Thomas Mallon has written a number of works of historical fiction that are based on actual events. He likes to have political themes in many of them and his book "Mrs. Paine's Garage: and the Murder of John F. Kennedy" was a fascinating story about a woman who was a peripheral figure in the events surrounding the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in Dallas in 1963.
Ruth Paine lived in Dallas-she had befriended Marina Oswald, the wife of JFK's future assassin Lee Harvey Oswald. After JFK was shot Mrs. Paine was horrified when she realized that the gun Oswald had used had been hidden away by Oswald in her garage prior to that deadly day.
Another fascinating aspect of the story is her local connection to Yellow Springs. Ruth Paine went to Antioch College. Her brother still lives in Yellow Springs.
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