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I absolutely loved this story. This author has great dialogs, well thought out characters and an awesome story line. This story kept my attention from start to finish and I recommend it to anyone who loves a time travel story with a touch of romance.

The connection the main character feels towards a man who was thought to have committed suicide thirty years before is the link that brings them together through time. Her purpose is to find out the truth in spite of the mans disbelief in who she says she is.

I am looking forward to reading more of this authors work. Nice job.

Reviewed by Vickie, (Tory Lynn, author of My Charming Protector)

I read Lost in the Mist of Time and loved the way the author blended the history with the time travel. I couldn't put this book down, so I decided to read the short story. I wasn't disappointed.

A reporter, Trisha Lancaster is transported back to the 1970's when Dean McCloud, a movie star is making it big. Trisha knows how Dean dies and is determined to save him from certain death. Dean thinks she's cute, but nuts until she tells him things no one else could know. I truly enjoyed this time travel short. I can't wait for her to write another one.

Tricia, a reporter has been dreaming about this movie star, Dean McCloud who committed suicide over thirty years ago. She volunteers to interview all the people who come every year to his house to pay homage. While in his house she falls asleep and travels back in time to see Dean alive and good looking as ever. She realizes she has a chance to stop him from ending his life, only she isn't so sure he's the one who ended it.
This had a great twist to it. Enjoyed the read!

A DVD that perfectly compliments the 'Building the Pod' podcast that Bruce Williams has been putting out for the last 18 months, and one that has been of great help to me when recording my podcast.

This tutorial DVD takes you through each facet of Audition v2. If you're new to PC recording, you'll get a solid understanding of how to record with Audition. Or if you're making the step up to Audition from Audacity (like I did) or another freeware recording app, Bruce provides all the information you need to start using Audition productively.

The UI of the tutorial can be a little cumbersome at times, but the content is gold. Highly recommended.

Bruce McKinnon - TheDogBox Podcast

Bruce is the best! Not only is he an engaging teacher, but brings decades of audio recording experience to the table. This really helps you understand not only what Audition can do for you, but why. Audition can be a intimidating program even for the most seasoned professional, but Bruce takes you through the program and it's interface in nice easy steps. With the advent of podcasting, users really need to learn how this program can greatly improve their sound quality and set your's ahead of the rest. Great job!

The Best video tutorial for AA 2.0, Hands Down! Why? Read!
Bruce Williams guides you through this tutorial and does so with expertise. He has been an audio tech for over twenty years and has been using AA since it's original development, more than seven years ago. He knows this product!
The DVD has a professional look and Bruce uses a building block type of instruction, starting with the basics and progressing through to the many advanced features of AA 2. This DVD is the best place to start if you just picked up AA 2.0 or even if you are an advanced AA user and want to dive into 2.0's advanced features.
Nice job by both Lynda and Bruce!! Good-On-Ya-Mate!

Absolutely excellent!
It takes a special author to bring a story into your heart in such a short period of time. The August Gale does just that. Weaving dialogue, off beat humor, and honesty within the lines as if the reader is peeping in the window of the characters souls.
The mark of a great short story is, do you want more? I say I want to know much more about the O'Leary's because the connection I felt with their complexities, contradictions, and philosphies intrigues me and at the same time baffles me.
I have re-learned words actually have power and after reading The August Gale I will definitely think before I speak.
This short story really has the making of a novel. I hope the author can revist the characters in a longer piece.

Very recently I read Ken Follett's latest book "World Without End". I have discovered I love reading stories from different times and places. And then I found Betty Dobson's Short, "The August Gale". Betty Dobson weaves an entertaining and well-written tale about the O'Leary family. In less than 4,000 words, Betty helped us know the characters. Like another reviewer, Carolyn Howard-Johnson, I wished for more. Betty, maybe this is the beginning of a book.

It's interesting I should come upon "The August Gale" right after I read a book called Rotten English: A Literary Anthology by Dora Ahmad. Don't panic. "Rotten English" is not rotten at all and neither is "The August Gale." "Rotten English" is an anthology of great lieterature written in the vernacular, from Coleridge to Twain to Wolfe. Really written for English Studies classes at colleges, it explains how valuable are authors who help preserve the lilt of language as it is spoken.

Betty Dobson's "The August Gale" certainly does that. The casual reader may not be quite sure where these Irish are living now but we know they are not still in Ireland, that they are living in a remote fishing community and we suspect it may be in Canada. The place names--completely unknown to me--encouraged me to go to a map to learn more.

The story of an immigrant family (rather pertinent right now, don't you think?), this short touches on an amazing number of threads in addition to an immigrant's longing for their home and the preservation of their culture. The author explores the difficulty bound up with aging, the struggle for respect. That story is colored by overtones of religious mores. There are several overlays of family dynamics, as well, I see here the beginning of a novel. There is certainly plenty to think about, plenty to explore. The characters are strongly drawn as well, but I would like to have seen this one in a longer piece with room to describe the fishing village and the struggle with a storm bent on destruction. Dobson is a fine writer. If she wished, she has here the making of a dynamic novel, perhaps one as strong as some of the classics bound up with the sea. We all know their names and how they inform and entertain.
----
Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the This Is The Place, a Sime-Gen Reviewers' Choice winner. It, too, is about a little known culture in North America, one with a voice of its own. She is also the author of a chapbook of poetry, Tracings that explores the longing to belong and was named honored by the Military Writers' Society of America.

