Iowa Books

I recently purchased DISCOVER! Volume 3 and I want more! Please send Volumes 2 and 3!

I recently purchased DISCOVER! Volume 3 and I want more! Please send Volumes 2 and 3!

While planning for yet another summer of rides on the motorcycle,
my wife and I had this book sent as part of our research.
We were very disappointed, it has 5 stars. So what is the problem?
For one thing it is not well written nor does it seem up to date.
We travel a lot, all over the USA and the world.
It is like asking about a good cafe, first you need to know the people who felt it was great. Do they know good food?

We know well done books and this is not one. I move it to the waste fill.

Rolling on the River.......... In a few weeks, it'll be road-trip weather, and we have some of the nation's prettiest highways at our fingertips--US Hwy 61 and several other state and county highways form the parkway known as AMERICA's Great River Road. Making that drive even easier is a new guide: "DISCOVER! AMERICA'S GREAT RIVER ROAD, Volume 1." This 240-page guide highlights the heritage, natural history and recreational activities available along the Mississippi River from St. Paul, Mn., to Dubuque, Iowa. It includes maps, historical and geological points of interest, bike trails, bird watching spots and short features on small towns, parks, and villages. ----STAR TRIBUNE, Minneapolis, Mn. April 1997

Having traveled and lived in the areas described in Vol.3, The Lower Mississippi, from St. Louis, Missouri to Memphis, Tennessee, and descended from a family of river rats, I can say that I've "Been there, done that, got the T-shirt."

Reading Pat's book is like traveling along with her as she explores the Great River Road along the mighty Mississippi River. I was especially impressed with the with the book's scope and readability. Pat has included personal insights from area inhabitants, collected geographical, historical and societal information and spread it all liberally throughout the travelogue. This is one hard book to put down, and if you ever decide to visit the area you'll have plenty of reference material to use. You will feel like you know the place already, and have gotten your own t-shirt.

Jim Pankey USN (Ret.)

WOW! This book is a wealth of information for a layman guinea pig owner. It contains anything and everything you need to know about the health of the guineas! I've read it 3 times and still pick up some new info. Great book to have in case your guinea is ill.

For the amount that this "book" cost, I would have expected a hard cover book with many more pages of information. Instead it was soft covered with very little helpful information.
This item is not worth purchasing.

A superb, informative book for those interested in learning more about medical issues that can affect Guinea Pigs. We (TX Rustlers Guinea Pig Rescue) recommend this to all our new guinea pig adopters.

I wish I had this book to hand when my guinea pig became ill a few months a go (see recovered by the way), this is a really good guide for guinea pig breeders/fanciers as well as vets. The only problem is I get so worried reading about all the things that can go wrong!

Diseases of Domestic Guinea Pigs is my "Cavy Bible." This a "must have" book for all cavy caretakers and companions who are serious about the proper care, health and disease prevention of their cavy. VCG Richardson, 20 years cavy experience and veterinary surgeon is giving the very best information that cavy caretakers could need or ask for. This book covers all aspects of the cavy, and it is written in scientifical and layman terms. The readability is set for ages 12+. The book covers the skin, reproductive, urinary, respiratory, digestive and musculoskeletal systems; the head and neck, behavior and the central nervous system, cavy husbandry, anaaesthetics, surgical procedures, treatments and zoonotic aspects. This book does not recommend that you, the cavy caretaker, in any way try to replace your cavy veterinarian. This book is an excellent reference when discussing procedures with your vet., or if you want to suggest a second opinion. Don't let this book sit on your shelf, digest every word of it and be thankful to have this information available to you!

This is not one of my favorite books. From the first few wandering poems, she doesn't seem like a poet of noteworthy vision. There are places in the book where the thinking is very interesting & the thoughts are indeed rewarding for the reader, but most of the poetry here is not wonderful. I do so much work to find interesting thoughts within these poems...& I read so little great merit of hers that's easy to find...that I'm not even sure how much of the reward I get from reading the book is self-generated. I mean you can find interesting thoughts anywhere in you're trying that hard. In any case, it is interesting to read the work of younger poets such as Szporluck to get a glimpse of the poetry of her generation. & it's not a TERRIBLE book. I just don't know how much of a career as a poet she has ahead of her.

