Town Books

Daniel's Ride is an exellent book for children. I should know because I am a child. I think this is a good book because people usually don't write about lowriders or books for kids who are bilingual. This book has both of those subjects.

In Michael Perry's entertaining picturebook Daniel's Ride, it's the first day of summer vacation and young Daniel is anxiously awaiting the arrival of his big brother Hector and his custom '63 Impala Low Rider. The two bothers cruise the boulevard, compete in a low rider hopping context at the beach, and drive downtown to visit their artist cousin Diego as he paints an elaborate mural. It is during this wonderful day's journey that Daniel receives an unexpected gift from his big brother -- determination. Lee Ballard's artwork is perfectly suited to Perry's entertaining story of two brothers, a car, and a beautiful sunny day.

This is a wonderful story for kids, and adults, about low riders, a subject that is often misunderstood and maligned. Not much is availibale for children on the topic, especially told from their point of view. DANIEL'S RIDE is about much more than Hector's promise of his cool car to his little brother Daniel. It's about hopes and dreams and relationships, all of which lead to the story's broad appeal. Every year I buy a least one book for a friend in Arizona who is a reading specialist working in a bilingual setting. This book has been the biggest hit yet! Her students in Tucson love it and can't get enough of it. Perry and his illustrator Lee Ballard have a real hit here!

"A great story for all ages with amazing paintings by Lee Ballard...maybe the only thing better than this book is cruisin' in your very own 1963 Chevy Impala."

Daniel eagerly awaits a promised ride in his older brother Hector '63 Impala convertible “complete with spider hydraulics and gold wire wheels.” Together they celebrate the first weekend of summer vacation. They turn up the volume on their music and cruise, transforming the Impala into “a funky barrio carnival ride.” They join the cool cars cruising the beech before visiting the cousin. When the ride is over, Hector promise the car to Daniel if he finishes high school and plans to go to college.

Author Michael Perry brings his street-savvy writing style to children’s books in DANIEL’S RIDE. With the lyricism gained with his musical background, and an intense understanding of what motivates children, Perry creates a fun, hotrodding tale of sun, brothers and cars certain to delight young readers. Crisp, believable, readable dialog combine lends the story vibrant energy and promise. Very highly recommended.

A hardboiled mystery with a wonderful main character. Sheriff Whitlow tries to solve a murder with only his ne'er-do-well son and an elderly jailer for help. Not only are the "bad guys" against him, but he also has political enemies and the press trying to gum up the works. A great story that will keep you guessing until the end!

Drop dead is a masterful blend of well-drawn characters and an intricate plot. Sheriff Walker Whitlow unravels this puzzling mystery with the help of his well-meaning but inept son Mope and his Undersheriff's knows-everything wife. This novel is a well-written, winning read and the opening salvo of a very promising career.

Dead Wrong is a gritty, no-holds-barred mystery set in a small town on the Ohio/W.Virginia border. The local sherriff, Walker Whitlow, must solve the gruesome murder of a young girl in order to maintain his position as leading lawman despite his political enemies' attempts to undermine his credibility every step of the way. The characters in this story are well cast and the plot is starkly believable. The book is difficult to put down. There is plenty of action and intrigue. I enjoyed this book immensely and would recommend it to anyone.

I know I've found a winner when I forget that I'm turning the pages of a book. Mr. Iles transported me into the world of his characters and I stayed there until I stumbled, stunned but satisfied, back out into the real world at the end of the novel. An ending, by the way, that even the most avid mystery reader will fail to predict. Excellent!

Sheriff Walker Whitlow knows he's found the murder of young Eileen Matthews, but lab tests seem to prove that the suspect isn't the killer. Now he must fend of devastating political attacks as he enlists the help of his good-for-nothing son, his elderly jailer, and the wife of his deputy to find the real murderer. Dead Wrong has everything a great mystery novel needs: a beautiful woman, a brutal murder, a lawman struggling to save his job, family and self-confidence, and one clear but problematic suspect. Author Robert Iles has a genuine talent to spin a story of mystery, murder and mayhem that grips the reader and just won't let go from first page to last!