Frank Bosworth excels at not only being funny but managing to convey a thoughtful undercurrent. Most humorous writers provide laughs, then switch to serious mode for the "lesson" while Bosworth has the reader shifting between chuckling and howling from beginning to end, but still sends the reader away, pondering the size of the role chance plays in our lives.

Bosworth has a unique and delightful way of presenting the reader
with doses of the wit and wisdom of moments from
everyday life that we often miss while looking backwrd or forward or simply away; in so doing he touches our hearts, opens out eyes and sometimes makes us shed a long awaited tear inside a good hard laugh.!

Loved this entertainingly humorous story of personal success and failure where the author's fate is determined, as is the norm, not by his athletic capabilities, determination or personality, but by another's success or failure. We can all relate to this story as we all wait for our 15 minutes of fame!
Is a must read!!

Yes, yes, mon!

My goodness, and what a line, what a line. Courtesy of that scribe we all know (by now) and admire, Mr. Jack Engelhard.

Indeed, folks, while the "videots" are busy arguing about the merits of banning such pre-Civil Rights movement greats like Papa Hemingway or Mark Twain (aka Samuel Adams) from the annual US high school curriculum for their over-strident use of the "n-word," you betta' believe your bottom dollaz that one wise and saintly teacher is going to have the wit and savvy to be preaching from the pages of Mr. Engelhard's collected canon.

Then again, who knows? Maybe some crackpot in the 22nd-century (will we even get there?) educational hierarchy is going to find some bunk-filled reason to purge the curriculum of even Mr. Engelhard's writings on account of his overabundant use of the "I-word:" Israel.

To them I will always say: FOOEY!

Alright, where was I now...?

Aha! Ach zo! Yet again, the Jack is back folks, with his eleventh installment of his well-spun THE BATHSHEEBA DEADLINE.

Wha'-cho got in here, you ask?

Tons, say I, Frank.

Part 11 is chock-a-block with heroism, bravery, and honor, slapdashed with that most Engelhard-ian of penchants for things of the truly deliciously (may it never end!) carnal. We zoom right back into that moral conundrum par excellence of Jay Garfield's, and his ultimate decision to "be a man" by taking due responsibility for his, um..."charges." More than that hint, I can't tell you. Guess you'll just have to go back to Bereishis (Genesis) and find out what sort of mess the good Jay's gotten himself into.

Alright.

So I'm going to just gonna flick the dust off a few of these note pages o' mine and unsheathe some of Jack's beauts here from Part Eleven:

** note to Sir Jack: William Holden portrayed the lousiest of chiefs of police as Manfred Schreiber (god, we were so naive in those days...an American as a German?--I can just hear the voices in the cheap seats yellling at the top of their lungs, "suspend that disbelief, baybee, SUSPEND IT!) in his 1976 TV movie 21 HOURS AT MUNICH. I thought it was a damn rip-off of a way for the late great actor to make his thespian exit...anyways, as I was saying...

p5 --> Great line: (Am I losing my precious editorial detachment? This is a worry).

p9 --> Another great line: She wore glasses that had gone out of style with Himmler.

p12 --> "This is a code for dump Israel." (LOVED that line!)

ps the F. Scott and King Solomon link? How did you EVER come up with THAT? I'm SO not worthy!

