My Independence Institute colleague Rob S. Rice has written a new book of historical fiction, titled Archival: Most Secret. The book tells three loosely-related stories: about a dissolute Scottish officer who ends up fighting in the Battle of New Orleans, about the declining years of Randolph Churchill, and about a British airman who is shot down over Crete in WWII. The common thread of these stories is a secret British ministry which has been involved with human-animal transformations. Each of the stories involves an equine-related transformation. You can order the book for $14.95 from Lulu, where you can also read the opening pages. I thought that the stories were interesting, and that all of them picked up steam as the stories progressed. That said, the format of the book (reproducing the full text of various documents purported to come from secret British archives) results in the plot moving forward relatively slowly on a per-word basis–especially in the Churchill story. But if you like horses and U.K. historical fiction, it’s worth your time to read a few pages, and decide if the book is your cup of tea.