For fans of crime fiction, classic caper films, pulp storytelling, and behind-the-scenes genre analysis, this collection is both a celebration and a sharp-eyed examination of why complicated plans make such satisfying stories.

About the Book

CRIME PAYS—UNTIL IT DOESN’T!
The Cool World of Heists, Capers, and Cons

In Complications Always Ensue, Paul Bishop cracks open the vault of crime stories where charm, nerve, and betrayal are the real currency. From the hardboiled cool of Point Blank and Richard Stark’s ruthless Parker novels to the slick sophistication of The Thomas Crown Affair and the swagger of The Italian Job, Bishop traces the golden thread of larceny through books, movies, and television.

Written with the punch of a pulp headline and the insight of a seasoned detective, this collection explores why we love our criminals clever, our plans complicated, and our endings just a little bit crooked.

Get Your Copy Today

If you love heists, capers, cons, and crime stories with style, Complications Always Ensue is available now.

In Ways to Be Wicked, an ambitious 17-year-old girl is found murdered after slipping away from a high school dance, setting off a fast-paced mystery tangled in street gangs, race relations, deception, and revenge. As school administrator Enrique Tavish digs deeper into the case, his own past and darker impulses begin to surface—and soon, the danger reaches far beyond the investigation.

For readers who enjoy gritty mysteries with moral tension, high stakes, and a reckoning that hits close to home, this one belongs on your list.

Get your copy of Ways to Be Wicked today.

Seeking Mirth and Beauty is not a traditional biography or a simple decoding of Dylan’s lyrics. Instead, it’s a thoughtful, reflective collection of essays about art, music, imagination, and the way certain songs stay with us long after we hear them.

The evening will include reading, reflection, conversation, and even a few Dylan songs performed by Kevin as he explores the questions at the heart of the book: How do songs fit into the world of art? Where does songwriting come from? And what are we really seeking when we seek mirth and beauty?

If you’re in the Bronx area, this sounds like a lovely, intimate event for readers, music lovers, Dylan fans, and anyone who enjoys thinking deeply about creativity and the human experience.

Event Details
June 17th, 2026
7:00–8:30 PM
Riverdale Neighborhood House
5521 Mosholu Ave, Bronx, NY

Books will be available for signing, and the event is open to all.

You can also learn more about Seeking Mirth and Beauty through Genius Book Publishing.

What really happens inside a homicide investigation?

Not the polished version we see in television dramas. Not the neat, forty-two-minute mystery where every clue arrives exactly on time and every case wraps up cleanly before the credits roll.

Real homicide work is slower, heavier, more complicated, and far more human.

In On Call: Inside Homicide Investigations, author Justin Bocock takes readers behind the scenes of thirteen real homicide cases, walking them through the process of interviewing witnesses, identifying evidence, using current investigative technology, preparing search warrants, interpreting autopsy reports, and building cases for trial. Each case unfolds the way it did for the detective working it: one fact, one clue, one challenge at a time.

About the Author

Justin Bocock began his law enforcement career as a Uniformed Division Officer in the U.S. Secret Service before joining the Mesa Police Department in Arizona, where he served for twenty years.

During his career, he worked in several roles, including patrol officer, training officer, detective, and homicide investigator. Over the years, he investigated hundreds of violent crimes, suspicious deaths, and homicides.

In 2019, Bocock was named Homicide Detective of the Year by the Arizona Homicide Investigators Association for pioneering the use of drone technology in crime scene investigations. He retired from the Mesa Police Department in 2021 and later contributed as a subject matter expert for criminal justice textbooks used in higher education.

With On Call, Bocock brings that experience directly to readers, offering a rare look at the reality of homicide investigations from someone who has lived the work firsthand.

About the Book

On Call: Inside Homicide Investigations is part true crime, part investigative guide, and part insider account of what it takes to follow the evidence in a murder case.

Through thirteen real cases, readers are invited to step into the role of the investigator: listening to witnesses, examining evidence, understanding legal hurdles, and watching each case develop from the first call to the final conclusion.

The book also serves as a practical resource for readers interested in the criminal justice system, including aspiring homicide detectives, writers, students, and true crime readers who want a deeper understanding of how real cases are built. Topics include photo lineups, firearms terminology, dying declarations, hearsay, search warrants, trial preparation, and the many unexpected complications that arise in homicide work.

But at its heart, On Call is also about victims, families, and the pursuit of justice.

These cases are not simple. They are not always what they first appear to be. And as Bocock shows, every homicide investigation requires patience, discipline, and the willingness to follow the facts wherever they lead.

Read On Call

For true crime readers, crime writers, criminal justice students, or anyone curious about what really happens behind the scenes of a homicide investigation, On Call: Inside Homicide Investigations offers a detailed, grounded, and compelling look at the work.

Step inside the investigation. Follow the evidence. See the case through the eyes of the detective who worked it.

On Call: Inside Homicide Investigations by Justin Bocock is available now from Genius Book Publishing.

The kind of day when your mind feels crowded, your shoulders are tight, your breath is shallow, and you need a few minutes to come back to yourself.

This short meditation is for those moments.

You don’t need to be “good” at meditation. You don’t need to clear your mind. You don’t need to visualize anything or force yourself into perfect calm.

Just pause.

Breathe.

Let yourself be supported for a few minutes.

You can read along below, or simply press play and listen.

5-Minute Reset Meditation

Let’s settle in…

Close your eyes if that feels comfortable…
or simply soften your gaze.

Notice the surface beneath you…
allowing yourself to be supported for this moment.

Take a slow breath in…

…and let the exhale be a little longer.

Another breath in…

…and out.

Let your shoulders soften.

Take another breath here…
In…

And out…

You don’t need to clear your mind.
You don’t need to change anything right now.

Just notice what’s here.

Notice where your body feels tight…
without trying to fix it.

Just noticing.

Take a slow breath in…

…and out.

Whatever today has felt like…
you don’t have to carry it all right now.

And now, for the next few breaths…
we’ll add a few simple phrases.

You can repeat them quietly to yourself…
or simply listen.

“I am steady.”

“I am here.”

“I am okay.”

Now let the phrases go…
and simply follow the breath.

No need to control it.
Allow it to find its own natural rhythm.

If your mind wanders, that’s okay.
Gently bring it back to the breath.

Nothing to fix.
Nothing to force.

Just this breath…

And when you’re ready…
you can stay here a little longer…

or gently open your eyes.

Maybe place a hand over your heart…
and thank yourself for taking this moment.

One breath at a time.

Five minutes won’t fix everything. But it might change just enough to shift how the rest of your day unfolds.

And sometimes… that’s everything.

If this helped, this is exactly the kind of approach I teach in Living Is Easy With Eyes Closed. Simple, accessible meditation for real life, especially if your mind doesn’t work the way traditional practices expect it to.

[Order here]

Then, in November 1987, all of it was shattered.

The Dardeen family murders remain one of the most disturbing unsolved cases in Midwest true crime history. Years later, serial killer Tommy Lynn Sells claimed responsibility—but one strange detail raised more questions than answers: a set of watermelon ceramics inside the family home.

Was it proof? A lucky guess? Or another cruel twist in a case already full of them?

Read “The Case of the Watermelon Ceramics,” excerpted from Bob Cyphers’ 25 Frozen, 1 Thawed, a collection of chilling Midwest crimes, unsolved mysteries, and stories that refuse to stay buried.

THE CASE OF THE WATERMELON CERAMICS

There’s one stop light in Ina, at the intersection of Main and Third streets. At Uncle Joe’s, you can get a fried bologna sandwich with fried pickles. After that, it’s a gas station, funeral home, antique store, and Baptist church.

Russell and Ruby Dardeen had just moved to town a year earlier, and owned a mobile home on the outskirts of the city. They went by their middle names, Keith and Elaine. They had a three-year-old son named Peter. Keith worked at the local water treatment plant, Elaine at a supply store. The couple was actively involved in the tiny Baptist church, Keith a lead singer, and Elaine playing the piano. Life was drama free in the small town. But there was excitement: Elaine was seven months pregnant with a little girl, who would be named Casey.

And then came November 17, 1987.

Keith failed to show up for work for his night shift, and nobody could reach his family. Concerned, his parents contacted the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office, and headed south with a key to the trailer. Police met them at the scene. Keith’s car was missing, and they went inside. What they found was indescribable. Elaine was sexually mutilated and bludgeoned to death with a baseball bat. So was her son Peter. Baby Casey, due in two months, arrived during the beatings. She too, was beaten to death. There was no sign of Keith. Police immediately began searching the trailer. No forced entry. Nothing was missing. Cash and jewelry were lying in the open. But the crime scene had another twist: Elaine, Peter and Casey were tucked in, nicely, to their bed.

The police and family asked, where was Keith? A manhunt ensued, as Keith was clearly the number one suspect. A day later, hunters found Keith’s body in a wheat field, a mile away from the family home. He was also sexually mutilated and shot three times in the face.

