Kennedy was an appalling and grisly conspiracy. This is the unvarnished story. With deft investigative skill, David Kaiser shows that the events of November 22, 1963, cannot be understood without fully grasping the two larger stories of which they were a part: the U.S. government's campaign against organized crime, which began in the late 1950s and accelerated dramatically under Robert Kennedy; and the furtive quest of two administrations--along with a cadre of private interest groups--to eliminate Fidel Castro. The seeds of conspiracy go back to the Eisenhower administration, which recruited top mobsters in a series of plots to assassinate the Cuban leader. The CIA created a secretive environment in which illicit networks were allowed to expand in dangerous directions. The agency's links with the Mafia continued in the Kennedy administration, although the President and his closest advisors--engaged in their own efforts to overthrow Castro--thought this skullduggery had ended. Meanwhile, Cuban exiles, right-wing businessmen, and hard-line anti-Communists established ties with virtually anyone deemed capable of taking out the Cuban premier. Inevitably those ties included the mob. The conspiracy to kill JFK took shape in response to Robert Kennedy's relentless attacks on organized crime--legal vendettas that often went well beyond the normal practices of law enforcement. Pushed to the wall, mob leaders merely had to look to the networks already in place for a solution. They found it in Lee Harvey Oswald--the ideal character to enact their desperate revenge against the Kennedys. Comprehensive, detailed, and informed by original sources, The Road to Dallas adds surprising new material to every aspect of the case. It brings to light the complete, frequently shocking, story of the JFK assassination and its aftermath.

    Down, down he leads us, in intoxicating, nearly hallucinogenic prose-past the Yaqui, the Anasazi, and other ghosts of our collective history, past the hookers, winos, and assorted have-nots outside the prosperous circle by the fire. We meet a prisoner obsessed with painting presidents, sex offenders whose desires are not as alien as we wish, a murderer whose execution does not cure what ails us. I wound up looking at a world where cannibalism is life, Bowden writes, and of course, given the diet, a life without a future. He mourns a young artist who couldn't find a reason to keep living and tends a mesquite tree that won't die. And down among its metaphoric roots, he reacquaints us with the appetites-fierce, flawed, human-that might save us too. Blues for Cannibals is scripture for an age when bushes no longer burn.

     Kek has spent his life being treated like a dog, but he's only dog-like in appearance. You see, he's a kobold who originally came from a dungeon. And he's spent most of his life enslaved to a gang of exiled mercenaries hiding out in a deadly jungle. When Kek gains the power to see the hidden mechanics of reality and learns to "game" them to expand his skills and find hidden meanings, he is soon entrusted with a noble quest. He must return to the dungeon where he came from and rescue his people from servitude to the dungeon lord! Faced with untold dangers, Kek is going to need allies—such as a sweet muck fairy with a killer streak, a deadly-beautiful siren who fights best au natural, and a sensual cat woman with lightning quick moves. They are sure going to keep this lone kobold on his toes. Throughout this quest, Kek will learn the hard way that one of the greatest opponents a hero confronts is his own self-doubt. This is a LitRPG with a twist. There is no VR. The fantasy world is real. The game mechanics are part of a unique magical power that only the lucky few obtain. If you're not into this sort of thing, maybe it's time you give it a go. There's also a fun and adventure-packed story that will keep any fantasy reader engrossed right up until the end. Book two in the series is planned for launch early 2018!