An excellent investigation into the contemporary lyric.

She forces herself into stylistic extremes to make up for having nothing really to say. Basically all she said in this whole book that was almost interesting to me was that blood is water reddened by desire, & even that isn't so exciting. There are so many modern poets whose writing is far better, for instance such young modernists as Karen Volkman, Brenda Shaughnessy, Robyn Schiff, Joanna Goodman, & many, many others. Unlike Larissa Szporluck, they really say things & do things with their work.

I enjoyed this book greatly. Unlike most of the books I've read lately by younger poets (so hip and ironic and so fresh from their MFA programs), Szporluk manages to be clever without being pretentious and to write moving poems without being sentimental and ridiculous. I found this book a breath of fresh air.

I fell in love with Larissa Szporluk's first book, "Dark Sky Question" and I had been anxiously awaiting "Isolato". It was definitely worth the wait. This book is even more complexly gorgeous than the last. I find more to love and get lost in with every reading of her poems. She manages to create a fully real alternate reality with her words -- A reality of jagged breaths, dizzying heights and a spirtuality that's hard to define -- part torture, part rapture. Larissa Szporluk's poetry is wholly unearthly. I've never encountered anything like it before and it is therefore hard to describe. If you haven't read "Dark Sky Question" you may want to read that first to get a feel for the way she writes. If you loved "Dark Sky Question" then definitely get "Isolato".

A Journey into the Paranoid Heart of the 1950s, by Neil Miller - This book is a historical account of two sex-related child murders that took place in Sioux City, Iowa, resulting in the passage of a "sexual psychopath law" which lumped homosexuals in with child molesters and murders, and resulted in 20 men (who had nothing to do with the crimes) being arrested and sentenced to a mental hospital deemed "cured." The men were all homosexuals. It's a rather chilling story when you consider the kind of power the state authorities had over these men. What's more curious is the seeming passivity of the men, who accepted their fate and perhaps on some level thought it was what they deserved. The author writes it off to just part of being gay in the 50s. It's a relevant story today, because it shows that when legislation is passed in an atmosphere of fear and hysteria, bad laws get put on the books, and the consequences are visited upon people who become scapegoats for that fear and paranoia.

I found this to be an interesting story since the Mt. Pleasant facility is where I currently work and have been there for over 30 years. That is why I would like to correct the error on page 144, "opened in 1865, the second state facility of its kind west of the Mississippi", when introducing the facility. The first patient arrived in February, 1861 and this was the first facility of its kind west of the Mississippi. Just wanted to set the record straight. Miller does a good job for the reader in explaining the short-lived sexual psychopath law in Iowa. I even knew 3 people mentioned in the book.

This story has the potential to one of deep, dark despair. And yet somehow it manages to fill the reader with hope and inspiration.

The author has done a fantastic job of investigating and he tells the story dispassionately, layer on layer, letting the events speak for themselves.

It is not every day a person gets to read a great tale told well.

Here's a part of the '50s that David Halberstam _didn't_ talk about: In several small cities across the U.S., communities conducted full-blown witch hunts against Gay men -- or men perceived to be Gay. The most famous of these "panics" occurred in Boise, but Neil Miller has uncovered an equally horrifying case in Sioux City, IA.

The Sioux City panic has an extra twist: An Iowa law mandated treatment in a mental hospital for these "deviants." Although at the time this approach was considered humane, Neil Miller's account reveals it as a bureaucratic, legalistic, and logistical nightmare. If the situation weren't so frightening, it would have been funny: Miller consistently points out absurdities, inconsistencies, and abuse in the men's treatment.

