New Hampshire Books

I just finished the book, and I have to say "Kudos!" to the author. That was a wonderful read. I can't believe you made me fall in love again, not only with the stories, but also with the place. I've been a New England fan for quite some time, although I haven't been able to visit any place there. You painted the town of White Birch so perfectly, I felt like I was there during all these events.

My ultimate favorite is Lambert's Code. I'm not yet married. Honestly, I prefer single man meets single girl, and they fall in love stories. But with this story, I realize that there is a new type of love when you fall in love, get married, and have all the problems you two can share.

Plus, I see myself in Taylor and Elizabeth's shoes too much. Me, career girl? Seems like it.

Thank you for the wonderful read. 5 stars for the books. I hope that you'll have more stories from White Birch!

While reading New Hampshire Weddings I could picture the landscape of the small hometownof the Lambert family, their firends and other local characters who live there. The strong family ties to some of the characters are at the same time wonderful and exasperating. This book is an excellent read.

"Old Sam's Thunder" is a wonderful story which becomes a real page-turner, and it is filled with wonderful New England characters. This book is a wonderful read, and is a worthy sequel to "Big Fish."

This book was very entertaining, the author was very well informed on the area. the tale told was amusing.

This book is a captivating non-fiction that reveals a chilling ghost story that really happened to a young family of four in the 1950's. The book turns into a suspenseful murder mystery as it traces back in time to discover what really happened on the "haunted" property in 1916. The courtroom drama that follows is both riveting and interesting from an historical perspective. But what makes this well written tale so intriguing is that it is a true story.

of Mr and Mrs. Small, the prosecutor and the defense attorney as well as the cottage(or what was left of it). I found myself very disappointed that the author did not include these photographs and because of this I felt the book was incomplete. The story itself was very well written from beginning to end. A very unusual true crime tale. Next time, please use photos to augment a fine story.

I used this guide while mountain biking in the White Mountains. It provides very detailed descriptions of a variety of off road trails and logging roads, as well as many road rides. The ratings help to determine whether you can handle the conditions of each ride, and the very complete directions minimize the loss of time searching for trail heads. A very well written guide that is small enough to be taken along in a shirt pocket.

1.From Marty's descriptions of routes I could visualize the roads he was describing. I've hiked the Whites for years and was familiar with many of the roads but never cycled on them. 2.I planned a week tour in the Whites before getting Marty's guide. Many of the loops covered the same roads I planned on using. The basic route was Marty's triple notch century with lots of loops. Marty's rides were an excellent check on my routes and improved my routes. 3.Marty's descriptions are filled with yellow from my highlighter as I took advantage of his experience with cycling in the Whites. His book was a great resource in planning my routes.

this book was by far, one of ellis' most breath taking novels. "the rules of attraction" took on what is now modern day college life and what happens in college. it is full of disturbing, funny, violent and dark image that you will think of over and over again. when you read the book and get to the ending you will wish the book never ended and be angry how it ended. Rock and roll

Many people dislike this book and deride its lack of cohesion and unsympathetic characters. However, like most of Ellis' work, The Rules of Attraction uses snippets of characters' lives to tell the story of a community, or at least of a group. This book does not have the obsessiveness of American Psycho, and it is somewhat subtler, but it again uses the shallow desires and thoughts of it's characters to paint a picture of a group of college kids at a small liberal arts school, and it allows the reader a glimpse into parts of the mind not usually devoted to in novels. If you are a fan of Ellis, you will like this book.

After reading "Less Than Zero" I was excited to give another Bret Easton Ellis novel a try, and this turned out to be one of those books I never wanted to end. Every page was full of something interesting and thought provoking and what at times seemed shocking also seemed like the harsh, honest truth. And this has become one of my favorite novels that I know I'll read over and over again.

The events are intriguing, the use of different narrators is great and very effective, and the writing style is perfect. Ellis really knew his characters well and had me believing these were real people.

And as always in the three Ellis novels I've read (Less Than Zero, The Rules of Attraction, Glamorama), I felt some disgust towards the characters' actions yet admired them at the same time and part of me wanted to live their wild and eccentric lives.

