New Hampshire Books

The first half of "Death Benefits" is much better than the second. Unfortunately, a great character, special security consultant Max Stillman, unaccountably becomes stupid in the final third of the book. He's way ahead of the main protagonist, John Walker, and the readers in the first part of the book, then way behind both Walker and the readers in the last part. I knew what was going on in the town Walker and Stillman were investigating 100 pages before they figured it out. Case in point, when Stillman and Walker saw that the local police department -- serving a tiny hamlet of around 400 people -- had something like 18 police cruisers and a professionally staffed police department, they only thought it mildly interesting. (In reality, a town of this size would likely have one cruiser, maybe two cops tops, and they'd likely be of the minimum-wage lifer variety.) The other problem is that somehow Stillman, a professional security consultant, Walker, an insurance analyst helping Stillman, and a gonzo computer hacker accompanying them, somehow went out on an investigation without anyone carrying a cell phone.

No, I'm sorry, I love Thomas Perry's work usually, but this one badly fell apart about halfway in.

I had to take an unexpected trip recently and someone handed me this book to fill the time. I'd never read anything by Perry before, but now I'm going to be seeking out his earlier work and watching for new ones. It's a thriller that's big on character as well as action, and I'm amazed it hasn't already come out as a movie. John Walker is an analyst in the headquarters of a San Francisco insurance company, a small-ish, old fashioned sort of outfit that competes successfully with the conglomerates by concentrating on service. A young woman, a rising sales person in the Pasadena office with whom he had had a brief relationship eighteen months before, seems to have skipped out in the middle of a $12-million-dollar fraud, and Max Stillman, the company's "security expert," takes Walker along on his investigation. The case, which now includes a murder, is brought to a not very satisfactory conclusion less than halfway through the book -- obviously, there's more to come. Walker is sent off to the company's Miami office to help out in the immediate aftermath of a hurricane, where he stumbles upon a very similar scam and hollers for help. Stillman quickly arrives in Miami and the chase is on again -- and Perry brings new meaning to the phrase "criminal conspiracy." Along the way, Walker gets involved with a young female hacker whose boss supplies Stillman with illegally obtained information for his work, and she gets caught up in the massive fraud case as well. All three principal characters are nicely developed, with Walker becoming less innocent and more active as he learns from Stillman, and the details of the insurance business and how ingenious insurance fraud can be are interesting as well. The puzzle takes awhile to solve, . . . and I think I'll just stay the heck away from little New Hampshire towns.

I once accidently got a subscription to "GQ". I found it very interesting, since apparently what men want most is to be like James Bond. Drop a man off in a strange city and he wants to go to the right restaurant, order the right drink, have woman throw themselves at him, and most of all, win the admiration of other good men. Oh, and fight evil, too.

Thomas Perry want to help you with this. He not only wants to tell you the right drink, he wants you to win the respect of the bartender ("The Pursuit"), to successfully hide from the Mafia ("Butcher's Boy"), and to become the perfect mass-murderer ("Sleeping Dogs"). His books are practically how-to manuals for coolness, as long as you don't let sissy things like morality get in your way. In this book, "Death Benefits", he wants to show you how wrong you are to want a secure job at an insurance company when you could be chasing criminals across the continent with your dashing boss, limitless expense account, and adoring female colleague.

The book has an interesting 3-part structure, starting when young innocent John Walker is lured away from his cubicle when a former girlfriend disappears and is accused of fraud; he agrees to help the free-lance investigator Max Stillman because he wants to clear the woman of involvement in the crime. While doing that, he has to help out at the company's Florida branch when a hurricane comes roaring in, and while there, stumbles upon clues that lead him to a small New England town where the solution to all his questions may lie..... Walker is an engaging character, and you can't help but root for him to "find himself" as he solves these mysteries. The problem is that Perry finally over-reaches with the small New England town, stealing his plot, improbably, from H.P. Lovecraft, with regrettable results.

If you aren't a "GQ" kind of man, you might even get tired of Max Stillman, who fights crime with methods the police aren't allowed to use, and triumphs over evil while making loads of money. He's not even slightly believable, so it may seem a waste of time following his exploits and writing down tips in case *you're* ever a free-lance crime-fighter. I personally prefer the old-fashioned police procedural, where I may learn something real about crime and punishment.

This was a good read. It wasn't a story in which you could predict what was going to happen. I enjoyed it. I also liked the Jane Whitefield novels by this author.

I have been gobbling up Thomas Perry novels ever since discovering his Jane Whitfield series, so I only glanced at the cover when I picked this one up from the bin. I have to confess I was let down when I saw that it was about the insurance industry--what could be more boring? But "boring" is exactly the wrong word to use to describe this wonderfully exciting novel. I was hooked from the first few pages and just could not put it down. This is one of those suspense thrillers where you love the characters and are so swept up in the story you forget to make dinner for yourself. The disappearance of a woman who looks as if she is involved in a scheme to peculate millions leads a former lover on a quest to uncover her fate, and he soon finds himself embroiled in a deep conspiracy. This is believable, a book about greed and love, that will fascinate you.

