Operators Books

I thought this would be a fun read but I was wrong. The story is slow and I didn't identify with any characters enough to care about the outcome. I feel like Marla was incredibly nosy and didn't like her at all. I don't think I'll be reading anything else from the series.

I can deal with all the stuff about Marla and Dalton and Brianna and all Marla's other problems, but............, I read these types of books for entertainment and did NOT enjoy suddenly reading about animals and the cruel way they are treated by the animal testing done in labs. If I want to read about this topic I will search out serious news stories. This was most upsetting when reading late at night just before going to bed. I understand that this testing exists but I don't think this is the place for it. It really turned me off to this series.

For the most part, the book is good. I enjoyed the beauty shop atmosphere. But cockroach cookies? Not exactly my idea of cozy. It took away my appetite for oatmeal raisin cookies, and I haven't eaten any since I read the book. There are two things that keep me from giving the book 5 stars: the cockroach cookies and Tammy. Otherwise, I would have given the book 5 stars. It would have been a low 5, but a 5 nonetheless. (A low 5 is still higher than a 4.)

I have to agree with the other reviewers who did not care much for this book. I had to force myself to finish it. I did not care about any of the characters, did not like the main character (Marla), she is catty, doesn't like children, but pretends to care about the daughter of her "possible" love interest, the detective. Made me want to tear my hair out. The Yiddish, the "Bless my bones," the weak story... not my cup of tea. Try any of the books in Ann George's "The Southern Sisters" series instead.

I have to agree with the other reviewer, it is annoying that the main character calls everybody "pal." She is catty and snotty, not fun. She goes around telling everybody they need to come to her and get a REAL haircut or highlights, and trying to snarf up business for her manicurist. In her head she comments on everybody's hair and makeup. CATTY!
What's more, the title of this novel gives everything away. I knew by page 25 whodunit, which was annoying. The person who wrote that there were no clues about the murderer's identity didn't read carefully enough, it was so obvious.
The Yiddish in the book is cloying and useless. If anybody called me a "shayna madel" I would yell at them to speak English. It's dumb and unnecessarily jarring.
The characters are plastic and act like morons. Everybody acts like they hate everybody else but have nothing better to do than get their hair cut or buy a bagel.
The police lieutenant she is interested in has a daughter, and Marla (the main character) is nasty and patronizing to her, and insists she doesn't want to be the mother of an already-there child. She acts like the child is a piece of dirt on her shirt to be brushed off. The police leiutenant is stand-offish in one chapter, leering in another, and obtuse in another chapter. Multiple personality, much?
Please don't waste your time or money on this book. It is without a doubt the worst book I have ever seen put into print.

The book about Glen Rogers is well written but I personaly think that maybe if he did these things that he was having black outs. The book was well written and your heart had to out to these women. You can feel the loss that their family feels the horror of it all happening. I write to Glen also and I think that there is more to the story.

I was facinated with the main character. I have seen many high school boys like him. Sad.

well this book was good until about 3 quarters of the way through then it just got tedious and i actually skipped pages!! i read these types of books all the time and theres a few things i must say. first what happened to the rest of the girls that were killed?? i mean they talked about 1 conviction so how am i to know what happened to the other cases because really i cant say oh yes this guy did it if the author didnt even tell us what happened to the other victims(as far as court)! now i have to go search the net now to see if im missing something! thats something the author forgot to tell us. 2nd why was so many pages spent on extradition? who cares?!?!?!? it couldve been done in 2 pages and then there was some tiny blurb at the end about what happened at trial, almost like the author ran out of time and paper!! i didnt get that because although i dislike too much rambling done in books about trials i do like more that a he is guilty he got death! there shouldve been at least 40 pages spent on that. other than the end i thought the book was pretty good but i now that i feel i got jipped at the end i dont recomend this book or the author as i feel the writing was very mediocre.