The characters in "The Rules of Attraction" all use alcohol and drugs without a second thought, sleep with the most convenient person available and have no idea what they want to do with their lives. Not only are the main characters of Sean, Lauren and Paul aimless and careless of searching for a purpose in love and life, but the entire school of Camden seems to be exactly the same way. While Ellis may go a bit overboard with his portrayal of existential ennui at American colleges, there is more than a grain of truth in what he shows us about this country's young people. I would recommend this book for any kid about to go off to college so they know how *not* to be like while they are there, and for any adult who has bittersweet memories of their own college experiences.

If you were a WASPy, spoiled, vacuous student of a liberal-arts college in the mid-'80s and you jumped from one empty relationship to another and mulled obsessively over every mundane detail in your aimless life while thinking in run-on sentences, this book was written just for you. But I can't imagine possibly being interested, much less intrigued, by The Rules of Attraction. Ellis' second novel is only notable for being almost entirely unexceptional.

Most of this story is recounted in a first-person narrative by central characters Paul, Lauren and Sean, among a handful of other friends, relatives and acquaintances. They spend most of their time ingesting all manner of drugs, legal and otherwise. They jump into bed with whoever looks good at the moment. They usually avoid anything resembling responsible behavior by habit. And when they aren't whining over every minor misfortune that befalls them, they're trying desperately to fool themselves (and us) into believing that the few positive aspects of their lives are so much more engrossing than they actually are.

In terms of accuracy and structure, there isn't anything particularly objectionable about this story. What exists of the plot was cunningly conceived, and the dialogue is entirely authentic. Ellis possesses a very keen wit, but it's utilized far too infrequently; for every hilarious incident that's depicted here, there are a half-dozen that very nearly put me to sleep. These characters are realistic, decadent, impulsive and thoroughly boring. The story moves along at a lively pace, but these people are so self-absorbed and their respective tellings of each sequence are so pedestrian that slogging through this rather short book is quite a chore. Even contradictions found in comparison of any two self-serving, entirely subjective accounts of a common episode aren't terribly engaging.

The most frustrating aspect of this story is that the only interesting characters here are confined to its periphery: flighty Victor, fastidious Patrick (Bateman, the titular antagonist of the much more entertaining "American Psycho") and Eve, Paul's emotionally estranged mother. If these characters had been afforded a greater share of the narrative, this book might have been a much more engaging read.

Setting aside the minutia of this critique, it must be noted that this entire genre of popular fiction has been rendered obsolete by the Internet. At any time, I can access a wealth of blogs scribed by self-obsessed wretches who are every bit as dysfunctional as the spoiled brats of this banal, miserable volume, most of whom have much more intriguing exploits to relate. I can read about and laugh at their pathetic lives for free and this book doesn't convey anything profound either, so of what use it it?

What can I say, it is the script to Our Town. I have found a couple of places where it differes from the Samuel French script by a sentence or two.

One VERY GOOD difference is that THIS script also has a lot of background on Thornton Wilder and the times that the existed when the play was writen and first produced.

I don't understand why people are saying bad things about Our Town, because it is a very wonderful play with three acts, centering around a small town, Grover's Corners in New Hampshire and the lives of two families, the Gibbs family and the Webb family.

It is a very wonderful play about life in small town before cars and electronics and how they lived. It is a beautiful play that is very excellent and everybody should read it, for it is a quick read, but a very delightful play.

Thorton Wilder's short play, "Our Town," follows the lives of two close knit families, experiencing the different stages of life: birth, childhood, adulthood and death. I recommend anyone to read this play just so they can have the opportunity to read about the phases that others go through. For example, the story mentions the common worries, concerns and yearnings of parent Mrs.Gibbs, who wishes to take a break from the stressful life of being a mother yet she is held back by the contrasting wishes and aspirations of her husband. "Our Town" is filled with amusing yet relatable events of being disciplined by your parents, which remind us of our childhood, such as when George is admonished by his father. Another interesting tale unfolds as we witness a young relationship between George and Emily flourish into a marriage. Their entertaining anxieties while dating, and even getting married, are humorous and thought provoking for young readers. Unexpected turns of events and sudden losses conclude the story, leaving an important message for the reader which is, care and treasure your loved ones while you still can.

