Jerry Orbach Books

While praising this book's really extraordinary collection of rare photographs, many of the Amazon reviewers seem hung up on the selection of shows. One almost feels that they expect books to reflect their personal taste, whereas books naturally reflect the taste of their authors. In fact, the authors have been rather conservative in what to include. Imagine if the choice of titles were as madcap as some of their photo captions. The 101 Greatest Shows might then have included Portofino, Buttrio Square, or Illya, Darling. There really isn't a lot of wiggle room in the first 101--but how about a second volume? Then there would really be questionable inclusions, bones of contention, readers in quandary. I'm dying to see two pages of stills from The Vamp.

I received this as a birthday gift and love it! I'm just a little surprised at the selection that made it to the 101 shows included in the book. No Rent? Really??? Regardless of your opinion on the show, it is surely one that should make it on a list of 101 greatest shows..

I ordered this book as a birthday present for my boyfreind because he is really big into musical theater. I placed the order late Thursday afternoon and the UPS man delivered the book Friday evening, it was the fastest service I've ever experienced.
Not only does the book have tons of colorful, glossy pictures but it's packed with quite a bit of commentary and information. He loved it! Great product, I reccomend it for anyone who is a fan of musicals.

I am a high school theatre teacher. I was looking for a textbook for my musical theatre class when I came across this wonderful reference book. While it doesn't have all of the shows I need, it is a wonderful way to look at some of the most popular musicals in a condensed version with beautiful pictures and interesting trivia. My students love the book so much, they do not want to return it to the school at the end of the semester. They keep it and pay the fee for a missing book. It is reasonably priced for a coffee table book.

If you saw Dori Berinstein's illuminating 2007 documentary, Show Business - The Road to Broadway, you got close to an all-access peek into the 2003-2004 Broadway theater scene that gives you a sense of the chaos, diligence, exhaustion, and luck that goes into mounting a musical. Two of the four shows spotlighted, "Avenue Q" and "Wicked" are still running as of this date, and unsurprisingly, they are included in the list here. The other two, "Taboo" and "Caroline, or Change", did not fare as well, at least at the box office, and such is the fate of most efforts trying to make it to the Great White Way. Co-authors Ken Bloom (also a Broadway musical performer) and Frank Vlastnik have compiled an eminently entertaining coffee-table book describing what they consider the 101 greatest musical productions staged on Broadway. They seem to have a thing for such lists because last year, they compiled the genuinely addictive Sitcoms: The 101 Greatest TV Comedies of All Time.

Both books share the co-authors' enthusiasm for their topics. Most such entertainment reference books stick with mainly the facts of the productions, but Bloom and Vlastnik go beyond the relevant statistics about each show and inject plenty of behind-the-scenes information along with a surprisingly sharp level of critical commentary on how justified the legacy are of these productions. The challenge of this tome, however, is that most of us have not seen the original-run productions discussed and can't really provide a personal response to the co-authors' collective viewpoint. For me, among the 101 shows, I have only seen "Sweeney Todd", "Dreamgirls", "Avenue Q" and "The Drowsy Chaperone" during their original runs. At the same time, the co-authors give you a palpable sense of what probably were incandescent performances onstage - Fred Astaire in "The Band Wagon", Vivienne Segal in "Pal Joey", Gertrude Lawrence in "The King and I", Ethel Merman in "Gypsy", Julie Andrews in "My Fair Lady", Gwen Verdon in "Sweet Charity", Michael Crawford in "The Phantom of the Opera".

The rarely seen black-and-white and color photos make this an indispensable record of these lightning-in-the-bottle shows. There are sidebars for particularly noteworthy performers and other creative dynamos behind the curtain. Similar to the approach taken with "Sitcoms", the co-authors devote special pages to infamous flops, guilty pleasures, great scores from so-so shows, star turns that have become mythic, film stars who tried to conquer Broadway, and even shows with T&A. There are opening remembrances from luminaries like Angela Lansbury ("Mame") and Chita Rivera ("West Side Story") and an introduction carried over from the 2004 edition by the late Jerry Orbach ("Promises, Promises"). Naturally, some shows you would expect to be included are not, arguable candidates such as "Rent", "Les Misérables", "The Producers" and "Hairspray". Moreover, the one flaw with the approach here is the somewhat arbitrary exclusion of musicals whose scores were created for another project. That's why you won't see long-running shows like "42nd Street", "Ain't Misbehavin'", "Mamma Mia!", and "The Lion King" in the book. Regardless, this book is a fine document for any musical theater aficionado with a penchant for breaking out into a show tune.