Perhaps I define "page turner" differently than other readers. I chose to read this book based on the glowing reviews, each of which referred to it in one way or another as a "page turner."
I disagree, but I still found this book to be well worth reading.

It was not until the last 1/3 of the book that I was hooked into sitting down for a good long uninterrupted read. The first 2/3 of the book alternated between too much description (which equals boredom to me) and interest in what would happen with the characters. I must say that every time I teetered on the edge of giving up on the book (despite the fact that it is obviously well written), Hershon would throw something out there just enough to get my attention.

Part of the problem is that I started the book expecting lots and lots of suspense and intrigue. What Hershon gives you instead is lots and lots of poetic description and slow-moving character development. Which is not necessarily bad, just not what I expected.

Once I recovered from my disappointment that the book was not going to be the page turner I craved, I began to emerse into Hershon's world. By the end of the book, I was moved.

My advice to readers looking for the classic page turner is to ignore the majority of the blurbs on the book itself (soft cover version). What you should expect from this book is a slow, poetic, and beautiful portrayal of loss and the bonds between a brother and sister.

If you have ever experienced distance from a family member after a tragedy, you will certainly relate to this book.

This book was an easy read, and quite entertaining. It reminds of a book recently read; but I can not place it at the moment. (A story of 3 kids being raised on their own, as their mother is in jail for killing the father. The oldest son trying to find himself... What is the name?) Anyway...

I enjoyed the book, as it seems Hershon, took her time writing and going one layer deeper into the lives and personalities of her characters. It starts with the relationship between 2 brothers, wherein we *never* really know what the differences e between them, except "jealousy". The relationship turns bad, and the book takes a turn at the same time, focusing on the youngest sister and how she deals with the outcome of one bad night.

It's a fun, suspenseful read, as Lila (the youngest) searches for herself, her brother and a better understanding of "Family".

I would give 3.5 out of 5 stars...

This was not what I expected, given the reviews. Haute Literature it's not, for sure, and I found the pace a bit tedious. Because I have so little time, and every chance I get to read is precious, I was annoyed at the conclusion of this book, as I realized that my time would have been better spent. I was never dying to read it, and I was insulted at the juvenile nature of some of the plot developments, particularly at the end.

Yikes--where do I begin? There was not one well-developed character in this entire book! The plot begins promising enough, but the characters are so blah and undefined that I ended up not caring at all about what happened to them. Ms. Hershon spends page after page on mind-numbingly dull details that add absolutely nothing to the plot or characters. I saved this book to read on my vacation and was very disappointed. Read The Lake of Dead Languages instead--it is a thousand times better!

I lived in New Hampshire for four years, so I thought it would be fun to read a book set there. The story was ok...not great, not terrible; it was entertaining, but certainly not prize winning fiction. It's the story of two brothers, one girlfriend, an accident?, and how a little sister responds to it, both immediately and later in her life. On the jacket, it's described as, "exquisitely sexual," which leaves me puzzled and bemused. Sure, okay, if that's what it takes to sell the book, put it on the jacket. Perhaps somebody else will find it more arousing than I did.

I don't know why I go to the bookstore. Without fail, every time I go I buy at least one book, and not only does this get expensive, but it results in me having bookshelves filled with books I have never read. And as much as I tell myself that I am going to eventually get through all of them, I know I will not. When I die, my family will find countless untouched books in my house.
Fortunately, for my wallet, however, I recently discovered the bookstore table where manufacturer extras and overstocked books are kept. My most recent purchase, The Real Animal House by Chris Miller, was found at this table. The original price of the book was $24.99, but I got it for $5.98, and what a purchase it turned out to be! I'm pretty sure I read it in two or three days. The characters are likable, the writing is easy to read, and the anecdotes that Miller tells are hilarious. This book is like a man's equivalent of a romance novel.
Chris Miller is one of the writers of the 1978 cult classic fraternity movie, Animal House. According to The Real Animal House's forward, written by another one of the movie version's three writers, Harold Ramis, he, Miller, and the third screenplay writer, Douglas Kenney sat out to write a college movie. The trio began by discussing and collecting every funny or memorable college experience they'd had, as well as any college story they'd heard. From this, Animal House was born. The fraternity in the movie, the Delta House, is based on Miller's fraternity experience while at Alpha Delta Phi at Dartmouth. The book, which was published 28 years after the movie was released, is the supposedly true version as told by the man who experienced it first hand, Miller.
The best thing about the book is how easy it is to read. Miller manages to create incredibly real dialogues and situations, and many times I felt like I was actually watching a movie because the action flew by so quickly. Before I knew it, I was finished with the book, but wishing I wasn't. It is probably true that I am able to relate to this book well because I am currently a member of a fraternity. In fact, as I write this, I am sitting in a fraternity house. Nevertheless, good writing that's easy to read can be enjoyed by anybody.
Nobody is going to mistake this book for great literature, just like nobody thinks that the movie Animal House is an Academy Award worthy film. But if you want something that you can enjoy, I recommend this book heartily. One thing that may bother some readers is some graphic content, particularly in reference to college sexual experiences Miller had. But, let's face it; this book is about a fraternity. To leave that type of content out would be unfaithful to reality.
As I said before, if you want a fun book that can be read during a weekend on a beach, this book is for you. I recommend it to fraternity members everywhere because this is what a fraternity should be like.

