Adamson Books

This was suppose to be a cozy mystery, but I could not get into the book. It was not cozy enough for me. I had to put it down and then pick it back up later to finish. I will not read anymore books in this series.

I just couldn't get into it. I love Mysteries, but this one wasn't very well written. The plot wasn't that great. But it was good enough to enjoy, so I wouldn't knock it. It is readable and enjoyable. Not the best Mystery you'll ever read, but not the worst either.

I must admit - I didn't "read" this. I listened to it during my commute. I picked up the audio book at the library. If you're interested in going that route, the reader is not too talented but doesn't sound like a robot so it was okay. This is a mystery surrounding the murder of a cat therapist. The sleuth is a rather dim-witted out-of-work actress now catsitter. The suspects are cat therapy clients and a giggalo husband (Romanian defector). The story is not at all believable - not the plot, not the characters, ... eh, maybe the cats' ailments. Still, it has its entertaining moments. Don't buy it if you are looking for well-written literature. If you're looking for silly brain candy with lots of cats involved, go right ahead.

This was an enjoyable and quick read. The reason for the murder is a bit far-fetched, but the story ends quickly once you find out who the murderer is. The main character, Alice, is an out-of-work actress who seems to be more of a sleuth than an actress. She has an unsatisfactory love life, but she is really more interested in solving the murder that she discovers. Alice has a dry sense of humor, however, which she demonstrates throughout the book, including in her conversations with the cats. An unrealistic plot line, but still a fun read.

great book. . . cute and you HAVE to read it

This is the first book in this series that I have read. It flowed very smoothly and was a fun read. The tight knit group of characters is very believable considering the small town in which the story takes place. The author kept you wondering what was going to happen next. If you are looking for a quick read, this is a good place to start.

I didn't like this Alice Nestleton mystery as well as I have the others because she is not in NYC with her friends Tony and Nora. She has to solve this mystery on her own. The tone of the book seems more lonely. At one point I was hoping that Alice would go back to NYC, but it didn't happen. Nonetheless, it is a quick read and enjoyable.

Cat lovers will love this series, but it may be difficult to understand the subplots if you haven't read the previous offerings. The reader may get tired of the anger and confusion in the heroine's personal relationships, but the murder plot in this episode is intriguing - and cat antics more than make up for the down-side.

I haven't finished this book yet, but it hasn't been very interesting so far. I have liked a lot of other works by Adamson, but this one just doesn't have that edge. Sure, someone gets killed but isn't someone always getting killed? It wasn't as creative as the other books.

The book "A Cat on a Beach Blanket" is a great mystery for young and old. It keeps you on your toes through the whole thing.

I expected more imagination. Anna doesn't do anything extraordinary. She doesn't seem like a good friend either. She expects the boy to follow her, and then she's always saying "Bye!." Anna doesn't TEACH her friend to be brave; she leaves him and he finds his own courage.

I bought this book because I thought my older daughter could read it to my younger daughter, Anna, whom we call Anna Banana. The story is a little strange and the pictures aren't very "kid friendly". There is a part in the book about a monster with big hands that's chasing the little boy and I think it was the cause of a nightmare that night!

If there is an Anna Banana in your life, then this is the book for you.

I adore this book. With wonderfully subtle grace, the author teaches about friendship and, more importantly, the personality differences of friends -without judgement. The free spirited child is admired but the shy, timid child also prevails. An exceptional choice for a "second child" who may be overshadowed by the "perfect" sibling.

This magical little book teaches about the courage waiting within a shy little boy. It is a lovely story of an unlikely friendship. It is my son's favorite book and I credit it for helping him do many a brave thing.

I wish someone would convince Lydia Adamson to continue this series...the characters are so weird that you are immediately forced to love them or hate them, but you're never bored.

Didi is examining a herd of dairy cows when she gets a call from one of her elves. He tells her that her missing best friend, Rose's corgi has been spotted in the area. She goes to check it out and finds the bodies of Rose and her two German Shepherds buried in a shallow grave. She is determined to find out what happened and why. The more and more she investigates, she finds out how little she knows about her friend.