Nice thriller, interesting twists, original ideas (as far as I know), engaging context, believable characters. What more can be said of a book in this category?

this story really dove into the depth of every character... making them realistic with indepth backgrounds. The characteristics are realistic along with the many detailed chemicals in the story. As the cover says it definately is a thriller... and though the relationship between the two main characters was ment to be similar to that of haniball and clarice it was extremely different. A good different... and amazing different. You certainly are hooked to the story the whole way through. I would suggest this story to anyone who likes thrillers mysteries... the word usage and style is truely beautiful and you can tell how much time was spent on retrieving details and accuracy...

This was one of the first "real" books that I read. It is a little bit confusing at first, because there are so many characters, but after the first couple of chapters you won't want to put it down! I hope that if you are doubting about buying this book, STOP! This is an awsome book I recommend it to anyone that likes to read! I hope that you enjoy it as much as I did!

The best Thriller I've read in Ages!!! Matthew Hall is a fantastic writer, and I can't wait until he writes another book!!!

I think if Bill resembles any literary character it is Hamlet (or perhaps the less well known Stainless Steel Rat). He is dark and tormented, and he has issues with his mother. But what makes this book exceptional is Bill's committed (no pun intended) liberalism. He us a crazy man fighting the good fight. That, coupled with his undeniable brilliance, is what ultimately makes him so likeable. And you may finish the book, like I did, with an urge to engage in some creative social justice yourself. I've read this book three times, and I could read it again tomorrow. Buy it now, you won't be able to stop reading once you start. And, if you can afford it, buy the hardcover. The jacket and cover design are really snazzy.

After seeing the movie Payback, I decided to delve into some of the new Parker novels and this was the first one. I enjoy any plot that includes robbing snake-oil salesmen (an evangelist) and dishonor among theives so this book was very enjoyable. The writing style is sparse and moving so it is a light read, but the style lends itself to being predictable. So little detail is included that when it is given by the author, you know that it is somehow going to be involved later. All in all, if you enjoy reading tight, well-written novels from the criminal's perspective, then you will enjoy this novel. Parker is a talented, harsh theif who knows how to remain focused and finish the job even with things spinning out of control. Though this novel doesn't demonstrate just how hard Parker can be, you get enough of a taste to know if you want to read more.

Comeback


Comeback is significant because Donald Westlake, writing as Richard Stark came back to writing Parker novels after a hiatus of some twenty years or so. I say welcome back.

Thiis story is ripped from today's headlines. A TV evangelist who uses a stadium to preach from has an "Angel" who is unhappy with all the money being raised and spent on the preacher himself. Can you say Altanta Mega churches? Any how, as usual the heist doesn't go exactly as planned. I particularly like the part where the preacher pays Parker a thousand dollars to find and recover his money.


As far as I can tell the other Parker books are:
1) The Hunter (1963; AKA Point Blank, Payback; Parker, by Richard Stark).
2) The Man With the Getaway Face (1963; AKA The Steel Hit; Parker,
3) The Outfit (1963; Parker, by Richard Stark)
4) The Mourner (1963; Parker, by Richard Stark)
5) The Score (1964; AKA Killtown; Parker, by Richard Stark)
6) The Jugger (1965; Parker, by Richard Stark)
7) The Seventh (1966; AKA The Split; Parker, by Richard Stark)
8) The Handle (1966; AKA Run Lethal; Parker, by Richard Stark)
9) The Rare Coin Score (1967; Parker, by Richard Stark)
10) The Green Eagle Score (1967; Parker, by Richard Stark)
11) The Black Ice Score (1968; Parker, by Richard Stark)
12) The Sour Lemon Score (1969; Parker, by Richard Stark)
13) Slayground (1971; Parker, by Richard Stark)
14) Deadly Edge (1971; Parker, by Richard Stark)
15) Plunder Squad (1972; Parker, by Richard Stark)
16) Butcher's Moon (1974; Parker, by Richard Stark)
17) Comeback (1997;
18) Backflash (1998; Parker)..
19) Flashfire (2000; Parker, by Richard Stark)..
20) Firebreak (2001; Parker, by Richard Stark) ..
21) Nobody Runs Forever (2004) Parker, by Richard Stark

Highly recommended for Parker fans and fans of action adventure stories.