I really enjoyed this novel. At times it was hilarious and many times it even depicted things that went on in my own life during college. Anyone who enjoys Animal House needs to read this book. Actually anyone who enjoys laughing in general needs to read this book!

I read the book before i even read a review of it. I have to say that i felt like i was with Pinto the whole step of the way. I grew up about 10 mins from Dartmouth and my grandparents and great-grandparents were the Tanzi family that owned the store that supplied them beer. This bood just rings so true to when you get a bunch of frat brothers together. It makes me miss college and my frat brothers more. I only wonder how they all graduated. This book is great. If you love the movie and you want to know where those characters came from, this is your chance. Although i must say the book is crazier than the movie and Dartmouth loved their frats compared to Faber's relationship. Cheers to Chris Miller for making me smile.

If you liked the movie Animal House you will LOVE this book. Chris Miller wrote the original screen play and many of the funniest scenes from the film were straight from his days at Dartmouth. It is a fascinating look at frat life in the '60s and Rock and Roll but better than that it is just HILARIOUS. All the elements of the film I liked were here in spades, with more and better stories they could never have put in a film. Miller is a keen observer with a real knack for phrasing that makes his storytelling jump off the page.
THIS IS A MUST READ FOR THE ANIMAL HOUSE FAN!!
Warning: some depraved jokes, not for the faint of heart.

The book is a sad ~50 year old remembrance of the "good old college frat boy days". It has a few laughs, but Miller tries too hard to be funny and crude. That anyone would revel over such behaviour 50 years after the fact is pathetic.

I enjoyed this book because of Jewett's turn-of-the-century language and simply accurate descriptions of the people living in a fishing town. Although some may wish for a more detailed plot (or any plot at all), "Pointed Firs" is an escape to a seemingly more innocent time. The characters struggle with many of the same issues we do: relationships, war, disease, and death. However, their sense of community, faith, and attitudes toward the sea form and strengthen their relationships with each other. Jewett is worth a read, merely for the beautiful way she creates a picture with the English language.

This book is full of timeless short stories that can either be read as a whole story or separately.

Sarah Orne Jewett's THE COUNTRY OF POINTED FIRS is a visitor's tale. Set in the fictional Maine coast town of Dunnet Landing where the author/narrator has settled for the summer to write. As a visitor, the narrator inevitably recounts only the pieces of history she comes in contact with through her landlady and the people she meets in the community. The stories are portraits, bits and pieces, of lives that exist outside the narrator's brief visit. As a result, the reader feels like a companion on this holiday. The novella moves at the pace of a quiet seacoast village, and is refreshing to read for that very reason. Like a vacation, outside cares fade while focusing on the lives, habits and landscape of this place. The writing is finely wrought. A real affection for a place and people one knows briefly shines through the work and makes one wish for a time and place when travel, life and writing unfolded at a the speed of a long walk.

Some editions incorporate other stories written about Dunnet Landing into the body of the novella. This can lead to a change in the narrator's voice that is incongruous with the rest of the work. Look for a version that preserves the order of one of the early publications with other short works in a separate section.

Jewett's Country of the Pointed Firs seemed like a good choice for reading while summering in Maine. Indeed her character who narrates the book is a woman author spending the summer in a small seaside Maine town.
Sara Orne Jewett gets a mention in American literature classes as a local color writer. This book demonstates her style with its descriptions of the Maine countryside, village life in the 1890s, and insight into the lives of island dwellers and retired fishermen and sea captains.
There's not much that would be considered a plot, just casual meetings with interesting characters in the area. To glimpse life in coastal Maine more than a centruy ago, this is the book for you.
I look forward to visiting the author's home in South Berwick. It's a national historic site.

This is a beautifully written story. The author provides the reader with words that one can sink his teeth into. The characters are so well described that I would know them if they walked in my door. A beautiful escape from everyday life !!

Richard North Patterson is one of the most gifted authors that I have read and this ranks as one of his finest works. He is apept at taking a complex story and keeping it interesting with double and triple twists. The ability to effectively utilize flashbacks adds to this novel. Althogh he is most at home in the Cortroom setting, this book is far more than that. It is about deeply woven characters that the reader is able to feel an affinity for. It is also about family and the close as well as distant inter-relationships that frequently exist. Although this is not a page turner that will keep one up through the evening hours, it has a very smooth and satisfying flow to it that makes the reader want to learn about the motivations of the characters that the writer has so skillfully created in this work.