The family car was still missing. But not for long. The next day, it was found 10 miles south, splattered with blood. Was it burned, or hidden deep in the woods, out of sight from police? No. The killer or killers drove and parked the car right in front of the Benton Police Department. Next door was the Franklin County Courthouse. Thirty detectives worked the case full time. They interviewed more than 100 people. They tracked down more than 1,000 leads, but came up empty.

No suspects were ever identified. There were few leads in the case. Years went by. And then along came Tommy Lynn Sells, who claimed he killed up to 70 people throughout the country. He said his nickname was “Coast to Coast.” investigators on the Dardeen case had never heard of the name Tommy Lynn Sells. But there was a little, or very big problem with the Sells confession: the watermelon.

Sells described a set of watermelon ceramics inside the Dardeen home...

Get the book here: 25 Frozen, 1 Thawed

This chilling true story explores grief, justice, forensic uncertainty, and the haunting questions that remain long after the headlines fade.

SPLITTING HAIRS

Fifth Street in St. Charles, Missouri, just off Interstate 70. Two gas stations, Mobil and Shell, sit across the street from each other. As the clock struck 11 p.m. on a cold Thursday night in February 1989, the hands of horror and fate awaited.

Jeffrey Ferguson called a friend, Kenneth Ousley, to pick him up down the street at the Shell station. Ousley arrived driving a brown and white Chevy Blazer. It was 10:55 p.m.

Across the street at the Mobil station, 17-year-old Kelli Hall was minutes away from getting off work. Her last task was to check and record the fuel levels in the four tanks at the front of the station. A witness reported seeing a brown and white Chevy Blazer cross the street, pull into the Mobil station, and park. He reported seeing a male standing next to Hall, with one hand in his pocket. Seconds later, Hall entered the back seat of the Blazer. At the same time, Hall’s boyfriend was waiting for her in his car, parked behind the station. At 11:30 p.m., wondering where she was, he went inside looking for her. He found her purse, then called her house. When he found out she wasn’t there, he called the police.

The long night of horror began for the Hall family. A couple of weeks later, Hall’s body was found on a farm in Maryland Heights, naked except for her socks. Later that night, Ferguson was arrested and charged with the murder of Kelli Hall. Ferguson would go to death row, and, as Kelli’s father Jim Hall watched, be executed in 2014.

And that brings us to the strange case of Kenneth Ousley, the man who picked Ferguson up in the Chevy Blazer. The only physical evidence linking him to the scene was hair analysis. There was one blond strand on his shoe. And there was pubic hair linked to Ousley on Hall’s sock.

The years rolled on, Ousley sat in prison, and beginning in 2008, he was up for parole hearings. And each time that he was, Jim Hall would make the four hour round trip to argue against his release. No one could blame her father for the anger and pain that would never leave. Ousley was never successful before the parole board. He settled into prison life, and even got married behind bars.

And then came the hairs. Where are the hairs? They are missing from the county crime lab. Such forensic evidence in a criminal case would be well marked in a large box, unlikely to be lost or misplaced. But it has been.

📖 25 Frozen and 1 Thawed dives into real cases where truth isn’t always as clear as it first appears.
Available here:

Some stories disappear long before they are ever solved.

We’re proud to announce the upcoming release of The Lost Girls of Arkansas by LaDonna Humphrey, an award-winning author, investigative journalist, filmmaker, and nationally recognized victims’ advocate.

This powerful investigative work examines missing persons cases and unsolved murders that continue to haunt Arkansas decades later. With deeply researched storytelling, firsthand investigative work, and a victim-centered approach, Humphrey looks beyond the headlines to honor the daughters, sisters, mothers, and human beings whose stories deserve far more attention than they received.

The Lost Girls of Arkansas releases June 1, 2026, and is available for preorder now.

A missing woman becomes a faded headline. A murdered girl becomes a file stored in a box somewhere inside a courthouse basement. Families learn to live between hope and grief while communities slowly stop asking questions. Over time, silence settles in where outrage once existed.

The Lost Girls of Arkansas confronts that silence head-on.

In this powerful investigative work, award-winning author, journalist, and victims’ advocate LaDonna Humphrey examines missing persons cases and unsolved murders that continue to haunt Arkansas decades later.

Through deeply researched storytelling, firsthand investigative work, and a victim-centered approach, Humphrey explores the lives behind the cases — not as statistics or sensational headlines, but as daughters, sisters, mothers, and human beings whose stories deserve far more attention than they received.

Set against the backdrop of rural highways, isolated communities, river towns, and dense Arkansas forests, the book traces the lingering impact of unresolved violence across generations. It examines how poverty, addiction, indifference, institutional failure, media disparities, and social stigma often shaped which victims received urgency and which were quietly forgotten. In many cases, the investigations stalled long before the pain did.

Rather than glorifying violence, The Lost Girls of Arkansas focuses on the emotional and societal aftermath when justice never comes. Families fracture beneath unanswered questions. Witnesses carry secrets for decades. Entire communities adapt to fear, rumor, and uncertainty while predators sometimes remain hidden in plain sight.

Humphrey brings both investigative rigor and emotional depth to these cases, challenging readers to look beyond the surface of true crime and confront the broader realities surrounding unsolved violence in overlooked places. The result is a haunting and deeply human examination of memory, loss, justice, and the enduring fight to make sure victims are not erased by time.

LaDonna Humphrey is an award-winning author, investigative journalist, filmmaker, and nationally recognized advocate for victims of crime. She is the co-founder of All the Lost Girls and host of investigative podcasts focused on missing persons, cold cases, and justice reform. Her work has earned recognition for its ethical approach, relentless research, and commitment to giving voice to victims and families too often ignored.

Published by Genius Book Publishing, The Lost Girls of Arkansas is now available for presale.

Preorder your copy of The Lost Girls of Arkansas today and help keep these stories from being forgotten.

[Preorder now]

What begins as a neighborly concern over a missing cat slowly unravels into something far darker in Six-Toed Ollie by Michael A. Black. Equal parts suspenseful, gritty, and unexpectedly heartwarming, this story delivers sharp storytelling, memorable characters, and one heroic six-toed feline you won’t soon forget.

I noticed Six-Toed Ollie sleeping on the roof of my rear porch when I came back from my run that spring morning. The roof was easily accessible for a cat, since the banisters of the elevated back steps made it only about a four-foot jump. I stepped onto the porch and called his name softly, holding my hand up by the gutter and rubbing my thumb and index finger together. Six-Toed Ollie raised his flat, triangular head, squinted at me sleepily, and then gave an acknowledging mew.

The cat belonged to my neighbor, an elderly lady named Mrs. McCarthy. I figured that she must have been somewhere in her eighties, with iron-gray hair and large, gold-rimmed glasses. But she was a tough old bird. Every spring I’d see her kneeling in front of her house planting flowers, and she’d put me to shame working on a garden in the backyard. She was always pleasant and said hello to me when I’d come trotting up the block from my morning run. I lived two houses away on the same side of the street. It was on one of those mornings about two years ago that I saw her sitting on her porch holding this big tan and white tomcat. She motioned to me as I went past.

“Mr. Parker, come see my new boyfriend,” she’d said.

I walked up the sidewalk and smiled.

“I’m going to name him Ollie,” Mrs. McCarthy said. The cat looked dreamily at me, then closed his eyes. “And look at this.” She held up one of his paws and pressed it gently between her thumb and index finger. A flange of six claws fanned out momentarily. “He’s got six toes on each foot. That must mean he’s special.”

Hence the nickname I assigned to him: Six-Toed Ollie.

Mrs. McCarthy was always very careful about not letting Ollie run loose in the neighborhood. She was very proud of her bird feeder in the backyard, too, and didn’t want him “marauding.” So the only time I saw him out was when she had him on a leash. That’s why I was surprised to see him on my roof

I called to him again, and this time he got up, stretched by raising his rear end high in the air, and sauntered over to the edge of the roof. He rubbed his face against my upraised fingers then deftly jumped the four feet down to the two-by-four banister. Marveling at his display of agility, I picked him up with two hands and walked over to Mrs. McCarthy’s front door. He must have weighed a good fifteen pounds. A rust-covered blue Chevy Cavalier was parked by the curb. I’d seen the car there before and knew it belonged to her nephew, Paulie, who came over infrequently to cut the grass and do other minor chores. He pulled open the front door after I rang the bell, staring at me through the metallic netting of the screen door.

“Is Mrs. McCarthy home?” I asked, trying to be ingratiating.

“She’s sleeping,” he said. “I’m her nephew. Why?” He was about medium height but grotesquely fat. His little dark eyes seemed to be two dots of obsidian stuck in a slab of pastry dough.

“Her cat was sleeping on my porch,” I said.

“Oh, sorry.” He opened the screen door, grabbed Six-Toed Ollie by the scruff of the neck, and held the cat down by his side like he was snatching a gallon of milk. Ears flattening out, Ollie hissed and took a couple of swipes at fat Paulie’s pants leg as Paulie pulled the screen door closed.

“Hey, you’re not supposed to hold a cat like that,” I said without thinking.