How boring. I agree with one of the other reviewers who said it was written over and over about Glenn's drinking habits. Who cares? We got the picture...he was a nasty drunk. Want good true crime....."An Hour to Kill", "Dead and Buried" or "Salt of the Earth".

I don't usually feel so strongly about a book that I take the time to write a review, but I do feel that other potential readers must be warned!
I can tell you that I made it all the way to Page 150 before I abandoned the mission of trying to finish this book.
The author was really beating a dead horse (yes, the pun was intended) with his use of cliche's and in his descriptions of Rogers and his victims. For example, how many times do I have to be informed of how much Rogers drank, what he drank and what his reaction was to all of which he drank? The author also goes off on little rants that really aren't relavant to what is really going on (like going into an in-depth history of "Carnies") and his over-use of adjectives really got on my nerves. At one time, a description of the victim and a crime scene was given and all I could think was "Was this actually written in the reports?".
Who edited this book, anyway? And exactly who was the intended audience? This story could have really been interesting, but the entire thing read like a badly written magazine article.

This was in no way worth any of the money I paid for. It gave general information on how to open a business. There was little to nothing discussed about the particulars of being a tour operator. And what was discussed was plain common sense. I have since purchased a number of books for a few dollars more that were light years better than this.

i read tour operator. My mom help me start a fishing tour business later. I now have my first group. I can't wait for summer.

It's not even a book. You will get a 20 page leaflet with about 5 sentences per page. It's a joke.

If I could rate it 0 stars I would. I recently purchased this book and can say that it was not worth the low price. Even though it will only take you all of 15 minutes to read this book, those are 15 minutes you went get back. This book is about as basic as could possibly be and seems more on the level of a "How To" guide for a second graders "Career Day" book report. It is so basic it is useless. Avoid it and spend your money elsewhere.

Not only to for start your own tour business. I use book to help start a day trip tour program for seniors at my adult care center early this summer. I organized a chinese-language tour to Las Vegas from Monterey Park, Ca. It worked. My first time organizing and leading a tour. Everyone fun. Good book for someone who need only basic tour planning and budgeting education. I do not recommend if you are in a tour college program to go work for bigger tour company.

I had to prepared an introduction course on SCADA system. This book by himself is a complete course. I had no trouble to find information and build a 3 days course to engineer learner. They were very satisfy with the contents of this book. Thank you for your sugestion to purchase it.

This book is NOT suited for electrical engineers who want to learn SCADA. It is, however, adequate for business men or managers who would like to acquire a general (very general indeed)understanding of SCADA terminology. Themes within the book are treated superficially sometimes, with a greater depth in others (such as when addressing protocols) that is not consistent nor coherent. I do not recommend this book for a Power Systems Engineer, student of such systems, or any electric or electronic engineer that wishes to understand SCADA.

Info: I read the 3rd edition what was published in 2004.

General: The book is easy to read and does not keep repeating itself. The chapters are ordered in a way that seems logical.

Bookcontent:
70% of the book has nothing to do with SCADA but is informing you on ways of communicating, which can be used for SCADA. This part was written in a time that a 1200 baud modem was state of the art equipment AND THAT WAS NOT 2004! The rest of the book gives you a global idea what the difference is between RTU's and MTU's and what they can do. Based on the fact that the communication part is completely outdated this will be as well. It did not give me any additional information on what I already new.

For training technicians, this book provides an excellent introduction to how SCADA systems work. Most of the more detailed system information requires training and manuals from specific vendors who usually provide good information on their products but little in the way of a system-wide view.

I found this book to contain mostly dated, simplistic information and believe it to be unsuitable for an engineer. It will NOT advance the expertise of anyone with even minor expertise in this field. I'm stunned that it has ISA backing and is a second edition. Don't waste your time on this book unless you need only a casual, conceptual understanding of this subject.

