISHER – ECW Press – 240 pages

PUBLICATION DATE – July 7th, 2026

MY RATING – 4/5 STARS

ABOUT THE AUTHOR – Dustin Galer is an award-winning writer, biographer, and historian known for his writing on disability history and labor. He has his doctorate in history from the University of Toronto and is the author of Beryl: The Making of a Disability Activist and Working Towards Equity: Disability Rights Activism and Employment in Late Twentieth-Century Canada. He lives in Hamilton, ON.

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Book Review ~ CAPTIVE

Captive: A Mother’s Crusade to Save Her Daughter From the Terrifying Cult NXIVM

by Catherine Oxenberg

SYNOPSIS – Including a new afterword, Captive is an emotional, ripped-from-the-headlines exposé that lays bare the inner workings of the secretive NXIVM cult that shocked the world.

I am a mother whose child is being abused and exploited. And I am not alone.

In 2011, former Dynasty star Catherine Oxenberg joined her daughter, India, at a leadership seminar for a new organization called NXIVM. Her then twenty-year-old daughter was on the threshold of starting her own professional life and they both thought this program might help her achieve her dream. But quickly, Catherine saw a sinister side to the program that claimed to simply want to help its clients become the best versions of themselves.

Catherine watched in horror as her daughter fell further and further down the rabbit hole, falling under the spell of NXIVM’s hypnotic leader,Keith Raniere. Despite Catherine’s best efforts, India was drawn deeper into the cult, eventually joining an elite “sorority” of women members who were ordered to maintain a restricted diet, recruit other women as “slaves,” and were branded with their leader’s initials.

In Captive, Catherine shares every parent’s worst nightmare, and the lengths that a mother will go to save her child. Catherine’s efforts finally led the FBI to take notice—and the journey is not yet over. A powerful depiction of a mother’s love and determination, and with horrifying insider details never revealed in any news story, Captive will keep you reading until the very last page.

MY THOUGHTS – This book grabs ahold of you and keeps you hanging all the way through. I found it fascinating, having read stories about this group and watched shows about it on TV. The story of trying to save her daughter India from this crazy cult is shocking. Oxenberg really goes all out to bring down this group in order to save her daughter, very inspiring. I want to check out her daughter’s book too now.

PUBLISHER – Gallery Books – 416 pages

PUBLICATION DATE – July 2nd, 2019

MY RATING – 5/5 STARS

ABOUT THE AUTHOR – Catherine Oxenberg is best known for her role as Amanda Carrington on the hit primetime soap opera Dynasty. She got her start as a model before making her acting debut in The Royal Romance of Charles and Diana. Oxenberg is the daughter of Princess Elizabeth of Yugoslavia, making her a royal descendent in her own right. She currently lives in Malibu, California.

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Book Review ARC ~ THE ROYAL INSIDER

The Royal Insider: My Life with the Queen, the King, and Princess Diana – The Instant Sunday Times Bestselling Royal Autobiography

by Paul Burrell

SYNOPSIS – THE BRAND NEW REVELATORY ROYAL MEMOIR FROM THE SUNDAY TIMES AND NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR PAUL BURRELL.

‘A moving and at times jaw-dropping account – not just of his two decades when he had a ringside seat at the heart of the Royal Family, but also of the years since,’ Richard Kay, DAILY MAIL

‘For twenty-one years I was in a privileged position and shared the lives of the Queen and Princess Diana. Now that neither of these two wonderful women are here, that duty continues for me in the need to protect their legacy.’

For over two decades, Paul Burrell was a silent witness to the making of history – first as footman to Queen Elizabeth II, then as butler to King Charles III (then Prince of Wales), and, most famously, as a confidante of the late Princess Diana. Now, with a unique perspective shaped by time and change, he’s ready to share his own story alongside theirs.

His bestselling memoir, A Royal Duty, about his friendship with Diana, sent shockwaves around the world, selling over two million copies. But it is only, in the wake of the Queen’s passing and the commencement of a new royal era, Burrell feels he can finally tell his story in full.

In this deeply personal and intimate memoir, Burrell shares many untold stories of his life at home and abroad with the Royals. With warmth, candour, and rare insight, he recounts unexpected moments of intimacy with the Queen, who gently guided a fresh-faced, 18-year-old Burrell through palace life.

He speaks candidly about the tensions that simmered during those years – including the breakdown of Charles and Diana’s marriage and his own complex relationship with Princes William and Harry.

He also reveals his heartache at parting with three of the most significant women in his life – the Queen, Diana and his wife Maria – all while navigating his own personal journey to happiness as well as a battle with prostate cancer.