Anyone involved in city planning or anyone that lives in a city should read this. Power of Proximity!

The most amazing book I have ever read...life-altering look at evolutionary coexistence. There is hope for our future...with others understanding and implementing ecocity principles. Please - I challenge you to read and use the book...our way of being depends on it.

Here is an ambitious remit. Register gives a history of the development of cities. And he offers suggestions for what he calls eco-modern designs. That attempt to minimise energy consumption and maximise biodiversity. The former is an obvious laudable aim for any city and its occupants. Rising energy costs, due in part to ever increasing global industrialisation, can adversely affect everyone in a city. Reducing consumption is shown to involve such trends as more energy efficient cars.

But he also advocates a greater biodiversity within cities. More gardens, including on rooftops. Multiple benefits are offered. A more pleasant recreational environment. And reduced cooling costs for buildings.

Register offers a light leftist approach. He does not seem anticapitalist, unlike some radical environmentalists.

EcoCities is a book I have returned to repeatedly and discovered new insights every time. Register is no utopian dreamer; he's addressing real problems in contemporary urban design and land use patterns that cannot be sustained in a lower-energy future. Register's personality comes through loud and clear in his writing--this is no dry treatment of the subject.

Through this book, Register helps us to envision with some specificity what urban landscapes light on automobiles but rich in biodiversity could look like. It's as if he's illustrating a series of before and after treatments of various spaces, but the before picture is now and the after is a future yet to be realized. Highly recommended reading for anyone who wants to help actively design their built environment towards sustainability.

Along with books like Natural Capitalism and Cradle to Cradle, Ecocities takes its place among the most important environmental tomes of our day. In a nutshell, Richard Register's vision (replete with a plan to get us there) could transform our world. In fact a structural response like ecocities (and smart growth) may be the best tools available to bring us to our only destination, sustainability. In his thoughtful book, Register waxes poetic on the environmental crisis we face, shares a grand vision for addressing the crisis -- while simultaneously improving our everyday lives -- and wraps it up with a road map for getting there. His many illustrations spark the imagination and are guaranteed to put a smile on your face. If you haven't read it, just do. Buy this important book now.

This book is full of nasty pranks and funny scenes. I highly recommend it.

I loved it!Especially the parts with Hiemertz.He creeps me out even though he isnt real!Cant wait yo get the next book!

Looking for a town to live in? Don't come to Nod limbs! There is a new villain in town and it's going to be ugly! A battle under Town of Nod Limbs. Welcome to Edgar and Ellen Under Town by Charles Ogden; he is a fiction writer. This is the third book of the series.

This is a creepy book, but funny. A weird looking prankster that never stops smiling at Edgar and Ellen.

Do you know what a Venus fly trap is? Edgar and Ellen 'had' that plan but bigger then ever! Usually a plant stays in place, But the Venus fly trap eats flies.

Edgar and Ellen always have a reason for their atrocious plans. For example: The mayor is building a knightorian Hotel. This hotel is built in the Gadget Graveyard that is right next door of the twins' mansion.

They're so many weird things that are happening such as the lab, the Venus fly trap, and??????? as the Prankster when you think it's???????? as the ?????. Read this book to find out who the?????

"Edgar & Ellen Under Town" can keep you occupied for hours! These humorous twins scrape up more terror in a new book! This interesting book keeps you up for hours. Edgar and Ellen have more zany ideas than ever. For example, they make catapults and giant windmills. This book kept me up for a very long time. Also, this book uses more difficult vocabulary than the average kid's book. I know this because they use words such as "cacophony" and "shoddy." These words have improved my vocabulary. Another thing is that this book is very funny. This book resembles the show "Seinfeld" with all the cruelness and hatred done in a humorous way! I laughed out loud many times as I read. I recommend this book to people who like a barrel of fun!!!!

I ran into this book and bought it on a whim based on the cover, even though I had not read the others in the series...