Gunner November, 2007

Donald E. Westlake's alter ego Richard Stark's Parker character is back along with Mackey and Brenda from other Parker classics. Comeback is another can't put down until the final page easy to read action packed thriller. Comeback is a novel both fans of and new readers to Westlake under his or his pen name Stark will read over and over again. Short chapters make putting it down when you reluctantly have to a breeze as well. As well as other Parker adventures also check out under Westlake's own name his masterpiece solution to being unemployed, The Ax. His novels Corkscrew and the Scared Stiff are also brilliant!

In Comeback Parker, Mackey and Brenda team up with a villain named Liss whose parol officer Tom Carmody dresses up as an angel as part of a Christian con artist Evangelist stadium show. Carmody is disillusioned that the reverend is not giving the money to the needy but spending it on himself and wants to rob the production of its $400 000 in gate takings to give to the poor. Of course Liss, Parker, Mackey and Brenda have no intention of splitting the money with Carmody, in fact Liss has no intention of letting his colleagues live which of course Parker can not let him get away with. Further complicating the matter are a group of low intelligent young guys who think they can just take the money from the gang. Ex marine but equally low intelligence head of security for the Christian Festival also makes this great novel even more exciting!

Professional thief Parker is taken to task as he finds himself in the middle of a robbery gone wrong.

As in many other books, the eminently practical Parker is betrayed by a fellow thief, and the betrayal puts all of them at heightened risk.

Parker displays a wide array of skills in this book, and I would have to put it near the top of the list of the half dozen Parker adventures I have read.

The trademarks are all there; the tightly paced action, the unexpected but believable plot twists, and the flowing narrative that keep us turning pages.

The story begins with a planned armed robbery of a traveling preacher, whose religious showmanship has built up an enterprise worth millions. After things go wrong, Parker finds himself adrift in a small town where a stranger like himself is bound to be questioned. He's in conflict with the locals, a couple of other thieves, and a worthy opponent in the religious organization's security chief. His goal is to get the money, and get out of town.

At different points of the book, Parker finds himself alone and unprotected in two different enemy camps, and his always-innovative actions have never been more fascinating. His brand of cold-blooded practicality, fueled by a mind specially trained to see all the angles, is a thrill to read about.

If you haven't read a Parker novel yet, this is a good one to cut your teeth on, and if you're a fan who's deciding on your next read, prioritize Comeback. It's Stark at his best.

Professional thief Parker returns in this suspenseful tale of a caper gone wrong. Parker, with fellow thieves Liss and Mackey, conspires to rob the coffers of the Christian Crusade, part of the ministry of the Reverend William Archibald. Despite some last minute nerves on the part of their inside man, the robbery proceeds smoothly, and the trio makes off with nearly half a million dollars in cash.

After the crooks go to ground, one of their number tries to rob the rest. An ever wary Parker foils this attempt but fails to subdue his former ally. Parker and the remaining gang member must evade the traitor, the police, and Reverend Archibald's minions to escape with their lives and the money.

Comeback, Richard Stark's (aka Donald E. Westlake's) first Parker novel after an almost unendurable twenty three year hiatus, is a hard boiled novel of suspense comparable to the other highly entertaining entries in this series. Told using Stark's trademark framework--three quarters of the novel is from Parker's point of view, one quarter from the individual points of view of all the other principal characters--the novel delivers all the action, violence and surprises fans of this series have come to expect. Stark and Parker--perfect together!

This has to be Ellroy's worst yet. The writing is in the style of Dr.Seuss crossed with a psychopath on crank. Subtract 300 pages from this atrocity and you still have a book too long, with no plot and no redeeming value, and mostly, totally unbelievable. In other words, a mirror image of the characters the author tries to develop.
Ellroy's obsessive hatred of all of what he considers "right wing" gets tiresome very quickly.
Ellroy scored some impressive successes with LA Confidential and American Tabloid. But White Jazz is almost laughable if it weren't so ugly. But for some authors - anything for a buck.