I couldn't put this one down once I started. Read it in one sitting, closing the restaurant where I was eating. Excellent character development, unwinding of relationships and the possibilty of several murderers. A great read.

And here's why. Without giving away the ending, I knew who the killer was about halfway through. I kept going because it is well written, and I was hoping for a shocking surprise at the end. I was disappointed. I read this about 3 years ago and at the time I bought this one, I bought another one of his books. I haven't opened it yet. I'm sorry, Mr. Patterson, but I like to keep guessing until THE VERY LAST PAGE. "The Final Judgement" failed in this aspect.

Awesome...that's all I can say about Patterson's books. As I read more of him, I continue to become fascinated with his style and his understanding of human foibles and complexities.
Caroline Masters, featured in supporting roles in two previous books, gets the whole shebang this time. There are many surprises in this book, and as the tragic picture of a New England family, dominated by the patriarch, Channing Masters, unfolds, one is caught up in the seemingly unending heartbreaks that have touched the family. There are some truly heart-tugging scenes and some real thrills in the murder and Caroline's resolution of it. Another classic from the best of the legal thriller writers!
HIGHLY HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

This book is tightly written with most subplots fleshed out and resolved (which means Patterson has a good editor!). My only negative comment is the number of "twists" in this book. To me incredulity is strained to the point that the characters no longer matter and the reader is reduced to appreciating the writing style. That is what happened to me in this book. I love the writing, but so much "other stuff" was going on, that I lost touch with the main story line.

Bottom line - Mr. Patterson sold a book... I got to meet one of his recurring characters (Caroline Masters) and learned a little about how life runs in different social circles (I think he describes Martha's Vineyard incredibly well). It's not going on the shelf as a keeper, but I will pass this book on with a recommendation to read it. Good luck to all!

I think that it is horrible that this criminal now seeks to profit from his crime. I thought that there were laws that prevented that.

This guy obviously burned some bridges when this book came out, but it makes for a fascinating view inside the world of high-stakes politics.

I appreciate that Mr. Raymond is repentant for his actions that are basically voter disenfranchisement. But, at the risk of spoiling the ending, you can't but help but think that if things had worked out better for him as a political operative, he'd be trucking away.

But no need to judge - between this book and the recent Frontline special on Lee Atwater, you really get a good sense of how the Republican machine worked so well for so many years to make sure that one party stayed in office. Unbelievable as it may seem today in light of the 2008 elections, one can almost understand why Karl Rove thought he could engineer a permanent Republican majority.

All in all, a well-written, very readable book.

The more people who read insider confessions like this, I hope, the more likely that electoral abuses will lessen. This is a breezy, credible and amusing book. It reads like a light novel, told in the first person. We get a real sense of a bright rascal who ignored ethics, not to mention foundational principles of democracy and a couple of laws, to build a career. So what if Allen Raymond seems still to be a bit of a wise guy? His arrogance and cynicism are probably symptomatic of most people who serve either major political party, and so is an important part of our understanding. He spares us the mawkish repentance and pandering that sweeten too many insider accounts. Allen Raymond's unflattering portrayal of an unethical Republican party apparatus corroborates what we have read countless times elsewhere, but Republican faithful can read this book without steeping in any unwelcome suggestion that the Democratic Party is any better. A pox on both their houses, but at least we can enjoy our reading here. Raymond apparently picked a good co-author, Ian Spiegelman, whose background as journalist and novelist serves the reader well. But it needs an index.

This is a great book for the lover of politics. It makes you realize just how evil the Republicans truly can be (I'm an independent). He tells tales of dirty politics and even their own infighting. Fascinating reading.

I got this book at a book fair some time ago. I started reading it a few months ago and finished it recently.

Blood, the main character, is a stock anti-hero with very little characterization to set him apart from other anti-heroes. Much of what he says and does is of very little surprise. His story gets told, a little bit earlier and a little bit more extensively than what would perhaps be prudent, but it is what it is. Lent gives, as we would expect a bare bones account of Blood as he is in the present day for a bit, then maybe about 25-33% of the way through the book we're given his entire back story. On another not quite surprising note, Blood is also the guy who always has the better answer, the wiser suggestion, the more level-headed approach. Somehow the villagers he lives with just couldn't figure out anything without Blood, and it's a wonder they still lived as long as they did without his sage advice.