The book is good written. It cover the basic and littlebit more on leadership. A quite detailed on how to write a "warning order" which I had never seen before. It also cover movement outside but not on how to move indoors. Anyway all this should be known to an new Team leader and like someone elses wrote it is littlebit to basic. If you have never learn any leadership at all -read it. If you are interested in planning there is better books.
3 Stars just becuase it is good written otherwise it should be a 2 star.
An other book on planning is M.Lonsdale-RAIDS

The author covered the basics very well, but it is very basic to have the word "Leadership" in the title. This book would be good for a new operator, but anyone with tactical experience should be looking for another book. Experienced tactical operators will find this book decent for review, but not much else.

This book is not applicable to American tactical law enforcement. It seems most of the book was copied straight out of U.S. Army field manuals. an utter waste of time and money.

Very well written. The author is obviously experienced in this field. The content is basic and more areas could have been covered. The areas dealt with in this book is well presented and will be of great use to any SWAT leader or instructor. I enjoyed it and am looking forward to the next by the same author.

I read the book cover to cover and didn't find too much that I didn't know already. The book did cover alot of basics that someone new to a SWAT environment would benefit from. It is a good "refresher" book for the SWAT leader.

I felt that the majority of the book was just explaining things other than 911 Operator Examinations. I was about half way through before I found anything useful.

In my case, the test that was administered was not even close to what is in this book. I completed the testing on a computer with a headset.
The items were shipped in a timely manner.

This book offers examples of several types of questions with sample tests. It would better serve the reader to be a little less wordy and offer a few more testing examples.

Generally good information; specifically not real close to the testing I went through. However, I would recommend.

This is a great book for review of the sections of each test. Although, the actual test I took had completely different tests with the exception of the listening test, the book was still very helpful in preparing me. I think the book should offer a few more practice tests than just one for each section. Overall, it's a great preparation book.

Less than mediocre writing, an unlikeable main character and a predictible story made this a complete waste of money. Look elsewhere for mysteries with a female sleuth.

One would think this author could only improve as time goes on. Sadly, the opposite seems to be true.

Ms. Cohen still hasn't learned how to write a lick since she began the series. Page after page is taken up with filler that lends nothing to the story. The dialogue between characters is inane, and it's so stilted and unnatural that you can't even stretch your imagination to pretend that people actually talk this way. People discuss things that both parties already know as a means of conveying it to the reader. The language used is unrealistic ("my salon is situated in that shopping center"), the haphazard Yiddish phrases are annoying and the stupidity of just about everyone in the book leaves you shaking your head (a woman is shot in the middle of a crowded circus and no one notices anything as a dead body sits among them?). Any South Floridian can easily figure out that the story is set in the Plantation/Davie area, so why would Marla act shocked that her brother and sister-in-law "came all the way from Boca Raton!" to attend her birthday party? Boca is only 1/2 hour away -- it's not like these people travelled from Siberia. Three times we were forced to read detailed descriptions of the feelings in Marla's mouth after taking a bite of food. And there's still no blue, green, yellow or red in Marla's world -- it's all sapphire, jade, sunflower and crimson.

As far as the relationship with Vail, it seems the author is shooting for sexual tension and ending up with oversexed, hormonal high school juniors. There's nothing sexy about this relationship, and there's nothing likeable about either character or Vail's daughter.

The murderer's identity was easy to figure out -- if you care enough to even try after wading through all the extraneous garbage. After four installments, all this series has proved is that anyone can get published if they have the right connections, whether they have talent or not. With all the good, and even half-good, amateur sleuth series that are out there, save your time and money for one of them. This one's not worth it, and I'm through giving it chances.

Marla Shore, owner of Cut `N Dye Salon, helps her ex-husband Stanley Kauffman find out who killed his third (and current) wife Kimberly. Stan has been charged with the murder but insists he is innocent. Marla is surprised he would ask her to help him. He has never believed in her and controlled her when they were married. One reason Marla agrees to help his is that he is willing to sell his half of their jointly owned property. Stan has been trying to get Marla to sell him her half because Kimberly wanted a bigger house. Marla refused to sell and would love to one this property alone - no more interactions with Stan.

