Justin’s Newsletter: April 2026
Vol. 6, Issue 4
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What’s Up With Me
Check out my new story on the Bombay Beach Biennale’s 10th anniversary in Culture Honey Magazine. The story was featured in the California Sun email newsletter:
Watch the latest episode of “Pasadena Monthly,” featuring an interview with Metropolitan Water District General Manager Shivaji Deshmukh. Read more here.
Around Town
Great Reads
Here are some recommendations for interesting books I’ve read recently:
The Khrushchev Objective—Christopher Creighton and Noel Hynd
This 1987 book is a fictional account of the Lionel “Buster” Crabb affair in the UK, around which there are many unanswered questions. In 1956, Crabb, a British Royal Navy frogman who dismantled mines on ships during World War II, disappeared during a covert MI6 mission to analyze the hull of the Soviet cruiser, the Ordzhonikidze, in Portsmouth Harbour while Soviet leaders Nikita Khrushchev and Nikolai Bulganin were visiting the UK in a rare diplomatic visit. The illicit mission was revealed when Crabb was never found, causing a major diplomatic scandal for the UK government. A year later, a headless and handless body was found in a nearby harbour and identified as Crabb, but theories persist that he was captured by the Soviets—or defected. This author is known for stretching the truth in his fictionalized accounts of historical events, but it’s a fun, well written book nonetheless.
Spy Counter-Spy—Duško Popov
Duško Popov was one of the most important spies of World War II. He was born in Serbia and served as a double agent for British intelligence by pretending to work for the Nazis. He passed along disinformation to the Abwehr as part of the UK’s Double Cross (XX) deception program. He met Ian Fleming, creator of James Bond, and it’s claimed that Popov was one inspiration for Bond. Popov wrote that he warned the FBI about the impending Pearl Harbor attack, but because J. Edgar Hoover thought he was a German spy, they ignored him. Popov played a key role in Operation Fortitude, a deception campaign that convinced Germany that the Allies’ D-Day landings would take place at Calais rather than Normandy. This memoir reads like a thriller novel and goes into detail on all his crazy adventures.
Spotlight on My Past Stories
With the “Going for Home” documentary (in which I appear in an interview) screening at the Pasadena International Film Festival this month, here’s a look back at my coverage of the very first year of the festival, in 2014.
And read all of my journalism here.