This was a rather dark mystery and the ending isn't as neat and comforting as you would expect. Didi seems to be in serious need of psychiatric help as are most of the people around her. Not the best addition to the series.

I'm puzzled by the other reviewers' enthusiasm. This book was as abysmally bad as her others in the series -- see, e.g., the reviews of "Dr. Nightingale Races The Outlaw Colt."

Again, the characters are unprofessional and unbelievable. Nightingale's brief animal encounters sound lifted from veterinary textbooks, and there's no satisfactory conclusion as to where the hapless corgi of the title will wind up. After he'd been left starving with the half-buried corpse of his mistress for weeks, Nightingale dumps him in a barn, locked alone in a stall. No TLC from this DVM! In the final pages, he's still being called the victim's dog, not her own.

In "Outlaw Colt," one of Nightingale's sidekicks strives to become a Boddhisatva. Here in "Canine Clue," a Zen cult is central to the story, and given that the books are set in rural New England, the clumsy insertion of an Eastern religious element seems forced and incredible. Nightingale's own yoga practice is quirky, but fits, and has been a consistent element. The Buddhism and the Zen, however, fit in like geta at an ice rink.

On the other hand, her reaction to emotional events isn't quirky, it's psychotic. As one of the other reviewers here noted, all of the characters seem mentally ill on some level. This isn't intentional; it's the result of careless writing, as in, the author seemingly could not have cared less if her characters and plot make sense and are sane.

Normally, keeping in mind that authors sometimes read these reviews, I'd be more tactful, but Adamson has several mystery franchises and cranks these out like sausage, and so has probably gotten enough comfort from her royalties to endure a blunt review. For a good female sleuth who happens to be a D.V.M., see the Andi Pauling series by Lillian Roberts.

Didi is examining a herd of dairy cows when she gets a call from one of her elves. He tells her that her missing best friend, Rose's corgi has been spotted in the area. She goes to check it out and finds the bodies of Rose and her two German Shepherds buried in a shallow grave. She is determined to find out what happened and why. The more and more she investigates, she finds out how little she knows about her friend.

This was a rather dark mystery and the ending isn't as neat and comforting as you would expect. Didi seems to be in serious need of psychiatric help as are most of the people around her. Not the best addition to the series.

The murder of Didi's best friend catapults her into a frenzy of activity to find the killer and exact revenge. Fast paced and funny, the author balances the hopelessness of Didi's grief and guilt that she knew so little about her 'best' friend and the comic relief of Charlie's big plans. The plot they uncover is complex and nasty and poor Rose is not all she seemed to be.

This is one of the best puzzles of the series. I could not put it down and read it all in one sitting. If indeed this is the last of the Dr. Nightingale series I am sorry to see them go. I have developed a great love for the good doctor and her elves. I recommend this and the other 11 books in this series to anyone who loves mysteries and animals.

I was skeptical when I first picked up this book, but I thought I'd give it a try. I had been toying with becoming vegitarian for a while (on my doctor's orders), but every time I tried, I went right back to an unhealthy diet. What I like about this book is that it doesn't expect the reader to eliminate beef from the diet, but it helps the reader to understand how to eat better meat, and to subsitute beef for other things. It's easy to follow, and I feel better than I have in years. My skin is clearer and I have more energy too. I recommend this book to anyone looking to improve their basic diet and health.

I'm so glad I bought this book! I knew I needed to eat better, but found it tough to break the fast food cycle. This book gave me the incentive and the motivation to take control of what I eat. It gives you lots of options, including how to still eat beef in a healthy way, which is exactly what I do, in moderation and in small portions. It also shows you how to shore up your diet with more whole grains, fruits and vegetables. A previous review seems way off base--this book does NOT "push" soy recipes at every turn. There are very few soy recipes. It also doesn't say that beef is evil. On the contrary, the authors explain how beef can be a healthy part of a healthy diet...if you eat it in a healthy way!! I really recommend this book. Knowledge about the food you eat is ALWAYS better than ignorance, and this book is full of knowledge and sound, sensible nutritional advice. Read it and feel better the very first day.