Heartfelt, sincere and rich in detail, this is the memoir of a man who has lived and learned in the most extraordinary of ways.

MY THOUGHTS – This was a very enjoyable look behind the scenes at royal life. Burrell first worked for the Queen, then for Charles and Diana as a butler. The stories he tells are very respectful of the families involved, and you can feel his reverence for the Queen and Diana throughout the book. He was working for Diana at the time of her tragic death, and his painful role in the days after was heart wrenching to read.

PUBLISHER – Hachette Mobius – 320 pages

PUBLICATION DATE – Jan 13th, 2026

MY RATING – 4/5 STARS

ABOUT THE AUTHOR – Paul Burrell is a former servant of the British Royal Household, having served the late Queen Elizabeth II and later King Charles III (then Prince of Wales) and Princess Diana.

Following his royal service, Paul became a TV personality, appearing three times on I’m A Celebrity…Get Me Out Of Here!. More recently, he took part in Celebrity Help! My House Is Haunted! and joined The Real Full Monty: Jingle Balls to raise cancer awareness following his own prostate cancer diagnosis and recovery.

Paul also authored the International bestseller A Royal Duty, sharing his insights into royal life. He continues to engage audiences with various media appearances and unique perspectives.

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Book Review ARC ~ WHERE MURDER LIES

Where Murder Lies: Death And Deception in West Hollywood

by Burl Barer & Frank C. Girardot Jr.

SYNOPSIS – Fully clothed, the dead man looks as if he is simply taking a nap. There is no forced entry into the apartment, but there seems to have been a violent battle at the locked bedroom door– and get this: the phone call reporting the murder came from inside the dead man’s bedroom by someone using the poor fellow’s cordless phone.

The last people to see this victim alive were a young couple — teens, actually ,the girl was 7, months pregnant, and a mutual friend of both the teens and the murder victim — a low level criminal specializing in identity theft and bank fraud.

Investigating this 2004 murder in West Hollywood took us down a path of deception and dishonesty involving a plot to steal a fortune gold, smuggle Molly (MDMA) into California, billions of dollars stolen from the government by a joint effort of the American Mafia and the Russian Mob, and we even get to the #1 reason you can’t get a fair trial if you are set up by a snitch.

BUT WHO MURDERED THE DEAD GUY ON THE BED?

MY THOUGHTS – A very quirky and puzzling story of a 2004 murder in L.A. and the resulting arrests and trials. The victim was retired school teacher Aleksandr Markzitser, known as Sasha or Aleks. A call tipped off police to the killing, but the people rounded up were a curious collection of characters with strange stories of what happened. A conclusion was quickly reached, but was it the right one? All the details were not divulged at trial, which is often the case, but this time it was a huge omission.

PUBLISHER – WildBlue Press – 194 pages

PUBLICATION DATE – Jan 6th, 2026

MY RATING – 4/5 STARS

ABOUT THE AUTHOR –

Best-selling author Frank C. Girardot has been called the “Demon dog of true crime” by none other than Black Dahlia author James Ellroy. Praise for his writing has come from authors as varied as Walter Kirn and Michael Fleeman.

His books have ranged from “Name Dropper”, a chronicle on the bizarre antics of a murdering imposter who called himself Clark Rockefeller to “Betrayal in Blue” a look at cocaine dealing cops in 1980s New York City, which was co-authored by Burl Barer and Ken Eurell, one of the actual cops.

In all of his writing, Girardot’s ability to interview complicated characters like drug kingpin Adam Diaz, German imposter Christian Gerhartsreiter and serial arsonist John Orr, add a depth to his story telling that is often lacking in police procedurals masking as true crime. In each of his books, Girardot has displayed a unique ability to locate long-hidden public records and distill narratives from complex court records that brings his stories to life.

Girardot’s career in journalism began as a copyboy with the now-defunct Los Angeles Herald Examiner. As a reporter he covered stories as fascinating as the O.J. Simpson murder trial and as complex as the mistaken gang execution of three trick-or-treaters on Halloween 1993 in the Los Angeles area. Most recently, Girardot wrote a weekly column on the 2016 election for The Hill.

———————————-

Burl Barer

Professional Biography

Burl Barer is a Edgar Award winning author and two-time Anthony Award nominee with extensive media, advertising, marketing, and public relations experience.

Garnering accolades for his creative contributions to radio, television, and print media, Barer’s career has been highlighted in The Hollywood Reporter, London Sunday Telegraph, New York Times, USA Today, Variety, Broadcasting, Electronic Media,and ABC’s Good Morning America plus numerous international radio series and podcasts.