In the first part of the book, Sally, a prostitute he won from a game of cards, is tied down and hauled with some other goods he intends to sell. She is thankful that he hasn't had sex with her but it doesn't take too long for him to break that threshold. Then a bit later, Blood beats Sally, either because 1. He got tired of her talking or 2. Lent just wanted to show us he could; I couldn't really figure out which. Neither reason proves to have any plot significance, nor does the beating itself. It's just there. As is a lot of terribly written sentences. Many of them require several rereads just to ensure that you know that, yes Lent did in fact write that and/or has one of the laziest editors in the business. And there are some scenes, more than a few actually that should've just stayed in the rough draft, as they serve no true purpose. Take for example, the scene that introduces the deacon, or the music man. Neither scene has any payoff of any sort, be it to advance the plot or enrich any of the characters. Finally, the ending makes little sense to me. I simply cannot for the life of me imagine why Sally did what she did at the end of the story, especially since she's more or less only praised Blood for the good he's done her, how much better her life is after he's come into her life and the good times they enjoy together, such as when they take a day off to celebrate her birthday. She won't pretend to ignore the beating (which is the one and only time he is ever cruel to her) but says little else to criticize Blood. If there's one thing a good, well-written story has, it's a logical progression. While events in real life are oftentimes seemingly random and people act illogically, in a well-written story, each scene builds on the one before it, the action flows logically from that progression and the characters act in a way that is consistent with what the reader knows about them. The final confrontation flies in the face of all of that.

The rest of the cast is completely forgettable. None of them at any point in the story ever have a shining moment where they break out of their molds and truly carry their weight in a scene. And true, the spotlight doesn't belong on them, but it would've been nice to see Blood talk to some three-dimensional characters and not these stiff, interchangeable drones.

And even those who praised Lent's work have bemoaned that awful epilogue so nothing more needs to be said on that.

This book isn't terrible but I wouldn't read through it again.

After reading "In the Fall", I put "Lost Nation" on my wish list, and it stayed there for several years before I finally bought it. I wish I hadn't waited so long.

First, if you loved "In the Fall" I am sure that you will love "Lost Nation". They are two very distinct books, but both very, very good in their own rights.

Second, I don't like to repeat book's story in my reviews (and I don't like to read reviews that give away the whole story), so if you want to know what the book is about, you will want to read the professional reviews or other reviews.

This book is based on the real events that happened on the "frontier" of New Hampshire on the Canadian border in the early 1800s. (for more information about the events, Wikipedia has a good article on the subject: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_Indian_Stream) Jeffrey Lent has taken that event and constructed a fictional character (that has his own story back story) - and put him in the center of the historical time and event. I found this book to be a page-turner, until the very end when I put off reading the events for the same reason you would close your eyes at a movie. I knew that the bad part was coming. But, finish it I did, and although I didn't love the ending, I did enjoy reading this book.

It starts out a little slow. Even though I LOVED Lent's writing and language in ITF, I was a little concerned that he had become carried away in this second book. But, the cadence quickly changed, and the story took center stage and stayed there until the pointless epilogue. In fact, I would say that Lent's descriptions are a little more strained in Lost than they were in ITF. When reading ITF, I felt like I could see and smell the landscape, I could have walked in the homes and buildings and knew where to find the kitchen. But, in Lost, I often was confused about the locations - what was up the stream, what was down, where the barn was in relation to the house - that sort of thing. It didn't matter though - it did not distract from the writing and the story.

I've never been a fan of westerns, nor have I ever read one, but make no mistake that this is an "eastern". I often thought of the Blood character as the Clint Eastwood - the sullen stranger both bad and good, and always smarter than the other men. I think that the fact that there is only one main female character (and she is, of course, a prostitute) makes a statement. Women were not esteemed.

So, I won't wait as long to read "A Peculiar Grace" - just until it is out in paperback. I'm sure that Lent will deliver again, and it will be worth the wait.

The writing in this book really comes alive. The first page smacked me across the face, and it made me want to read more. There is one section that was so sad, strange, and so wonderfully done that I had to read it again and again. I didn't feel that it completly achieved all that it wanted to, or at least what I think it wanted to, but some parts of it were so good, that it totally makes reading it worthwhile.

I enjoy historical fiction. However this book was very disappointing. Under the guise of being "mysterious" the characters are poorly developed. The story line has potential but never goes anywhere. Most of the action seems very contrived and pointless. None of the characters is in any way sympathetic. By the end of the book I just wanted them all to die.

Finally the writing is just plain bad. This book contains so many gramatical errors and poorly structured sentences that sometimes I had to read a section multiple times to figure out what the writer meant to say.

I had to force myself to finish this novel.

The title Lost Nation refers to the idea that the northern border of New Hampshire along Quebec was evidently in question in 1836. This area of New Hampshire was every bit as much a frontier as the Appalachians during the same period. I found it extremely well written and difficult to put down. Be warned that many of the characters are not admirable and the ending is not happy in any conventional sense. I still consider this one of the best books I have read in a very long time. The weakest part of the book is the postlude which continues for several pages before making a connection with the story that has gone before.