The subtitle of this book says it all: "Less Beef, Better Health! Lose weight, Clobber cholesterol, Avoid cancer, E. Coli., and Mad Cow."

At the outset, it should be pointed out that this book has no references, not even a bibliography, to back up its many sensationalistic claims. This book is a very poor example of scholarship.

Dietician Marissa Cloutier continues the unfounded hysteria over Mad Cow Disease in this book which she blames on cattle-parts feeding in Europe. "The world is at risk!" she implies, so, "Stop eating beef and buy my book!" She hints that Mad Cow Disease threatens the USA, but there have been no reports of it in the USA. Additionally, the research of British organic dairy farmer, MArk Purdey, has clearly shown that Mad Cow Disease is a non-infectious condition caused by certain neurotoxic pesticides applied to cattle's backs.

All of the usual false claims about beef's impact on health are here: Beef causes heart disease. Beef causes cancer. Beef causes obesity. Beef causes osteoporosis. All of these claims are false as other reviewers have shown--see, for example, Uffe Ravnskov's book THE CHOLESTEROL MYTHS, New Trends Publishing, 2000.

She claims that the meat of yesteryear was much lower in "bad" saturated fat than today's meat--no references are given for this statement.

In her discussion of nutrients in beef, she makes no mention of such nutritional factors like carnitine, taurine, and CoQ10 which act to protect and enhance the circulatory and immune systems she claims beef damage.

In chapter four, she blames the saturated fats in beef for causing heart disease (wrong, wrong, wrong). She also mistakenly claims that beef elevates homocysteine levels because beef has a lot of methionine in it. She then rightly says that homocysteine levels can be reduced by adequate folate, B6, and B12 in the diet, but then she fails to tell readers that B6 and B12 are plentiful in beef! Folate is also found in organ meats like beef liver.

Of course, the carb-heavy "Food Pyramid" is put forward as the way everyone should eat. She also pushes soy foods of every sort in her recipe section.

This book is terrible...

This book probably spends more time discussing holistic health practices than fasting. There are 5 chapters on "Greater Spritual Awareness." The author is a "holistic" health writer. While there are many fasting facts in the book, wading through all the new-age and religious jargon to find them is challenging. I am disappointed and am searching for a book with more meat in it and less "spiritualism."

This book is a fantastic resource for anyone wishing to fast. The information is varied and thorough, and perfect for a beginning faster. With sections on the history of fasting, spirituality, meditation, health and more, this is a must-have book on fasting. While other fasting books provide interesting information on why fasting is beneficial, this book details exactly how to fast and what to expect when you fast. It also includes modified fast information including juice-fasts, etc.

If you have never fasted before, and want to learn the basics of how and why, this is a decent book. Unfortunately, you have to wade through a lot of superfluous blather.

Having studied the subject at length, I found the science behind the book to be fairly sound, although there were a number of questionable claims (and a couple that were outright false).

As a Christian, I had some serious problems with the book. The most offensive part was the suggestion that when Jesus was tempted by the Devil after 40 days of fasting in the desert, Jesus was experiencing a fasting-induced hallucination! I started reading the book with the knowledge that there would be a lot of discussion of Eastern religions, meditation, and New Age-ism, so that did not offend me (I still don't buy the whole "chakra" thing, but I won't argue that point here). However, I thought that those relious points of view were disproportionately represented.

Most of basic fasting is common sense. If you really want an in depth, scientific review of fasting, I would recommend Dr. Joel Fuhrman's book, "Fasting and Eating for Health." I'm going to keep his book. However, I will be selling "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Fasting." Despite what you have read in this review, would you like to buy my copy?