Barer, regarded as one of America’s finest investigative journalists, is a frequent commentator on numerous television programs seen world wide, including “Deadly Sins,” “Deadly Women,” “Motives and Murders” “Snapped” “Scorned,” “Behind Mansion Walls,” “Epic Mysteries,” and Hart Fisher’s AMERICAN HORRORS channel via Filmon.TV and on ROKU.

Burl Barer hosts the award-winning Internet radio show, TRUE CRIME UNCENSORED with co-host, show business legend Howard Lapides, on outlawradiolive.com every Saturday, 2pm Pacific time. The show is also available on iTunes, Spotify and numerous other podcast platforms.

In addition to non-fiction/ true crime best sellers, Barer also writes new adventures of Leslie Charteris’ THE SAINT, and the Jeff Reynolds series of private eye novels and the American Panther series based on the life of the world’s greatest safe cracker, Paul “Punch” Stanimirovic.

Barer spent two years adapting Pouran Rahimi’s important oral history of the persecution of Iran’s Baha’i community, Love at the Cost of Life, into conversational English, and deems it the one effort on his part that will still be read in a hundred years.

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Book Review ARC ~ CHOOSING TO DIE

Choosing to Die: A Daughter’s Story Of Supporting Her Mother’s End Of Life Through Assisted Death

by Theresa E. Evans

SYNOPSIS – “We are quick to talk about the miracle of life when an infant enters this world. I believe the miracle of death carries the same weight and mystery.” — Theresa Evans


As an ICU nurse, Theresa Evans witnessed death and dying on a regular basis. She considered it a privilege and an honor to be with someone when they died.


And then her own mother chose a date with death.


So begins the extraordinary account of a mother and her three daughters preparing for death while coping with their own grief and impending loss.


As Theresa spends the final three months of her mother’s life putting her mom’s prolific flower garden to rest for winter, the garden becomes a living metaphor, mirroring the intrinsic cycles and timing of both life and death. Botany provides the lens while Theresa’s years as a yoga teacher and clinical somatic educator anchor the emotional and ethical complexities that arise while helping a mother settle her affairs.


Through deeply personal journal entries, Choosing to Die is a masterclass on intentionally and mindfully supporting a loved one who chooses medical assistance in dying. This vivid firsthand experience is useful for caregivers, death doulas, and other professionals and volunteers involved in hospice care and palliative care. Most of all, Choosing to Die is a gift for anyone seeking clarity and compassion in the midst of one of life’s most confounding decisions.


“When Mom wakes from her sleep, we bathe her. Like holy water washing her earthly film away we let layers of life puddle around her pale, fragile, age-marked body…”

MY THOUGHTS – Such a beautifully written and expressed book about one woman’s experience when her mother, declining in health, chooses MAID- medically assisted in death. The author started a journal 3 months prior to the day her mother had chosen to transition, November 15th, her 80th birthday. Much of the experience was also shared with her two sisters as the day drew nearer. This was in Canada, the US has something similar in some states, but it is much more restricted as to how it’s done. In Canada it’s done using a physician (retired) and is done intravenously. In the US, apparently the patient has to take a lot of pills (90 to 100) dissolved in water, which risks vomiting all or part of it back up, with uncertain results.

PUBLISHER – IBPA Members’ Titles – 202 pages

PUBLICATION DATE – Mar 3, 2026

MY RATING – 5/5 STARS

ABOUT THE AUTHOR – Theresa E. Evans’ nursing career spanned fifteen years with a focus in Critical and Cardiac Care. From 2007 till 2021 she taught yoga and somatic movement workshops from her Stone Path Yoga Studio as well as around the world, helping clients to move with less pain and more freedom. In her free time, she loves to putter in her garden with her husband, fossil hunt with her daughter, hike the Niagara Escarpment with her dogs and write.

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Book Review ARC ~ QUEEN BEE AND THE MURDER OF BUGSY SIEGEL

Queen Bee and the Murder of Bugsy Siegel : Closing the Case on the Killing of an American Gangster

by Stuart Sobel

SYNOPSIS – With unprecedented access to an inside source, Queen Bee and the Murder of Bugsy Siegel is the true story behind the murder of one of the most notorious gangsters in US history.

In 1947, notorious Jewish gangster Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel was brutally murdered in his girlfriend’s Beverly Hills home, a case that remains officially unsolved seventy-nine years later. Initially making a name for himself with his good looks and indifference to violence, Siegel went on to forge a kingdom of his own imagining in the eventual gambling mecca of Las Vegas.

