Manhattan Books

Andrew Lloyd Webber wants to write a sequel to his wildly successful musical Phantom of the Opera, and gets Frederick Forsyth to write this. I have it on good authority that Forsyth is actually a good author, and the book itself is not written badly. I am admittedly no fan of Andrew Lloyd Webber, so I'm blaming him for the general wretchedness of this book. It has some interesting details in it, but for the most part, it's just bad. It's full of plot cliches (I don't usually talk TO a book, but found myself saying "Come ON" a lot), and the resolution is so unlikely and fast and tidy (far too tidy for the climax-a major character is killed. Everyone, including a child, is sad but moves right on) as to be completely aggravating and insulting to the reader.

Plus, of course, as several other reviewers pointed out, Forsyth spends a considerable amount of time bashing the original book. He may, in fact, have legitimate criticisms, but it comes off as petty, particularly in light of the general underwhelmingness of this book.

The book is written in such a way that Sir Lloyd Webber won't even have to trouble himself to figure out how to plot the show or where to write solos. Hell, there are a couple of places where it already rhymes. I'm sure that was supposed to be clever or a prayer or something, but it just winds up looking even more like the bald attempt to provide a plot for a playwrite desperate for a boost his flagging career.

At the end of the day, there just isn't much point to this book. There's no charm or magic, and I don't know that I needed to know what happened after Leroux's book ended. Certainly if THIS is what happened, I didn't need to know it. What a waste of time and paper.

In this departure from his usual storytelling, Forsythe, who is a friend of Andrew Lloyd Webber, continues the story begun in the musical. I found the preface, in which Forsythe critiques the Leroux original and gives us the reasons why ALW abridged that story to create the plot of his play, to be very interesting. He points out some of the inconsistencies in the original, with his explanations as to their meaning. The main part of this story takes place in 1906. In this version of the Phantom, we find Madame Giry, on her deathbed, confessing her sins, including how she helped Erik to escape France to begin a new life in the United States. The storytelling shifts to Erik, who describes his escape from Paris, his arrival in the USA, and the making of his vast fortune. Forsythe interweaves actual events and personalities of the era into the plot, which is told by using the alternating viewpoints of the principles involved.

While I found the premise of the story to be interesting, the overall plot feels rushed, several of the incidents and people could use some fleshing out, and the side plot involving Darius and Father Kilfoyle is distracting and unnecessary. It is a quick read. And while I would not consider this the worst book of the POTO genre, don't go out of your way to purchase this title, unless you need it to complete your "bucket" list.

I am shocked that a professional author with many credits to his name could goof this badly. The story stinks for the most part and could have been so much more with a little more thinking.

Then there is the manner in which it is written. The story is told by many voices and they all repeat what has been said before from a different but not very interesting angle, with little new information so it gets very B O R I N G.

The end is unsatisfying for the most part. I can't believe the rumor that Andrew Lloyd Webber plans to do a sequel from this garbage--if so, good luck with that project, dude.

A real switch for Frederick Forsyth. A logical, entertaining sequel to "Phantom of the Opera".

I am a die hard Phantom Phan. I have been for about 15 years now. I view every form of Phantom movies/plays/performances and literature I can get my hands on.

My 1st experience with reading this was an ARC (advanced reading copy) a friend that worked at a bookstore scored for me. I was SO excited for a new POTO book endorced by Webber to come out!

Blech! If you care AT ALL for the main characters, this is NOT the book for you.

I actually enjoy the different variations on a theme, this is not variation of a theme, it's butchery of a theme.

The "author" starts the book stating how horrible he thinks the original Leroux version is. If you dislike a book so passionately, WHY write about the characters??

I just found out in the news today that ALW is going to work with Forsyth for his upcoming sequel to be out in 2009 / 2010. I'm heart broken. ALL excitement about seeing a sequel on stage has deflated out of me.

It's hard to believe that _The Ex_ was written by the same author who gave us the excellent Fred Carver detective series. Those books had memorable characters (who can ever forget the corrupt cop, McGregor?), compelling plots, a keen sense of place, and an anti-hero protagonist we could care about. The same can be said for his Alo Nudger series.