He glared at me momentarily, then let Ollie drop to the floor. The cat scurried off somewhere inside the house, still hissing. “Mrs. McCarthy’s usually very careful about her cat. Is she feeling all right?”

“She’s fine,” he said slowly. Then asked, “You the cop that lives over there?”

He canted his head to the right.

I nodded.

“I’ll tell her you brought it back. Thanks.” He closed the door.

I didn’t dwell on the incident too much as I showered, ate, and got ready for duty. I worked an afternoon shift assignment and got off at midnight every night. I did notice the blue Chevy parked in front of the house again the next morning when I got up to run. I spent more time than usual walking around my yard cooling off, hoping I’d see Mrs. McCarthy out planting her petunias. But I didn’t.

When I was getting ready to go to work I got a call from my lady friend, Cathy.

“Can you do me a favor?” she asked.

“Name it,” I said.

“I got a call from the Animal Welfare League. They have a cockapoo that I’ve been waiting for. I need you to go by and put a hold on it for me.” She’d been waiting for about a year to get a suitable dog for her young son. “This dog sounds like a dream.”

I told her that I’d head right over, since it was on the way to the station anyway. Thirty minutes later I was pulling up in front of the brick building with the mural depicting various types of adoring dogs, cats, and other animals. After explaining why I was there, and putting a cash hold on the dog, the girl behind the desk asked if I’d like to see the pooch.

“Sure,” I said, and she began leading me back toward the rows of dog cages. That was when I heard a familiar plaintive whine. Turning, I saw the big, angular tan and white face staring at me from behind a steel mesh door. Our eyes locked momentarily, and the cat opened his mouth and cried again. I stopped and went over to him.

“Are you interested in a cat, too?” the girl asked.

At that moment twin paws, each containing six awesome-looking claws, curled around the box-like steel bars.

“I think that’s my neighbor’s cat,” I said. “Six-Toed Ollie.” With the mention of his name, he emitted another mournful sound. “He’s got six toes on each foot.”

“Oh, wow, he sure does,” the girl said, walking over. “Give me the information.” She wrote down the cage number.

The record showed that the cat had been brought in as a stray late the previous afternoon. Since it was obviously well cared for, the usual procedure was to hold it in case of inquiries. I didn’t know Mrs. McCarthy’s phone number, but explained that I would let her know of Ollie’s whereabouts the next morning.

“She’s an older lady,” I said. “Why don’t you take my number just in case?” She did.

The next day the blue Chevy was again parked in front. I changed into my sweats and running shoes, but walked over and rang Mrs. McCarthy’s bell before I started the run. I could hear the sound of a hammer pounding inside. I leaned on the doorbell several more times. The pounding stopped and the fat nephew came to the door and opened it just enough to frame his big head in the space.

“Yeah?” he said. He squinted at me through the screen door.

“Is Mrs. McCarthy home?”

“No. I took her to the doctor,” he said. “Why?”

“I just wanted to let her know that her cat’s at the animal shelter,” I said. “Did he get loose again?”

“Oh, yeah. He did. I been looking for him, too. What place is he at?”

I told him the address and phone number.

“Okay, thanks a lot,” he said, grinning. “I’ll give ‘em a jingle and we’ll get him this afternoon.”

“Give my regards to your aunt.”

He said he would and pushed the door closed.

Later that evening my partner and I were in the middle of a boring shopping-center surveillance when my cell phone rang. I answered it.

“Mr. Parker, this is Jeannie from the Animal Welfare League,” the voice on the other end said. “Were you able to get a hold of your neighbor about the cat with six toes?”

“Yeah,” I said. “I talked to her nephew. He was supposed to contact you.”

“Well, nobody’s called, and my supervisor doesn’t seem to think we can place a full-grown cat his size.”

I glanced at my watch.

“What time do you close?” I asked.

“Seven o’clock, but we have somebody on duty till midnight.”

“How about if I drop by around eleven-thirty?” I said. “I’ll pick the cat up and deliver him back home.”

“That would be super,” Jeannie said.

I picked up small bags of kitty litter and cat food at the shelter, and figured I could find a suitable plastic box to allow Six-Toed Ollie to spend the night at my place. After all, it was after midnight by the time I got home. Then in the morning I would talk to Mrs. McCarthy.

But when I pulled down the alley I noticed that the lights were still on in the back rooms of her house. I’d stopped by my garage and was waiting for the overhead door to finish going up when I saw Paulie’s blue Cavalier swing out from the space adjacent to Mrs. McCarthy’s old decrepit garage. He kept going in the opposite direction from which I’d come. I backed into my garage and hit the button on the remote to close the door. Unfortunately I also opened my car door out of habit, forgetting about my rider, and Six-Toed Ollie shot off my lap like greased lightning. My hand immediately shot up and hit the button again, freezing the descent of the door. Then, swearing, I lumbered out of the car in time to see the big tomcat run into the alley and turn right. Pulling out my small mini-mag flashlight I went after him, thinking what an idiot I was for not holding on to him better. The beam lit up the alley and I saw Ollie stop and pause in the light, his eyes gleaming like two beacons. I strode purposefully, but not too fast, toward the crouching feline. Six-Toed Ollie stayed in the circumference of the light watching my progress with an almost patient expression, until I was a few feet from him. Then he burst forward with alacrity toward Mrs. McCarthy’s backyard.

I quickened my pace, thinking that if he paused on her porch, I could probably grab him there. The flashlight traced the trotting tan and white body, which now leaped up the old wooden steps, stopping and sitting by the back door. He cried once and lifted his front legs up almost to the door catch, letting all twelve claws dance over the jamb. Slowly, I reached down and secured him in two hands, picked him up, and held him to my chest. Since I was there, and the lights were on, I figured that I might as well try to rouse Mrs. McCarthy. I was a little bit disturbed by the events of the past few days, and wanted to be sure she was all right and knew what had gone on with Ollie. After pounding several times, I listened for sounds inside the house. No voices, no movement, no television.

I licked my lips and pulled open the screen door. The back door was locked. Letting the screen door slip closed, I went to the windows at the back of the house and peered inside. It was the kitchen. Stacks of pots and pans littered the floor, and dishes were everywhere. The cabinets stood open, and I could see what appeared to be large holes in the walls. That uneasy feeling continued to grow, and the cop in me took over.

I went around to the back section of the house where a triangular wooden structure covered the entrance leading down to her basement. The storm doors weren’t locked, and I pulled them up and shined the flashlight down inside. Past a maze of cobwebs, an old padlock dangled unlocked from a hasp on a door at the bottom of half a dozen cement steps.

Carrying my squirming burden, I went down the steps, brushing the wispy tendrils away. I removed the lock from the hasp, and pushed on the cellar door. It opened with a creaking sound. I stood debating what to do for a few more minutes, then Six-Toed Ollie made the decision for me. He managed to wriggle out of my grasp and ran into the dark interior. Heaving a sigh, I followed his progress with the flashlight beam, then stepped inside, closing the door behind me.

What the hell, I thought. Cops are sort of kissing cousins to burglars anyway.

The basement smelled musty and stacks of cardboard boxes were everywhere. I heard the pit-a-pat of the cat’s feet bounding up a slanted wooden staircase ahead of me. Cautiously, I followed, trying my best to be as quiet as a mouse. The stairs went up to an open trap door that led to a pantry. Afraid I would knock something over, I swung the flashlight around and caught sight of the hanging cord of a light bulb. I pulled it and switched off the flashlight. Six-Toed Ollie sat on the table watching me, the ovals of his greenish eyes split by perpendicular slashes of black pupils. I held out my fingers again and clucked softly, hoping this would allow me to grab him again. But no such luck.

Now inside the main part of the house and desperate, I called out, identifying myself. It felt stupid at this point, but since my intentions had been honorable, I figured I would be able to explain my presence.

“Mrs. McCarthy!” I called out again. “It’s Tom Parker, your neighbor. I’ve got your cat.”

No response.

I’d searched enough buildings to know the feel of an empty house. I tried one more verbal announcement, as Ollie darted off the table and into a small room next to the kitchen. In one impressive bound he leaped up and landed with a resounding clunk on top of a large deep freeze. The small room appeared to be another pantry of sorts, and I switched the flashlight back on. Instead of doing another fancy leap, the big tomcat watched my approach and delivered a haltingly uneven howl. Then his big claws extended and retracted in rhythmic fashion on the metallic surface. By this time I’d gotten a whiff of something that I knew from experience wasn’t spoiled meat. I went to the lid of the deep freeze and Ollie nimbly jumped up on top of an adjacent refrigerator.

Slowly I raised the lid, already knowing what I’d find. The two plastic garbage bags had been rather hastily duct-taped together, but a fringe of iron-gray hair protruded from a tear near the seam.