Not only is the art fantastic (although it really could use more pictures), but the story is surprisingly well writen, and the author did not assume that because his target audience is young, that they are also stupid. A refreshing story where the main characters are actually really bad, with no apparent conscience or ethical problems with any kind of wrongdoing. At one point, Ellen even says, "Stealing is WRONG, IMMORAL, only WE should get away with it."

Parents worried about children emulating the nefarious capers of this dynamic duo would do well to give children the benefit of the doubt and realize that unless there are other serious problems in the child's life, they are not going to emulate games like "Does Pet Bounce?"

All in all an enjoyable read.

I have used this book as a supplementary text for my environmental aesthetics course offered to undergraduate architecture and planning students. I assign pgs 1-78 as required reading. The material is clear and convincing. Even at this level, students can replicate the studies and/use the results in their own projects.

This book is a major contribution to the fields of environmental aesthetics and urban design. Urban designers and architects often assume that they understand how people perceive their environment. Nasar has discovered how they really view their environment and evaluate it through effective practical research methods. Thus, the book gives us all clues to what is important to the user helping us to make design decisions that are meaningful.

Nasar also makes a case for effective empirical research in urban design, a subject that is often ignored by urban designers. He provides designers with a useful set of tools to evaluate perceptions of specific environments and discusses the advantages and disadvantages of each giving hints to developing appropriate design research strategies.

The book blends theory, empirical methods with practical advice. Any architect, landscape architect or urban designer interested in creating environments sensitive to the user will find this book useful

The Evaluative Image of the City, what a great book! This is a very informative and useful book and I would encourage anyone interested in the visual quality of our cities to read it. I haven't seen any other book that so clearly answers the questions posed by Kevin Lynch in The Image of the City - What does the city's form actually mean to the people living there? What can the city planners do to make the city's image more vivid and memorable to the city dwellers?

This book is one that will appeal to a broad spectrum of people - e.g., informed citizenry, city councils, city planners, urban designers, urban geographers, landscape architects, architects, as well as other academics/researchers. In fact, anyone interested in the visual form of our cities should read this book. It will give you a new perspective on how the visual form of the city impacts our enjoyment of cities. It also provides some clearly delineated methods for both assessing the image and modifying it. These techniques can be easily utilized by governmental or non-governmental agencies as well as interested citizens groups to better understand the evaluative image of their city, town, village or neighborhood and do something about it.

The author - Jack Nasar - has built upon the seminal work by Kevin Lynch in The Image of the City. However, whereas Lynch placed the emphasis of his study on two key aspects of the image - identity and structure - Nasar has taken on the more difficult task of assessing the meaning (or evaluative aspect) of the image. Nasar has been able to go beyond identity and structure to present a very convincing argument that people have a shared evaluative image (which is equated with the likability of the city's visual form) and has made clear the importance of that image for city design.

Through the analysis of the shared evaluative images of two cities - Knoxville and Chattanooga - the author has been able to identify many of the key elements of urban likability - i.e., naturalness, upkeep/civilities, openness, historical significance, and order. But he doesn't merely leave this an academic exercise, he attempts to show how we can shape the evaluative image. He presents possible guidelines for desired outcomes, such as creating a(n) pleasant appearance, exciting appearance, relaxing appearance, or high-status appearance. Furthermore, he suggests how the methods and guidelines can be easily linked into local planning processes and policy.

What a contribution this readable and well-researched book is to the field of urban studies. Nasar has not only answered the questions posed by Lynch, but has also shown us how important our shared evaluative image is to the quality of our everyday life and how we can, not only, take responsibility for the visual quality of our cities, but, more importantly, take action.

The book describes a rigorous approach to the analysis of city appearance. It shows how behavioral science research is relevant to urban design-to identify concerns, clarify purposes, generate ideas, and shape public policy. Theory, case studies, research findings, and methodology are interwoven in a useful way. Future directions for both design and research are suggested. Nasar's book will be required reading in my urban design class.