p22 --> Lyla introduced me all around as her editor, not her lover, though I would not have been surprised if some people did the math. (This line resonated with me...I'm still trying to figure out why...I'm going to consult with my yogi tomorrow, and I'm sure I'll be right as rain then. Ohhhhhhmmmmmmm....).



~~~~


If the act of writing were akin to a tabla drum, and words were a beat, then Jack Engelhard would be the Ravi Shankar of the 'zon Shorts world.

Good golly miss molly!

But these 28 pages just "lambada" past you (even in the virtual universe). And I doubly admit that we're potentially entering a danger zone here, Jack. Soon, I'm not going to wish this yarnette to end, as I'm sure plenty of your other readers who've made it this far (wa-salaam-aleikum, peace to ya, bruthaz and sistaz, hehe) feel.

Questions I ask myself as I go about my read:

** how does he manage to do this?
** what does he eat for breakfast?
** why are Montreal-born scribes so goshdarn prodigious? (I, myself, don't count as a native, because I'd only spent six years in the city, and wasn't born there--pshaw!)

I certainly ask myself plenty more questions, but those are a darn fine start. Something on the scale of the old Cadbury's secret (is this a Canadian thing, btw?), and how do they get that Cadubry's caramel into the Caramilk bar?

Never mind...

So here are your orders, private:

** read Part Eleven.
** read all of it.
** savor the words.

DISMISSED!

In the upcoming Part Dozen (12), Jack Engelhard will disprove the oft-bandied about theory that "siz of one is half-a-dozen of the other." NOT!

Hand on the heart,
--ADM in the golden magical and booze-infested post-Communist but mostly politically corrupt, but I say that's okay because this is Central Europe and it's the so-called Czech "Republic" (whatever the heck *that* means!) and it's only a middle power, but full of hot chicks and great beer which I don't even drink by the way, Prague.

Phew...

The kidnappers have demanded Jay, by
name. come to Gaza.
They say they have Phil
(Jay's employee and his lover
Lyla's husband).
Meetings are held all over
the place to debate whether Jay
be sent on such a dangerous mission.
What they don't know is that
Jay is already packed and knows
what he has to do.
He visits his track buddy
(Muslim) and his wife blesses
him in the good old-fashioned
Islamic way as she warns of
impending danger.
Engelhard masterfully takes
us from the wise King Solomon
to Julius Caesar, to Yehuda Halevi,
to Hemingway to Brahms, and
to everything current in today's
Middle East.
As 'briefers' meet Jay,
he is almost oblivious.
Much to their consternation
he has no questions.
(They foolishly think it is
because all of their information
is overwhelming.)
Earlier Jay had been informed by
his love goddess, Lyla, that their
'lovechild' is history.
and that this lovechild, in fact,
may not be his.
As the chapter ends, Jay is being
driven to the airport on his way
to Israel.
It leaves me wondering WHERE,
WHEN, HOW, WHAT and
WILL he come back alive?

If you are not up to date reading this rousing suspense tale, Bathsheba Deadline, order the earlier episodes. This serial novel is worth 10 stars! A lot happens in this installment. Some things are finalized. I had wondered about that baby. Jay Garfield--chief editor of the Manhattan Independent, Lyla's illicit lover, inveterate sports enthusiast, and both reluctant and blasé hero--is off on the adventure of his life. Will he come to terms with his fate? land on his bum? or save the day?

What is Lyla planning to do about the love tangle involving Jay, her husband reporter Phil Crawford covering a story in the middle east, and herself? She mentioned revenge. Lyla and another very different woman, Seena, have endured similar mistreatment from men. One of them reacted in ways that prove the nobility possible in women. What will be the outcome of this tense three-way struggle for freedom of expression, love, and God's direction?

Who among us has had the opportunity to live so fully, to get this close to values that matter and answer questions that shape life? In Bathsheba Deadline the author, Jack Engelhard, sends us on a rocket ship of self discovery.

In each part of Bathsheba Deadline I
learn more and more.
No, it's not like a school experience.
Rather it's enjoyable learning!
"Can anyone stand the glare of his own pathways?" the author asks.
He takes us into the everyday machinations
of Jay's newsroom, from the mundane
to the ever-present dilemmas.
What Jay has to contend with in his own
personal everyday life drives him.
His 'love' for Lyla goes from torturing
him to making him ecstatic.
Isn't that the truth!
The reader takes a course in current
events, politics, the racetrack,
Tom Cruise, etc.
The Middle East, especially Israel
and her current situation
(I mean today), holds much of
the intrigue of this
marvelous work.
At times Phil's guilt is palpable,
as is his lust for the woman
carrying his child.
It affects him so much that he
can almost forget that he's
the one (partially) responsible
for sending Phil, her husband,
into harm's way.
This, even though he knows that he
went quite willingly and happily,
as a Muslim convert, to cover Gaza.
Meanwhile Lyla will do just about
everything for the Salinger interview,
with Jay willing to pay $1 mil.
We are taken to the Ethics
of the Fathers-Pirkei Avos and the
story of the 36.
"It's not for you to complete the task,
only to persist."
They were wise words then and are wise
words now.
In some summers of my youth I went to Monticello, to the trotters.
Yes, it's different then the racetrack.
In both venues however, the horses
are magnificent giant masterpieces.
The ending had me rush to view a
spectacular Full Moon here in
Northern Calif beseeching the author
for just one more paragraph PLEASE.
I CAN HARDLY WAIT!!

*** Ooh-rah! ***

Engelhard Strikes Back, mesdames et messieurs, in this tenth--that's right, 10th--installment of the THE BATHSHEBA DEADLINE decalogue. Kieslowski, sorry for the sandy sandwich Late-Great One, but you're going to have to ostrich it for a wee bit more while Mr. Engelhard replaces you in the annals of revealing all of life's secrets.

Inside these pages, the plot is as thick as summertime borscht. Part 10 is full to the brim with vim-fuls of yummy story twists and turns, analogies aplenty, and par-for-the-Engelhardian course stuffed with quick quips and funky lil' wordy zingers.

I get the impression one has to have lived on this third planet from the sun for quite some time for one to arrive at this obvious level of comfort with Hemingway's craft.