Suddenly I heard Six-Toed Ollie begin with a hiss that transformed into a feral growl. His ears flattened and he shot off the top of the refrigerator like a white and tan cannonball. That’s about when I caught the hint of movement behind me, and whirled in time to see fat Paulie coming at me holding an upraised shovel like a harpoon. The cat passed between us in a flash, and twenty-four sickle-shaped claws dug into the substantial gut bouncing over the dark blue work pants. Paulie screamed, smacking Ollie away while trying to aim the shovel at my head as he swung. The curved metal edge sank into the top of the freezer with a sharp thump. He grunted and tried to lift it for a second swing, but the fingers of my left hand were already curling around the shaft. A second later my right fist collided with his nose. The shovel came away in my grasp, and Paulie seemed to sit down rather hard on his corpulent backside. A stream of red flooded from his nostrils, and the beady black eyes stared up at me in defeat and exasperation.

From a few feet away, big Ollie arched his back and delivered an accompanying hiss, his tail flaring as big as a raccoon’s.

“It was all because of that damn cat,” Paulie said, the sobs wracking his voice. “After all the things I always done for her, she was gonna leave her money to that damn cat.” He swung his hand in an effete gesture toward the feline, but received only a defiant slap from the Six-Toed Ollie.

I pulled out my gun with my right hand, dropped the shovel behind me, and grabbed my cell phone with my left. I thought about saying, “Tell it to the judge.” But sometimes the silence plays better.

#

Paulie kept right on squealing during his interview with the investigating detectives. For my part, all I had to do was twist things a tad by saying that I heard what I took to be screams from inside the house and went to investigate. Could I be faulted if it turned out to be the cat? After all, a cat’s scream can sound awfully human sometimes.

But, like I said, Paulie spilled his guts almost immediately anyway, telling how he had strangled poor old Mrs. McCarthy in a fit of rage after finding out she intended to leave a substantial portion of her estate to provide for the care of her beloved kitty. Believing that the old lady had secreted a stash of money somewhere in the house, Paulie had been systematically dismantling the interior searching for it. When the odor from the deep freeze, which he’d forgotten to plug in, started to become a bit noticeable, he’d decided to bury her in a nearby wooded area. Having been a fan of the old Columbo TV show, Paulie figured that it would be smart to dig the grave first, then go back and reconnoiter, before returning to pick up the body. That’s when he saw me chasing the cat inside the house.

Naturally, after the story broke, all kinds of other family members, who’d never even given poor old Mrs. McCarthy the time of day when she was alive, came out of the woodwork trying to vie for a piece of the pie.

And as for Six-Toed Ollie…

I watched him this cold winter’s day as he adjusted his back to get more of it against the heating vent in my living room. Then, as if sensing that I was looking at him, he raised his big, triangular head and bleated a cry that sounded more like a baby sheep than a sixteen-pound tomcat. But as Cathy pointed out, he turned out to be the perfect pet for a guy who works afternoons like I do. He sleeps most of the day, eats when he feels like it, and tolerates my presence the rest of the time. But then again, how many other guys can say that they have a roommate with nine lives, six toes, and a tail, who just happened to have saved their life?

The End

Love crime fiction, mysteries, and edge-of-your-seat suspense? Explore more from Michael A. Black’s collection and discover your next great read.

I originally shared this piece on my personal Substack, but after the response it received, Steven and I both felt it was important to share here as well.

Aphantasia is still relatively unknown, especially when it comes to children and education, yet many people quietly grow up feeling “slow,” confused, or left behind simply because their minds process information differently.

My hope is that this article helps parents, teachers, and even adults who may recognize themselves in these experiences better understand that different does not mean broken.

As an adult nearing my 50s, learning about aphantasia was stunning. Until then, I had genuinely believed phrases like “picture this” were purely metaphorical. Realizing that other people could actually see images in their minds forced me to rethink experiences I had carried my entire life without questioning.

Not long after, I spoke with my youngest son, who also has aphantasia, about how it had affected him growing up.

He told me that teachers would often ask students to close their eyes and picture a math problem being solved or imagine scenes during creative writing exercises. He remembered feeling confused and frustrated, like he was somehow failing at something everyone else could naturally do.

He did not have the language to say:

“Wait… I can’t actually see anything.”

Listening to him describe those experiences made me reflect on my own childhood in a completely different way. I remembered struggling with math and certain forms of visual learning and quietly assuming I was simply “slow” or doing something wrong.

What hurt most was realizing how easily these experiences can go unnoticed. Children assume everyone experiences the world the same way they do, so when something feels difficult or confusing, they often blame themselves rather than recognizing a difference they cannot yet explain.

Hearing my son describe years of feeling inadequate was heartbreaking as a mother. At the same time, I realized something equally painful: Before learning about aphantasia myself, I probably would not have fully understood how to help him either.

The Teacher Conversation

I recently attended a parent-teacher conference for my 9-year-old and brought up the topic of aphantasia with his teacher. My son can visualize perfectly well, but I still felt compelled to mention it because of the many students a teacher may encounter who cannot.

She had never heard the term before.

Her reaction was much like most people’s:

“What do you mean you can’t visualize? What do you see?”

Like many people, she was both stunned and curious once I explained it further. We talked about how some people cannot form mental images at all, even though they fully understand the ideas being discussed.

As our conversation continued, she began to realize how often she used phrases like “close your eyes and picture this” or “visualize” while teaching. She admitted she had never considered that some children might not actually be able to do that. She simply didn’t know.

By the end of our conversation, she told me she wanted to learn more about aphantasia, rethink certain aspects of how she teaches, and begin asking more questions so children are not unintentionally left behind.

That conversation stayed with me because it highlighted something important: most teachers are not intentionally excluding anyone. Like most people, they naturally assume everyone can visualize because they themselves can.

Yet visualization is deeply woven into education. It appears in reading comprehension, creative writing, guided imagery, memory techniques, math strategies, spelling instruction, sports training, and even emotional regulation exercises. For children with aphantasia, those moments can quietly create confusion or self-doubt, especially when everyone around them seems to experience these exercises differently.

Aphantasia is still relatively unknown, and unless you have it yourself or know someone who does, there is a good chance you have never even heard of it. Because of that, many children may struggle silently without understanding why certain learning methods feel harder or more frustrating for them.

Awareness matters. Awareness changes language, and language changes how we teach.

That conversation also forced me to reflect on my own experiences in school.

Looking back, there were teachers in my life who misunderstood my struggles, though they likely never realized it at the time. I especially remember a third-grade teacher who was abusive in many ways and was eventually fired. I struggled in her class more than anywhere else.

I was often the slowest student to solve math problems, and she made me feel “slow” or “stupid” because of it. Sometimes she would publicly announce to the class that nobody could have “fun” time until Andrea finished her work.

Those experiences stay with a child.

I do not personally view aphantasia as a disability, though I understand why some people do. To me, it is simply a different way the brain processes information. But when children are misunderstood, singled out, or made to feel inadequate because nobody recognizes those differences, the emotional impact can last long after childhood ends.

What Aphantasia Might Look Like in a Child

One of the hardest things about recognizing aphantasia in a child is that nothing may seem obviously “wrong” at all.

Many children adapt quietly. Some develop strong verbal skills, rely heavily on facts or concepts, or create workarounds without ever realizing they are approaching things differently from other children. Others may simply assume they are bad at certain tasks everyone else seems to understand naturally.

A child with aphantasia may struggle with “picture this” instructions, have difficulty describing visual details from memory, become frustrated during visualization exercises, feel disconnected from certain creative writing prompts, or quietly feel “behind” without understanding why. Some may excel verbally while struggling with heavily image-based learning. Others compensate so well that nobody notices anything at all.

Of course, every child is different, and none of these experiences automatically means a child has aphantasia. Some aphants thrive academically, some struggle. Even among aphants, experiences can vary enormously.

What matters most is not forcing labels onto children or treating every difference as a problem to solve. It is simply recognizing that children do not all think, imagine, process, or learn in the same ways.

And it is not just mental images that can vary from person to person.

Some people can vividly picture images but cannot mentally hear music. Others may mentally replay sounds but not smells or textures. Some experience little or no internal sensory imagery at all.

Sometimes the easiest way to understand how a child experiences the world internally is through gentle, curiosity-led conversation.

Rather than approaching it like a test, it can help to ask casual questions during everyday moments:

“When you think about your bedroom, do you actually see it in your mind, or do you simply know what it looks like?”

“When a song gets stuck in your head, does it sound almost like music playing, or is it more like quietly thinking the words?”

“If I ask you to imagine a lemon, can you almost taste it, or do you just remember what lemons taste like?”

Children who experience strong mental imagery will often answer these questions quickly and naturally. They may describe actually seeing their bedroom, hearing music internally, or almost tasting the lemon.

Children who do not experience those internal senses may instead look confused, hesitate, or describe simply “knowing” rather than mentally sensing the experience itself. Many may never have realized other people experience these things differently.

There is no single “correct” way for a mind to experience memory, imagination, thought, or creativity.

The Ways We Quietly Adapt

Looking back now, I realize I never truly felt “different” growing up because I had naturally developed my own ways of understanding and navigating the world.

I was still learning, remembering, imagining, and processing information. I was simply doing it differently.