The book's major flaws are inevitable, given that Miller began his research into the Sioux City panic nearly forty years after the fact. Court transcripts and medical records are intact, but most of the people involved are either deceased or unwilling to speak. Understandably, the few who are willing and able to cooperate with Miller display fuzzy memories (and Miller seems a bit unfair when he takes a few of them to task for that). Consequently, the book lacks the compelling journalistic details that only eyewitnesses can provide. Compared to John Gerassi's _Boys of Boise_ (about the Boise panic, written only ten years afterward), Miller's book is much inferior.

Still, better late than never. This story should be told, and Miller tells it as well and as fully as possible. His epilogue, discussing the recent outcry over "Meghan's Law," raises the alarming possibility that witch hunts against Gay men may not necessarily be a thing of the past.

Despite its rather sensational title, "Sex-Crime Panic" tells a cautionary story about paranoia gone wrong during the 1950's, surprisingly relevant today.

Neil Miller has discovered an amazing story of the deaths of two Sioux City children, and the mania that overtook the town to find their killers. Well written, documented, and told from multiple perspectives, you are placed right in the middle of the hysteria for duration of the book.Two children are brutally killed, and in response to the public outcry, Iowa state and local officials attempt to round up "the sexual deviants", which the majority of those being homosexuals.

Caught by sting operations and rattted out by friends, tried and convicted under false pretenses, these men were shipped across state to a "mental ward" to live as "prisoners". The lives of these men were forever altered by the experience, and many lived to shame themselves into forgetting everything.

Because of this secrecy, Neil Miller was forced to rely on whatever information he could muster from some of the men who were still living, and the people associated with the cases. Therefore, information related to the killing of the children, and the subsequent manhunt is extensive. Information relating to what happened to the men inside the mental ward was somewhat lacking. Understandly so, Miller goes on towards the end of the book stating that several men, still living, absolutely refused to talk about what occured. Their shame is something they've carried around with them for their lives; a shame, unjustly given to them.

For anyone today who believes our government is incapable of getting out of control, or anyone who wants to read about an event in gay history few people know about, I heartily recommend this book.

It's bad enough that Martha Stewart has fetishized housework. Now we get to listen to the smug, precious, navel-gazing "poems" about the life-affirming drudgery that is cooking and cleaning. I find it suspicious that there are no poems from men in this collection. I suppose that is because male poets neither cook nor clean? Or is it that they just can't appreciate the struggle and inner turmoil they face every time they need to choose between Mr. Clean and Mop-n-Glow? And all they care about is steaks anyway. If people choose to read their hospital charts and call it "poetry" that is their right. However, it's no reason to spend money on such narcissistic nonsense. You're better off watching the Lifetime Channel's Afterschool Special "Mommy, Why Are You Crying in Your Latte?"

I enjoyed this work, and I think many women who grew up with mothers who had a love-hate relationship with housework would as well. Rather than considering this a work about "whining," I took seriously the idea that housework is something that is expected of women (when a house dirty, most often the woman of the house is seen as responsible). Housework is also something that never ends--the same tasks are done day after day, week after week. Yet housework also makes people feel they can bring a sense of order and pride into their lives, so it can be therapeutic as well. Perhaps there are no male-authored poems because men don't have the omnipresent cultural connection to (seen any commercials for cleaning products lately?)and responsibility for housework. Regardless, the book is a great exploration of the many connections women have to the home and their families.

I certainly do consider this a feminist anthology and plan to use it in a Feminist Theories course I'll be teaching this spring. Its publication is a triumph and a minor miracle in this antifeminist year of 2005: many thanks to Pamela Gemin for accomplishing it. What is documented in this astounding collection of intelligent, articulate, beautifully crafted poems by women is the amazing range and depth of the effects of housework on female lives and consciousness. Resentment of servitude, yes, absolutely. You will find it here, though I would not cheapen it with a word like "diatribe." Resignation is here; joy is here; pride is here; history is here, as women poets make it clear that they cook and sew and clean as their mothers did, and their mothers were harmed by servitude but also possessed a tradition of expertise and knowledge they passed down to their daughters. This is ambivalence and complication; this is humanity at its best. The great lesson of this remarkable collection is that you can limit a population of humans to tasks characterized as menial and kept that way by tradition and politics, exploited; but give those humans a pen and they will prove they never stopped thinking about everything their work, and their lives, meant. Menial work does not destroy art: it only postpones or hides it. And the hand of the artist will make art from whatever is within reach. If the housework doesn't do it satisfyingly enough--and the poems in this collection document both possibility and impossibility there--the poetry about the housework surely will.