When Engelhard promised us "the mother of all thrillers," he wasn't pulling your karnatzel. If you were standing in these protagonists' shoes, papito, you'd be a shake-rattlin'-and-rollin', and that wouldn't be on account of bedbugs, the runs from scoffing too much Olestra-laden products, or the name of that disease which makes the same sound as when one hand collides with the other while you're doing a standing-o during a rapturous thank-you following a magnificent stage rendition of Aida. Catch my drift?

As I was saying...with sentences as malleable as these, I'm going to ring Gumby on his Verizon and tell him to hightail it outta' Dodge. Feast your peeps on these gems, folks, then listen to your grey matter slosh around in cerebal ecstasy when you listen to these positively dee-lish little one-timers:

** on p3 --> "...all that after some sixty years of silence, which proves once again that you can run but you can't hide..." (in reference to that obsessively clean kraut, Gunther "Smokin' In the Boys Room" Grass).

WHOOMP!

** on p6 --> "This--the workplace--is where we really live, now in America."

BADDA BOOM!

** on p11 --> "It is not for you to complete the task, only to persist." (This marks the first time that Pirkei Avot is making its star-studded debut on the Amazon Shorts program. Like Bogey said to Sam, play it again, baby. Nice going J to the E!)

BOFFO!

** on p11 still --> "He will be alright once he quits being sore at the world of book publishing and finds other sources of injustice, of which there is no end."

THWACK!

** on p20 --> "I'd been hit in the balls all over again." (Read it and weep, ladies and gentlemen! Get to that point in this half-a-buck steal, of a read and then tell me if you get that same queasy feeling in your nethers, m'kay?).

SIS-BOOM-BAH!

** on p25 --> "...the signs that said NO SMOKING did not dissuade Kuana in this place where men were men and so were the women."

Gosh...I'm breathless...somebody STOP me!


^
^
^
^

Makes total sense to me...how about you?

I just can't get enough of this author...yet I'm afraid to tell him so. It's only under ideal gestating conditions that this scribe of such books as renown as INDECENT PROPOSAL can actually churn out such hush puppies, and I ain't gonna be the first man to press his buttons.

A Jack Engelhard Short has its own sort of siren-like rhythms.

A Gregorian chant for the literarily-addled.

His words, instead of a college cram session after an all-night bender--ask Dubyah about those, folks, since I'm sure he knows a thing or three--rather act as a soothing balm, a vapo-rub (of sorts) that's generously applied by some lovely glamour-puss with pink-painted finger- and toenails, complete with juicy bazooms and a bubble posterior to match...but alas, this is also a kids' site.

What more do you want to know?!

THE BATHSHEBA DEADLINE is a dead ringer for all previous parts of THE BATHSHEBA DEADLINE!

Uhuh, if you don't read this, you do so at your own peril! Fine then, g'head, suffer from that eyestrain as you opt to dig through those weedy, windbaggy, unpolished, sendimentary layers of neo-prose which belong to the less-accomplished scribes.

You can always try to take your own advice...just when you come back runnin' looking for bettere and more golden-spun prose, the likes of which is monographed with a "JE," don't you get peeved when I giggle "I told you so."

Gawd, 'beav, this is what it's all about.

THE BATHSHEBA DEADLINE is what I used to dream about at the witching hour back at that Ivy League institution of higher learning when I thought I'd be much bigger than I really am today. :::Achoo! ::: That's me sneezing here on the late-shift at janitor's technical school.

Jack KNOWS.

High time you found out for yourselves, kids.

I'm out (but only for now).

-- ADM in the Golden City of Prague

Who-hah!

I am in awe of Jack Engelhard's ongoing novel "The Bathsheba Deadline." Part 10, like all previous episodes, is an amazing inner dialogue by Jay, the Chief Editor at the Manhattan Independent. He lives simultaneously in the real world, with his finger on the news, and in his mind, which is full of doubts, questions, and anxiety. Jay expresses what we glimpse in our life but fear to admit. He is an everyman but well read, thoroughly informed, opinionated, charming, macho, and gullible about women.

The Bathsheba Deadline is filled with names and places taken from the front pages of the international press and Media Establishment. It's an education! In Part 10, I also relished Jay's quiet time spent at the race track. I could almost hear, see, and smell the satisfying vision of a perfect place where all that really matters is the quality of our work of the moment. Engelhard is a true craftsman who can create a momentary truth and an eternal verity that occur at the same time.

The story's love triangle is compelling: Will Jay and his lover Lyla find happiness? Will Lyla's journalist husband in the middle east survive? We can only wonder and anxiously await Part 11.

To the astonishment of the readers of BARRON'S, the financial magazine, this week its editor suggested the impeachment of President George W. Bush. A comment from "The Bathsheba Deadline - Part 3" made by Jay Garfield, editor at the Manhattan Independent, comes to mind: "It's the unfit who survive and are in charge. "Bathsheba" takes place now and is about us and our place in the world.

"The Bathsheba Deadline - Part 3" moves fast, opens with Jay and Lyla gambling and sexing in Atlantic City. The scene is enjoyably sleazy. Lyla plays at being bad, threatens to strip tease in public and starts a bar room brawl. Is she itching for trouble or has she watched too many John Wayne movies? Is she trying to destroy herself before her husband Phil Crawford can? Writers, all literary people including critics because their reality is language, are voyeurs. Is Lyla watching herself so she can write about it? When a woman, (here Lyla) can't figure out whether she wants to be a nun or a prostitute, the problem is not about her, but about her power over men. She reminds us of times when we women have used men as thorns to hurt ourselves and spears to hurt others.

Jay, a newsman to the core, like a nervous tic, searches the TV for bits of news he can fashion together to make sense of current events. We all do the same, search the smile of Paula Zahn and others to decipher a world filled with daily violence. Staying informed is our substitute for hope. Jay is a newsman who thinks. It makes him feel uncomfortable, but he thinks about his actions and their consequences. He thinks about America and the direction we are headed. He may not be as smooth as an Edward R. Murrow or astute yet touchingly human as a Walter Cronkite, but he is part of their continuum. He shares their hopes for a better America.

