CAD and CAM Books

I always purchase Visual Quickstart Guides when I buy new software because generally they make the task of learning the product that much easier. This one is no exception. The guide that comes with the software is extremely difficult to understand because of the way it is written - they go into too much detail. VQG explains things in a way that a is simpler for a non-technical type person to understand. The only problem with this guide is that it is now out of date because VectorWorks has now released version 11.5 and obviously some of the things written in the guide no longer apply. I would still recommend it though.

As an IT techie, I found this book really amazing for people who aren't professional in this field. As a matter of fact it lists everything you want to know, step by step in order to get to the result you want. More advanced features are explained to take your drawings to the next level but a more dedicated book might be needed to get a more professional result. But for a start it's a great book.

The book's title is a bit misleading. It does NOT teach you Systemverilog (for Verification) -- there is a separate book by Chris Spear ("Systemverilog for Verification") sold by the same publisher that focuses more on Systemverilog syntax and language features. This book is NOT a tutorial (i.e. beginner's guide) on how to write testbenches -- although it does go through the basic concepts, objectives, and challenges in writing maintainable/re-usable testbench environments, most of the textbook examples are too cryptic/advanced for an entry-level engineer.

So then, what does this book focus on? Well, the book focuses on general guidelines to writing re-usuable, high-level testbenches. The author uses Systemverilog as the language to communicate his concepts, but as I said before, the book does NOT teach you Systemverilog. (To the author's credit, he is very upfront about that in foreward/intro section.)

Who should read it:
Experienced verification engineers with a basic understanding of Systemverilog (and why it's superior to Verilog), who want some ideas/examples of how to deploy Systemverilog's advanced features (like classes, structs, random vars) in a verification environment.

What I liked:
The use of classes to encapsulate bus-functional-models (BFMs), how to create and manage variations of a basic BFM (using extended/derived classes), etc. He also shows how to combine randomization with classes, to create random stimulus-sequences.

What could have been improved:
I was hoping the book would cover SVA (systemverilog assertions) in greater depth, but I guess there are other books for that. He also superficially mentions "configurations" -- that is a feature in Verilog-2001 and VHDL-93. The book should have covered that in more depth (even though it's not a new Systemverilog feature), as it pertains to testcase management and organization.

What you should have:
You need a good background and experience in ASIC/RTL-verification -- this book is not an introduction to testbench concepts, or the Systemverilog language! You need to know some Systemverilog language, so either have a different book (like Chris Spear's "Systemverilog for Verification"), or the official IEEE Systemverilog 1800-2005 LRM next to your side. Though not necessary, it's helpful to have a basic understanding about object-oriented programming, because the examples in the book use Systemverilog's classes (and inheritance) to illustrate a lot of points. Object-oriented concepts would otherwise be foreign to most engineers working in the hardware field.

Ohter notes:
The book makes numerous references to the VMM (Verilog Methodology Manual), which is a separate book by the same author. VMM is probably as close to a 'canned' (i.e. pre-built) testbench environment as you can get. If you run Synopsys VCS in your company, then VMM is worth investigatation. Unfortunately, I've heard it doesn't run well on competing simulators (Cadence, Mentor), as Systemverilog support is still in its infancy.

I'm not sure what I was expecting from this. Someone told me that anyone familiar with the law would see how poor Grisham's books were, legally speaking. I've only had a year of law school, but I didn't notice anything glaringly wrong with the legal material. All of the problems were with everything else.

The story starts out interestingly enough - an eccentric billionaire commits suicide and leaves nothing to his spoiled children. He leaves everything to an illegitimate daughter who is working as a missionary in South America, but who wants nothing to do with the 11 billion dollars. What ensues is a legal battle for the ages.

The best parts of the story are all about the legal maneuvering. There is a 20 page span concerning the depositions where Grisham hits his stride. Essentially, anything relating to law is where the book is strong. Anything relating to character depth and anything emotional is poorly done, even formulaic. He did not even need to bother with the ending since it had been telegraphed for so long.

Gone are the days where Grisham was the master of the legal thriller. This book is one of the many that have grown a part of his slow descent...

Troy Phelan, worth $11 billion, loves his business and hates his ex-wives and children. Rumored to be suffering from terminal cancer, Phelan calls the family together to sign a new will. The heirs cooperate by providing psychiatrists to observe and verify that Phelan is in his right mind. That's the apparent game plan, but Phelan has a second and more shocking one. Thus opens The Testament.