Many of the things I now recognize as adaptations never felt unusual to me at the time because they were simply how my mind worked.

One thing I often did was put facts to music.

I remember once watching an episode of Cheers where Coach was helping Woody memorize facts by singing:

“Albania, Albania, borders on the Adriatic.”

I remember laughing because I did things like that constantly.

If I had a big test coming up, I would record questions and answers with soft background music and listen to them while falling asleep or doing chores.

I wasn’t visualizing information.

I was embedding it through sound, repetition, rhythm, and emotional association.

Music helped me tremendously. I’ve always been good at memorizing song lyrics, and when facts were attached to rhythm or melody, I could remember them for years.

Even now, I still remember television jingles, movie lines, poems, riddles, and theme songs from childhood with startling clarity.

Repetition through sound felt infinitely easier than visual studying ever did.

I can now see how heavily I relied on external systems and patterns to navigate the world. I depended on landmarks, repetition, written directions, rhythm, and structured routines rather than mentally “seeing” things internally.

At the time, none of it felt unusual. It simply felt normal to me.

Chess, Visualization & Different Learning Styles

My husband has tried to teach me how to play chess many times over the years, but I have never been able to grasp it well, no matter how hard I tried. I could understand the rules individually, yet once the game became more complex, I struggled to anticipate moves or keep track of the board mentally. Recently, he started teaching our 9-year-old how to play.

Around that same time, I came across a discussion in an aphantasia group where many people described having similar difficulties with chess. Again and again, people mentioned struggling because they could not mentally “see” future moves or visualize changing board positions internally.

For the first time, I found myself wondering whether this was connected to aphantasia too.

Of course, not every person with aphantasia struggles with chess, and some are exceptionally skilled at it. But for many players, visualization plays a significant role in anticipating move sequences and imagining future board positions. When you cannot mentally picture the board, learning may require a very different approach.

Difficulty does not equal inability.

Some aphants learn through repetition, physically moving pieces, pattern recognition, logic, structure, or step-by-step analysis rather than visualization.

That realization also made me think about something else I had always found strange about myself: Despite struggling with chess, I was actually very good at the card game Memory.

Over time, I began wondering whether that was because I had already learned not to rely on internal visual imagery. Instead, I memorized through patterns, placement, repetition, association, and recognition itself.

Rather than mentally “seeing” the cards again, I was remembering relationships and positions.

The more I learned about aphantasia, the more I began noticing these kinds of hidden adaptations throughout my life.

One of the biggest misconceptions about aphantasia is that people assume imagination and visualization are the same thing. They are not.

A person can be deeply imaginative, creative, emotionally perceptive, intelligent, and intellectually curious without forming mental pictures at all.

Language was always one of my strongest areas. I was a strong speller, an avid reader, and often thrived when allowed to learn independently. I absorbed ideas, emotional meaning, patterns, and concepts deeply, even without mentally picturing them.

I realize now that I naturally gravitated toward conceptual and verbal forms of learning while quietly building alternate ways to process and organize information.

At the time, I did not recognize any of it as adaptation.

It was simply how my mind worked.

Ways Parents & Teachers Can Help

One of the simplest and most meaningful things teachers and parents can do is adjust their language.

Instead of saying:

“Picture this.”

It can help to say:

“Think about this.”

“Imagine it in your own way.”

“Describe what you know.”

Small shifts like that can make an enormous difference for a child who may already feel confused about why certain exercises seem harder for them than for everyone else.

Children do not all learn the same way. Some may respond better to verbal instruction, auditory learning, written directions, hands-on activities, diagrams, note-taking, physical manipulation, or external visual references rather than internal visualization.

Sometimes, simply allowing a child to sketch ideas on paper instead of trying to hold them mentally can reduce enormous frustration.

Even classroom discussions can become more inclusive through small changes. When discussing books, for example, teachers can focus not only on visual description, but also on emotion, meaning, relationships, ideas, and interpretation.

Most importantly, normalize different inner experiences.

Children need to hear that people think, imagine, remember, and process information differently, and that different does not mean wrong.

What would have helped me most as a child was simply understanding that there was nothing “wrong” with me. I wish someone had explained that struggling with a particular teaching method did not mean I was unintelligent or incapable.

When I eventually entered an alternative school and was given more freedom to learn independently through reading and physically working problems out on paper, I began excelling academically.

That was not solely because of aphantasia. It was simply the way I learned best.

Still, I can now see how much aphantasia affected experiences I once blamed on personal failure. I remember classroom moments where other children seemed able to solve math problems mentally while I struggled to discreetly count on my fingers, hoping nobody would notice.

What I most hope for teachers to understand is this:

A child may fully understand a concept while struggling with the specific teaching method being used.

That is not laziness.

It is not defiance.

And it is not lack of intelligence.

Sometimes a child is not failing to learn. They may simply be trying to learn in a way their mind was never naturally built for.

And often, small changes in language, flexibility, or approach can make an enormous difference.

Closing

If you discover your child has aphantasia, reassure them that there is nothing wrong with them. Their mind simply works differently.

Talk to their teachers.

Most teachers have likely never heard of aphantasia and may genuinely appreciate having it brought to their attention. Small shifts in language, flexibility, and teaching style can make an enormous difference for a child who may already feel confused or left behind.

My hope for both parents and teachers is simply greater awareness, so children do not grow up believing something is wrong with them simply because they learn or imagine differently.

There is no single “correct” way for a mind to think, create, remember, or imagine.

And sometimes, simply being understood can change everything for a child.

Many of the ideas explored in this article connect deeply to themes I discuss in my book, Living Is Easy With Eyes Closed, where I explore meditation, imagination, non-visual thinking, and accessible approaches to inner experience through personal stories, science, and practical techniques.

[Order here]

From chilling cold cases to dark psychological fiction, we’ve added several new titles to the Genius Book Publishing lineup recently and I wanted to share a few of them here for readers who love mystery, suspense, true crime, and darker fiction.

What happens when the fight for justice becomes driven more by emotion, media narratives, and public pressure than by the full weight of the evidence?

In The Innocence Machine, Steve Scarborough takes a hard look at wrongful conviction movements, true crime culture, “Free ” movements, documentaries, and the stories that shape public opinion. Thought-provoking, unsettling, and deeply timely, this book challenges readers to examine not just injustice itself, but how easily perception can become its own kind of machine.

Sun, surf, and murder collide in this atmospheric mystery set against the backdrop of coastal California. California Surf, Sand & Murder blends suspense, secrets, and seaside intrigue into a fast-paced read filled with unexpected twists, colorful characters, and the kind of small-town tension where everyone seems to know more than they’re saying. Perfect for readers who love beach-town mysteries with a darker edge.

Specters in the Gallery is a darkly imaginative collection that moves through horror, crime, satire, and speculative fiction with an eerie, cinematic edge. Each story explores the hidden corners of human nature — obsession, regret, ambition, fear — blending unsettling atmosphere with sharp storytelling. Strange, haunting, and thought-provoking, this is a collection for readers who enjoy fiction that lingers long after the final page.

The Big Touch is a tense psychological mystery layered with buried trauma, stolen gold, and the shadows of the past. What begins as a strange encounter in a diner slowly unravels into something darker and far more dangerous, pulling an ordinary man into a decades-old mystery he may be more connected to than he realizes. Atmospheric, unsettling, and deeply human, this is a story where memory, guilt, and fear collide.

In Ways to Be Wicked, Enrique Tavish is a man who’s spent his whole life navigating the fault lines of identity and survival on Tucson’s south side. When a gifted student is murdered on his watch, he doesn’t turn into a superhero; he becomes exactly what a real person becomes under pressure—compelled, conflicted, stubborn, and sometimes wrong. Even the people around him—Jim Burgoyne, the Levantes, the families caught in the neighborhood’s undertow—move with the weight of lived experience.

She’s a Lot Like You pushes that even further. Rosa Martinez isn’t written as a symbol or a victim; she’s a fifteen year old girl whose intelligence and resilience keep surprising the adults who think they understand her. Tavish returns here, still wrestling with the same moral knots that make him human, not tidy. Their stories collide in ways that feel unpredictable because real people are unpredictable.

The thread that ties these books together is this: the characters don’t behave because the plot needs them to. They behave because that’s who they are. And that’s the kind of storytelling I believe in.

The best characters don’t feel written. They feel lived in.

If you enjoy character-driven fiction filled with flawed people, moral complexity, family tension, and choices that don’t come easy, I think you’ll really connect with Right There in Black and White.

One of the biggest misconceptions about meditation is that you need the “perfect environment” before you can begin.

A quiet house.
A perfectly calm mind.
A special cushion.
Soft lighting.
No interruptions.
No noise.

And honestly? That belief alone stops a lot of people from ever starting.

When I first tried to meditate, I thought I needed to get everything ready first. The right atmosphere. The right setup. The right mindset.

What I was really doing was delaying.

Eventually, I gave up on trying to make it perfect and just sat down on my bed with a guided meditation playing from my phone. It wasn’t elegant or peaceful or “Instagram worthy.” It was real life.