Part 3 of "The Bathsheba Deadline", takes on the topics of women's lib, gay rights, and the humanizing role of American journalism, writ global on the Internet. Are women being objectified, as some feminists say, in men's writing? In this episode, a powerful woman book editor dumps, young reporter Sam Cleaver's new novel because it supposedly objectifies women. Sam wonders, has Women's Lib come to being nasty, cruel, and humorless? Personally, I have never objected to being a sex object. With the right person, the more the better! Although I don't go as far as Gore Vidal who said we should never pass up a chance to have sex or appear on television.

Do we really and truly care what men write about us? Isn't it more about how we women treat men and each other? How can Lyla or any of us, take on a survival role with or without men and avoid becoming course and cynical? If we lose ourselves to rhetoric, we objectify ourselves.

Gay pride? "Proud of what?" Jay asks his `Gay Talk' columnist Vernon Pickins. "Proud that you stick it here and I there? We are just different. That's all." Jay's comment may sound like asking a black person, "Now that things are equal, did they really dislike slavery?" Things are not that equal. Issues of sexual and personal freedom are still controversial in a world that is coming unraveled in living color on the TV screen.

Meanwhile, with Middle East bombs exploding in the background, Part 3 gains speed and turns into the home stretch when Phil Crawford, Lyla's reporter husband converted to Islam and sent on a potentially dangerous spy mission to Newark by Jay, calls Jay on his cell phone. Phil may be in danger. Jay, who may inherit Lyla, is not sure what he wants and which end is up. We readers are left struggling on a page like an insect pierced by the writer's genius. We are gasping, waiting for our next breath, the next installment. If you missed Parts 1 and 2 of this exciting series- catch up! They are available now only on Amazon.com.

by Letha Hadady, author of Asian Health Secrets and co-author of Three in Love

I'm not merely impressed, but in awe, of how many threads of vital issues Jack Engelhard has woven together in The Bathsheba Deadline: An Original Novel.

Yet the weave is not too tight, allowing the reader spaces for interjected contemplation, providing effective repetition of subplots to prevent unraveling of wayward strings. The result of the multitude of multicolored threads finessed into a gentle weave is a kaleidoscopic tapestry of an entertaining tale which should be terrifying and depressing by content, but it's not.

THE BATHSHEBA DEADLINE runs rhythmically through its plot and subplots building a barely-there type of hope, which is confirmed, rather than diminished by Jay Garfield's last line, a cautious response coming across as hauntingly inevitable as it was exquisitely honest.

That is what I had felt as a child (a clean, quiet hope), from red-votive-candles flickering in the church at night (for background on this, see my review on The Bathsheba Deadline - Part 1).

Yet, all the while that I was feeling that peaceful sense of rightness to come, I was wondering about possible discounts of that feeling and vision:

Why would an image from my Catholic past intrude on a novel which would more likely have Jewish spiritual symbolism (which has always fascinated me). I didn't know yet about Garfield's Catholic mother.

Every word in this novel, alone and by its placement within phrase, syntax, paragraphing... speaks of power, full-on and brilliant. The reader is set to receive those searing spotlights willingly (more like with craving), within a strange type of comfort, within what could almost be described as light entertainment, ironically so. Engelhard's composing style, and gentle use of constant contrast ("This, but that, too") seem to serve as a continual release of the bondage of powerlessness... which sometimes arrives from setting in concrete a belief or stand, before the time has come to do so. I see this "light" touch as essential, since what the author is exposing through Jay Garfield is a world, now and through history, which should, by all rights, be irrevocably hopeless.

I believe Engelhard could accomplish this release for readers through fiction or through his type of journalism, as he chose.

In this wholeness of effect Jack Engelhard has transcended the literary greats (who too often begin and end with nothing beyond eloquently detailed depression, period) by painting the elemental forms of profanity and powerlessness within a delicately developed, syntactic paradigm of a not overdone, barely-there, sense of hope for redemption, a sense of joy in the power of a soul connected to the Height of Good... even if It's WAY way up there somewhere, barely reachable beyond all the ozone layers and holes in the Universe, beyond the broadest rainbow... yes it was a HUMAN who stole the ONLY pot of gold... and it wasn't John Galt!

For me, the most potent segment of this novel is the segment journeying to Jerusalem, then being there. Within that pilgrimage and setting, this novel's power explodes and implodes, within an uncanny dynamic balance, coming to catharsis through the scene in the motel room in the middle of the night... the sense of a presence... the shadowed, mirrored image of a tall, thin, bearded man... the gifting, discovery, and working into acceptance of the blessed cane.

That scene had the seated feel of having been lifted from a lucid dream Engelhard may have had, around which he may have written this book, the dream serving as a quantum kernel of hope seeded within the essence of horror. The whole of that scene felt like touching a spiritual force, delicately but absolutely, like touching a purity of potency which is not limited to any religion, book, or viewpoint, possibly not to be as easily found in any of those, as through the individual soul of each human being.

Yet, it seemed so very appropriate to me that Jay Garfield would touch that through his father's heritage, and share it from that paradigm. The icons and images of religious trappings, talismans, and traditions can exude a healing, mesmerizing magic. This can be good, as can an un-tethered soul in solitary search.

After reading those Jerusalem segments, and contemplating them in the middle of my night, I was able to clarify what I saw in BATHSHEBA's connection to the votive candles.