Anyone who values fine art, and justice, and is moved by the proof of humanity and its indestructible will to forge beauty from whatever is at hand, has to admire and love this book.

Pamela Gemin has gathered together an impressive group of women poets and an astonishing collection of poems. As its subtitle indicates, the collection is a thematic one, focusing on women's work. Rather than being a limitation, this focus allows Gemin to cover a wide range of topics: cooking, cleaning, childbirth, child rearing, putting up preserves, putting up with hard times, making romance, making mischief, writing poetry, and, of course, sweeping. We find poems about grandmothers, mothers, wives, and daughters, and yes, fathers, sons, and husbands. We find poems that take a historical perspective, others set in the here and now, and still others that look forward. We find poems set in all the places where women do their work: the kitchen, bedroom, bathroom, cellar, closet, porch, and garden. This collection is not any kind of feminist diatribe or a circling of the wagons but rather a celebration of women and the work they do. Democratically and fortuitously arranged in alphabetical order, the collection begins with Elizabeth Alexander's direction-setting "The female seer will burn upon this pyre" and ends with Carolyne Wright's exquisite "Prayer":

Prayer

Bless my life-its inks
and paperweights and houseplants
fringed with sun.
Give me the quiet, Lord,
I close my eyes
and turn my tongue back for.
Don't feed me too much,
and when I can't decide between love
and what's jammed in the typewriter
or roughed out on the drawing board,
take away the coins I flip
and make me listen: That young man
smiling in my kitchen at me is in love.
With me. That's one door in my house
that opens on more than grief
or dirty sheets or the supermarket
twice a week. It gives on light,
and I, your moth, am beating to get in.
Give us this day, and with no promises
but what we are-two small people
trying to be one-send us out
and say, "That's fine. Light fills your gaps.
Breathe on."

Why anyone would find it suspicious that there are no poems by men in a poetry collection called Sweeping Beauty: Contemporary Women Poets Do Housework is beyond me! There are also no poems by children, or aliens. There are no poems about kittens or nuclear disarmament, either. The title says what the book's scope will be, and the Pamela Gemin accomplishes exactly what she has set out to do: compile the best poems on housework by the best women writers around in this highly satisfying, dazzling, and diverse collection.

Bauer is a writer through and through. Neither this nor any of his other books ("Dexterity." "The Very Air") has anything ground-breaking to say, so thematically this is just another coming-of-age novel. But it (they) makes for a great reading experience. He writes like a dream--the pure sensuousness of his prose is a pleasure. Yet it has an appealing simplicity--it never lapses into preciousness or syntactic complications. He also has a wonderful sense of place--he's written with equal authority on New York State ("Dexterity"), the Southwest ("Very Air"), and Iowa. The Fox

I've read the other reviews posted here including the Kirkus diss. What troubles me about this novel is that it is so true--what the boy feels, what his father feels and how he is unable to say it, how his mother feels and is unable to act it out, and how his friend Bobby feels. That's a minor miracle of writing. I too thought of Madison County, but this is real literature, not a romance to cry over. I identify with the boy, as many of us must, and it's too bad that the author doesn't give us a mother who at least would contact her son in later life, having declared to her husband that she was taking him away. But that's not an essential plot point. Bauer gets inside the skin as well as the head. His use of words, his sentences, his writing style, have been banging around in my head for week. Read it and see for yourself.

I am mystified as to why The New York Times raved over this novel. Though the author has a nice sense of place, he incessantly injects the dull reminiscing of the adult Will into what should have been a compelling story of the summer his family fell apart. He'll put in an aside to the effect of: "And though I didn't realize it at the time, the way my father told that joke at the restaurant was an indication of a side of him we didn't often see, and now I understand that . . ." Blah, blah, blah. Get on with the narrative, already! It also strikes me (as the mother of 2 boys) as extremely unlikely that this mom who loved him through childhood and into adolescence would desert him and disappear without a trace. A disappointment.