And it counted.

Over time, I started realizing something important: meditation isn’t about controlling your environment. It’s about changing your relationship to it.

At first, I thought every sound around me was a distraction. But eventually, instead of fighting the noise, I started working with it.

A car passing outside.
Footsteps in the hallway.
Laughter in the next room.

Instead of resisting those sounds, I’d simply notice them and gently return my attention to my breath.

Ironically, that made my practice stronger, not weaker.

Because life itself is noisy.

Very few of us live in monasteries or quiet retreats. Most of us are trying to find moments of peace in the middle of work, family, stress, responsibilities, notifications, dishes, traffic, and overstimulation.

That’s not failure. That’s reality.

Meditation doesn’t begin once life becomes perfect. It begins right in the middle of ordinary life.

And honestly, I think that’s where it matters most.

In Living Is Easy With Eyes Closed, I explore many of the myths that keep people from meditation and share a more flexible, approachable way to practice—especially for busy minds, skeptics, beginners, and people who think they’re “bad” at meditating.

Because there isn’t one right way to begin. You just begin.

Some murders leave behind evidence.
Others leave behind questions.

In the early hours of a quiet fall morning in St. Louis Hills, a father stepped outside after hearing a car in his driveway — and discovered a nightmare that would haunt the city for decades.

Gary Consolino and Ellen Dooling had been executed inside a blue Oldsmobile Cutlass just feet from Ellen’s front door. No robbery. No witnesses. No clear motive. Despite one of the most intense homicide investigations in St. Louis history, the case remains unsolved more than forty years later.

This is one of the chilling cases featured in 25 Frozen 1 Thawed — a collection of cold cases, forgotten investigations, and the haunting questions that still remain.

HORROR IN THE HILLS

It was a crisp fall night, the kind of night good for sleeping. But John Dooling was awakened by a noise in his driveway. He looked at his alarm clock. It was 4 a.m. His daughter Ellen had been out on a date, and was supposed to be home at midnight. Startled by the noise, Dooling was suddenly worried. He looked out the window and saw a blue Oldsmobile Cutlass parked in front of his house, its engine still running. He recognized the car as Gary Consolino’s, Ellen’s date for the night. Concerned, he went outside, saw Ellen in the passenger seat, opened the door, pulled her out and screamed.

And screamed. And screamed again. A piercing scream so horrible and loud, lights flickered up and down the 6200 block of Walsh Street in the quiet St. Louis Hills neighborhood.

Gary and Ellen had been shot and killed. Bullets entered the passenger window. Ellen was shot in the head, Gary in the neck. Scraps of McDonalds food was spread through the car. There was no sign of a robbery. No sign of an assault. No sign of a struggle. There were no witnesses. There was no noise to awaken the sleepy neighborhood until John’s anguish rang out.

Sirens soon followed his cries, and police cars flooded the area. By the time the sun rose, the neighborhood was being canvassed. As the days went by, police would interview hundreds of people. Nearby Francis Park was combed inch by inch. Lie detector tests were given. School friends were questioned. The victims and their family’s private lives were probed. Rewards were offered. A hypnotist was brought in to question neighbors about any memories they had from their sleep. The investigation was as intense as any city homicide investigator could ever remember. Now, more than 40 years later, there are still no clear answers.

St. Louis homicide detectives were stumped. Where was the motive?

Numerous homicide detectives held the Consolino-Dooling case file over the years. The first was Herb Riley, who called not solving the case one of the biggest disappointments of his career. Riley was followed by Dan Nichols who worked tirelessly on the case before he too, retired. In 1987, seven years after Gary and Ellen were murdered, with their case still cold, homicide detective Chris Pappas asked to take over the investigation.

Pappas’ long and winding investigative road would eventually lead him to a man named Ronald Adcox who sat in the notorious Marion, Illinois Penitentiary. Pappas began digging and discovered that Adcox lived in south St. Louis at the same time as the murders, in a neighborhood right between the Consolino and Dooling homes. According to his friends, Adcox liked to hang out at Francis Park, just a block from where Dooling lived.

Pappas got in his car and made the two hour trek to Marion, entering multiple security stages to reach Adcox, who was housed deep in the bowels of the penitentiary, where the most dangerous inmates in a building of a thousand inmates, called home. Pappas sat down in a small guarded room. Across from him was Adcox, shackled and cuffed, a very large man with very long hair, who had been living in an eight-by-eight cell 23 hours a day.

“I have been waiting for you to come,” Adcox smiled.

After their initial hello’s, Adcox put his cards on the table.

“He looked me in the eye,” Pappas said. “And he says to me ‘I am a killer. And I will kill again if I have to.”

Pappas got right to the point. He came to talk about the Gary Consolino and Ellen Dooling murders from St. Louis in 1980.

“He told me he would not have done it if he was sober, but he said if he was drunk and high, he might have,” Pappas said. “I kept pressing him, and he just laughed. He told me he was going to make me prove it.”

Today, Adcox, transferred again, sits in a Texas prison, serving a life sentence. 40 years after Gary Consolino and Ellen Dooling were killed, Pappas still refers to Adcox as a suspect, and still remembers the final words from his mouth when they spoke.

“He told me If he knew he was going to spend the rest of his life locked up in prison, he might fess up.”

He will. And he has not.

Back in the quiet, peaceful neighborhood of St. Louis Hills, crime rarely returned. It is considered among the safest neighborhoods in the city.

If you’re fascinated by unsolved crimes, cold case investigations, and the mysteries that refuse to die, 25 Frozen 1 Thawed belongs on your shelf. Some stories fade with time. Others grow colder.

In my book On Call: Case Files from a Career in Homicide, I examine a range of homicide investigations that drew media attention. Not all of these cases made national headlines, and not all involved press conferences, but nearly every one received some form of coverage. In several of these investigations, I participated in press conferences, an aspect of the job that often appears essential, yet comes with significant drawbacks. A press conference is a double-edged sword: it can inform the public and generate leads, but it can also create complications that investigators must later manage. Law enforcement officials must recognize the limitations of press conferences, and the public should also understand what they can and cannot reveal.

Every time something significant happens in the world, the first thing I want to do is watch the press conference. I’ll admit it, I’m one of those people. When something breaks, I don’t go to Twitter or Facebook. I turn on the news because I want to hear directly from the officials involved. I believe they have more accurate information than what I’ll find online.

Yet almost every time I watch one of these press conferences, I walk away disappointed. I’m a curious person, and I’m a cop. I want more information. I want all the information, and I want it now. That’s how most of society feels. The problem is, you’re not going to get that level of detail from a press conference.

In my 22 years in law enforcement, I’ve been on both sides of these press conferences. I’ve worked high-profile investigations where a chief or deputy chief held a press conference about a case I was directly involved in. One important thing to understand is that press conferences are almost never given by the officer or detective doing the hands-on work. They’re typically conducted by a chief, deputy chief, or another high-ranking official, someone who is relaying information they’ve received from others.

Take the Mesa Police Department as an example. When we held press conferences, the chief or deputy chief would deliver them. They received their information from a deputy chief or commander assigned to the unit, who got it from a lieutenant, who got it from a sergeant who got it from me. There are multiple layers between the source of the information and the person presenting it. Departments don’t want to pull the working detective away from the investigation to speak at a press conference, because the priority is the case itself.

Because of this, the information presented in a press conference is not always timely, and it’s not always perfectly accurate. It’s often incomplete or slightly flawed. We’ve all heard of the “telephone game,” where a message changes as it passes from person to person. The same principle applies here. It’s not that anyone is lying, it’s simply human nature. People interpret and summarize information, sometimes adding their own understanding or assumptions along the way. By the time it reaches the public, the narrative can differ from what investigators are actually seeing on the ground.

This isn’t unique to law enforcement. It happens in every industry. A CEO doesn’t step aside and let an entry-level employee deliver a press conference about financials. The CEO becomes the face of the message, pulling information from multiple sources and presenting it in their own words. Law enforcement works much the same way.

Timeliness is another issue. Investigations, especially complex ones like homicides or officer-involved shootings take time. They have to. From the very beginning, investigators must be thorough and precise to avoid mistakes that could jeopardize the case or lead to evidence being thrown out in court.

For example, detectives must establish probable cause, which means clearly explaining what happened and why there is a legal basis to collect evidence. This often requires writing detailed search warrants, a process that can take hours depending on the complexity of the case, the amount of information, and how the situation evolves. While writing, detectives may receive new information updates from witness interviews, new locations, additional suspects which then must be incorporated into the warrant. The investigation can expand in real time.

Once the search warrant is completed, it must be reviewed and approved by a judge. That process also takes time. Judges don’t rush; they carefully and methodically review each warrant to ensure everything is legally sound and that there is sufficient justification to temporarily override someone’s privacy rights for the sake of a criminal investigation. Sometimes there’s only one judge available, and they may already be in court or handling other matters. You might be one of several warrants waiting in line.

The bottom line is this: legally and procedurally, investigations take time. Because of that, press conferences will always have limitations in what they can provide.