Probate law isn't very exciting, and John Grisham decides to dress it up with a cast of characters that are almost parodies of parodies, so much so that they didn't resonate with me. As a result, the "exciting" beginning bored me.

The bulk of the story eventually shifts to recovering alcoholic and drug addict, attorney Nate O'Riley, who is sent straight from rehab to Brazil to find a missing heir, Rachel Lane, who is a medical missionary to the indigenous people there. His journey is harrowing and tests his limited strength to the limits. But the journey also is a beginning of his personal redemption through receiving Salvation for the Lord, Jesus Christ. As soon as the redemption part of the story begins, the book vastly improves. Without that element, I would have rated this as a one- or two-star effort.

It's unusual for a secular writer to put a major Christian theme in a popular work of fiction. I applaud Mr. Grisham for doing so.

May God bless you, Mr. Grisham!

First, I'm not much of a lawyer book fan although I do like the grisham movies. About the middle of this book I wondered if I ever would finish it but did not dislike it enough to stop reading. It sped up after I got through the middle and it was ok. Not sure why I have such a hard time with these books, whether it is the lack of human development or the mass amount of detail. It had an ok story though and is a readable book.

A lawyer is getting out of rehab and is facing IRS issues so his firm sends him to the jungle to find an evangelist that just inherited millions despite the fact that she is an unknown illegitimate child of the miserly man that just died.

I enjoyed this book very much. It was fast paced, very descriptive, had interesting characters, held my attention throughout, and it had lots of drama. My kind of novel.

Superior book as are all Grisham novels. This has an unusual twist and a truly rewarding ending that made me feel good. A fast read that kept me enthused from start to finish.

29 June 2008 - I don't know how this Grisham novel got pasted me for so many years but it was good even though no where near his best.

The title may suggest a legal thriller but The Last Juror ,while it does revolve around a murder-rape trial and its aftermath is not a bbok that fits snugly into this category.The trial is that of Danny Padgett,a member of a notorious criminal family in Ford County ,Mississipi who kills a young mother while here two young children watch .The case is pretty cut and dried but the family is not above witness intimidation and bribery .Padgett is convicted however but escapes the death penalty ,vowing that if released he will exact revenge on the jury.Nine years later he is free and jury members begin to die .

The tale is narrated by the local newspaper owner ,a callow young northener named Willie Traynor who grows to love the community and to observe how it changes over the years -the book opening in the 1970's .The special focus is on his friendshsip with the remarkable black woman ,Callie Ruffin all of whose sons are PHD's and who becomes a surrogate mother to Willie ,sharing insights and philosophies over gargantuan home cooked meals at her home .
We trace the evolution of the community through changes both national and local -the integration of the school system and jury system (Callie is a juror at the trial),Vietnam and its impact locally ,the growth of corporate strip mall America and the demise of local ,family owned businessses.It is a warm but not sentimental book and while the court room scenes are handled with genuine drama and insight it is in the picture of a changing ,conservative rural community that the book has its greatest interest
It may not appeal to those who like the legal thriller side of Grisham but it is a compelling rural odyssey that manages to be warm ,nostalgic and curiously tough minded all at the same time

A slice of Americana that Garrison Keiller fans should like too

I thought this story of the little Southern town; its small town newspaper owner and its citizens was just a super read. I enjoyed the world of Willie as he became more known by the folks of this Mississippi hamlet. Mr. Crisham did an excellent jobe of developing his character in such a way that I couldn't help but read page after page wondering what adventure he would stumble into. Without hesitation I would recommend this book to all my friends.

Willie Traynor was born in Memphis, but was educated in at Syracuse. That makes him an outsider, and perhaps a Northerner, in the eyes of small-town Clanton, Mississippi residents. When this fresh out-of-college youngster takes the reigns of the failing local newspaper, therefore, success is dubious. Luckily for Mr. Traynor, a horrifying murder is just the headline to shock his newspaper back to profitability.

A young widower and mother is brutally raped and murdered by Danny Padgitt, the scion of an influential outlaw family. Where once the Padgitt family was treated with fearful deference, Willie attacks head-on with bold front page stories and incriminating photography at substantial risk to himself and his business,.

Danny Padgitt is ultimately convicted, but surprisingly is spared the death penalty. In open court, he swears revenge on the jury. By greasing the wheels of the Mississippi penal system, the Padgitt family succeeds in getting Danny released after serving only 9 years. Then, jurors start dying.