One significant feature of this play is its simplicity in both plot and props. While it carries great meaning throughout, the story does not feature any extreme, earth-shattering events. Instead, it presents the plain, daily occurrences in a normal small town, allowing the reader to follow the story in a simple context. In addition, although the reader undergoes a different experience than the play-goer, it is evident to all that the conspicuous lack of props is a prominent element that further emphasizes the simplicity of the story.

In three acts, Our Town presents a complete view of three different stages of life: daily life, love and marriage, and death. The play focuses on two families, the Gibbs and Webb families, yet it gives a panoramic view of many townspeople's lives in Grover's Corners. More specifically, the play follows the relationship between Emily Webb and George Gibbs. We first witness them in their youth, as they realize their passion for each other. The story then skips forward to their marriage and finally to Emily's death, as she is finally able to witness her life without actually worrying about daily demands. When she is finally allowed to witness life in her town pass by as a spectator, Emily falls into a heavy regret at her wasted life, as she realizes that nobody takes the time to truly look at each other.

Stressing the importance of the simple, daily wonders of the world, Thornton Wilder underscores the appreciation of life due to both its brevity and its inherent beauty. The third act is truly epochal, as it presents the general purpose of the play through the death of Emily; as she relives her 12th birthday, she realizes that no one cares to really appreciate each other or their own lives. Emily, as with every other citizen in town, is too concerned with her own life that she is unable to see the beauty of it, and she ends up missing the most seemingly trivial of things afterwards, such as sleeping and taking baths. Wilder, by contrasting Emily's life with her death, demonstrates the consequences of falling into a state of content and complacency with one's life; instead of blindly following a routinely schedule everyday, Wilder teaches the audience that they must be grateful for the daily wonders of life, as they may be gone the next day.

This is not a good book for those seeking entertaining and action-packed plots. Truthfully, I did not enjoy reading this book until I understood the meaning in the final act. At first glance, the play seems to drag on, depicting the mundane lives of ordinary people. Yet when I got to the third act, I realized that this is exactly how Wilder wanted us to feel: bored in the first two acts at the seemingly simple things in life, yet remorseful in the last act due to the intrinsic ungratefulness of our lives. Anyone looking for play with a relevant, significant message to everyone's lives should pick up this book immediately.

By most accounts Thornton Wilder (1897-1975) considered himself a teacher rather than a writer--a curious situation given than he won numerous literary awards, including three Pulitzers. Among these prize-winners was OUR TOWN, first staged in 1938. It is generally considered to be the single most famous play written by an American author, and Samuel French Inc., which holds the amateur performance rights, states that it is performed at least once a day somewhere in the world, as popular abroad as at home.

The play is perhaps most widely known for the way in which it is staged. The stage is bare. A few chairs, stools, tables, and ladders are used to indicate a kitchen, a bed room window, a soda fountain, a cemetery and other locations; the actors mime use of imaginary glasses, plates, bowls, satchels, and boxes.

The story is equally simple. The first act introduces us to the town, Grover's Corners in New Hampshire, seen in the early years of the 20th Century--and most particularly to the Gibbs and Webb families, who live next door to each other. The second act finds boy-next-door George and girl-next-door Emily marrying, and a flash-black shows the audience how their romance began. It is a simple tale, full of details of small town life, church choir on Wednesday night, milk delivered fresh each morning, breakfast to be made, chickens to be fed--and slowly, as the action moves forward, we are drawn into this simple way of life and its seemingly endless and trivial repetitions.

