Sparkling Stars #15

Sir William Crookes and his scientific colleagues spent two years conducting weekly examinations of a ghostly figure called Katie King, who appeared to manifest from a living girl named Florence Cook. Through careful measurement and observation, they documented Katie King's physical properties—her height, pulse, and heartbeat—finding her to weigh only a third as much as a person of similar size, yet seemingly alive and breathing. When Florence Cook died, Katie King's appearances ceased entirely, leaving the mystery unresolved.

Detective Click Hunt turns fugitive when evidence is planted on him, forcing him to go on the run to clear his name and track down the mysterious criminal kingpin known as the Iceman. As Hunt closes in on his quarry, he uncovers a sinister operation hidden beneath a respectable household—and discovers that his informant Jasper Lowe may be playing a far deadlier game than anyone realized. In this fast-paced tale of crime and deception, Hunt must navigate a web of murder and betrayal to expose the truth and restore his honor.

This single-page non-fiction feature examines the unsolved mystery of Jack the Ripper, the infamous killer who murdered over fifty young women in the 1800s yet managed to evade capture and disappear into history. The piece poses the enduring question that has puzzled investigators and true-crime enthusiasts for generations: what ultimately became of this most notorious criminal?

Speed Spaulding, an ace athlete from Dixie Military Academy, is sent to Argentina to teach American sports—but his success breeds jealousy when a local rival named Gomez challenges him to jai-alai, a grueling Basque game Speed barely knows. After a disputed match and a brutal arrest, Speed must disappear and train in secret, returning months later to face Gomez again—only to discover his opponent is willing to cheat, sabotage, and scheme to prevent an American from claiming victory.

A nonfiction account traces humanity's gradual understanding of the microbe, from Antony van Leeuwenhoek's first glimpse of tiny creatures through his improved microscope in the 1670s to the groundbreaking experiments of Redi and Lazzaro Spallanzani that proved microbes require living parents and can be destroyed by heat. Through careful observation and clever testing, these early scientists pieced together the hidden world of microscopic life that causes disease, laying the foundation for modern medicine's arsenal against illness.