Though the plot is not without interest, this is certainly not one of John Grisham's better novels. The foreshadowing, in particular, seems heavy-handed and will probably, for many, ruin or at least dampen any surprise at the conclusion. I, having decided I had "figured out" the book about halfway through, found it difficult to slog through the last portion of the novel. Likewise, the "Southern" color is laid on pretty heavily and, though I can claim to be no expert, appears fake-y. Bountiful home-cooked meals fixed by a heavy-set, strongly religious, older black woman, for some reason, sets off my cliche-dar. I also found the narrative point-of-view distracting. The book felt, to me, more like an odd memoir than a riveting crime/legal thriller.

The book, however, does have the courtroom drama and the supporting extra-judicial action that makes a novel a Grisham novel. The writing is easy and breezy - just the thing to pass some time on a beach or an airplane. As a bonus, you may recognize some of the characters and settings from some of Grisham's other books - perhaps the beginning of a series exploring the depths of Clanton, Mississippi?

Warning: Spoilers (sort of)

This isn't Grisham's best work, but I still enjoyed it. I thought he captured small town southern life perfectly and I couldn't help but adore Miss Callie. However, for as much of the book is spent on her life, Callie is not very relevant to the central story. The book's ending is kind of a downer. I was left wanting to know what became of Willie. Did he ever see Ginger again? What happened to the Padgitts (aside from Danny)?

A tipical James Patterson. Fast, light and entertaining. But don't expect much of criminal procedure's case. It's as superficial as fast.

It is vintage Alex Cross the way that people remember the series as it began. Alex has decided to call his career in the FBI quits and take up private practice and caring for his three kids when a part of his past reappears in the DC area. His old buddy and partner from the DC Police Department John Sampson enlists his help in investigating a series of brutal rapes and murders that take him into confronting the man he has wanted the most: the man who killed his wife Maria over ten years ago. Does Alex get justice or revenge? This is one ride you won't want to get off until it is over. S.L. Chessor, author of Poodlums, Boogeymen and Booglers and My Tongue Fell Out.Poodlums, Boogeymen and Booglers: A Poetry CollectionMy Tongue Fell Out

The story begins when Alex Cross' idyllic life is shattered by the hit man who murders his wife. Cross had been a cop then, and the story jumps ahead to his career move to the FBI, after which an altercation with his grandmother prompts him to change careers again. In the present, Cross is a therapist raising three children with help from Nana Mama, and only occasionally consulting for the Washington PD or the FBI. He gets pulled into the case of a serial rapist only because he believes it's the same man who murdered his wife. The Butcher was a mafia hit man who had fun mutilating his victims, and the FBI has wanted him for a long time, but he's like a shadow who leaves no trace of himself. In actuality, he's been raising a family in the suburbs, occasionally taking a job or venturing into the city to commit a rape or a murder, photographing his grisly deeds to frighten future victims.

The story ambles along following both the lives of Alex Cross and the Butcher, Michael Sullivan. Sullivan is an interesting character, though his family life doesn't exactly ring true and there are several violent incidents he'd have a tough time explaining to his family that get glossed over and forgotten. Alex Cross is as exciting as oatmeal. The author obviously thinks highly of him, but I found him a bit too much of a great guy. He's one of those people who can whimsically pick and choose from professional careers, and never utters a misplaced word or commits a dastardly deed. And what a dad! He's also the hope and salvation of more than one branch of law enforcement because he's such an incredible detective, but he's so terribly bland about it, I found myself wishing something bad would happen just to liven things up. Also, in an apparent bid to ensure the book made money even if sales were low, Patterson seems to have worked out a deal with Mercedes, singing the praises of their crossover vehicle several dozen times too often. I half expected to see Mercedes in the acknowledgements, or at least find their logo on the cover.

Though I have read a Women's Murder Club book by Patterson and liked it a lot, that same feeling did not translate to this book. Not only was the change between points of view jarring, Alex Cross is a snore. He's easily the most vanilla lead character I've come across in a long time. Patterson has quite a following, and some of his books are good, but this one fell far short of impressing me.

My son lives in Italy and wanted this. Thanks for the speedy delivery of it so I could send it to him.

This books was fabulous! Finally, after several Alex Cross novels that seemed to steer away from what I loved about the Patterson novels to begin with, this novel has brought me back to what hooked me on the Alex Cross series, and James Patterson in the first place.