Wilder swirls a number of themes throughout the work, themes that are simple yet profound, details of the particular and the universal--and these gather suddenly, unexpectedly in the third and final act, which comes as a shock after the charming ease of the play. Emily has died in childbirth and she takes her place in the cemetery among the dead, all of whom patiently wait and watch for something which is not yet clear, the minutes passing one by one into eternity, their memories of life fading into nothingness, a portrait of darkness that is yet somehow still seeded with light. It is here that Wilder makes his ultimate statement: who are you when you have been shorn of all earthly details and devices? Where do you exist within the mind of God?

Many non-theatre people find playscripts difficult to read, and in truth playscripts are a blueprint for directors and actors and not intended as reading material for the general public. This is preface to the very basic statement that some plays "read" well and some do not--and that this is not necessarily an indication of how the play actually performs. On the page, OUR TOWN reads a bit flat; it seems a shade obvious, a shade ordinary. On the stage, however, it easily one of the most delicately beautiful constructs imaginable, a play which demonstrates the beauty and value of each life--no matter how ordinary it may be. Remarkable stuff and strongly recommended.

GFT, Amazon Reviewer

I am so sorry I watched the movie before I read this book. It mostly ruined it for me.
I actually thought that the weird stuff in the movie were a director going ''artistic'', but it turns out all of it is in the novel.

Although most of the novel is obviously fictional (no way would there be a woman in a bear costume or brother and sister getting over their sexual desires like they do , etc) - I found it wonderfully written and believeable in its own world.

Like many Irving novels, The Hotel New Hampshire interweaves growing up in Austria, the inevitable loss of a parent, dancing bears, american lit, and the need to "keep passing the open windows."

How can you put down a book about rape and forbidden love, about long-lost brothers - and a long lost sister too, - about a boy so vividly american that it makes you wonder if you, like he, are a realist in a family of dreamers, doomed to never be adult-enough for the world? Bildungsroman and Irving in its highest yet in 20th century lit, each and every reread brings something different to the table. The Hotel New Hampshire easily sits in the top ten of the best american books of the 20th century.

John Irving is a master of his craft. The Hotel New Hampshire is easily one of his greatest works. Your feelings will be going through a roller coaster. One moment the story is hilarious and at the next it's sad. Then we're treated to heartfelt moments. The book has everything. From a dysfunctional family to all the strange and bizarre happenings that occurs throughout their lives.

The Hotel New Hampshire is told from the perspective of John Barry. The son of a hapless dreamer and laid back mother. John is the middle child in a series of five children. There's his brother, Frank, a homosexual. His attractive sister Franny who he becomes attracted to, and then there's Lilly, his younger talented sister and then there's Egg. To compliment the cast of characters are also a handful of supporting characters. From Freud (not THAT Freud) to a series of prostitutes. The story is told from the view point of John Barry. Who chronicles the lives of his family as they live in three hotels throughout their lives.

There's nothing quite so complicated about The Hotel New Hampshire. Despite the bizarre happenings in the novel, Irving manages to make all his characters entirely believable and lovable in their own way. Each character is distinct. The novel is filled to the brim with humor, both light and dark. When characters meet their end or when something terrible happens to them, you care.

In the midst of his excellent character development, the narrative flow of the story is just right. Because of how bizarre some of the events in the novel are, you won't be able to put it down. It is not a book, however, for those easily shocked or offended by sexual themes. The book has it all.

Never the less, John Irving's "The Hotel New Hampshire" is a fantastic story filled with just about every emotion possible. But most of all, it's full of heart. When you're finished with the book, you'll find it hard not to flip to the very first page and begin reading it again.

I love this book. I've read about 1/2 of Irving's novels and this is my favorite, though I haven't been disappointed by any. This book is entertaining, compelling, devastating... I could go on and on. He mercilessly kills off characters the reader has developed a fondness for, but somehow keeps us reading. Irving writes with an often dry sense of humor and treads some odd line between realism and absurdity, and it simply works.

Common Irving obsessions pop up -- rape, prositutes, bears, motorcycles, Vienna. A lot of the same stuff from Setting Free the Bears, but he is a more experienced writer here and not afraid to be American and doesn't have the same young man's individualistic bravado that characterized that novel (my least favorite). He writes about the glory and the tragedy of the (inevitably thoroughly dysfunctional) family, which is really what he excels at, I think.