Dr. Nightingale continues to learn her veterinary craft. This time she travels away from home and (naturally) lands in the middle of a murder. Meanwhile, Charlie's up to another of his bizarre money-making tricks. And what's going on with Allie? This one has fun along with the creepy corpses. And what's it all got to do with horses? Aah, read it and see!

In Hillsbrook, New York, the economy is dramatically changing. The Upstate New York town is seeing more and more of the locally owned dairy farms going out of business. Dr. Deirdre "Didi" Nightingale, predominately a dairy veterinarian, knows for her to survive the onslaught, she must change her practice, which is why she is traveling to Atlantic City to attend the Eastern States Veterinary Convention. In Dutchess County where Hillsbrook is located there is many big horse-breeding stables that hire vets and she plans to become one of them.

Didi particularly wants to hear the lecture of renowned vet Eleazar Wynn, who has had extraordinary success with lame horses. Didi happen to be in a shoe store at the same time as Wynn when an unknown assailant kills the latter using a letter opener. Wynn's widow offers Didi a large sum of money to complete her spouse's manuscript. Didi accepts the offer only to watch people near her being killed. Not wanting to become the next victim, Didi begins her own investigation.

The long running Dr. Nightingale series continues its lighthearted, fun approach to reading due to an assortment of eccentric, hilarious secondary characters. DR. NIGHTINGALE SEEKS GREENER PASTURES is an enjoyable one-sitting read that holds the audience spellbound with its unexpected humor that fits comfortably inside a well-designed story line. Lydia Adamson has the ability to create an amateur sleuth novel that simultaneously appears lighthearted yet puzzling.

Harriet Klausner

As an avid reader of the Dr. Nightingale series I was disappointed by this effort. The main plot is contrived. Didi seeing the dairy industry and her practice failing goes to a convention in Atlantic City to bone up on the latest techniques in the horse industry. When she wittnesses the death of one of the speakers, the widow seeks her out and offers her a small fortune to edit her husband's book in Florida. But more people die and Didi thinks she is next. The clues are obtuse and the motive undetectable. It needs to be explained in the final chapter.

Back home Charlie is running amuck again. A little of Charlie goes a long way and this was way more than I needed. On the other hand, Rose and Allie provided the most interesting subplot. And because of it I am very eager to read the next book in this normally excellent series.

An interesting premise that interweaves late nineteenth century Spiritualism, William James, and poisoning. Yet, there is so little action, so many chapters filled with endless chatter that are less than riveting, and so many allusions to the previous novel in the series that you apparently better have read or else. As for the finale, while extremely clever, it's rendered with less finesse than one would have hoped for. As for the heroine's quick departure from the scene, the reader deserves a little more of her tale for having stood by Ms. Adamson for 326 pages. The author, a solid writer, shows great promise, and if she had an experienced mystery editor to guide her, one who would have cut about 75-pages from this tome, The Elusive Voice might have been less elusive.

Mary Jo Adamson manages to tell an entertaining story in her "Elusive Voice" about a suspictious death of a Harvard professor, and the Spiritualist seance at which it happened. Michael Merrick, a skeptic and recupating police reporter, is asked to look into the mystery and into Syvlie, the medium at the seance. Adamson wrecks the contuinity of the story by making this story set in the early 1870's, while refercing the first, which seemed to have been set in the 1840's. This is one reason why I couldn't rate this as good as the first book. Merrick eventually does uncover the death as a murder, as he tries to protect Sylvie from danger, and solve the mystery. Interesting twist at the end, as we discover who the "Spirit Killer" is. It does capture the early 1870s well, and I did like what Adamson had to say, so I will give this 3 stars, and recommend it.

This book is a shadowy and richly satisfying traditional mystery set in the Boston of the late 1800s.

It has a cast of deeply drawn characters and is vividly set against the backdrop of the height of the spiritual movement that swept the country's wealthly set at the time, and utterly involves the reader in a series of 'seance' murders.