Cross brings us back to the beginning. Here we learn what happened to his wife, Maria. In this novel we get closure on Alex Cross's internal struggle between his job and his family. Patterson writes a perfect psychological thriller that reminds us all why he is such an amazing writer.

This was a great book and has me excited about reading the Alex Cross novels again. This is a must read for everyone who loves this genre, this detective, or just loves Patterson. I can't wait to begin Double Cross.

Timothy Lassiter, author of Three Degrees of Separation and The Devil You Know

Surprisingly, I love this book. Robbin Cook's became my favorite author ! Go for it

The author is pushing Hillarycare (government controlled health care) solution. He absolutely makes no sense. Here are the reasons: (1) It is impossible to have a top-down wide conspiracy described in the book and maintain a secrecy at the same time. (2) Only total idiots would even try. Obviously, the author thinks that the people that manage hospitals are idiots. It only proves that he is. (3) The author (as all liberals) thinks that he has a monopoly on morality. He, therefore, describes all the opponents of Hillarycare as immoral. (4) Most importantly, the alleged villains (at the very top) simply have no motivation to do what they allegedly did - risk their life and reputation for no gain at all. The alleged gain is to reduce the premiums for all the subscribers by killing the subscribers with genetic diseases. It would take on average 10-30 years for these diseases to develop. Why would anybody at the top of hospital organization care about the increased operating costs 10--30 years from now?

although quite lengthy in his descriptions, the premise for this novel is quite intriguing and certainly not beyond the capabilities of those involved in running the HMOs presently in existence. worth the read to see what you think!!!

Robin Cook, once again, takes a medical marvel, genetic marking, and turns it into a suspenseful roller-coaster ride.

Dr's. Jack Stapleton and Laurie Montgomery are medical examiners for the city of New York. They are also lovers, but Laurie starts questioning their relationship when she verbalizes a desire to start a family and Jack, who lost his first wife and their daughter, isn't excited about trying again. Their relationship is hanging in the balance but will have to take a back seat when Laurie suspects that a string of deaths at a local hospital are not of the "natural variety". People who are young, seemingly healthy and undergoing routine, minor surgical procedures are ending up dead just hours post-op. Everyone around Laurie, including Jack and their boss Calvin, believe Laurie is making a mountain out of a mole hill. Laurie persists in her conviction and uncovers a shocking plot that will rock the medical foundation. To make matters worse, an unplanned surgery puts Laurie in the same hospital, under the same circumstances as those who have already mysteriously died. Will Jack come around to Laurie's way of thinking in time to save her?

Marker is a story within a story. This keeps the reader engrossed and engaged. Cook is a master at medical thrillers and has a way of "dumbing down" all the medical jargon so that anyone can understand and enjoy his books. This story is so intriguing because like most of his other novels, it is plausible, which makes it frightening. This is a must read for Cook fans and anyone who enjoys exciting medical thrillers.

Robin Cook, the reigning king of the medical thriller, returns New York City medical examiners, Laurie Montgomery and her lover, Jack Stapleton (previously seen in his earlier novel "Vector") to centre stage. Montgomery autopsies a mysterious string of unwarranted post-surgical cardiac arrests for which she is unable to formulate any reasonable explanation. Her fertile imagination makes the leap to hypothesizing a demented serial killer stalking the halls of Manhattan General, a well respected tertiary care teaching hospital recently taken over by the HMO giant, AmeriCare. At every turn, despite an obviously rising death toll, Laurie is met with skepticism, institutional political resistance and even direct orders to keep her unsubstantiated and possibly libelous speculations to herself.

Cook's continuing mastery of the ability to create suspense and to convey the complexity and urgency of the daily running of a major metropolitan hospital, the medical examiner's office, an autopsy, a surgery, a "code blue" and emergency room trauma provide more than enough reasons to keep the pages turning smartly into the wee hours.

But there were definitely cracks in the wall that made "Marker" a much less satisfying novel than Cook's earliest works such as "Coma" or "Blindsight".

The identity of the killer, nurse Jasmine "Jazz" Rakoczi, is known almost from the opening pages. It was never a matter of "who", only a question of "why"! While the characters of Laurie Montgomery and Jack Stapleton are developed in depth with care and a completely believable and quite moving pathos, Rakoczi is a stereotypical cardboard villain - a cartoon caricature of the nasty bad guy that is at best weak and at worst almost laughable. As a cautionary tale against a possible macabre result of the continuing business takeover of the US medical health care system, "Marker" is left frustratingly open ended.