In short, read it. But don't see the movie if you loved the book; despite some perfect casting (e.g. Jodi Foster as Franny), it is horrid.

Poignant, brilliant, bizarre - you name it's there. Anything with German language, bears, motorbikes and bears, hotels, bizarre deaths, the old lesbian or brother/sister unnatural love is going to go down well, isn't it?
Five stars and counting

This is a book you pick up and don't want to put down. The town is described as such a beautiful place and the people are charasmatic and thoughtful. Not you suspected ignorant bunch of recluses. This is a damn fine book!

What a great book... It had it all... The cute picture perfect town, the sweet town people, the villian, the twisted love story, and the revenge! Yes.... How exciting this book was for me. If you need a good book with it all read this!!!

I slipped easily into the peaceful scene in the opening pages of LAKE NEWS. Descriptions of the lake lulled me into the story, especially the Loons calling through a foggy cocoon of morning dew, savoring the sanctuary of solitude.

Characters immediately began rooting themselves into my mind. I identified with John Kipling's wallowing in the Lake's ambiance, and was properly disgusted with Terry Sullivan. Terry's ugly character was exposed early in the story, through John's memories of him prior to accepting, and during a phone call from Terry. The telephone ambiance was an ingenious preface for cringing through Lily's buying into Terry's nice guy routine, exposing how con artists worm in, not just to the young.

At first, Lily came across to me as painfully naive, probably because I've been there and don't want to recall that vulnerability. Her situation leading up to and through the Boston Post article was dramatized so well my stomach was in nauseous knots. Unfortunately, I was out to breakfast with my husband at the time, anticipating a steaming Denver Omelet with melted American Cheese slithering over caramelized onions and green peppers!

Drooling over the first heated bite, "Yum" released tension as curiosity surged, "How would Lily handle this traumatic situation." I was hoping she wouldn't leap from raw gullibility to a bitter mistrust of journalists. When she met John, she might collect the sum of her sour grapes and dump them onto John's puzzled head, "WHAT'D I do???"

I was hoping John wouldn't mistrust Lily as well, smelling some of the contrived miasma around her aura.

A too frequent situation for budding relationships, learning to determine who and how to trust is a worthy subject for a novel. Trust is a sensitive, potent issue. Even people of the highest integrity can let us down, sometimes having no choice. Maturity seems to solidify after a candidate realizes this; the richness of the human character has capacity for even the best intentions to err and be redeemed.

In a comment posted on her web site, Delinsky notes that only one of her characters was so dark as to be irredeemably evil, which had me wondering which bad guys would be Phoenix-ed from skillfully developed character trash.

In spite of the angst-ridden ride, I wanted to continue; the characters had me hooked; how would they handle the bad raps and smudged reps and grow through them.

Lily had been tossed into a stagnant pond without a pad! The polluted fringes in the political and religious establishments leaped out to protect themselves, abandoning Lily thoughtlessly, heartlessly, and unequivocally. Hoping Lily would eventually submerge smelling like a "rose," I trudged through the dramatically decorated swamp of character assassination by the media.

If LAKE NEWS had been tagged a work of "Good Literature," Pulitzer Prize stuff (which like many people, I can't force myself to pick up), I would have dropped the book into the coal stove, because I'd guess that everyone would come out smelling like the swamp they'd be stuck in, having grown "wise" and deciding to accept the stench as "That's all there is," or "That's REALITY."

Give me a break! (And a chimney sweep.)

Thankfully, Delinsky provided refreshing breaks throughout LAKE NEWS. (Though, I doubt she gives out bonus brooms instead of T-shirts.)

Some novels are solid "live ins." Others are just good entertainment. LAKE NEWS is intense "live in" entertainment. That's part of the reason I craved returning to the town and residents. Of course any plot like LAKE NEWS, relating to issues of writers will call to me, as long as the characters have any life in them at all.