I still find myself dissatisfied at the end of most press conferences, but it’s important not to fall into the trap of satisfying your desire for information with details that are incomplete or incorrect. Press conferences aren’t designed to tell the whole story; they’re meant to inform the public in a controlled and measured way, not to deliver every fact or predict the final outcome.

Patience is essential. We have to manage that need for immediate answers and trust that the full picture will come together over time. The truth does come out but it doesn’t come out all at once.

That said, I understand the frustration. I feel it too. Like everyone else, I want to know the facts, I want to understand what happened, and I want those answers now.

Curious what doesn’t make it into the headlines?
👉 Dive deeper into real investigations and the realities behind them in On Call: Case Files from a Career in Homicide

.

But what happens if you can’t?

A question I’m often asked as a writer with aphantasia is how the inability to visualize affects my writing. For a long time, I didn’t have a clear answer.

Growing up, I dreamed of being a storyteller. I was always writing journals, letters, short stories, anything that let me put words on paper, and I could spend hours lost in it, believing I was honing my craft and preparing to one day write the novels I carried in my heart.

I remember sitting in front of the fireplace as a kid, staring into the flames and imagining “fire people” living inside them—tiny beings moving through flickers of light, carrying on lives of their own. Making up stories for them as I watched the flames dance.

I wasn’t seeing them the way others describe visualizing, but I was still creating stories, following ideas, building little worlds, and getting lost in them.

That love of writing never left, even as life gradually pulled me away from it.

Writing Without Visualization

Somewhere along the way, writing slipped out of my daily life. It didn’t disappear all at once, but over time, it became something I used to do instead of something I was actively living.

It wasn’t until my little dog died that I felt the pull to write again—to tell her story not just for myself, but for my children. That story became my first children’s book, and in the process of writing it, I came face-to-face with something I hadn’t fully understood before: the “show, don’t tell” part of storytelling.

The part where scenes come alive on the page, where the reader feels like they’re inside the moment, didn’t come easily to me. And I found myself confronting a gap I didn’t know how to explain.

There were no inner pictures to draw from. No scenes playing out in my mind that I could simply describe.

I hadn’t heard the term aphantasia yet, but I knew something wasn’t clicking the way I thought it should, and I remember wondering, very quietly, whether my dream of becoming a storyteller might be over.

Building Instead of Seeing

What began as a personal keepsake slowly grew into something more, eventually becoming a published story. And through writing it, I discovered something I hadn’t expected:

I could still tell stories—just not in the way I had always imagined I would.

I still needed to create scenes, describe characters, and bring moments to life on the page. But instead of visualizing those scenes internally, I found another way of working, one that relied on looking outward rather than inward.

In this case, I had real images of everything: my dog, my bird, my children, and our home. Instead of trying to picture scenes in my mind, I looked at those photos and described what I saw, using them as anchors to build the story.

Where I had always assumed writers were watching scenes unfold internally and simply writing them down, I realized I was doing something fundamentally different.

I wasn’t retrieving images.
I was building the scene.

And the more I’ve talked to other writers—both with aphantasia and without—the more I’ve realized this isn’t as unusual as I once thought. Many writers rely on references, memory, and observation in ways that aren’t so different from my own process.

What “Show, Don’t Tell” Actually Looks Like

When photos aren’t available, my process shifts, but the underlying approach stays the same.

I start with what I think of as the bones. The basic structure of a scene, stripped of detail:

Mouse went out into the backyard. It was a sunny day. She could see flowers blooming and hear birdsong in the air.

It works in the sense that it communicates the setting, but it still feels flat—lacking the depth that allows a reader to fully step into the moment.

Instead of trying to “see” more, I return to the scene with a different question:

What do I already know from experience?

What does a sunlit backyard feel like?
What details tend to stand out?
What makes a space feel real rather than described?

From there, I reconstruct the scene. Layering in sensation, movement, and specificity:

Mouse stepped off the porch into the backyard, the warmth of the sun-drenched wood seeping into her paws. The grass stretched out in soft green patches, still damp from the morning dew. A gentle breeze moved through the flowers along the fence line, carrying the faint scent of roses. Somewhere overhead, birds chattered back and forth, sharing secrets about the day ahead. Mouse paused, nose twitching, taking it in before trotting forward into the warmth.

This is the part most writing advice skips:

Scenes aren’t always seen.
They’re constructed.

And that construction—whether it starts with an image or not—is where the real work of storytelling happens.

Where I Got Stuck

Finishing that first book gave me a surge of confidence, and storytelling no longer felt out of reach. I wanted to push further, so I turned toward a full-length sci-fi novel—something much larger in scope, with multiple worlds, different realms, and ideas centered around energy, transformation, and growth.

Conceptually, this came easily to me. I could sense how each world functioned, how they differed from one another, and what made them distinct—even without being able to visualize them in a traditional sense.

But when it came to translating those ideas into fully realized scenes, I stalled.

I knew what I wanted in broad terms. I understood the internal logic of the worlds I was creating. But I struggled to move from abstract concept to lived experience on the page.

The issue wasn’t a lack of imagination.

It was the difficulty of shaping that imagination into something structured, detailed, and narratively alive.

What I Know Now

Writing Mouse the Pretty Bird forced me to look more closely at how I actually work as a writer.

I don’t see scenes in my mind. There’s no inner movie playing that I can pause and describe. Instead, I build scenes piece by piece, drawing from memory, sensation, observation, and accumulated knowledge of how the world feels.

And what I’ve come to understand is this:

Writing isn’t about having a movie in your head.
It’s about creating something real enough on the page that someone else can experience it.

Even for writers who can visualize, that process isn’t automatic. It requires intention, structure, and careful attention to detail.

For me, that process comes not from visualization, but from memory, sensation, observation, and meaning. From asking questions. From reconstructing experience. From deliberately shaping each moment until it feels grounded and alive.

It’s slower and more methodical than I once expected.

But it works.

I still struggle with storytelling, and that sci-fi novel remains unfinished—sitting in notes and fragments, pieces of worlds I haven’t yet shaped into something complete.

But I no longer believe the problem is that I can’t see the story before I write it.

The work has never been about seeing.

It’s about building.

Final Thought

If you’ve ever felt like you’re “doing it wrong” because you can’t clearly visualize your scenes, you’re not alone—and you’re not missing anything essential.

Start with structure.
Layer in sensation.
Build from what you know.

Storytelling doesn’t begin with sight.

It begins with creation.

I explore the way the mind works more deeply in Living Is Easy With Eyes Closed, where I challenge common meditation myths and offer an approach that doesn’t rely on visualization.

If you’ve ever felt like you’re “doing it wrong,” it might resonate.

They stay with us—unfinished, unresolved, quietly waiting.

In August of 1992, Tammy Zywicki set out on a simple road trip. Three days. A drop-off. A return to school.

She never made it.

More than 30 years later, her story is still asking the same question: what happened on that stretch of highway?

THE ROAD TO NOWHERE

On August 21, 1992, Tammy and her younger brother Daren and a 1985 Pontiac T1000 packed with suitcases left Marlton, New Jersey for their three day cross country trip. Tammy would drop Daren off at Northwestern University in Chicago, where he was studying engineering. They had a couple of instances of Tammy’s car overheating along the way, but nothing major. And then it was onto Grinnell, where Tammy studied photography and starred on the soccer team.

Sometime between 3 and 4 p.m. that afternoon, numerous witnesses said they saw a young woman matching Tammy’s description standing outside her car, with the hood up, on Interstate 80 at mile marker 83, near Utica, Illinois. She was two hours outside of Chicago, and three hours from Grinnell. At 5 p.m., Illinois State police spotted the abandoned car.

There was no sign of Tammy.

The FBI took over the case, a missing person report was put out, and in the days that followed, more than 60 witnesses called police and said they had seen the young girl with the broken down car on the highway. An exhaustive search took place over the next week. Hundreds of volunteers and K-9 dogs took the ground, while police helicopters searched overhead.

JoAnn and Frank Zywicki arrived on the scene, pleading before television cameras for any information about Tammy. Back at Grinnell, as Tammy’s classmates began trickling back onto campus, word began spreading. And they went to work. One group of students began traveling up and down Interstate 80, passing out flyers with pictures of Tammy. Another group spread out to area truck stops and parks. Another group stayed back and gave their food money to the other groups for expenses. Grim days and candlelight vigil nights went by.

And on the morning of September 1, nine days after Tammy disappeared, a man driving a pickup truck pulled along the side of Interstate 44, near Mt. Vernon Missouri, some 500 miles from where Tammy was last seen, saying he thought he saw a body. Police quickly swarmed the scene. A young woman’s body was pulled from the blanket. She was wearing a shirt that said “East Side Eagles Soccer Club.”

Tammy’s team.

Dental records confirmed the body was that of Tammy Zywicki. She had been sexually assaulted, then stabbed seven times in her chest. And today, more than 30 years after her death, the case still sits.

If stories like this stay with you—the ones that don’t wrap up neatly, the ones that still linger—Bob’s book 25 Frozen, 1 Thawed explores cases just like this.