This is an eminently useful book for the many professionals embarked on civic improvement who also want to consult the larger comuinity. Readers might range from urban design teachers and professionals to public policy groups and planning commissions to downtown chambers of commerce, tourist commissions, and real estate groups. The book not only shows how to solicit information about citizen views and bring this together to form an "evaluative image," but it suggest basic strategies for presentation and effectiveness . . . Nasar brings a rich store of empirical research from the visual assessment field to this work, particularly as it tests the relationship between environmental processes and human spatial behavior . . . Overall, the book is extremely helpful, not only in providing thoughtful interpretaitons of prevailing tastes and brends, but in its wealth of suggestions for new research techniques and new methods of visual presentiation, both derived from his own work and the work of associates. I was informed by Nasar's suggestions for ways to refine and diversify evaluation methods, to make fruitful comparisons between cities, to identify successful city traits for emulation elsewhere, to predicte neighborhood needs from census data, and to research wihtin a low budget. The ultimate usefulness of this book lies in the application of planning strategies to engage the support of public groups for improving the city appearance.

Have you ever asked your grandmother or your great-grandmother what things were like in the good old days, and then she told you stories that filled your mind with images of a world far removed from your own ... a world where children became excited by getting an apple and an orange at Christmas, a world where ladies never went without a hat, a world where it seemed that Every Day Was Summer. This is the world that Oliver Wynne Hughes brings alive and captures in his book.

Based on the memories of his mother, Laura, and her two sisters, Elsie and Beatrice, the reader is transported back to a place and time filled with happy memories and presented through a picture of the Welsh town of Harlech, prior to World War One. Every Day Was Summer is steeped in history and nostalgia, making the reader yearn for a bygone time. The book takes the reader on a journey through Harlech: we visit the townspeople through various good humoured anecdotes - and for a town with a population of just over 1000 people, it certainly had its fair share of famous people visiting or choosing to live in the picturesque seaside town. The Queen visited and was said to be mesmerised by the view; another visitor was Denys Finch Hatton, an adventurer made famous by the book `Out of Africa', who also spent many a summer in the town. Everything from shops and schooldays to childhood games and chapel are all lovingly remembered and explored throughout the pages of this book.

Although Hughes conjures up wonderful images of Harlech in the reader's mind, he does not shy away from the tragedy that sadly touched the town. Hughes peppers his book with the hardships that the townspeople of Harlech faced, from families touched by poverty to the tragedy that hit many families with the start of the World War One. That said, at no time does the book become morose or bitter; it keeps its whimsical style throughout and is an absolute pleasure to read.

I think every family should have an Oliver Wynne Hughes to capture its history through photograph, poem and anecdote so we do not let our children forget the places and people who have touched our hearts and our memories.

A very enjoyable a snap shot of life in a Welsh Town before the First World War. An interesting commentary on the interpersonal relationships between the social classes and different cultures.

A Nostalgic look at a much loved Welsh Town through the eyes of three sisters who lived and worked in Harlech at the turn of the 19th Century. A very enjoyable read, particularly for those with an interest in Social History.

What a charming book! Laughter, love, tragedy and humanity. It is all here and itis a true story. I would love to travel back in time and be a part of those girls lives, it is so what we all crave in our fast lives of today. My wife LENT me her copy - we have promised ourselves a visit to Harlech, Wales to find the places and see if there is anyone still there.

This is a delightful book, very evocative of that wonderful era before the first world war. Full of wonderful personal stories, based on the memories of 3 young girls who grew up in Harlech , a small coastal town in North Wales. Both humorous and sad it is a thoroughly good read and provides amazing insight into a generation that suffered huge hardships, yet seemded to live happy fulfilling lives.

This book will appeal to all ages and to anyone interested in the Great War, family history, the English Aristocracy and Wales. A great present.

I love this story and the pictures. I gave it to my husband for Father's Day. He really loves it too. Great message.

This book is a throwback to gentler times. My son thinks that the boy is him and the father is his own. It even looks like the two of them, and they have, indeed, gone to a diner together on occasion. Just a sweet story of a son anticipating the time he has with Daddy.