What is LAKE HENRY? The idealized small town atmosphere captured me (and obviously a lot of others), even though I also enjoy big city and exotic settings.

LAKE HENRY's an esthetically appealing, small town to nestle into, with warm, vulnerable characters to live with. Detailed dynamics of personal relationships evolve there with an engrossing ease.

Especially the conversations and unspoken exchanges between John and his father are realistic, telling, rich, and intriguing. Those passages expose Delinsky's instinctive awareness of psychological machinations which she weaves warmly beyond cold conclusions of textbooks. She seems to have lived viscerally, at a level where the phony fear to tread.

LAKE HENRY has it all, including short sensual statements which make the novel's world breathe. As an example among hundreds:

"The sun fell steadily toward the western hills, silhouetting the evergreens that undulated along their crests, spilling shadow down the hillside, and still she sat."

The word choices of "steadily, silhouetting, undulated, spilling shadow" are luscious paint brush slides of oiled color over perfectly cracked canvas. Delinsky's an artist in so many ways.

I loved the way Delinsky began painting the town around Lily's drama. Willy Jake's warning to a reporter from Rhode Island was an inducement to leap into cheerleader mode:

"Signs say no huntin', no fishin', I add no badgerin."

Of similar cheering effect was Charlie's announcement to a cluster of people that DATELINE NBC was in town. No one would have an easy time slithering around behind the scenes in LAKE HENRY, what with the enormous spotlights everyone was slinging around, shining synthetic sunlight on any hint of potential slime getting a foothold on the slippery shores surrounding the lake.

LAKE NEWS characters spew jewels of sentences packed with meaning, or highlighting right ways to balance ambitious goals with the command to "Stop and smell the roses.":

"... fall was definitely in the air. It was worth lingering over, and he would do that, but not just now."

Most readers past 30 know what it took for John to grow to easily make that choice (at the opening of the novel) with just that awareness, a honed instinct sensing what to do now and what to do later. The reader knows he'll deal with that particular "later" at just the right moment.

LAKE NEWS is an emotionally rich, satisfying story, hospitably providing calm spaces of healing within every enthralling storm. The good guys are engaging, absolutely lovable, and real; the bad guys are almost too real, yet their edges soften somewhat as the reader learns their history, seeing how the dark can etch away and overwhelm natural needs to love.

This novel delivers a full-bodied complexity of families, friends, and communities as they labyrinth toward the simplicity of easy intimacy, rooting itself as wounding secrets are released.

In LAKE NEWS journalism was perfectly and simply portrayed at its worst and best. I applauded that accomplishment, as I enjoyed the escape of the reading ride. The medium of newspapers and magazines holds a key to something magical; it's idealized it as a special venue for viewing the world; sometimes it accomplishes the promise of elevation of the art of life.

This book was as refreshing a read as an unexpected brush of coolness into the white heat of an apex summer day, as solstice crests and edges slowly toward fall.

Linda G. Shelnutt

The heart of this story is about the power of media influence in our society. Journalism is heavily influenced by many factors. LAKE NEWS brilliantly presents a story of the misuse and positive influence of journalism. The believability of the story, the characters, and the setting all add to how enjoyable this book is. Being a NH native I can attest to the truth of attitudes and language presented in the story. I love Ms. Delinsky's smooth writing style; it's effortless to read. A super summer reading choice.

It struck me as mature, very mature. The protagonists weren't falling in love on the first encounter and into bed by the third, the scandals weren't half-hearted, and the promises of hope and reconciliation weren't fulfilled in a hurried way.

The nature scenes in no way compared to those of my favourite book, "Swamp Angel," by Ethel Wilson, which truly made me feel like I was fly fishing in Vancouver, British Columbia, and I didn't really get into the loons, but... that aside, what really makes the novel are the relationships that develop. Being a city girl myself, I was provided with a strong look into what a sense of community was, as well what family meant.

No big love scenes, no passionate dramas to finish the novel off with a flourish, but all throughout, there is the mature satisfaction of a story well-told.