Half and Susanne Zantop were the ideal middle age couple who were both well-respected college professors at ivy league Dartmouth. They were also loving parents to two daughters and German immigrants who had long been in America. Then one Saturday afternoon, two young men, Robert Tulloch and Jim Parker visit their home with the impression that they were doing a survey for the environment. The afternoon ended in a double homicide which puzzled the Dartmouth community in Hanover, New Hampshire. Tulloch and Jim only got $340.00 from the crimes. They were troubled teenagers. The book does detail about the two boys, the two communities, and the two victims in this case. There is no question about who they are and also their two daughters. Half and Susanne were valuable because they were both so accomplished, so beloved, and so well-regarded by their peers and students. The second tragedy is the lives of two young men who thought that it would be easier to kill and run away to Australia which would be impossible without passports. Jim is serving 25 years to life while Robert is serving life without the possiblity of parole. There was no long trial where there would have plenty of testimony. Instead it was over in one day of sentencing. I received the proof of this book and they didn't have pictures but some grammatical errors in it.

I am 52 years old, a mother of four children, all of whom grew up in Central Vermont and attended four different high schools during the same years that Tulloch and Parker were in high school. I am not a personal friend of the families, the Zantops, Parkers or Tullochs, but I do know many of those detailed in this book. I am intimately aquainted with the communities involved, the schools, the changes the authors describe. The detail that the authors employ to describe the lives of the "transplants," the native Vermonters and the changing times is brilliant, as it so thoroughly illustrate the reason we now have a book called Judgement Ridge.

The authors did an amazing job of elucidating what life is like for a teenager growing up in Central Vermont at the end of the millenium; the challenges, emotional and physical, economical and psychological.

The main criticism of this book is the detail. From one who has lived there, who has struggled daily with the question of why our boys court violence (and they do), why they fall into the trap of inflation, fueled by contempt and arrogance, is all there in the book. I applaud these authors. They have hit the nail on the head over and over, not a loud clumsy clap, but a residual tap, making the case over and over, why our kids are falling into these traps.

As a parent of boys their age in a community just a few miles down the road, I saw this phenomenon coming down the halls of our high schools, I saw the desperate sense of displacement that so many of these kids experience, especially the young men, and the tragic disillusion and inflation that can so quickly carry them to the ill-fated, to destructive acts to self and other. Roberts arrogance is not unique or unusual. His sense of superiority is not uncommon. My husband and I struggled with what to do about it in our own household, in our own community; we found it too much of a coincidence that this pathology was running rampant a few miles down the road in Chelsea.

I found long sought for answers in this book. I read it word for word, page by page. The bottom line is consequence. Consequence. Consequence. I saw the mistake of no consequence made in our community, over and over. We see it today in the young men who work for us on our home in Vermont, in our absence, shoveling snow or mowing our lawn. They screw up, they milk the job, they pretend they didn't and their parents run to protect them. This error in judgement has proven fatal, not just for these two, there are many others who are serving time, many young men whose parents didn't understand what was right under their nose, are now paying the price for their arrogance. Too many liberal parents today make the mistake of believing their 17 year old sons are pure as the new driven snow, and we are no exception, we made the mistake too. The problem is that it persists, six years after these murders, after these authors have come on to tell the story through interview after interview, we are still seeing the same mistake being made, parents are still afraid to admit that their sons are capable of lying, that they need to be a little less gullible. Instead, we find parents raging and pressuring community members, schools, etc., to overlook obtuse behavior.

The authors description of the radically different parenting approach of the "old Vermonters" should not go without applause. The hard love approach works and is a preventive. They don't come out and say it, but it's inferred and rightly so. The one time the son of an "old Vermont family" made the mistake of scribbling on one of my daughters paintings at a student art show, the parents insisted he compensate her for the damage. It was a small scribble in comparison to the punishment the parents insisted on, the boy had to sell his video game to pay my daughter $150.00. They drove him to our home, the whole family came, gave her the money and made him formally apologize. A parenting style moving fast toward extinction.

This book should be on the best seller list and every parent should read it. As one reviewer put it, the parents are not responsible directly, but one thing I do know, parents today no longer have an excuse.

i need to read some p.g. wodehouse now. something to lighten my soul a bit. a few days ago i finished cormac mccarthy's "the road," which was disturbing, fast moving, and fascinating. now this. "judgement ridge" is disturbing, fast moving, and fascinating. disturbing is the heaviest element in both of these books. the second one is even more disturbing, being a true story. an incomprehensible act of sociopathic murder is told with fluid prose and excellent character portrayal. i raced through the book in a couple of days. disquieting stuff, very well done by the authors. a highly recommended work of true crime telling.