Jumping into The Book of Famous Iowans is jumping into a landscape--a farm that becomes so familiar that you undertand the loss the main character feels when you, like he, finish the book and leave it. Bauer is able to captures the wildy varying feelings of a young boy, his grandmother, his father, his mother, and her lover, designating no favorites among them. It's a true life story, showing how nothing, and everything, happens in a small town...how we who come from small towns can never leave them, and why we search for glimpses of them in well written books like this. If you like Wallace Stegner, Doris Lessing, and Ian Frazier, you'll like Doug Bauer.

If you are a bridges fan try "BRIDGES A MEMOIR OF LOVE" written by Pauline Arthur Lomas. She was Meryl Streeps personal assistant on the film and the book covers the making of it. Veracity Press isbn0-9636864-1-0

This book The Bridges of Madison County was a very good book. It tells the story of a woman named Francesca who happens to be in a somewhat boring world. She practically does everything at a certain time. Her life revolves around her family and she spends her free time doing chores around the house. Francesca's life has been the same old routine for as long as she can remember. Until she meets Robert a photographer. Her way of life from then on changes. As they get to know eachother, things start happening and before she realizes it, she spends most of her time thinking of Robert. As I was reading this book I was deeply touched and moved by the miraculous things that came about in this book. To all that will listen this is a really good book, so if you're in for a good book you should read it some time.

This book contains pictures of all 6 Bridges in Madison County Iowa, with poetry written about each bridge. It also has pictures of quilts, each a tribute to the bridges or Madison county Iowa. A small book, only 63 pages, but a must have for Bridges of Madison County Fans. I was lucky enough to get an autographed copy, and treasure all my books about Madison County Iowa.

The book contains pictures of Madison County Iowa taken by local folks. I think this book captures the beauty of this part of the country.

"She talked and talked as if the silence was full of ghosts"(67). For Emily Doorn in the novel, In the Silence There Are Ghosts, by James Schaap, the silence, especially that which inhibits her mother, is full of ghosts. There are so many unanswered questions about her sister's death that Emily makes a promise to herself that she will find out who her sibling really was, not just what others made her out to be.

Emily Doorn starts her journey into the past by visiting with Norm Visser, the man who was driving the car the night that Meg, Emily's sister had died in a car crash. Norm gave her much insight into the ghosts that loomed over the Doorn family after Meg's death. He informed Emily of the drugs that he and Meg had done, about the trouble they used to involve themselves in, all of this leading up to the night of the fatal car accident. Norm confides in her, "When we hit that other car, Emily, we were smoking"(65). Emily, devastated by this sudden influx of information previously unknown to her, had to know if her parents had know the truth that she was just now uncovering, these ghosts that have been hidden for years.

With the knowledge she gained from her talks with Norm, Emily dug deeper into the life and death of her sister. She visited regularly with her mother at the hospital since her return to her hometown of Neukirk, making sure her presence was felt by her silent mother. Ever since the stroke, Emily's mother had lost her ability to respond to any person, or so the doctors said. This silence that engulfed her mother made it difficult for Emily to find out if her mother truly had been masking Meg's identity after her death, and if she had been doing so, for what reason was this information kept secret, like a ghost, from herself? While visiting her mother, Emily met the nurse that had been caring for her ill parent for years. Nancy was her name, and she was very knowledgeable about Mrs. Doorn's feelings at any particular moment. She said to Emily, "You wait Em, you can see it in the eyes"(78). And she was right. As soon as Emily began to speak of Meg's death with her mother, she could sense that she was becoming upset, aggravated by the very nature of the subject at hand.

Emily had gathered enough information thus far to know that there was something that her family had been hiding from her, some ghosts they had kept locked away in a secret unknown place, a place that Emily no longer had access to since her father's death and her mother's stroke. Certain things just didn't seem right, like the bible that her mother kept with secret notes tucked away in tiny places; and lists of hymns, favorite hymns, with a chosen piece of music for everyone in her family, excluding herself. The date 1962, which meant something, but she was not sure what that something was yet. All these things lead to the answers she longed for; the answers that would rid her of the ghosts that were left looming over her family.

