War and Peace

 

I'll be representing Grant Cottage (ie not selling my own books) at this event tomorrow in the Saratoga Springs Public Library (see this link for details about programs cut off at the bottom of the image).

Then on Sunday May 24 I'll be a tour guide at the cottage, maybe taking in a program by my fellow old-timer Steve Trimm. On June 13, Community Day at the cottage, I will be selling my own books and doing some more volunteering on the side. 

Even though my new historical novel, The Detective and Dorothy Day, is partly about a somewhat famous pacifist, I remain connected to the community of local historians and people interested in the American Civil War, which was the main subject of my first three books.

And I remain formed by the Catholic Worker, where I briefly interacted with Dorothy in 1974-5, as the Vietnam War came to an end. Since then, the United States has involved itself in many other conflicts, mostly in the Middle East. 

Ulysses S. Grant avoided foreign wars as president, and had a peace policy with the American Indians -- although it fell apart in 1876. He also, as readers of his Memoirs can attest, was a blunt, honest and forceful critic of the Mexican War, in which he had fought hard as a young officer. Grant, like Washington and Eisenhower, was obviously no pacifist, but I think all three would be almost as appalled as Day at the routine involvement of our country in a seemingly endless series of wars over the past several generations, with a potential all-destroying world war an ever-present possibility.

The remains of 44 people, mostly young soldiers of the Continental Army, are being reinterred this weekend in Lake George. They were veterans of that army's disastrous Canadian campaign of 1775-6, and very likely died from smallpox. It is proper and poignant for their bones to be laid to rest at Lake George Battlefield Park, and for us to remember, celebrating 250 years since the nation's birth, how the turning point of that war came only 30-odd miles south of Lake George. It was the year after their deaths and the Declaration of Independence, when the Continental Army won the battles of Saratoga. 

But I can't help thinking of Iran, how easy it is to start an unnecessary war expecting easy victory, only to become immediately responsible, through an apparent targeting error, for the deaths of many schoolgirls. Easy, too, to get ensnared in escalation when things go wrong instead of cutting losses, theirs and ours.

Boozy Algorithms (updated)

 

I signed up too late to be on this poster, but will indeed be a vendor (ie selling and signing copies of all four of the books I've written) at this event on Saturday evening May 9 in historic Schuylerville, NY. It sounds like fun, though designated drivers might be a good idea.

Sponsored by Advocates for the Schuylerville Public Library (to which I'll donate some books for raffle or whatever), it will be held at the Old Saratoga American Legion on Clancy Street from 6 to 8 pm. My books will be priced from 10 to 20 dollars each, there will be time to chat, so come on down.

Meanwhile, on the bleaker front of cyberspace, Amazon for some reason listed my new novel The Detective and Dorothy Day as "Temporarily out of stock" for at least several days at the beginning of this month. I am informed this had something to do with their mysterious algorithm but didn't really mean what it said -- ie when that notice appears you can still order the book there without any serious delay in shipping -- but it has contributed to a slump in sales on that site, which presumably is not good for said algorithm. The "out of stock" notice has gone now, so I hope sales will recover. (Update May 7: Sales on Amazon have indeed improved.)

Of course you can still order the book from a store if you want to escape Amazon's clutches. The two lines near the bottom of this Publishers Weekly ad refer to HC (hardcover, with a list price of $19.99) and EB (ebook), along with their ISBNs (international standard book numbers), which might be useful for ordering.

But the truth is non-famous writers can't escape Amazon in the modern book marketplace. That's where you'll make most of your sales, and where the book may take off if people notice it. Good reviews on Amazon are particularly helpful, especially if you bought the book there making it a "verified purchase" -- though they are also helpful on other social media, including specialized sites such as goodreads.

Alas I, being on the technologically clueless and tactless side, have been unable to successfully take control of my goodreads page, and have had limited success (despite their graciousness) on the separate site librarything. Amazon, on the other hand, is easy to navigate and I appreciate its author page. I don't plan to give up on them or urge anyone else to do so.

See you in Schuylerville, maybe. 



 

Couple more Amazon reviews

They say Amazon reviews are the key to building sales, so I was happy to see two more five-stars there over the past few days:

 

Video killed the radio star

 

 

They say keep these things short, but if I'd had more time I would have mentioned my turn from writing books about the Civil War to one partly about a famous pacifist (or someone about as famous as pacifists get). Seems like a good time to study how to avoid another civil war, or a world war.