My husband reads this book to our 4 1/2 yr old every night. He absolutely LOVES it! He really likes it because he and my husband also have there own special day (Sunday morning) where they go to get donuts. I would highly recommend this book to any parent with a young son who shares a close bond with Daddy!!

I checked this book out of the local library and my 3 year old daughter absolutely loves it. The story follows a weekly ritual between a father and his young son - they go to a neighborhood diner every Friday for breakfast, just the two of them [mommy and baby stay home] and along the way they pass by people in the neighborhood and observe the various activities that go on around them.

The illustrations are charming, and to me, nostalgic, as it brought me back to my own childhood when my mother used to take me to the weekly fresh market. The sights, sounds and smells of those weekly visits have remained with me to this day.

In its own sweet, simple way, this book reminds us of the importance of making time for our child/children in this constantly humming, busy world. Highly recommended!

Our 20 month loves this book. He asks for "Friday" every night. He likes to name the things happening on each page.

This a beautifully written book, and while I could go on, there are some very nice reviews already at Amazon under the Ashes of Roses title. I just wanted to alert people who saw movie Falling for a Dancer who might look for the book that it has a different title in the US.

From beginning to end, I found this book truly enthralling. I absolutely adored it. I could not at all put it down. The story is in depth and right at the heart of conflicts of emotions. The characters are lovable and realistic. It is full of heart ache, joy, love, romance, modern dilemas and sex. What else does one need from a book?

My advice to any hopeless romantic is to read this book, and maybe even then, buy the video. Even if you have already seen the video, it is worth reading the book. The plot is a lot thicker and more enjoyable!

Falling for a Dancer is the first Deidre Purcell novel I had read. I bought it after having seen the movie; which by the way is also very good. I was immediately taken with the very difficult living conditions in post WWII Ireland. I hadn't realized hard the Irish worked just to have enough food for the many mouths at the table. The leading character Elizabeth is a credit to her heritage. I admired her sense of commitment, yet she wrestles with her strong, youthful sensuality. This book tells as much about life as it does about living. Gals, if you want a well developed story line with well-written sexuality and romance, this is your book. I now have a complete library of Purcell's works. As the previous reviewer said, this book is known by two titles, Ashes of Roses, and in the US, Falling for a Dancer. It is a novel I will read again & again. Even with its pathos and often heart wrenching tragedy, it is definitely a book you will not want to pass by.

Have you ever wondered what life would have been like if a certain event in your life had never occured?To read this novel is to read about the life of some one like that. If the bus had never broken down Elizabeth(Beth) would never have met George and her life wouldn't have been changed for the worse. It is the 1930's and Beth is living in Cork with her parents. She is after arriving home from a trip to Dublin with her friend Ida, but she has a deep secret that no one must know - she is pregnent and has only two choices- leave home and move into a home run by the nuns for unwed mothers or to marry... After a horrifying visit to the nun-run home Beth solomly decides to marry. The match is made for her, she is to wed a resently bereaved man named Neeley Scollard. After a quiet ceremony Beth is brought home- not to Cork but to her new home in Beara on the west most tip of Dingle where she is met by her new daughters.Beth has a son whom she calls Francey. Straight away it is obvious that Neeley is a strict man- all of his family fear him. Neeley's cousin Mossie is a decent type of person but Neeley maintains that Mossie is a land-grabber and that he and his family are to have nothing to do with him. After a dance Neeley losses his temper and hurts Francey, that night while Beth is in Cork hospital with Francey, Neeley dies. Everyone suspects that young Danny Mc Carthy has murdered him- noboby knows. After many years of heart ache and turmoil Beth wants to leave Beara but finds it too hard to leave. Mossie trys to win her heart but ............. You don't think that I'm going to tell you the whole story? If I did where's the point in reading the book? Deirdre Purcell is the best in a new type of writer. She is able to pull you into the story and into the lives the characters. I really enjoyed this book- I've read it God knows how many times. I have found that I hate to put this book down when I'm reading it. If you want to read more about the Scollard family, the continuation book is called Francey and it lets us know what happened the only boy and the rset of his clann (family for those of you that don't speak Irish). Happy reading- let me know if you read the book and enjoyed it or even if you hated it- I might be able to suggest more books for you. Slan o mise !! (Good bye from me !!

