Dwight Ritter doesn’t walk so much as fight his way forward.
His stride is wide, mechanical, his hips compensating for what his knees can no longer do. Every step is effort. Every step is victory.
Want To Hear What The Amputee Community Said?
Stuart was contacted by Rick Bontkowski from the American amputee show Amp’d Up 211 – and they chatted live for an hour. It is an amazing and insightful chat and also explains what happened to Stuart after his blast injury.
Amp’d Up 211 — What Makes Us Human
https://ampup211.com/episode/what-makes-us-human-stuart-st-paul
A former elite operator, Dwight is now a DAKA—a double above-the-knee amputee—rebuilt by willpower alone. But survival has come at a cost. When his wife saw what remained of him after the blast, she took their daughter and disappeared from his life. The last thing he remembers is her expression—shock, grief, something unspoken. He has never seen his child again.
Now, just as he begins to rebuild a sense of purpose, his fragile new relationship is tested. Dixie, a brilliant bio-robotics specialist, has left Miami for Boston—the cutting edge of human-machine innovation. For her, it’s opportunity. For Dwight, it’s distance… and doubt.
Then comes an offer that could change everything: a fully powered robotic lower body. Strength. Mobility. A second chance at the life he lost.
But the price is steep—more of his human body must be removed.
To become something more, he must first become less.
As Dixie’s professional fascination turns into something deeper, she begins to fear the choice he’s about to make. Dwight, however, is driven by a single, burning hope: to find his daughter again and stand before her not as a broken man—but as someone whole. Maybe even more than whole.
But Dwight’s transformation is only one thread in a wider story.
Within the agency he works for, another mystery unfolds—one rooted in a buried past. A colleague uncovers the hidden works of a Black artist from the slavery era, their paintings concealed for generations. As each canvas is revealed, so too is a story long denied: a life, a voice, a humanity erased. Determined to restore the artist’s place in history, she names the collection Juno—after her grandmother’s slave ship—reclaiming identity from silence.
As these stories intertwine—through a high-stakes cruise ship investigation, through love and loss, through history and reinvention—Strictly Human asks a powerful question:
What does it really mean to be human… when the line between flesh and machine begins to disappear?
CSCI the series
Strictly Human is the most stand alone of all the books in the CSCI series, even though it is number ten. It shows how Stuart’s work has developed and his characters are deeper. If after reading this you wish to look at some of the other books, books 8 and 9 that happened just before this story, go well together. 8 = 4 Murders a Wedding and a Cruise and 9. = The Unexpected.
If you choose to start at number 1. = Cruise Ship Heist, then you could jump to number 7. = Murder Reunion, to learn the deep back story of Kieron, or you wade through the series in order. Here are some films Stuart made when visiting locations in the book.
Cruise Ship Heist – Ebera Village – chapters circa 29/32 –
Panama Canal – chapters circa 33 –
Bequia Island – chapters circa 64/70 –
St Vincent – chapters circa 72/73 –
Listen free from here onwards