Stan convinces Marla to investigate Kimberly's family. Her grandmother Miriam is in need of a fill-in nurse 1 day a week. Marla interviews and gets the job. Right from the start it becomes apparent Marla isn't qualified. Luckily Miriam likes Marla and keeps her on. Marla gets information through Miriam and the rest of her family. Plus she helps Miriam realize she isn't such an invalid.

Marla and Dalton, her boyfriend and the case Detective, end up investigating Jeremiah Dooley and what role he played in Kimberly's life.

Many funny things happen in this book. I highly recommend it and the whole series. I enjoy Marla. Plus the fact that she is a hairdresser helps her gain information even the police don't know!

Stanley Kauffman comes down to breakfast only to see his trophy wife lying on the floor, bleeding from a wound to her chest. When the police arrive, they declare her dead and arrest him. He calls his ex-wife, hairdresser Marla Shore, to meet him at the jail and asks her help in clearing him of the charges. He promises her that if she will, he will sell his share of the property they jointly own at a decent price.

Marla agrees because she wants the property and because she believes Stanley would never physically harm a woman. Marla goes undercover at the compound of Stanley's in-laws by becoming a nurse's aid to the matriarch of the family. She discovers that almost everyone in the household had a motive to murder Stanley's wife and further investigation with her boyfriend Detective Dalton Vail turns up even-more suspects. If Marla isn't careful, the perpetrator will try to kill her to stop her from revealing what she figured out about her ex-husband's wife's death.

Anyone who reads BODY WAVE will come away thinking it is an upbeat amateur sleuth mystery populated by a host of eccentric characters. The heroine is a bold strong woman who is not afraid to get in a person's face when she thinks she is right. Nancy J. Cohen is a talented writer who is famous for her complex plots and characterizations as this tale substantiates.

Harriet Klausner

I purchased this study book for my daughter who had just finished cosmetology school and was scheduled to take the state boards test. She is sometimes known for not taking studing very seriously or being prepaired for tests. She took the pracitce tests and studied areas where she was missing questions. When she took the board exam she passed the first try and told me that she sure was glad that I had gotten her this study book, many of the same questions appeared on the test.

It seemed to me that the content was outdated with current standards. I thought the test taking skills were helpful. I definetly would not use this as my only study guide. I found the other two textbook standards to be much better. I had to take the written exam after four years because I moved states. So take it for what its worth. I recommend doing a good search for materials before you buy anything. There are some good online study guide websites.

By using this book I was able to so see the questions in forms othe than the Milady way so I was prepared for trick questions. I definately used this book along w/ the Milady & indoing so I aced the exam & got my license.

I bought this book based on the description, thinking it would have lots of information about the boards in all 50 states and possible information about license renewal and continuing education. The whole book is just the practice exam with the last few pages having contact info for the board (which I could have gotten online). The contact info is out of date (I know at least one of the states is now governed by a different board) and doesn't list all 50 states. If you're just looking for the practice exam, it probably works fine, but the description was misleading to me.

I was excited to purchase this book, thinking that it would deliver what it promised. GOOD LUCK!! It does provide old, rather tired and boring, internet information and pictures about various "special forces". There appears to be nothing new or particularly informative in this book. A goofy compilation of internet hodge-podge that would insult the research capabilities of a nine year old. Save your $$ and buy something else!!

All the infos are dated and in some cases completely wrong , all the pix are downloaded from internet so there is not nothing new or cool to be known , do not buy this book , period .

Well researched book, excellent structure and flow throughout. It includes sections on recent conflicts, such as the Balkans, Afghanistan, Iraq etc. I enjoyed, the straight from the horse's mouth accounts of operations,along with some great photos, some I've seen published before but lots of unpublished ones.
Some chapters covered details of the selection process for both Delta and the SAS. Some great mission planning information and a good section on Worldwide Special Forces, along with the equipment they use. The book finishes off with good chapter on future operations & equipment.

Overall an excellent book, although the main focus is on US, UK and Australian Special Forces.