In Silence There are Ghosts is an example of Small Town USA's inhibititions gone exhibitionist. The book deals with a divorcee returning home after many years and discovering the underlying secrets of a town she realizes that she never really knew. This includes her parents and the secrets surrounding her older sister's death. The book's undercurrent deals with the psuedochristain attitudes displayed by the town members and how the overlaying Christain layer, once scraped away, reveals a decaying sense of immorality amoung its members. The book gives a good sketch of the protagonist and her unwitting discovery of the true nature of the town and her family.

This book is amazing because unlike other Christian authors Shaap doesn't beat you over the head with sermons. Instead he speaks from deep places, places wrought with pain and love, and in speaking he shows you yourself. Read it and you will find yourself thinking of your life like you have never thought before. The story is enchanting and the characters are so honest, they hurt.

while reading through this book i got the feeling that i was there. schaap has an amazing talent for capturing the emotion of the moment and the little details that we so often miss even in our own lives. the strong characterizations and indepth look into the thoughts and actions of the characters was amazing. i found this to be one of those books that you rush through, but hate to finish becaue then its done!

Moen's writing, classes and lectures have been incredibly helpful to me throughout the years. His books are a comprehensive guide to layout and design and I recommend them to all of my colleagues.

Moen's work is very readable, written in a very clear and precise style. Moen addresses most of the trends in modern newspaper layout and design, emphasizing visual journalism as a team effort. It is an excellent introduction to newspaper layout and design, one I will recommend to students and fellow instructors. Coupled with his workbook, Layout and Design should provide newspaper teams the theory and practical advice by which to build solid publications that tell the "story" the best way possible, whether that be through text, photos or "infographics."

I found this book useful, and I have been a designer for five years. I didn't have to use the first few chapters because it covers the basics, but I found many useful chapters in the book, especially those on typography, color and redesign. I have also used some of the material in designing sections.

Well, having met and been fortunate enough to drop one of Daryl Moen's classes in the past, I can safely say that this book cements his status as a classic example of "those who 'teach' because they can't 'do'." (Oh, sorry, was that sentence a bit too "cluttered"?)

This is the first book by Gorman I've read, and I expect it to be the last. I get the feeling the other reviewers read a different book.

On the positive side, this book does a fine job of depicting small-town life of 1960 through the nostalgic lens of an aging babyboomer, and I imagine that has a lot to do with it's appeal. And it is a very easy read.

On the negative side, the philosophic insight (the danger of anti-intellectualism) that is meant to provide background for the story, is rendered in the most simplistic terms. Quite simply, there are philosophic "good" guys and "bad" guys. The bad guys are depicted as something worse than pathetic in every regard. I'm not one who thinks a good mystery needs a guiding philosophic argument, but if it has one, it needs to not draw attention to itself.

The depiction of period seems a little forced, resting primarily on brand names, an infatuation with cigarettes and references to drinking habits and alcoholism. The dialogue often works well, but nearly every exchange includes a few lines that that veer either towards saccharine sentimentality or simplistic humor.

And what really put the nail in the coffin, the hero solves the mystery at the end based on two clues which were never shared with the reader! I'm not one to insist that a mystery follow the orderly progression (some would say clichés) of Agatha Christie's work, but this is not a mystery so much as a soap opera where some murders take place.

Sam McCain, attorney and sometimes investigator for Judge Esme Whitney, thinks that he's seen a lot--but he's never seen a church full of people sticking their hands in a box of rattlesnakes before. When the church's minister dies suddenly, everyone thinks one of the snakes got him--but McCain suspects murder. When a second minister suddenly dies, he's certain there is a connection, but exactly what the connection is, and who might be doing the killing remains unclear. In the meantime, McCain has to learn to deal with the strong attraction he feels toward married Kylie Burke.