It's the mission of investigative reporter Michael Merrick to seek the truth, which he does in the realistic manner of the era.

Not once does Adamson transgress beyond us with jarring errors and respects her readers intelligence by aptly keeping us monumentally interested in Merrick's progress page by page till the final climax.

From the Introduction: "This book is based on a grammatical progression and is intended for a variety of learners from beginners to those wanting to brush up their grammar skills."

I took French for three years in school and wanted to brush up, and this book was perfect. I can't speak for those who have no prior knowledge of French (although as you can see, the author claims the book is suitable for beginners) since I already knew most of the vocabulary used. If you don't know a bit of French you will probably have to study a little more carefully.

I really like how the book is organized. Generally, a discrete unit of grammar is covered in each chapter, and the book contains just enough examples to be helpful but not boring. The end of each chapter contains a section called "pour aller plus loin" which deals with things that you might find confusing about French, like when to use 'y' vs. 'en' (as a pronoun) and when to use 'c'est' vs. 'il est' or 'elle est'.

The author takes great pains to make the book painless! The chapters are entitled things like "Imagining what could happen" rather than using grammatical terms like 'mood' and 'conditional'. This is fine with me and I find it quite pleasant. The examples relate to a single storyline that runs through the book, which also makes it more interesting and personally relevant. Reading a chapter at a time (there are 18) is a manageable amount for someone with some background--it's not boring and is easy to remember the information presented.

One more thing I liked is that example sentences are presented with translations that attempt to convey intent rather than word-for-word translation. One thing to note, though, is that the English seems to be British English--but it is not that hard for an American to "translate"!

I really recommend this book; it has helped renew my confidence in my French language skills.

I found this book to be quite interesting to read. It helps me to review key points of the grammar studied in the classroom and makes interesting reading if you need something on a cold rainy night. Grammar points are clearly explained however the topics are listed only in the table of contents. In future editions of this book it might be prudent to make a more detailed list for an index in the back. Specific points could then be located more quickly than having to read through an entire chapter.

This is not a bad book, just not nearly as good as the usual Teach Yourself series. The Teach Yourself Beginner's French Grammar is much better, and no less advanced.

This is very poorly organized as a reference. Even the index is skimpy. It mostly follows the organization of a "topics" test -- which is not how I want a grammar book organized. That said it does a decent enough job of running over basic French grammar. But there are a lot of books in this area and this is one of the weaker.

In her book Elaine Edgar does a magnificent job in disseminating Richard Leslie Adamson's fantasies. For there simply is no contemporary historical evidence to back up his claims to have been the security guard at the tomb of Tutankhamun. Edgar would perhaps argue otherwise but there is nothing in the content of her book that comes remotely close to proving Adamson's case. A simple request of official documents should have been her first quest to establish the authenticity of Adamson's tales.

For copies of certificates recording the births of Richard Adamson's first three sons reveal a very different story to that told by their father. Adamson's first son was born on the 23rd December 1925 and his certificate reveals his father's occupation as "Motor Mechanic". The second son was born was on 21 August 1927 and the occupation of the father is given as "Tram Conductor". The third boy was born on the 13th January 1930 and Adamson's occupation is recorded as "Bus Conductor". All three documents record that Adamson was living and working in the `County of Portsmouth' in England and thus he could not have been guarding some hot and dusty tomb in Egypt.

i found this book absolutley fascinating to read, as i had heard the tales that were passed down through my family about our great grandad.i am the grandaughter of robert adamson who was richard adamsons third born son. a great tribute to a fascinating life!
maria davies

I thought everything had been said already on the discovery of Pharoah Tutenkhamun's tomb, but the story of Richard Adamson's role is fascinating. However, this totally absorbing biography as told by his friend Elaine Edgar offers far more than just another 'King Tut' tale. It gives an insight into the life of an ordinary British soldier in the 20's and tells how he was drawn into the strange world of the Archaeologists of the time and the behind the scenes activities which have not before been revealed. Impossible to put the book down.