When generally buying books on special forces, I usually set the bar lower than normal - as I really don't expect to learn much that is not in the public domain already.

This book however is an exeception and has proved me wrong - by a long way.

It contains detailed information on special forces selection, tactics,techniques and procedures that I have not read before - which is always a good sign in a book of this category.

I particularly liked the mission planning element of the book - something I have never seen anywhere else before, and worth the purchase alone.

Photos and graphics are of a high standard, with many not seen in print before.

In summary "Operators" is a very informative read.

This is a good book. Like the man says, it's for operators, not engineers, and there's a meaningful difference between the two. When I train my team, this will be part of my training tools; it doesn't substitute for hands-on time with the sound system, and it doesn't substitute for hands-on time with an experienced sound guy.

I recommend to my trainees that they pick up a copy of this book and leave it on their toilet tank, where they read a few pages every day, and think about how to make use of what they just learned when they're working with the system.

For the record, Bill's methods for running sound aren't 100% in line with mine (I've been doing this for 30 years), but they are trustworthy, they are likely to be effective, and they're presented in a way that makes sense for wannabe sound operators and techs. Good job, Bill!

The "Qualifications" and "Duties" sections alone are worth the price of the book. It's good material, presented well, and while it won't substitute for hands-on experience, it's very useful.

As the author of this book, I'd like to say that it is written specifically to help sound OPERATORS. It is NOT written to help design engineers or installers. If you want to do a better job at creating great sounds in the live sound world, this book is for you. It has helped a lot of people and is a very strong offering for sound operators who want practical solutions to everyday concerns.

Nearly all of the content of this book is a verbatim copy of the same author's "Ultimate Church Sound Operator's Handbook," and contains the same errors, omissions, and contradictions that the informed reviewers have noted in their critical reviews of the church version. In short, the book promulgates a host of audio misconceptions, ranging from the common to the bizarre, each of which leads directly to bad sonic results, unsafe conditions, wasted money on bad equipment buying decisions, embarrassment, and a prolonged learning curve over that which would be required if the reader chose her or his reading more carefully. There is simply no reason for the consumer to waste money and time by learning audio wrong, and then having to relearn it correctly, when there are many far superior books on the market.

For those who are interested, the similarities between the "live" and "church" versions of the book are as follows:

Chapter 1 and 2 are the same in both versions with only slight changes in terminology and a few additions in the church version.
Chapter 3 of the secular version is the same as chapter 6 of the church version (Volume Issues).
Chapter 4 of the secular version is the same as chapter 8 of the church version (Sound Theory).
Chapter 5 through 18 of the secular book are equivalent to chapters 9 through 22 of the church book (almost word for word the same).

Folks who desire to learn audio from reliable sources should consider Davis's The Sound Reinforcement Handbook, and/or Stark's Live Sound Reinforcement, Bestseller Edition (Hardcover & DVD). Other beneficial resources include Everest's Critical Listening Skills for Audio Professionals, Eargle's Music, Sound, and Technology, and for the definitive reference, Ballou's Handbook for Sound Engineers, Third Edition. For what it's worth, a fourth edition of the latter book is rumored to be on the way by the end of the year. Suffice it to say that audio is a technical subject, albeit one that suffers from a disproportionate amount of uninformed commentary from self-styled "experts." If the sound of your concert, church service, or other event matters to you, or if you plan to make a living providing sound reinforcement services, then it pays to be careful who you listen to, and what you read, about the fundamentals of audio.

Chapter 5 describes using an AC ground lift adapter - a most dangerous, potentially fatal and incorrect way to deal a hum and buzz issue (besides being in violation of the NEC). This is just the beginning of some of the serious flaws with this book. "Ultimately" I think this book does a serious disservice to live sound operators. I have been involved in professional audio since 1986 and I would not recommend this book. The other book written by Mr. Gibson, "The Ultimate Church Sound Operator's Handbook" unfortunately has the same issues. Great looking book, though. I am returning it to Amazon.