Following the real-life story of Bee Sedway (née Kittle) and supported by her late-in-life interviews with the author, this book reveals Bee’s story—from her small town upbringing, her life as an accessory to organized crime, her close association with Siegel, and her personal account of the murder of the most (in)famous American gangster of the twentieth century.

Compiled from extensive interviews and exhaustive background research, Queen Bee and the Murder of Bugsy Siegel offers a detailed examination into the murder, the killer, and his motivations, as well as a history of both American organized crime in the early twentieth century and the emergence of Las Vegas as the entertainment destination it is today.

MY THOUGHTS – I really enjoyed this book about Bee Sedway, her life, and her and her husband’s friendship with Bugsy Siegel. It added a lot of depth to the story we all know about Bugsy’s death after all the issues he had with getting The Flamingo open in Vegas. Major cost overruns and bad management, along with dipping into the budget, caused the mob to regret Bugsy’s involvement. How things turned out as they did was a real eye-opener.

PUBLISHER – Blackstone Publishing – 350 pages

PUBLICATION DATE – Jun 16th, 2026

MY RATING – 5/5 STARS

ABOUT THE AUTHOR –   Armed with his notes from his Sedway interviews, coupled with a tremendous amount of internet research in addition to some carefully chosen books for reference, Sobel went through this project with untold energy and enthusiasm. The more he delved into the subject the more fascinating it became to him.  The results include a detailed examination into the killing, who the killer was, why the killing took place and the logical explanation why it is still, and will always remain, unsolvable.  It also explains the origin or organized crime, why it spread globally, and why it is still with us today.

 Since 1977, Sobel has been the owner of Thriftee Storage Co. in Echo Park, CA.  He is also an accomplished journalist and ghost-writer of many well-received martial arts books. In addition, he was the manager, 1980-1990, to world famed kickboxing Champion, Benny “The Jet” Urquidez.  This is his first venture into the genre of ‘Organized Crime’.

Sobel and his beautiful wife Eleanor currently live in Los Angeles, CA.

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Book Review ARC ~ DOGS, BOYS, AND OTHER THINGS I’VE CRIED ABOUT

Dogs, Boys, And Other Things I’ve Cried About: A Memoir

by Isabel Klee

SYNOPSIS – From the social media superstar behind @SimonSits, Isabel Klee—known for her heartwarming tales of dog rescue—comes an utterly winning memoir about a twentysomething woman’s search for true love in New York City and the dogs who helped her find it.

A Jersey girl by birth, Isabel Klee had always wanted to live in New York City. At age 20, she got her chance, ditching her college upstate and moving into a grungy basement apartment in Manhattan. Dog-obsessed since childhood, her first post-grad job was becoming an assistant to a dog photographer, and something clicked into place: a career focused on helping dogs was the new dream.


Isabel quickly found a passion for rehabilitating rescue dogs and helping them get adopted. At the same time, she was caught up in a whirlwind of friendships, parties, fickle boyfriends and grand romances, which she recounts in honest, tender, and sometimes devastating chapters about the search for love and belonging.


Isabel’s first true love, though, was Simon, a fluffy puppy who’d been saved from the meat trade. As the highs and lows of her twenties hit Isabel in wave after wave, it was Simon who kept her grounded. Together, Isabel and Simon created a community of dog-lovers and a tight-knit group of friends pursuing their dreams.


In this honest and moving memoir, Isabel weaves together the stories of her foster dogs—and the challenges she helped them overcome—with tales of complicated relationships, hard decisions, and great loves in New York City, all leading to a happy ending not only for the rescue pups, but for Isabel herself.

MY THOUGHTS – Such a crushingly real book that could only be written by one so familiar with saving and ultimately losing so many dogs. Losing them to new owners, with rescue dogs, or losing them at the rainbow bridge with the ones lived with till the end. They all capture your heart with their love. I don’t know the author from TikTok, not a fan of it. But I grew to like her the more I read. She also shares her highs and lows with men, until she finally meets a keeper. A wonderful read.

PUBLISHER – William Morrow – 288 pages

PUBLICATION DATE – Apr 28th, 2026

MY RATING – 5/5 STARS

ABOUT THE AUTHOR – Isabel Klee is devoted to writing and dog rescue, working with organizations like The Dodo, Adopt a Pet, and Muddy Paws Rescue. She lives in Brooklyn with her fiancé Jacob, her dog Simon, and a rotating cast of foster pups.