Stories that were left behind… and the rare ones that finally found their way forward.

In this next part of my Meditation Myths series, I want to look at two of the most common beliefs that quietly stop people before they ever give meditation a real chance.

Myth #7: You have to visualize.
Myth #8: You have to stop your thoughts.

If either of these has ever made you feel like meditation just isn’t for you, you’re not alone. I believed both of them for a long time, and they kept me from even trying.

If you missed my earlier articles, you can find them here. Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3

Myth #7: You Have to Visualize

When most people think about meditation, they picture something very specific. They imagine closing their eyes and seeing a peaceful beach, a glowing light, or some kind of calm inner scene unfolding in their mind.

But what if nothing appears?

For a long time, I assumed visualization was simply part of the process, and because I couldn’t do it, I believed meditation wasn’t available to me. It wasn’t until I learned about aphantasia—the inability to form mental images—that I began to understand that not everyone experiences their mind in the same way.

And more importantly, I began to understand that visualization is not the point.

It is one way in, not the destination.

Meditation is not about creating images. It is about noticing what is already here.

You can follow the movement of your breath, feel the weight of your body in the chair, listen to the sounds around you, or simply become aware of the steady rhythm of being alive. None of that requires you to see anything at all.

Even for those who can visualize, many find that guided imagery becomes frustrating or distracting, and they walk away thinking they have failed. But nothing about that means meditation isn’t working. It only means they were given one doorway and assumed it was the only one.

It isn’t.

Myth #8: You Have to Stop Your Thoughts

If visualization keeps some people from starting, this belief stops even more.

Somewhere along the way, many of us were given the idea that meditation means clearing the mind completely, as if success depends on reaching a state where no thoughts appear at all.

So we sit down, close our eyes, and within seconds the mind is busy—planning, remembering, worrying—and we assume we’re doing it wrong.

I remember thinking exactly that: How can I possibly meditate when my mind won’t stop?

What I didn’t understand at the time is that meditation was never about stopping my thoughts. It was about seeing them.

Thoughts are not a mistake in the process. They are part of the process.

Instead of trying to force them away, you begin to notice them. You might recognize a thought as worry, or planning, or memory, and in that moment of noticing, something subtle shifts. You are no longer completely inside the thought. You are aware of it.

From there, you gently return your attention to whatever you are using as your anchor, often the breath.

This will happen again and again. The mind will wander, and you will notice, and you will return.

That is the practice.

Over time, the mind may settle more easily, but that quiet is not something you force. It is something that emerges when you stop fighting what the mind naturally does.

When you begin to let go of these expectations, something important opens up.

You don’t need to visualize in order to meditate.
You don’t need to silence your mind.

What you need is far simpler, and at the same time much more meaningful.

You need to notice.

You need to recognize when your attention has drifted and gently bring it back, without judgment and without the belief that you’ve done something wrong.

There is no single right way to experience meditation, only the way that meets you where you are.

Simple Practice

If you want to explore this for yourself, you don’t need anything complicated.

Sit in a way that feels comfortable to you and allow your eyes to close.

Take a slow breath in, and then let it go.

Bring your attention to the feeling of that breath moving through your body. You don’t need to change it or control it, only notice it.

When your mind begins to wander, and it will, simply recognize that it has. You might quietly note “thinking” or “planning,” and then return your attention to your breath.

You can do this for one minute or three. There is no requirement to go longer.

There are no images you need to create and no expectation that your mind will become perfectly quiet.

There is only awareness, returning to itself.

If you’ve ever believed that meditation wasn’t for you because you couldn’t visualize or because your mind felt too busy, those beliefs were never a sign that you couldn’t meditate.

They were simply misunderstandings about what meditation actually is.

And once those fall away, what remains is something much more accessible than most people expect.

If this way of approaching meditation feels more natural to you, I explore it more deeply in Living Is Easy With Eyes Closed, where I challenge many of the common myths that keep people from starting and share a more flexible, real-world approach to practice.

Bob Dylan - Seeking Mirth and Beauty

“That big fat moon, is gonna shine like a spoon”

(As I post this, a spaceship is racing toward the moon with four people aboard)

A line in a Dylan song suggested once that the first step in inventing our doom was touching the moon. Maybe and maybe not. I do know this though. We build rockets to take us to the moon, and those rockets are an incredible accomplishment. They are a wonderful testament to the ingenuity and technical skills and imagination of humans. But a rocket is not that thing we want to have. The rocket is not the great achievement. A rocket is just a tool that we make to get us a greater prize. Rockets are not the goal. We didn’t want great tools. We wanted to get to the moon. And we can go a step beyond even that in our thinking here—because we didn’t even really want to go the moon. NASA scientists were pretty confident that there wasn’t going to be much there. And Neil Armstrong proved them right. What we wanted to see is what it feels like to be a human being on the moon. What does it feel like to be a human here on earth and to know that we have put a man on the moon. What would be the effect? That’s what we wanted to know. And we didn’t do that so that just one person would know what it feels like to be able to go to the moon. We weren’t doing this for Neil Armstrong. We all wanted to know, in an articulate way, just what it feels like to know humans could get to the moon, but we didn’t all have to go in order to establish that particular array of cells in our brains. When Neil Armstrong got there, to some extent we all got there. He made a template of knowing and I laid that template across a small area of my brain and then I had something of what he had. And it was worth it. A picture is worth a thousand words—and we got both. He brought back words and pictures. We got the knowledge that we could do that. And we got a big bag of moon rocks.

“One small step for man, one giant leap for all mankind,” wasn’t just graceful eloquence. That was us standing there in an inch of moon dust, and that first step we took on the surface of the moon threw open wide the doors of our perception.

In the same way, Dylan writes those songs and delivers them by way of his forceful will and talent, providing for us the tools we need so that we can all see and feel that place within— “that hollow place where martyrs weep and angels play with sin.” Because if just one person can get there, to where Dylan got, or to where Neil Armstrong got, or even to where Jackson Pollock got with his flung house paints, then we can all get there—and be there. And some of us have done just that.

Seeking Mirth and Beauty is the title of a new book about songs and art, centering on the songs of Bob Dylan, from which this essay is lifted.

Genius Unbound is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Discover more reflections like this in Seeking Mirth and Beauty.

What if the stories behind your favorite songs were even more fascinating than the music itself?

Jim Berkenstadt—known as the Rock and Roll Detective®—has spent decades uncovering the hidden truths, myths, and mysteries woven into music history. In his latest book, Mysteries in the Music: Case Closed, he dives into legendary questions, conspiracies, and long-debated moments—from Elvis Presley to Nirvana—and brings them into the light through firsthand interviews and deep research.

This is more than music history—it’s storytelling, investigation, and discovery all rolled into one.

Meet Jim Berkenstadt

Jim Berkenstadt is the Rock And Roll Detective®. A true Sherlock Holmes, Berkenstadt uncovers the lost history and mysteries hidden within decades of popular music. An international authority on The Beatles, his recent book, The Beatle Who Vanished, is a multi-category Amazon Best Seller and headed to the silver screen. He currently serves as Co-Executive Producer and Script Consultant on the Ecosse Studio feature film based on his book.

He has co-authored three other books: Black Market Beatles; The Beatles Digest;
and Nevermind Nirvana, and edited John, Paul & Me: Before The Beatles. Berkenstadt’s books have been inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall of Fame permanent Library and Archives. He also served as an expert on two Reelz TV series: Celebrity Legacies and Celebrity Damage Control.

His next book and TV project is entitled Mysteries in the Music: Case Closed, which is coming on March 4, 2022.

Berkenstadt consults to The Beatles, the Estate of George Harrison (he served as the historical consultant on Martin Scorsese’s HBO Emmy winning documentary George Harrison: Living In The Material World), and other classic rock artists.

He lives in Wisconsin.

About the Book

“Mysteries in Music: Case Closed” is a book that uncovers the hidden, strange, and fascinating stories in the history of rock and roll. Jim Berkenstadt, known as The Rock And Roll Detective®, has spent years digging into these mysteries.

You’ll travel back to the 1950s to find out who really discovered Elvis Presley. In the 1960s, a famous folk musician tried to create a supergroup with members from The Beatles and The Rolling Stones—what happened? Learn how some big-name artists used fake names to hide who they were. Explore a mysterious CIA situation in Jamaica in 1976, involving an election and the reggae legend Bob Marley. Did The Beach Boys really steal a song and its copyright from the infamous cult leader Charles Manson, keeping all the money? And dive into the secrets behind Nirvana’s “Nevermind” album, which many consider the most influential rock album of the 1990s.

These mysteries have fascinated rock and roll fans for a long time because no one has asked the right questions or looked deeply into the evidence—until now. After many years, the untold stories of pop and rock music history are finally uncovered, revealing the truth in “Mysteries in Music: Case Closed.”

Ready to uncover the stories behind the songs?
Explore Mysteries in the Music and step into the world of rock’s greatest unanswered questions—now answered.