I saw the movie and fell for Liam Cunningham and am now looking for my Mossie Sheehan. I am not much for the romantical farce normally, but this one caught my eye and heart. I am also looking for a copy of the movie.

I have read lots of Joanna Hurwitz's books and i must say this is one of her best. Haddasa [Dossi for short] has nobody but her sister Ruthi and her friend Mimy. Dossi 's parents have passed out and so has her sister . Dossi and Ruthi live in a crowded tenament with just one room too do everything : Eat , Sleap , Sit , Stand ....... Ruthi works in a sewing factory. The tenament smells of sweat and OF COURES They dont have a single toy. When Ruthi signs Dossi up for a Fresh Air Fund ,Dossi objects . But when Dossi starts to like , even befriend the family she is staying with ..............

Dossi is a poor girl who lives in the city.Her parents and younger sister,Velvel have passed away.Dossi's sister,Ruthi is the one who will take care of them.She works in the factory.When Ruthi signs Dossi up to be sent to the country,on a Fresh Air Fund vacation,Dossi is terrified and surprised.Soon,the day had come to go to the country.Dossi packed her bags and brought along a library book which was a new one.She and her friend,Mimi, didn't tell the librarian that Dossi was taking it away.Dossi prommises Ruthi that she will send a postcard to her as soon as she reaches her destination.In the country,she meets the gentile Meade family.Nell and Emma are around Dossi's age.Mr. Meade and Mrs. Meade also have two sons,Timothy and Edward.Nell chats nineteen to a dozen.Emma doesn't.There are a lot of things that Dossi hasn't seen.Like fireflies,cows,two yolks in one egg and many other things.She learns about a man named Snowflake Bentley.He is mad about snowflakes.Snowflake Bentley also takes photos of snowflakes not people.Dossi likes Nell but she wants to befriend Emma too.But Emma treats her like if she is not there.Will Dossi be able to befriend Emma before her holiday in the country ends?

Haddassah (Dossi for short) is a Jewish girl lives in a cramped apartment in New York City. Her sister (Ruthi) signs her up for a Fresh Air Fund which sends poor children too the country for 2 weeks in the summer. Dossi leaves excited and yet afraid to go on vacation with a family she doesn't know in Vermont for 2 weeks. She is stunned by things in the country and doesn't even know what fireflies are. This is one fault that I found with the book, she seems to know NOTHING of the country, now I can believe she's never milked a cow, but some of the things she had never seen are unbelievable. Anyway during the book she sprouts friendship and learns new things of her trip. She meets new people and learns what the lovely countryside is like. This is a really fast paced book, you should be able to finish it within an hour or so, but nonetheless it is worth reading.

This is a good story about a girl who spends a few weeks with a family that is very different from her own. Dossi learns other people have alot to offer her and she has alot to offer in a friendship,too. Hurwitz is a wonderful author; she makes the characters and situation come alive.

This was a great book. It is about Dossi, a poor Jewish orphan from New York City who is able to spend two weeks in August of 1910 in the Vermont countryside through the Fresh Air Fund. Dossi learns about country life from her hosts' two daughters, and Dossi in turn teaches them about city life. I highly reccomend this book.

As a mystery writer myself, I have a list of my own favorites from whom I learn. No one does it better than Ross Thomas -- a writer's writer.

Victor Orcutt of Victor Orcutt Associates has discovered an ingenious way of earning large amounts of money. If a community becomes disgusted with rampant corruption in the ranks of its civic leaders, Victor will come in and clean things up. But Victor has found that before bad government can be reformed it has to first become even more corrupt. When the good citizens of Swankerton, a southern gulfcoast city, hire his firm to rid them of their thoroughly corrupt municipal government, he in turn hires Lucifer Dye to carry out the task of making the corruption worse.