The Cane and the Candle.

Realizing this cane and candle connection, I was sparked to see those images artistically overlapped in a painting of spirit-in-oils. I was surprised that I couldn't hold the symbols together in the same visual, tactual space. It almost felt that they needed to be kept separate to avoid breaking down a reality, a reality which is working both those icons, and more like them, from different spiritual kaleidoscopes. Yet, it would be interesting to see them together in a painting, if that were possible. Only a high artist could do it. Not that this is necessary, as this novel has staged the symbolism already.

I can easily recreate my vision of the votive flickering... or I can call up Jay's vision of the shadowed presence in the mirror (felt like a rabbi from higher realms) and the cane.

What I felt in the red-votive flickers, the night before writing my review of part 1 of this series paralleling the novel, THE BATHSHEBA DEADLINE, was a welcome memory of my few times as a child and a teen, when I would go alone to the Catholic church at night and sit in a middle pew on the right, breathing the spiritual presence, focusing on the candle collections, always lit. Sometimes I would kneel by the candles and pay my coins to the box, to light a votive and watch the flame for a long, peaceful time. I enjoyed being in the church alone at night much more than I enjoyed the Masses with their Holy Words (they were supposed to be holy, were to me then, but I don't quite see some of the meanings that way now) voiced, read, and prayed, among the day's light and crowds.

Lots more I want to draw to consciousness and express, from the reading of this novel, but I'll pause here, and note with confidence that Jack Engelhard manages the medium of the novel expertly indeed, as he also does journalism and op-eds. He is, beyond doubt, an Nth degree, mastered professional of the effective use of words.

I'll repeat in closing that The Bathsheba Deadline: An Original Novel is an awesome work of literary art. It has brilliantly, crisply captured our deadly world in its ugliest, dirtiest descents. Yet somehow the novel's gestalt drifts constantly into a barely perceived beauty, drifting ironically through a looking-glass darkly, using a simple, yet subtly-sophisticated syntax, voiced within the deeply-rhythm-ed Songs of Israel (and relentless clacking of dedicated Underwoods).

With greatest respect for those among us who walk with words,
Linda Shelnutt

Shelnutt is the author of several Kindle books, including MYRTLE'S ULTIMATE MYSTERY; including The Books of Gem: THE ROSE AND THE PYRAMID, FULL MOON RISING, NEW MOON BLUES, QUARTER MOON DUES; including in Amazon Shorts a serialized novel, MORNING COMES The Pre Dawn Blues (Book 2 in The Books of Gem); including a nonfiction series based off the Gem Books: MOLASSES MOON, and SLIDING DOWN MOON BEAMS; including a VISCERAL HISTORY (my term) series of short true stories featuring the mining industry in a small town in Colorado.

So I'm going to start off this review with a quote from page thirty of this story...it pretty much encapsulates the spirit of the present Middle East crisis:

"Meantime, there'd been another phone call from Phil Crawford, who was showing signs of panic out there in Newark, at that mosque that was supposed to serve as his rehearsal for going out as a combat journalist in Israel, or rather the West Bank, or Gaza, whichever still belongs to Israel at that moment. With Israel, you never knew, they kept giving land away so fast. Today it's ours, tomorrow it's yours. They were worried about Iran's nuclear intentions? Why? They were busy enough destroying themselves from the inside, these Israelis."

Wow...what a line...

Here's a totally unrelated question: Is the word "alright" or "all right?" I've never been able to get that one straight, as I've seen it in so many different places in print spelled either way. Oh well...

Another great line from this segment, courtesy of the Talmud (which tractate is this from in the Gemara?):

"It is not for you to complete the task, only to persevere."

And why do they call it a tractate?

Is there any reason for this? Sounds something to me akin to "lustration law," for the catching of former regime spies. Although this has nothing to do with each other, I think you know what I mean...or perhaps you don't?

I've settled into a total rhythm with this THE BATHSHEBA DEADLINE...and I'm going to be sad when I get closer to the end. Jack *really* knows how to string two sentences together, and what makes his material so enjoyable is that he knows about SO MUCH!

He knows so much about New York, he knows so much about the Middle East, and he knows an equally large amount about the practice of journalism.

You'll read these (up until now nine segments) and be locked right in there with the rest of the news staff, dealing with their struggles, rolling with their punches, embroiled in their petty squabbles and rumourmongering, engaged in the larger decisions one has to make...the ones which Managing Editor Jay Garfield is faced with daily (especially concerning how to deal with the aforementioned rival, the newly Muslim Phil Crawford).

Fat chance if you think I'm going to play spoiler here...not going to happen.

My best advice to you: Start at Part One and prepare to be wowed all by your lonesome. I'd love to tell you what to expect, but I've got another six parts I'd like to feast my peepers on, and I'm jonesing to get to the bottom of it all.

I remain,
ADM in Prague

What the author has masterfully done, is take a modern-day torrid love affair, and bring us back to the times of King David.
And lest we forget, he quotes the Talmud!
He's great at making the nexus of the ancient to the modern.
He mentions a father and son, a Rabbi and a Cardiologist, from Cincinnati, who coincidentally, are direct descendents of King David (without skipping a generation!), and their one-two punch, in the rescue and healing of a people.
With the newsroom antics, mini-dramas and dramas increasing, Hamas is looming in the background.
The author moves us along quickly.
I am left with WHO? WHY? WHERE? WHAT? and
WHEN?
Want to know about current events, terror in the world, and worldly people who make the news?
Read the Bathsheba Deadline.

...so then all I want to know is what are you going to do for an encore? I mean, if these Shorts are any indication, then what's left for the longer treatment? Can someone please tell me? Anyone? Bueller?