The Detective and Dorothy Day, a novel by Robert C. Conner (updated)

 

First Amazon customer review is up:

• 

  Books That Inspire

  5.0 out of 5 stars Smart and compelling

  Reviewed in the United States on March 6, 2026

  Format: Kindle

  This book really captured the feel of the mid-1970s. I liked how Sy’s investigation uncovered more
• than just a single crime. The deeper he dug, the more complex everything became. The moral
• dilemmas he faces are handled thoughtfully. It’s a mystery that doesn’t rush its message. I’m glad I
• picked this one up.

Press release here:

(Sorry, original link didn't work. This one will.)

BioGamer Girl weighs in.

This is the dedication:

Today (March 9) in nearby Saratoga Springs was the first warm day of spring, nice walking weather for me and Bella. In my prior post Blog Name Change, I hinted about moving away from the Civil War, the focus of my first three books, to this new historical novel, which is partly about a pacifist activist. I don't know if I'm fully on board with Dorothy's views yet, but the quiet streets of Saratoga seemed in sharp contrast to Iran now, or Ukraine, both of which places are in urgent need of an immediate cease-fire followed by peacemaking.

Blog Name Change

 
This blog's name is changing because my upcoming novel is the first of my four books not to focus on the American Civil War. (It does, however, have one character who starts a couple of conversations about Ulysses S. Grant -- because I am apparently incapable of writing a book without mentioning the man.)

The book on the left is my only previous novel, set in 1885, and published in 2018 by Square Circle Press of Schenectady which did a good job with it. Unfortunately, that small press will be going out of business this year, so order now to get your copy. I had a heads-up something like this was coming when I contacted them last year regarding my new book, and that was one of the things pushing me toward self-publishing.

The other book pictured is a novel I just read by Jim Kunstler, who lives not far from me in upstate New York. It's an entertaining, sort-of historical novel set in 1963, just after the JFK assassination, and one of the characters is the author J.D. Salinger. My soon-to-be-published, sort-of historical but also detective story is set in 1975 in the same general area as Kunstler's. It has a major character who is about as famous as Salinger, a writer, social-religious activist, and pacifist. That last attribute seems timely these days, when the most pressing questions are not about old wars but the threat of new ones, around the world and here in the United States, where avoiding civil warfare seems like an urgent priority.

Which doesn't mean I'll stop writing about the 1860s here. But not everyone in America then joined up for the duration. Sam Clemens headed west for Nevada and California, while Martin Henry Freeman voyaged east to Liberia.

Battleship Cove

 

On a cold and windy Veterans Day yesterday, my friend Matt (a Marines vet) and I went to Battleship Cove in Fall River, MA, where I took this photo from the deck of a destroyer launched just after World War II and named after naval aviator Joseph P. Kennedy Jr., who was killed in that war.

The photo shows two ships that did fight in WW2, the submarine Lionfish (which we didn't go aboard) and, in the background, the battleship Massachusetts, the highlight of our tour. Wandering around the decks of this huge ship, where 2,500 men lived and worked, viewing their bunks, galley, hospital, offices, engine room, rooms for calculating gunfire, damage control, radio communications and so forth, all illuminated by informative exhibits, was an engrossing experience. The destroyer was worth seeing too, as I'm sure would be the submarine.

There was also a PT boat, which was bigger and carried bigger torpedoes than I expected. The exhibits there included this one about the most well known PT officer, Joe Kennedy's brother Jack. I hadn't realized that after his famous PT-109 experience, JFK went on to serve in combat on another boat, PT-59.

The PT boats, another exhibit said, were regarded as "expendable". The great film director John Ford was in the Navy during the war, at Midway (where he was wounded) and Omaha beach. His first postwar movie was about PT boat and associated operations during the Japanese conquest of the Philippines in 1941-2. It was called They Were Expendable.

The Massachusetts started the war in the Mediterranean during Operation TORCH, fighting the Vichy French navy at Casablanca. She was hit by fire from a Vichy battleship, which she soon disabled. But no man aboard the Massachusetts -- "a lucky ship" -- was killed then or throughout the war from enemy fire. She spent most of the war in the Pacific, where her campaigns included the US reconquest of the Philippines, begun by Gen. Douglas MacArthur in October 1944. She served at that time under Admiral Bull Halsey in the battles around Leyte Gulf -- but not in the gulf, where the fiercest fighting was and Halsey's fleet was not, being otherwise engaged in combat operations.  

Here's a photo looking over the forward guns of the Massachusetts.