Robin Cook's fans will still enjoy this one but it's probably not the best place for a potential new reader to take the first dip into the pool.

Paul Weiss

i enjoyed reading it. it's a quick,action filled, thriller,
not bad for a first effort! beats anything i could ever create!
kinda confusing, in terms of the many acronyms, numerous cast of characters, etc.
but enjoyable, nontheless. worth reading, for sure.

Very nice first military/espionage/polical thriller. Clarke creates an interesting scenario with some plausibility. Pure escapism for some.

Clarke's novel is a sprawling story, with dozens of major characters and foreign intrigue between Iran, China, Iraq, the former Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, India, and the United States (but, curiously, not Israel). The crosses and double-crosses get hard to follow, and the assorted government representatives who take off in rogue directions make it even harder to follow the white hats.

One wishes for a simplification along the lines of Michael Crichton, where good-is-good and bad-is-bad, and the plot resolves to a tidy finish.

It is not to be. Clarke is well familiar with the messes made by inept civilian leadership, and his novel reflects the multi-faceted nuanced nature of real-world diplomacy. It is a chess game where the pieces have no rules, and the board is constantly shifting. Some of his speculations -- particularly about the fate of Saudi Arabia after a coup, or the destabilizing ambitions of the Iranian regime -- sound eerily plausible and frighteningly impactful. Let us hope they do not become prophetic.

Like the movies Syriana or The Kingdom, this novel represents the forefront of a new era in American approach to the Middle East. Instead of a simple-minded black-and-white Rumsfeld-like approach, he embraces the profound complexities of the region: centuries-old antagonisms, the dwindling resources, a people increasingly marginalized by anachronism and religion, the diminishing opportunities to put in place permanent cultural advances with the remaining unearned wealth. His novel requires more than a modicum of attention, and it will cause the attentive reader to think deeply about the large and serious issues he raises.

This novel, which I found in a used bookshop, had me from the first sentence! And it held me spellbound to the end as the single worst-written book I have ever read in a lifetime of reading. No kidding! This mass on incoherence will have you holding your sides too. How bad can writing get? This book should be studied in writing programs to give even the most clubfooted fledgling writer a sense of accomplishment. The dialogue is excruciatingly funny. Howlers appear on nearly every page. Though it all makes you wonder. If the author can't find coherence in fiction, how did he communicate non fiction to his superiors in the White House where he served, I believe, as the honcho for anti-terrorism? That's a scary thought.

As some reviewers of Scorpion's Gate have said, the story is too obvious - the characters are not deep, and many of the characters fill in roles that are clear from the first chapter of the book. Good guy. Bad guy.
Nevertheless, I was surprised to find myself turning the pages and enjoying the book. Some of the conversations between the characters seemed quite plausible, and at times riveting and - actually, funny.

The foundations of the plot seem to fall into place too easily - even for a novel. Hopefully Clarke's next novel will tackle another real world scenario, but not be as predictible as Scorpion's Gate.

Well written easy to understand and it is working for me. A last a diet plan that does not require anything other than making choices.

I'm always surprised to find people suggesting a healthy, plant-based diet is "a bit drastic" -- personally I find bypass surgery or chemotherapy to be a bit drastic. Eating healthy is natural and normal, or should be, it's just that most of us have gotten used to the unhealthy foods that makeup the standard American diet, so it only seems like eating healthy is drastic. You really do retrain your taste buds in a relatively short time. It was so much easier to switch than I ever thought it would be. I'm an American living in Australia, and I've been vegan for nearly a year and a half now -- I would never go back!

I was actually VERY excited to see this book at a discount bookstore the other day since I've just started a new diet and I know its a popular book. When I started reading, I enjoyed it and was inspired by his seemingly well done research.

I started with the back and the recipes so I could get more healthy dinner ideas. Personally, I liked many of the recipe ideas. I love to cook and personally have no issues finding saffron or other unusual ingredients but I should warn potential buyers that if you don't have a high-end budget and/or a fancy foods market near you, it could be hard to locate some items in the recipes. By the end of this section, it started to go downhill though. Cause I realized that there are NO meat recipes. Its all vegetarian.

Besides my personal disinterest in a vegetarian diet for food reasons, I'm concerned about how he overlooks the nutritive value of some foods and some of his claims.