~~~~

Alright (or all right?), so let's begin with the quotables:

** "You mean Israel, Phil. There is no Palestine."

** "I let my pipe do some thinking." (<--- great line. Don't know why, but it was a great line.)

** Samuel Beckett: "I can't go on. I will go on."

** "Did Beethoven know he was Beethoven?"

~~~

So what else do we have going on here...

These were some of the questions I'd had following my read:

Loved the synagogue scene! Does this happen all the time? Is there any credence in the States to the reality that eventually, in the second decade of the 21st century, we're not going to have a Jewish population in the US? We've already passed the differential of more Jews in Israel than Jews in America...so will there be Jews living in America -- who will gladly refer to themselves as Jews and indicate thusly on the census form -- by 2020? It's a question...something I'd like to ask, and maybe Jack or someone else can answer.

Is there more than a simple rote answer as to why Zionist Christians are so pro-Israel, and it's got to have to do more than just the Second Coming of a man called J-Rock?

I love the change up from the typical cliche that the Muslim man would slap his woman -- in this case not.

Onto Part Seven! Mush, mush!

-- ADM in Prague

The author gives us a History lesson, a Current Events class, a class on what is happening in the Middle East and the precarious situation facing Israel. (surrounded by 22 extremely hostile neighbors, some who control more then 60% of the world's oil), a class on Islam and its control over and lack of respect for women.
And when Hamas has its way, women will be covered from head to toe, with only slits for eyes to see.
Then he adds English Literature and Classical Music to the mix!
And the reader is even taken to a Conservative Temple in Jersey for some local 'politics' and a debate with the paper on a new Prayer Book.
His characters continue to grow and they weave in and out of their sub-plots.
The love triangle, brings us back once again to King David, and it grows in new ways and branches out.
Jay's humanity toward Phil is good, and he is grateful that Phil is safe. (Is he truly safe and is he truly grateful?)
And, in the end, comes his woman, wanting his baby, so her husband (who is now 'safe') will have to kill her, according to the teachngs of Islam. Remember, the one referred to as the religion of 'peace and love.'
What will happen next?
When will it happen?
Who will it happen to?
Where will it happen?
I AM LEFT IN A STATE OF ANTICIPATORY ANXIETY AND EXCITEMENT!

How does King David get to be the wise and heroic king we know from the Bible? He may not look like Gregory Peck but he had better be commanding. A wise king makes balanced decisions based on judgements concerning justice, equality, and respect for the individual. This is an ideal that few kings achieve. In Bathsheba Deadline Part 6, our David--Jay Garfield--known as the last of the two-fisted newspaper men, has to see all sides in the thorny love triangle involving himself, his lover Lyla, and her husband Phil.

Lyla is no tough, demanding Susan Hayward who holds back her kisses until Peck promises marriage or at least considers it in the movie version of Daivd and Bathsheba. Lyla is needy, her husband Phil weepy and obtuse. Jay plays Papa-lover to Lyla, friend to Phil, and king to the Manhattan Independent the newspaper where they work. What happened to Lylas career? She raked Jay over the coals with that in the last installment. Now she has a new scheme. Oh, woman, you are a delicious torturer.

Jack Engelhard never lets the suspense drop, not for a minute. What can happen next? Engelhard gives us entertaining reading with a birds eye view of the eternal man/woman thing and happenings in the Middle East.
What could be more up to date?

Letha Hadady
www.asianhealthsecrets.com

Nine seems to be the Magic Engelhard Number, mesdames et messieurs.

With this latest installment, the author seems to have left us in something of a lacuna, a bind, a funk, a groove...I'm jonesing for a final installment here which signals the coda and a solution to this smart little caper with hints of Jack's previous work, Indescent Proposal.

Mind you, on the other hand, I'm not too sure I'd enjoy being spoonfed the rest of this narrative -- Jack's smooth as yoghurt (or is it yogurt?...I never seem to get those two straight) on this one by not giving us the full enchilada...like a creature in heat, we're going to be panting for the rest of this tale, and dareisay that this is the better approach?

I think I've just raised the hackles of my distinguished Following...

Moving right along to my nifty quotables...and there were a nice grab-bag of 'em on this little go-'round, sure enough:

~~~~

** "Still, to this day, he'd never allow a woman in or near the ring. That Clint Eastwood movie about a woman boxer, Million Dollar Baby, was sacrelige." (<-- aw shucks, Jaques, this was a great flick!)

** "But it made no difference as people believe what they want to believe and it's more convenient to hate than to love." (<--- ADM: So. Bloody. True.)

** "Temptation," said Jimmy. "That's why we cover up our women." -- "That's no answer. That only says that men have no control over their emotions. We fear our own impulses and blame women for our weaknesses. That's pathetic." (<--- ADM: I touch your feet, Hindustani-style.)

** "We weep for horses because they are surrogates of our innocence lost." (<--- ADM: If that wasn't Hemingway himself, this mini-riff of yours, bubs, then I don't know what was. Stupendous, t'was!)

