The cover for the May 2026 release of A Soul on Trial

To my followers: Thanks for your patience. The new release of A Soul on Trial: A Marine Corps Mystery at the Turn of the Twentieth Century has now launched. Available for the first time in paperback and as an e-book with a new Prologue and Epilogue. The notes are beautifully linked in the e-book. It’s likely available wherever you usually buy books online, plus you can ordered from your favorite bookstore as well. Starting today, we’re sending the book on a virtual book tour for three weeks. Thanks to all these book lovers who signed up. Because the first blogger, Cover Lover Book Reviews, was kind enough to ask for a guest post, I’m sharing the full text with you here.

Let’s look at the cover of A Soul on Trial: Why is there a small white dove flying away from an imposing Beaux Arts building?

At first glance, the dove is barely noticeable. Inside the book, it appears again at the beginning of each section, flying up and away from the stolid, permanent, immobile Academic Building, an edifice that still impresses all who visit or study at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. Today the building is known as Mahan Hall.

This book is a true story that unfolds on more than one level. An image of Mahan Hall dominates the cover. This imposing Beaux Arts Academic Building, constructed in 1907, represents the strength and power of the United States Navy. It’s a monumental structure, highly symmetrical in its design, suggesting strength, order and discipline; the façade includes nautical motifs and the building is anchored by a lofty central clock tower. Time is of the essence in the military. And this is the building where the sensational “trial” took place in 1909 that is the centerpiece of the book.

But after we had the initial concept for the cover, I felt that something needed to represent the more ethereal, spiritual and feminine side of the story. After all, the main protagonist is a devout Catholic mother determined to prove that her Marine Corps lieutenant son did not commit suicide – a mortal sin that a century ago would have kept him out of Heaven. Although politics enters the story in a big way, Rosa Sutton never wavered from her initial goal to have her son exonerated so that someday he might be reunited with his family in the afterlife.

Then there are the more otherworldly, inexplicable experiences Rosa had. She was not a spiritualist; she never consulted a medium. Any attempt to communicate with the dead was strictly forbidden by her church. So when she and several witnesses attested to the fact that the ghost of her son appeared to her more than once to tell her what really happened on the night he died, much of America was both puzzled and intrigued.

But why the dove? I have always loved doves and find the sound of doves comforting. Both the Old and New Testaments make frequent references to doves as symbolic representations of the Holy Spirit. Christianity still accepts the white dove as a metaphor for the Holy Spirit, a sign of purity and new beginnings. In early Christian catacomb paintings, a dove signified the departed soul that had found its way to God. So the dove could suggest Jimmie Sutton’s soul on the way to Heaven. For his grieving mother, the fate of this soul was undecided for almost two years while millions of American citizens, as well as newspaper reporters, military officials, congressmen, and attorneys tried to learn the elusive truth about the early morning fight on October 13, 1907, that left Second Lt. Sutton dead.

Part of a book group?  The main text of the book is 365 pages. With the back matter it’s 442 pages. Paperback $16.99, e-book $6.99 unless a vendor decides to charge more. Why is this story so important today? You can read the new Prologue for free on Amazon’s read a sample feature for the Kindle book. Happy summer and thanks for following.