This book has none of that. It's like a script from a bad TV movie. The characters are cardboard cut-outs, and the plot is utterly predictable. The final scene is completely illogical. The prose style is prosaic and simplistic--very much unlike the wry, terse style in the Carver books. It wouldn't surprise me if this one was ghost-written.

Lutz has won many awards for his earlier detective novels. I suppose he's moved into mass-market commercialism so he can bank some money. Can't blame him--but too bad for his long-time fans.

John Lutz didn't do a very good job on this one. The story is atypical and jumps over many holes in the plot. Lutz starts out with Deidre, a beautiful pyscho, escaping from a mental institution. She immediately heads to New York to try and rendezvous with her ex-husband David after several years. David has already re-married though and has a son. No problem for Deidre. Immediately Deidre begins to work herself back into David's life. David's wife Molly is immediately suspicious of Deidre. But David defends his ex-wife and Molly quiets her suspicions. Before long, Deidre has seduced David into having sex with her again. At the same time Deidre is stalking Molly and beginning to convince her she's going insane. Fairly soon, Deidre has schemed her way into their apartment building. A little after that she murders their babysitter and uses David to convince Molly to let Deidre babysit their son, Michael. After this the novel grows repetitive. The only breaks are the steamy sex scenes where Deidre repeatedly shows how much control she has over her ex-husband.(at one time she handcuffs him in a funeral parlor and forces him to have sex.) David meanwhile seems to give himself up to Deidre in exchange for sex while he begins to neglect his own wife. Deidre also is busy harassing Molly. Molly becomes a basket case as whenever she goes jogging Deidre dons a disguise and follows her, repeatedly threatening her. Deidre even begins to wear Molly's clothes. Soon David is sending Molly to a physciatrist while Deidre repeatedly forces him to have sex. She has begun videotaping him and her making love and using it as blackmail. Meanwhile she has been making friends with Michael. During one scene Deidre has sex with David and then leaves the apartment and attempts to kill Molly. David, ever the loving husband, tells Molly that she was simply imagining Deirdre trying to kill her. Anyways it begins to shift. Deirdre calls the apartment and leaves a message for Molly that says she's sleeping with David. Then she heads down to their apartment and erases it since there not home. While there she pleasures herself on Molly's side of the bed and leaves the mess for Molly to see. David finds it first and cleans it and then makes an excuse to leave the apartment and heads to Deirdre. Once he's up there he doesn't chew her out but merely has sex with her in a shower. After this Deirdre(who seemed to be on the verge of victory) blows it by kidnapping Michael. David fesses up to Molly about the affair. Molly and David rush to save Michael and it all ends with a climactic showdown between Deirdre and Molly. Ultimately, David kills Molly to keep having sex with Deirdre. No. Seriously if you want to know the end(like you don't already) you ought to read this book. Overall, the book was very predictable. It gets mired down in useless sub-plots. About the only good parts are the explicit sex scenes between Deirdre and David and when we get to read how Deirdre sees the whole situation. So basically if you're looking for a guilty pleasures book, read this one.

You're probably looking for Lucien Gregoire's 'Murder in the Vatican: The Revolutionary Life of John Paul and the Vatican Murders of 1978'. Although Avro Manhattan's book has some merit, it is not the explosive book the 2006 edition of Gregoire's book is. Manhattan does offer some possibilities, but only Gregoire - including Yallop's 'In God's Name' - has the proof.

About ten years ago, I went to a friend's house and I tried to read this and others books by Avro Manhattan.
I don't know if Avro Manhattan is a bigot or a mad.I know that 100% of his books are bigoted, ridiculous, anti-catholics and absurds.This book isn't an exception from the others.This book is ridiculous even about the failure to murder John Paul II, in may 13 th, 1981.

if you are nostaligic for New York City in the eighties i reccomend this boo, though there are better. If your trying hard to find this book for any other reason, don't bother. The monlogues are contrived and the plot immature and predictable. otherwise, an okay book.