I did not care for the way this book was written. It is very hard to follow, as it appears with each chapter that you are reading from a detectives notebook. It seems like a good story, just a bit jumbled in the telling of it.

Before I read "White Jazz," I'd never read a book that lacked a single likable character. This is a story of scum-on-scum violence, its characters have no redeeming qualities, and I couldn't find sympathy for any of them.

I did finish the book, though it was a chore.

Couldn't, wouldn't recommend it.

This is probably my favorite entry in the L.A. Quartet, mainly because there's a sharper focus and economy of narrative that I sometimes felt the other books lacked. Much as I loved The Big Nowhere, for instance, it contained a number of passages that felt bloated and needlessly repetitive. White Jazz is a much leaner work, with a clipped style that perfectly matches the setting and plot. While many readers seem to think Ellroy took his staccato prose too far with The Cold Six Thousand, in this book there's a nice balance of short bursts and longer, more elegant lines. (Personally, I thought the style of the Cold Six was brilliant, but can understand why some might find it a distraction.) For devoted readers or those just getting acquainted with the Demon Dog's canon, White Jazz is a strong and satisfying read.

In the final novel of James Ellroy's LA quartet, corruption has become ubiquitous on the LA police force, which becomes the battleground for two powerful men who both want to become DA as a stepping stone to greater things. Dave Klein, a detective who has risen through the ranks by following orders no matter how distasteful, finds himself in the middle of a complex situation involving a federal corruption probe, a family of informers, Howard Hughes, and a low budget horror movie shooting in Griffith Park. Hard-as-nails Klein becomes increasingly friendless except for a beautiful starlet who may prove to be his downfall.

Unfortunately, I've been reading these novels out of sequence. I need to circle back and pick up "The Black Dahlia" and "The Big Nowhere" to get the full sweep of Ellroy's LA panorama. "White Jazz" is a fierce, inventive novel with a powerfully unique syntax that is a bit challenging at first, but give it a chance and you'll get used to it. It's an effective stylistic choice that gives the narrative a frenzied, chaotic energy.

Ed McBain is one of my all time favorite authors, and I was surprised to see his name on the top of this little audiobook. It only costs $5.99, how about that! Anyway, it is a story about PI Milt Davis who is asked to investigate a plane crash that might be intentional. He knows immediately that this is above him, but he continues. McBain's traditional twists and turns follow, and it turns out to be a pretty darn good mystery. I gave it an 8 because, though good, it just could not measure up to his 87th precinct novels, my favorite of which are Ice and Nocturne.

Trinities is a book that explores the psychology of the two main characters, Johnny, a brilliant family man (read mafia) who is trapped in a low paying union job despite his family ties, and his uncle, an even more brilliant mafia don (retired) who is trapped in his dying body and the laxidazical world he views through his aging eyes.

As Johnny longs to escape through midlife crisis angst, his uncle longs for one last splash of the glory days before he dies. If the reader cannot truly immerse the heart into these two personalities, the reader will lose perspective and simply classify the book as a genre piece of some sort.

I have listened to this book on audio cassette at least seven times - until the tapes gave out - and will buy it again just to have it in my library.

Give it a shot. It's good.