SAVE THE LAST DANCE FOR ME is set in small-town Iowa during the 1960 Kennedy/Nixon election and Nixon's upcoming visit is very much on the minds of the characters. The conservatives in town are worried about Catholics and Jews uniting to overthrow the nation if Kennedy is elected, and jazz and rock and roll are hitting their stride. Author Ed Gorman presents this earlier America not as a nostalgic dream, nor as a nightmare, but as a past that is well left behind.

Gorman does a fine job developing Sam McCain as an interesting and multidimensional character. His writing style is enjoyable and compelling. It'll make you want to keep reading. I found some of Gorman's observations to be a little cynical and condescending for my taste, but this didn't keep me from laughing out loud a couple of times or from enjoying SAVE THE LAST DANCE FOR ME.

This is the 4th of Gorman's "Sam McCain" mysteries set in a town called Black River Falls, Iowa during the "happy days" of the late 1950's and early 60's. Of course, they weren't always that happy, filled as they are in this story with religious prejudice, murder, bigotry, infidelity, and mysterious goings on. McCain is a likeable character, and Gorman does a good job of letting us get to know him in this and the other novels of the series. Young, idealistic, liberal, cynical, unlucky-in-love, as well as shorter than most of the other male population in town, McCain works for the enigmatic, larger than life Judge Esme Ann Whitney, a cynical, Republican, aristocratic scion of the town who regularly hires the young Sam (a lawyer with an private-eye license) to investigate any crimes or murders which might cast Black River Falls in a negative light. The fact that Judge Whitney and the local sheriff are mutual enemies usually complicates both McCain's sleuthing and life in general.

In SAVE THE LAST DANCE FOR ME, it is August, 1960. Presidential candidate Richard Nixon is coming to visit the town at the same time that a charismatic bigoted preacher has just been murdered (literally) while in the pulpit. McCain's assignment is to solve the crime of this unlikeable man's demise, even though no one involved seems to want to help him. The man's family, congregation, local law enforcement and a cage of "holy" rattlesnakes all figure prominently, as does a beautiful local reporter who is having problems in her marriage. I read the first 3 books before I read this one, but it isn't necessary to do so, as Gorman writes each book in the series with enough of McCain's musings about the past to explain who the important characters are in both the town and his personal life. SAVE THE LAST DANCE FOR ME stands alone very well on it's own, although it will probably make you want to go out and read the others in the series. 5 Stars.

It's the summer of 1960 in Black River Falls, Iowa, and Richard Nixon, on the campaign trail for president, is scheduled to stop in this little mid-western burg for a speech and reception. Fledgling lawyer and part-time private investigator, Sam McCain's boss, town heavy, Judge Esme Ann Whitney, is hosting the Vice President's visit, and she wants her town to shine like the middle American jewel it is. Unfortunately, the murder of a local snake-handling, Jew and Catholic hating, fundamentalist preacher, tends to put a real damper on the judge's plans. Police Chief, Cliffie Sykes, is totally useless in the crime solving department, so she orders McCain to get to work, and clear up this nasty case before Nixon's arrival. "My Lord, we'll look like hillbillies. Snakes and Ozark faith healers. Good grief." But before he can even begin his investigation a second murder takes place, the local Protesant minister is gunned down in his garage. McCain's convinced these two crimes are related, and as he begins to dig, secrets start popping up all over town..... Ed Gorman is back with another delightful and nostalgic romp through yesteryear, with his well drawn, wacky and quirky cast of intriguing, original characters. His fast-paced plot really captures the essence of the '50s, and is entertaining, and full of marvelously vivid, laugh-out-loud scenes. But it's Mr Gorman's witty writing and wise-cracking, irreverent dialogue that really makes this novel stand out. Save The Last Dance For Me is short, sweet, engaging, and thoroughly enjoyable from the first page to the satisfying last. If you're new to Sam McCain and company, start at the beginning with The Day The Music Died, and read them all. If you're already a fan, Ed Gorman doesn't disappoint with his latest installment. This is a series that just keeps getting better and better.