This was a powerful book that rates more than five stars, and should be read by anyone involved in working with young people. I found it to be a very disturbing book to read, and extremely difficult to put down. This is a book that school administrators, teachers, counselors, and parents should familiarize themselves with in hopes of recognizing signs of deviant behavior in young people before it has a chance to demonstrate itself in an infamous way. Suffice it to say it is a story of a friendship involving two boys, one a leader and the other a follower. One drags the other down causing the ruination of their own lives in addition to the two individuals whose lives they snuffed out. Truly a tragic story causing a negative impact on the lives of their families, friends, and the family and friends of those whose lives they destroyed. The authors do an outstanding job in providing extensive details throughout the book, and I would agree with Terence Hines in saying it is the best true crime book I have ever read.

As a Dartmouth alumnus, and father of two sons, I found this book interesting on two levels. Many of the incidents mentioned took place in places I am familiar with from college days. Also, I was haunted by the way the two murderers went very wrong- the older boy a psychopath who seduced the younger into abetting his criminal plans. How easy for a good boy to ruin his life (and that of others) by associating with bad company.
One may compare the crimes of Tulloch and Parker with those of Leopold and Loeb from an earlier era.

Shaw tells a great story that is fiction, though based on her own experience as a woman married to a man she discovers is gay. The rollercoaster ride their marriage goes through and all the thoughts the wife has are so in line with what I am experiencing now while dealing with this issue in my own life. The book deals with the issue with humor and a clarity I haven't found in many other books. I enjoyed it so much I didn't want it to end! Reading it was very thgough provoking and therapeutic.

Even if you aren't dealing with this issue in your own life, you will totally be able to relate to the characters and their relationship.

Wonderfully told story on how a woman married for years suddenly finds out her husband is [not straight]. The whole book began looking like two friends of the opposite sex out for a night out on the town together. She, wanting to know what his [other] night life was like, got him to take her with him. But they are really married.

Then chapter one takes you back into time to tell the tale from the beginning. It was fascinating to watch Michael come to terms with being [not straight]. I was horrified for Emily as she found out the truth, even though I knew it was coming.

The author shows exactly what I believe it must be like to find myself in this situation. The question, "Where do we go from here?" is not an easy one to answer. However, Lisa Rogak pulls me, the reader, along with her with her humor and was of facing facts. I loved it!

I Loved this book!!! It spoke so much to me about what its like on the other other side of the closet. It really made me think a lot about marriage in general and what it takes to hold a marriage together and about love and what it is and what it sacrifices. I read it so fast because I just couldnt put it down. This is a story that you dont want to miss.

I love Lisa's writing style - conversational, humorous, and painfully honest. Although the first chapter didn't hook me as well as it could have, it was worth my while to keep reading; it got better. I think the book was a tad hard on the gay spouse, portraying him as impossibly hostile most of the time, while the straight spouse was improbably forgiving and submissive. In reality, most marriages would not have lasted as long as this one did. And I didn't buy the "let me find out what it's like to have sex with the same sex" scenario. It didn't ring true. Either you want to or you don't. A straight person isn't going to find out what it's like by picking up someone in a bar.

Other than that, I couldn't put the book down!

Lisa Rogak, Pretzel Logic (Williams Hill Press, 1999)

Lisa Rogak has written a pretty darn fine novel, but unfortunately couldn't get it published by a major. So instead she went to a small, regional press with this book, which has probably kept it from getting a wide enough distribution to reach the audience it deserves.

Pretzel Logic is the story of a married couple who move back to the wife's hometown and take over the weekly paper. All is going swimmingly until the husband starts fighting past demons he thought he had conquered in his adolescence, finally capitulating to them and (while masking it in various ways) coming out of the closet.

The storyline isn't anything terribly new. We've all seen it before over the past twenty years more than once. What makes Pretzel Logic worthwhile is Rogak's easygoing style, somewhat rare in journalists, especially rare in journalists writing autobiographical novels and there are quite a few clues lying around to give this away as an autobiographical novel). Rogak is still close to her material, to be sure, but that doesn't stop her from recognizing, and telling, a good story around it.

It is entirely possible that the way Rogak approaches the subject matter is what stopped the book from getting published. Various episodes in the book, from an offhand comment made early on to Rogak's attempt at sleeping with another woman are not handled with one iota of political correctness, which would no doubt cause most publishers to shy well away from this book. At the same time, the political incorrectness of the book doesn't come off as offensive as much as it comes off honest (and if you can't tell the difference between the two, you can both stop reading this review right now and avoid this book like the plague. Those with chips on their shoulders are guaranteed to be offended by this book). In other words, as often happens, the book didn't get a big contract precisely because of the things that make it a good read in the first place. And we wonder why Danielle Steel sells millions of copies. *** ½

Those who say "If you know the area, you'll love this book" have a point. I answered "yes" to all of the questions in another review. In fact, I bought the book while in New Hampshire to receive my award for climbing all of the 4000-foot peaks, including Mt. Washington and its neighbors. I started it on the way back to Illinois, where I presently live, and my attention drifted a bit in the early chapters. But lately I've been reading it more intently, and the story near the end about Don Carr was worth the cost of the book. It bears a striking similarity to the tone of "Into Thin Air," John Krakauer's narrative of the 1996 tragedy on Everest. So many bad decisions by the hiker (and so many chances to change course)! The college-age crew and other rescue workers had to make hard decisions in short order, and acquitted themselves admirably.