I loved Tosches' bio of Jerry Lee, Hellfire, but Trinities was a great disappointment, especially since it didn't have to be. Tosches had the makings of a terrific thriller. But the central character and plot are unbelievable.
The book starts with Johnny DiPietro, nephew of an old Mafia don, fulfilling a contract for his uncle. He drives, his buddy does the shooting. To Johnny, the victim is not a person, but Johnny's "new transmission" for his car. He's a slimeball, and thus far rendered believable, ala Elmore Leonard. There is a reference that, as a youth, he had a thirst for knowledge, and that he had at one time read good books. Aside from this, Johnny gives no sense of authority, high intelligence, or competency. Then his uncle, who wants to take over the world's heroin market, decides to use Johnny as his representative in the biggest (and least plausible ) dope deal in the history of crime fiction. Suddenly Johnny, who's making twenty-five grand a year in a union job, is transformed into a wizard with the ability to:
1- Negotiate a billion dollar drug deal with a stereotyped crafty, unfathomable Chinese Triad boss
2- Has a tremendous facility with numbers
3- Is knowledgeable about international banking, finance, the Asian drug market, crops, weapons systems, customs brokerage, and much much much more ( he can do no wrong, make no false step )
4- Is conversant with, and actively thinks about, Dante, Socrates ( whom he criticizes as arrogant for his admonition to "Know thyself", since knowing oneself is impossible), and Milton's Paradise Lost.
There is no sense of irony to tell us this is all meant as parody. Rather, Toshces presents this in a serious tone, with a lot of "deep" perception from the previously thuggish Johnny, that alerts the reader to the fact that Johnny is really Tosches' representative more than his uncle's; it is the author's concerns put into Johnny's mind, and as such they become, especially in the penultimate chapter, more pretentious than they would have if we had been given a realistic character who was fully developed. Johnny loses all credibility, as does the preposterous plot.
Tosches is very talented. He has done abundant research. With the Chinese Triads he had a good subject that wasn't written to death. But all this was lost under the creaky, potboiler plot and the unbelievable Johnny.
Johnny tells us there is no good or evil, but tries to convince us he's a nice guy anyway. To rationalize shipping billions of dollars of heroin into New York, he says the drug addicts deserve it. "If the scum of humanity craved heroin, so be it. Let the self-oppressors go down together, down to the wasteland of gutted souls and assembly-line minds." And he calls Socrates arrogant?

This is one of the best crime thrillers I've read, and I think that's because it reads like nonfiction -- there's strong emotion and character development, but it's told through the action, the culture, and the settings, not so much by getting into the individual characters' heads. I couldn't put this book down. Tosches' Lower Manhattan locales -- Chinatown, Little Italy -- are right on: gritty, rich with character and history, uniquely beautiful and scary at once. The characters are not-so-loosely based on real figures in NYC organized crime. For fans of journalistic accounts of crime and city life this is a must read.

This had to be one of the most boring books that I have ever read. At 450 pages it seemed like 1,500. The characters are unsympathetic and who lives, who dies, by the time the book is over you don't care anymore. The author uses Italian phrases throughout the book and after the first 10 or 20 it gets especially annoying. I thought that after reading "Dino" I would give Tosches another try. No more.

Seldom have I sign such a strong divergence in reviews on an Amazon site. For those who found the characters wooden or hackneyed, I would refer them back to the scenes of Johnny in the Inglese Gardin in Sicily and how he experiences fear after a vicious attack on his life. I never saw any description of fear and panic as memorable and detailed as Tosches renders in any Mario Puzo novel, or many authors of much better calibre than Puzo.

For those who found the Chinese characters hard to fathom, Johnny's dinner with the character Silk early in the book is one of the best popularized explanations of Chinese history and philosophy you're liked to ever read. And the author's treatment of the differences in Mandarin, Cantonese, and Fujianese rings true. How many readers knew there were 7 different dialects in Chinese, with major tonal and structural differences between them? Outside of native Chinese speakers, very few I would guess. The author provides great insight into this and makes it a key plot element in the meetings between warring Triads.

The novel has tremendous scope; it is very obvious that Tosches has been there and really soaked up the atmosphere. Yes, it is violent, sometimes hyper-violent. But why would you expect the world of people who sell drugs in billion dollar lots not to be?

There are definitely some implausible plot elements. Interestingly, the characters comment indirectly on that point a couple of times in moments of introspection. But nothing that blew up the experience of reading the book.

At the end of the reading, I felt like I had been in every locale, that I knew every character, and that I learned a lot about the Italian, Sicilian, and Chinese languages. I learned a lot of history, which I suspect was a lot more accurate than some of the history in The Da Vinci Code. Finally, I had been on one wild ride!

This is not Pulitzer material, but it is a solid effort with some well turned phrases. There is more atmosphere in this book and than you'll find in 90% of crime fiction. Go get this book if you have any interest in either Italian or Chinese culture and history. You'll be rewarded with many interesting facts while experiencing a cracking good plot.