- He seems to feel that iron is ONLY bad, which is not true! I'm prone to anemia, and if someone else was too, I would think this diet would set them up for it.

- He ignores Omega-3's that you can get through fish which have many beneficial effects.

- He ignores that certain TYPES of fat have been shown to help people lose weight by feeling fuller and more satisfied [fish, nuts, avocados.]

- Where are you going to get your Vitamin B12?

I think this diet could definitely work for some people, but overall I feel its much more extreme than it needs to be. People have can have extreme diet changes and weight loss success with eating a bit more fat from quality sources such as nuts and fish.

Interestingly, he talks about how people used to eat small amounts of meat and had less health problems, so why can't we do that now? Its certainly much more well rounded and attainable...

Bottom line: If you want a good book to tell you how to eat a vegetarian diet, this is a great one and has good recipes, but talk to your doctor to make sure you are getting all the nutrients you need.

I had my gallbladder removed and still had spasms and cramps in my right side after it was removed (bile ducts). Following the Ornish Program (except I cut out dairy altogether) has completely fixed the problem and I no longer have spasms and cramps in my right side. This book, and simply changing my diet, saved me from having to take medication the rest of my life (I was 27 when my gallbladder was removed). The other benefits are that I lost weight (BMI = 19) and my skin looks absolutely amazing!

I thought I'd done sufficient research when I went on this diet. In fact, Ornish's theories have been proven wrong. When you don't eat a moderate amount of healthy fats (olive oil, EFA's, etc.), the bile produced by your liver sits in your gall bladder instead of being used to digest fats. It becomes increasingly concentrated, until the cholesterol in the bile forms into...gallstones. This = extremely painful attacks and either surgery or very intense cleansing diets. Ornish's diet does NOT include enough fats; it is too extreme and based on faulty assumptions. Watch out! Unfortunately, I had to have my gall bladder removed because I meticulously followed his diet, only to learn later that this was a common experience for many people. Save yourself the agony of gallstones and research other diets; I have had much better success with Jorge Cruise's diet plan, but I imagine there are other good ones, too.

Beautifully written, extremely well researched and a complete pageturner. I couldn't put it down and loved how challenging it is and how well it creates the America vs Europe feel of 19th C NYC. I felt that it was a great historical fiction piece and had very well thought out character analysis, but I was left with questions about the murder itself that gnawed at me after I put the book down.

The book opens with a description -- a loving one -- of a girl being sexually tortured. I waded through that section (and others) hoping it had some point, some reason to be so graphic. But in the end -- apparently, the gruesome details were given just for the titillation of the readers.

Which brings me to my point: why would anyone want to be titillated by the description of a girl being sexually tortured?

Why?

A warning: I didn't read the book but rather listened to the audio book version. This meant I listened to the book on my way to and from work over a period of about a week and a half. In my experience many books are better when listened too, so this review should be taken with a grain of salt.

I stumbled across this book by accident and had no idea what to expect. It sounded like an interesting historical novel with a bit of a mystery twist -- and this is exactly what it was. The descriptions in the novel of New York City in the early 1900's are beautifully written, and offer a wonderful insight into this unique time period. It was obvious without having to read the authors note at the end that the book was thoroughly researched, and the author is a good enough writer to make the research come alive.

I don't have much experience with mystery stories, but this one seemed well thought out and certainly left me guessing until the end. The general story seemed a bit ... over sexed, I guess ... but it didn't affect the book negatively. After all, we're talking about Freud.

My expectations were way too high for this book. As a psych major I was very much looking forward to a thriller with psychoanalytical examination and I was very disappointed. Not only did the book drag but when all was explained it was like pulling a rabbit out of a hat: no reader could have a chance at piecing together the anti-climactic climax.

I picked this up because I was in the mood for a historical mystery. The premise is that Dr. Freud is in America to be honored at Clark University in Worcester, MA. Before heading to Worcester he spends a week in NYC, where his young protege gets caught up in a serial killer mystery. Freud guides his young protege as he uses psychoanalysis to try and solve the mystery.

This book reminded me a lot of The Alienist just not nearly as good! But if you enjoy, books such as The Alienist, you'll enjoy this read. I would agree it wasn't really a thriller per se but there was mystery and intrigue and it keeps you thinking and turning the pages. I also felt transported back to the turn of the century New York, which is always fun!

All in all I'd say it was a solid 4 stars.