The annotated maps are an asset, as another reviewer mentions.

If you're not interested in hiking or the White Mountains, and if you've never pushed on when perhaps you shouldn't have, you won't be interested in this book. And yes, there are run-on sentences and comma splices. But if you are at all interested in the subject matter, you've probably had to decide whether to continue a hike as conditions deteriorated. Most of us, most of the time, either make the right call or are lucky. The exceptions make for high drama, and that trumps perfect prose for me.

Great book, full of history and mountaineering stories on one of the world's most dangerous mountain!

Nicholas Howe's "Not Without Peril" is a unique sort of travel book, in that his focus is on the hazards of travel instead of the benefits. Howe has done some extensive and fascinating research dating back to the 1840's, when people first started to travel voluntarily and for pleasure around Mount Washington in the magnificent Presidental Range in the heart of the White Mountains of New Hampshire. This unique alpine landscape has been tempting travelors for over 150 years, but is also home to some of the most variable and sometimes dangerous weather conditions in New England.

Howe's narative details a stream of visitors who often exercised poor judgement in traveling too high, with too little equipment, under less than favorable weather conditions, and with insufficient knowledge of the terrain. The stories are a reminder that man is still a visitor to this mountain realm, only hours walking time from more civilized streets. Some of the stories end well, thanks to the efforts of rescuers; others end badly. The effect of the whole is to place what may seem like casual travel in proper context as an adventure "not without peril". Howe also manages to convey a sense of history about travel around the Presidentials, from the first travelors to the region on foot and horseback to more modern visitors who take advantage of the Mount Washington Auto Road or Cog Railroad.

This book is highly recommended as a set of cautionary tales for those who would explore the Presidential Range, and for those interested in mountaineering in New England.

I read this book while flying for business this fall. I found that about 80% of the stories interested me. Some of them seemed to be the same story repeated about people wandering in the snow. Other stories were much easier for me to visualize and to really become involved with.

I have hiked Mt. Washington from Pinkham Notch to the summit twice in the summer and I have skied Tuckerman Ravine twice. I would reccomend this book to anyone who has considered going on the mountain during the winter but has only spent similar low-risk time on the mountain like myself. It definitely makes you think twice about preparation if you are heading up into the whites, even in the late spring and early fall.

I took two major thoughts away from this book.

1. The danger of hiking in the Whites if you are not prepared. The White Mountains are a beautiful place that anyone who enjoys the outdoors would enjoy. You just need to be adequately prepared with the right equipment and sound judgement.

2. The history of the White Mountains, the AMC, and Joe Dodge. The focus of the book was clearly more on the dangers of hiking in the Whites; however, it was interesting to get a short history lesson about the first people to make the area more accessible for recreation.

Not Without Peril details the deaths and mishaps that have claimed over a hundred lives of hikers on Mt. Washington and the surrounding Presidential Range Mountains.

I bought this book in the Mt. Washington Observatory bookstore at the top of the mountain - fresh from the thrilling views observed on the way up to the 4,000 foot level and the cold enveloping mist of the ever present fog at the peak (one wonders why so many flock to a mountain top whose view is obscured 300 out of 360 days a year on average - but the views on the lower levels are spectacular). And I have to agree with one reviewer who stated that this book will primarily be of interest to those who know the Presidential Range. I would add avid outdoors types to this list, also.

The author writes an interesting book about death and mayhem on the mountain. The chapters cover a hapless (nearly always) hiker or hiking party who met usually with death at the place billed as having the world's worst weather (and the highest ever recorded wind speed of 231 miles per hour). Mt. Washington is the convergence point for three jet streams and its altitude combined with location produces wild, cold, and snowy weather with high winds very consistently.

Most of those who died did so because they ignored warnings or were foolish in estimating their ability to survive in extreme weather or took very bad risks. That central theme runs through nearly all the stories. This book is in some ways a warning to those who would take risks in the outdoors - don't; and even if the weather reports are fine, be prepared with shelter and food and most importantly let others know your route. The writing is fine, though some of the stories picked are very short. The author also fills in the stories with the history of exploration of the mountain, its weather station and important personalities who have figured in rescue operations over the last century. There is one very interesting and contemporary case where a man was left to die near a shelter based on the judgment of the shelter manager and the perceived risk to rescuers with a night time rescue attempt. Although the author is sympathetic to the judgment of the shelter manager, I'm sure lots of people will continue to debate whether or not she made the correct call.

If you enjoy this book, I'd recommend another one just like it called "Death in the Grand Canyon." This is an enjoyable book that highlights the dangers of taking Mother Nature for granted on Mt. Washington.