Who is Lucifer Dye? Why he's the novel's protagonist and first person narrator. Born in Montana and raised in Japanese occupied Shanghai, Lucifer's biography is an exceedingly interesting one. For the past decade he has been a spy stationed in Hong Kong.
When the ultra-secretive intelligence agency he works for abruptly hands him his walking papers, Victor Orcutt is right there to provide employment for him on the Swankerton project.

Lucifer's much anticipated work in Swankerton really doesn't get underway until the second half of The Fools in Town Are on Our Side. The first half of the book is largely about Lucifer's early life and his later tenure as an intelligence agent. Subjects which are both amazingly interesting to read about.

This book deserves a 5 star rating for a number of reasons. The narrative is extremely compelling and substantial. There's lots of action including several instances of sudden, shocking violence. As in all Ross Thomas novels, almost all of the characters are imbued with cynical attitudes that are finely honed. In fact, the degree of cynicism found in the pages of this novel is a delight to behold and is probably its most engaging characteristic.

The Fools in Town Are on Our Side is one of the author's best efforts. Highly recommended.

I just finished this, my first Ross Thomas book. It is just incredible. His writing is evocative of character, place, complexity and conflict, in as few words as possible. I found myself rereading lines in order to grasp their full impact. The underlying clear vision of the writer is impressive as well.
All with an underlying passion and self-deprecating humor. I loved every single moment of it.

It's been said that what Elmore Leonard ("Freaky Deaky," "Get Shorty," etc.) did for crime novels in urban environments, Ross Thomas did for crime novels in suburban environments. Thomas' novels aren't so much gritty as they are witty, and less about openly violent crimes as about deep corruption beneath the veneer of civilization.

"The Fools in Town Are On Our Side" is one of the best Thomas novels. It's really about three or four stories all wrapped together. The stories all happen to be about the narrator, Lucifer C. Dye. Dye was born in Montana, but spent his childhood in Shanghai, China, before and during World War II. Story No. 1 is about how he came to be raised by a Russian-born madam running Shanghai's top brothel. Story No. 2 is about how Dye came to be the youngest Sergeant Major in the U.S. Army during the Korean War, largely on the strength of his perfectly fluent Mandarin (Chinese), and his subsequent recruitment into a government intelligence program. Story No. 3 is about how he got booted out of the program. And Story No. 4 is the main story, wherein he is offered $50,000 (it was worth a lot more back in 1970 when the book was written) to help "corrupt" a town, the idea being that in order to get the townspeople to vote for a reform slate, they have to be really fed up with corruption. That requires making things far worse so people see how bad the corruption is.

Of course, Thomas does not tell the stories in that sequence. Instead, they're all mixed together, which ordinarily I find annoying, but each story is so interesting that the technique works here.

There's a little bit of violence, but for the most part, the book is really about intrigue, double-dealings, and so forth. If you've never read anything by Ross Thomas, this is a great introduction.

At eight years of age, Lucifer Dye could "shill a crap game, pimp for a whore house, speak six or seven languages, roll drunks, and hustle the rubes," but could neither read nor write.

Dye is the central character in "The Fools in Town Are on Our Side" (1970) by Ross Thomas.

It is a complex, unique, compulsively entertaining small town corruption novel.

After Dye completes his education on a "scholarship" granted by a clandestine government agency he is employed by the agency, Section Two. And, he is told, "There is no Section One."

After being unceremoniously dumped by the outfit, he is hired by Victor Orcutt to corrupt the corrupt in a Gulf Coast city.

Myriad scalawags abound, chicanery is the order of the day and abundant deceptions are trump cards, as a cast of sharp, unforgettable characters are manipulated by Dye, Orcutt and two associates.

There is never a dull moment in the absorbing narrative.

The "heroes" are tarnished and shady, and not much better than their adversaries.

The novels of Ross Thomas are fascinating and impossible to put down.

Out of print for nearly a decade, several of his works are being reissued by St. Martin's Press. Do yourself a favor---pick one up and enjoy the ride.