Series
Every post belongs to one of 21 series. Each has a reading order, so you can start at part 1 and keep going.
Bones in the Box
The 1854 French family murders, the hanging of John Hubbard, and the skeleton Wabash County still cannot name.
The Latta Connection
Counterfeiters, blacklegs, horse thieves, steam engines and limestone: one surname followed across the criminal and industrial Midwest.
Brightwood and the Lost Airships
An Indianapolis airship company of 1892, the mystery airships of 1897, and the inventors history left out of the story of flight.
Project: Abbey Road
Apple, EMI, publishing rights and rumor: the business and myth machinery behind the Beatles.
Exiled Courts and Private Empires
Bonapartes in New Jersey, Rockefellers and Rosicrucians, French land and Irish Chicago: how dynastic habits survived inside a republic.
The Lincoln File
The tomb robbery, the suppressed photograph, the escape route, and the court that formed around a president’s name before and after his death.
Indiana’s Secret War
The Knights of the Golden Circle, the Sons of Liberty, smuggled guns and the 1864 conspiracy behind Union lines.
Hughes: One Man, Three Names
George W. Hughes, James Hughes and James Madison Hughes: three biographies that may describe one operator.
The Wired City
Burglar alarms, telegraph circuits, thermostats and central monitoring: how Edwin Holmes, ADT and Honeywell turned property into a network.
The Ford Crossing
River pirates, doctors, plate glass and Hollywood: why the name Ford keeps turning up wherever America controls passage.
Private Eyes
Pinkerton, the Odd Fellows, regulators and undertakers: the private intelligence networks that policed America before the state did.
Byzantine America
Dayton’s patent machine, Wright-Patterson, Pullman cars and hotel chains: private systems that worked like governments.
Made in Indiana
Cannabis Americana, Belgian draft horses, television for Tehran and the Wabash corridor: the state as a laboratory for standardizing things.
Beneath the Map
Star forts, mounds, Moorish America, Egyptian Masonry and phantom islands: older geographies under the official one.
The Gold Trail
Marcos gold, grey fleets in the Pacific and the Argentina legend: fortunes that outlived the wars that made them.
A History of Tarot
From a Renaissance card game to a global symbol system, in six parts.
The Grail Papers
Mary Magdalene, Rennes-le-Château, the French Gnostics and the long English quest for the Grail.
Media Machines
Orson Welles in Iran, radio through teeth, exploitation film, cyberdecks and the technologies that manufacture belief.
The Classified Desk
Tesla, Parsons, moonbases and other standalone files.
Video Vault
Films, lectures and recordings collected for reference.
The 2016 Notebook
The first run of the blog: opinions, publishing notes and early essays.