** "You can tell the truth by a comparion of the lies."

** "If only I could knock that out with one punch."

** "...given all the correcting being done in our culture so that soon enough we'd have no culture."

** "How many Cambodians had to dieso that Pol Pot could have peace? (Twenty percent of the population).

** "I love you, Jay. Can you get me a gun?" -- "That's a terrible literary transition, Lyla. You should know better."

** "Jay, the world is going to hell anyway. What a dump! Who is there to judge us?

~~~

So as you can see, Engelhard was up to the task in this final arrivederci until his next post. When, when, when Jack? We're dyin' out here!

So finally, now I viscerally understand the complaints of some of the other Reviewers who I've spoken to who have literally been on the edge of their seats begging for Jack Engelhard-ian reprieve....when will Part Ten arrive?

(My advice to Jack: Never release it! Keep it for the novel. We'll all buy it, rest assured! It's your best strategy...don't give into the temptation...)

What a great series this is/was/will be?

My choice for the role of Jay Garfield? Definitely has to be Daniel Day-Lewis. Long shot? Christian Bale, and that's if he's available, and that's a BIG if...or you can even slot Liev Schreiber in there as well...though he might be too "attractive" for his own good, Jay's a bit more of a rough and tumble type, like the Italian officer from Hemingway's THE SUN ALSO RISES.

Lyla? Oh...you've a veritable (moveable?, if we're already on the Papa Hemingway tip) feast here...someone sassy and smooth. What's that girl's name from Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind...Kate Winslet...now there's a hot Lyla. She'd do accents well. She'd bring your budget some bang for the bucks, and more than a fair share of the greenbacks.

Okay, okay, don't get your knickers in a knot, folks! I'm merely suggesting...want to know if Jack's already been entertaining the adaptation offers...? Hmmm....inquiring minds want to know.

Gripping the gunnels...waiting for Part Ten.

-- ADM in Prague

Jay, his boss, will tell a joyous
Phil (Lyla's husband who is pregnant
by Jay) that he is going
to explosive Gaza.
It is a place where Arabs kidnap,
murder and maim Jews as a way of life.
How convenient if he would
just disappear over there.
He has already been in touch with
the Imam of Gaza who will personally
welcome him and look after him.
He naively asks Jay to stop
calling the Hamas and Arab terrorists terrorists.
Jay has other issues to deal with:
According to Trotsky, you can
tell the truth by a comparison of
the lies, the author tells us.
Lyla wants a gun for protection and, if necessary, to kill her husband.
We go back to the horse races:
This time The Preakness where
Jay confides to his Muslim
track buddy about the "tape."
The author is so gifted that
I actually saw the sad race of
the favorite for a second time
by reading Engelhard.
He taught me more about punting.
Jay also has a restraining order
against him by his Ex:
His son, after a visit with
him and boxing,
came home with the ('manly')
bloody nose.
Jay is also involved in a very
public dispute with a high-profile
TV anchor who lies.
And if that were not enough, Lyla
insists he go back to work to get
their "tape" before they go to the
hotel love-nest.
Down deep, does she really
yearn to get caught (again),
as they throw caution to the wind?
IT's ALL HEATING UP: GAZA KIDNAPPERS OR CAUGHT
(AGAIN)?

The Bathsheba Deadline Part 9 opens with mob-rule and imminent conflict in Gaza. It's time for Jay Garfield, chief editor at the Manhattan Independent, to send his romantic rival, Phil Crawford, to cover the action in the Middle East. Maybe it will get Phil his Pulitzer, Jay rationalizes. At the same time, Jay thinks that if God not Allah is on his side, Phil may not return.

Phil, his wife Lyla, and Jay form the eternal triangle, with Lyla playing a dual role--voluptuous temptress and potential killer. "Eat my apple," she swoons to Jay. Meanwhile, rancor at her husband Phil over his conversion to Islam makes her conceal a knife in her purse. Lyla's sexuality is sharp edged. She thrills to be hurt during sex and revels at being caught in the act. This girl's turn-on is violent. She wants to own a gun, maybe against Phil, who makes feeble attempts to treat her in the manner expected by his Imam. Maybe for the feel of steel against her skin. All this comes with a smile and a sweater that shows her nipples.

We are seduced along with Jay. Lyla is beautiful, elegant, and deadly. She corroborates our slick Media Age of double-talk, easy violence during prime time, and a mind-dulling acceptance that comes when we ought to feel pain. The latest episode of the Bathsheba Deadline offers fast action, suspense, and intriguing commentary on today's Media Establishment and hot personalities, including Cinnamon Stillwell, the "9/11 Republican" who manages to write for both Left and Right Net newspapers. Hey, what's this babe got up her sleeve?

Letha Hadady
www.asianhealthsecrets.com

I have in fact had my heart broken. I was uncomfortable at Mark Ellis's ability to tap into that pain. When we are in that much pain and isolation... Oh, I am not a writer, but thank God Mark Ellis is.

Mark Ellis' story really gets to the truth of its main character and how he feels about his life. A lyrical gem.

Some people survive literal shipwrecks. For some, the running aground, listing to starboard and sinking beneath the waves is emotional. Having never personally experienced either, these kind of stories are somewhat abstact but always interesting. The biggest difference being that emotional shipwrecks are happening all around us and we never really know it. "The Beach at Newport" does a good job of uncovering one man's attempts at salvaging the hull of his heart or at least learning to live with it buried in the sand like the Peter Iredale or the New Carissa, wrecked but still alive. Read this story if you are a fellow survivor or if you, like me, like discovering old, wave-tossed hearts - examining them - and tossing them back into the ocean.