Goodreads asked Rod Pyle:

What mystery in your own life could be a plot for a book?

Rod Pyle My personal "sleuthing," though I hesitate to use that term for something so personal, was to unravel a lifelong puzzle concerning my father. This was not resolved until shortly before his death in 2007. It concerned a taboo subject in our home--my father's service in World War Two--a story of great heroism in the vast Pacific Theater near the end of the war. Central to this saga was a torpedoed PT boat, two survivors struggling to survive the night adrift in the ocean, and his struggle to overcome injuries both physical and emotional in the years afterward. Unfortunately, none of it was true--it was a fabrication born of self-doubt and the need to find his inner hero. My fascination with that conflict, and idolizing of his role in it, played a key role in my childhood and early adulthood. The truth emerged only as his mind began to slip away near his death, culminating in an incredible evening we spent together near the end, re-living moments in 1945 as the roots of the story unraveled. That evening, and the chronicle of his amazing and blessed life that led up to it, is the subject of an upcoming book, "Goodnight Father."

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