Links of Interest

1) www.winstonchurchill.org - This is the site of the Churchill Centre and Churchill Museum at the Cabinet War Rooms in London. Everything you ever wanted to know about Winston and more.

2) www.lesroberts.com - This is the website of the mystery writer Les Roberts, a former producer for Hollywood Squares who left LA in the late 80s to, in Tina Fey's immortal words in 30 Rock, "flee to the Cleve" where all of his 14 best-selling Milan Jacovich mysteries are set. He was one of our two writing mentors and even says nice things about us in his memoir We'll Always Have Cleveland. We especially recommend The Irish Sports Pages and The Cleveland Local.  

3) www.pixiesdidit.com - This is the website of Michael's daughters and Patrick's sisters, the elder of whom was the first of our two writing mentors. You must visit their site for "Home and Life Organization For Who You Are"  whose motto is "Life Should Be Easy" and which uses Meyers-Briggs personality types to deliver advice tailored to your personality type.  You won't be disappointed. If the artwork on their site seems familiar, it is as we use the same artist, Carol Breckenridge, otherwise known to Patrick and the Pixies as "Mom."

4) www.michaeldobbs.com - If you like or are intrigued by the notion of Churchill as a fictional character (and why else are you here on our site?) don’t miss the four first rate historical novels by the British writer Michael Dobbs on Churchill in World War II from 1939 to 1945: Winston’s War, Never Surrender, Churchill’s Hour, and Churchill’s Triumph.

5) www.zeppelin-museum.de - This is the website of the Zeppelin Museum in Friedrichshafen, Germany where the Graf Zeppelin and the Hindenburg were built. The museum has built a lifesize replica of 1/4 of the Hindenburg through which visitors may tour as well as a complete history of rigid airships. Michael has an abiding fascination with the era of passenger airships which will continue to play supporting roles in Winston Churchill Thrillers at least until the Hindenburg is destroyed in 1937. Zeppelins are still being built in Friedrichshafen today using modern technology and helium, not hydrogen. They are approximately three times the length of a Goodyear blimp and carry twelve passengers and a rest room on sight-seeing excursions.   

6) www.iwm.org.uk - This is the website of the Imperial War Museum in London. The Churchill Museum at the Cabinet War Rooms should be your first stop when  you're in London but this should be your second. Like the Churchill Museum, it is state-of-the-art. Patrick especially recommends the London Blitz exhibit where you can experience first hand what it was like in a bomb shelter during a German air raid in World War I. Then you can visit a trench in World War II under artillery attack. Equally noisy as the Blitz exhibit but unlike the soldiers in a real trench, your feet stay dry.  

7) www.airshipsonline.com This is a website devoted to the history of British airships in the 1920s and early 30s, the last two of which were the R-100 and the R-101. Built to government specifications and funding with a view to knitting together the far-flung British Empire in Canada, India, Australia and South Africa, the R-100 was built by private industry (Vickers) and popularly known as "the Capitalist ship" while the R-101 was built by the government and known as "the Socialist ship". Until the Hindenburg, they were the largest and most luxurious airships ever to fly.  In the summer of 1930, the R-100 flew to Canada and back on its first trans-oceanic flight. In October, 1930, the R-101 was headed to India on its first trans-oceanic flight. It bareley made it over the English Channel before it crashed and burned in France. 54 people died. Only 6 survived. Being libertarians with a healthy mistrust of governments to do much of anything right, we think there's a lesson here.