The quality of photographs in this book is below average, which was a sad surprise. I definitely do not recommend this book.

Michael Musto is fabulous, but "Manhattan on the Rocks" isn't. Please buy his nonfiction book "Downtown" instead.

This is a good songbook if you don't know these songs at all, but what I was hoping for was Manhattan Transfer arrangements of them. For instance, their recorded cool version of "Body & Soul" in which they sing Coleman Hawkins's famous solo, has not only notes but words; the original version, the "head", isn't what they sing. I was hoping to see what they sang in print, hence, I thought, the title of this songbook; however, this book only has the original refrains of all of 'em! So if you were hoping to see what they actually sing, forget it; hope I just saved you money (that I spent.)

The idea of a Liquid Natural Gas Tanker exploding in NYC is an excellent idea for a story. Unfortunately, Mr. Jackson needed better execution. His scenes of destruction in Manhattan and Staten Island is the only reason this books gets 2 stars and not 1. The characters were poorly done. The dialogue was not natural and, in some cases, unrealistic. And I grew tired of the main characters, Rider and Amura, calling each other "Dear" and "Darling" every other line. More inner thought was needed to truly flesh out the characters. Also many of the scenes went overboard on the melodrama. With better character development and a few more plot lines, this book could have been so much better.

I purchased the two verbal books produced by mgmat. The company boasts about going beyond mere gimmicks and teaching a concrete basis for best test results. While the sentence correction is unbelievably lucid and thorough, the reading comp/critical reasoning is the polar opposite. It is nothing more than a fragmented regurgitation of the princeton review's far superior attempt at teaching rc/cr. Avoid this manual, but do pickup the mgmat sentence correction guide.

Caution: this book does not provide examples. Almost seems as though they try to make studying difficult and cumbersome. Was of no help seeing as I was already in posession of a Kaplan review.

In general do not buy any of the seven series of books offered from MANHATTAN... they are not worth the buck.There is too much hype associated and it does not deliver to its expectations Tips in this book are outdated as can be seen from the other reviews as well. Save money and save time.

While I appreciate the clearly outlined strategies for Critical Reasoning and Reading Comprehension, in the end they just weren't practical enough. For example, when I tried making notes of the Critical Reasoning questions, it took way too long. I was much better off reading the argument once and then eliminating as many irrelevant answer choices as possible. When I narrowed my choices down to 2 or 3, I would re-read the argument and choose the best answer. I found this tactic to be much more effective and used it to practice lots of Critical Reasoning questions from the 11th edition of the Official Guide. In the same vein, the GMAT Prep's suggestion to make rather detailed notes was not practical enough for me; it took too much of my time. Some of the tips were useful though - I paid close attention to the first paragraph and found that the main point of the passage is usually in the first paragraph. For an excellent GMAT Prep guide, purchase the Sentence Completion book. It's great.

About ten years ago, a brazilian pentecostal give a lot of anti-catholic book, to me.Among then, was this "trash-book" called Catholic Imperialism and World Freedom.This book is so bad, that I never finished it.I returned this trash-book to his owner.
The core idea of this book is that Catholic Church is, the greatest menace to World's freedom.An absurd, ridiculous and senseless idea.In fact ever freedom's enemy is also a Pope's enemy.See Bin Laden, Iran's Aiatollahs,etc.
I don't know if the author of this book, Avro Manhattan, is a mad or simple, he is a bigot.Maybe he is both of then.

. . .might feel threatened by the Catholic Church (or any other large religious body, for that matter) but it stuns me that any seriousness at ALL is taken of this book.

No one would suggest that the Catholic Church (or any other institution) is free from all fault -- but to suggest that "Catholic Imperialism" is the greatest threat to world freedom, especially in this day and age, is just silliness...

If you take anything this dingaling writes as fact then do I have prime relastate in Antarctica to sell you. WHOOOO BOY! Does this guy reach. His ideas on Catholicism is right up there with the idea that jews are secretly conspiring to rule the world. Don't waste your time with this garbage. It is utterly amazing that anyone could take this guy seriously. I would have given this book 0 stars but it 0 stars is not an option.