Into the Storm by Suzanne Brockmann is a lot of little stories woven together and there's is a lot to keep track of. It reads like three condensed books made into one and there is the feel that parts are missing. Jenk instead of being just one of the guys in the Seal team sixteen, is the lead in this story as he encounters Lindsey, a pint sized dynamo working for the Troubleshooters and Tracy the girl of his childhood dreams. Seal buddy Izzy is a very interesting character and his colorful dialogue and strict adherence to the `guy rules' adds flavor to the tale. Everybody's trying to figure out who and what they REALLY want and it all gets a lot clearer when the Seals and Paoletti's Troubleshooters get together for cross training. Bad weather and a serial killer force everybody to really focus. Even if you like spooky, you're still likely to find the grisly serial killer in this story over the top. Though the characters all feel a little too vulnerable and the serial killer is just too horrible for it to all fit together smoothly, it still makes for a good read.

Suzanne Brockmann has once again woven a beautiful story of determination and committment to the "cause". I love how the Seal Team 16 and the Troubleshooters Incorporated work so well together. Once you begin reading the carefully laid out story, Ms. Brockmann never fails to keep you in suspence from beginning to end. Guess who falls in love this time? Purchase this book. You will not be disappointed!

I usually don't start out my reviews saying what I don't like, but I will this time just to get it out of the way. I felt at times that there was a little too much going on to follow the main plot of the story. And secondly, I wish that the love triangle (possible quad-rangle LOL) between Deck (the brutish hunk), Sofia (the abused concubine turned agent), Dan (the newly enchanted hunk) and Dave (the best friend who wants to be more, but is too afraid to ask) would have come to some sort of head, so that I could look forward to it's resolution in future books. With that said, I will say what I did like about the book.

I have recently started reading Suzanne Brockmann and never find myself bored with either her plots or her characters. Her novels are filled with intrigue, romance and characters that overlap in all of her stories. "Into the Storm" was a wonderful addition in the Troubleshooters series. Lindsey (sexy Asian American) finds herself attracted to vertically challenged/Ryan Seacrest look-alike, Mark Jenkins, who of course thinks he is in love with his high school crush, Tracy. Tracy, of course is running from a bad relationship and hoping that her leaving will cause her wayward ex (Lyle) to come looking for her with a big engagement ring. Failing at her new job, and wanting what she thinks is best, she is picked as a hostage for the a special assignment with her new co-workers. Well of course the story isn't that simple. Following a night of intense romance, Mark realizes that perhaps Tracy isn't who he wants, but Lindsey is....the problem is, he can't convince her (she has a little baggage) that a relationship with him would be best. Izzy, Mark's bestfriend, decides that although he shouldn't be attracted to Tracy, he is and maybe one harmless night of fun, will be ok. Tracy, feeling once again betrayed by her ex, looks for revenge sex as a means of paying him back. But soon discovers that she likes Izzy probably more than she should.

Needless to say, a series of events leads to Tracy's disappearance and a serial killer's unmasking. So between the serial killer, the romances, the action and potential future stories, I enjoyed this book and suggest that you read it as well. While multiple storylines can make the story slightly overwhelming, there is enough future potential to keep me reading future installments in this series.

This is my first Brockman book. I understood she wrote romantic suspense. I've read well over 200 pages and so far haven't caught a whiff of either. The only suspense so far is which of the incredibly attractive characters will hook up together, rather like a junior high for supermodels obsessed with who "likes" who. Those who are attracted to someone pretend they aren't or can't bear to be in the same room with them, what with all the sexiness flying around. As for having sex, that's great as long as it can be labeled "meaningless." Without suspense or romance, it's just pages and pages of people gossiping about each other. I can get that at the office.

Have read previous books by SB, and must say this was one of the better ones I've read.
Remember thinking when will the girl go missing, and when she did, was happy with the tempo on how they got to find her.
Am not sure there's a story for Izzy and Tracy but am sure they'll link up some how, as will Tracy and Decker.
Would recommend this book to anyone who has never read SB before.

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.