Brandon Books

Blood and guts galore. Not very original or entertaining. One of the lesser works in the series.

The characters inhabiting this anthology would pistol-whip a leprechaun and roll the little fairy into a dark alley.

In only 228 pages, Dublin Noir offers up nineteen bullet-fast tales full of blood, deceit, booze and "black Irish humor." Dealers, thieves, killers, and bottom-feeders all wrestle off the page, thanks to a talented mix of new and established writers. By the time you finish their stories, you'll want to sit down in a pub and share a pint with them.

Edited by the Irish king of noir himself, Ken Bruen, Dublin Noir won't disappoint.

I am a real fan of the Noir series, and this one lives up to my expectations. Authors both new to me and familiar each creates a story in which Dublin is the location. Not all writers are Irish, so there are many points of view, and lots of intriguing episodes. Since I am visiting Dublin in the fall, this is great background for me. It really puts me in the mood.

Usually i don't like to comment on books that i have read, but this is quite possibly the most factual but interesting historical books i have ever read. Dr. David Shields does an outstanding job of keeping the reader interested in the material. He is on top of his game and knows an incredible amount of information on this topic. This author should definitely come out with more books. I just could not put this one down. It is worth the price. You will not be disappointed.

jeez this book is SO long, whoever wrote it should be ashamed, especially if he drives a wrestling van, and drove to NYMA tonight.

This book helps you understand the inner workings of friendly and unfriendly governments, you will be enlightened how World problems are resolved and settled. Great amount of research went into the answers given in the book. Every history teacher and student should buy this book.

I am with the publisher, Valancourt Books, and wanted to post a description of the book, since Amazon hasn't done so. This is from the book's back cover:

Arthur Severn, a young Englishman on holiday in the west of Ireland, is forced by a storm to stop for the night in a mysterious village, where he hears the legend of "The Snake's Pass." Long ago, it is said, St. Patrick battled the King of the Snakes, who hid his crown of gold and jewels in the hills near the village.

But it is not only legend that haunts the town. The figure of the demonic money-lender Black Murdock looms over the village, as he searches for the lost treasure while manipulating the townsfolk to his own evil ends.

Even more threatening than Murdock is the shifting bog, personified as a baneful "carpet of death," which will swallow up anything -- and anyone -- in its path. Art and his friend Dick will brave the dangers of the bog to seek out the treasure, but the sinister machinations of Murdock will lead to a deadly conclusion!

Featuring a slow accumulation of terror worthy of Le Fanu, The Snake's Pass was Bram Stoker's first novel. A clear precursor to Stoker's later works of horror, including Dracula, The Lair of the White Worm, and The Jewel of Seven Stars, The Snake's Pass was the only of Stoker's novels set in his native Ireland. This edition follows the text of the first edition published at New York in 1890."

The Snake's Pass is one of those pseudo-minor classics that would have been forgotten if it were not the first novel written by the author of Dracula, one of the greatest of the nineteenth century novels. The book was published in 1890, only seven years before Dracula, yet it is a long way from Stoker's masterpiece in plot and form. A fan of Dracula may not enjoy it, but a literary or Bram Stoker scholar definitely would. It is actually better written than Lair of the White Worm, a later Stoker novel, but up to the quality of The Jewel of the Seven Stars.

What sets the novel off the most from Stoker's other Gothic works is a real lack of the supernatural in the novel. There is a legend of a snake king driven from Ireland by St. Patrick in the book, but nothing supernatural ever actually occurs in the novel's pages. The mysterious shifting bog is not supernatural at all, and frankly, the dullest part of the novel since Stoker goes into great detail of the measuring and study of the bog, which is being analyzed to determine where a lost treasure may be found. The conflict exists between the villain, Murdock, who is willing to do anything to find this treasure, and Arthur Severn and his friends. Arthur falls in love with Nora, whose father is cheated by Murdock to gain control of his land which may have the hidden treasure on it.

The first half of the book is bogged down with descriptions of the bog until Arthur falls in love with Nora, and then a tender, but not terribly exciting love story occurs. The book picks up speed halfway, yet still moves relatively slowly until the dramatic ending scene during a storm where Murdock and the protagonists struggle to find the treasure. This final scene makes the book worth reading, both for itself, and as an example of the talent Stoker had already developed for pacing and drama which he would use consistently in Dracula.

The book is not for the general reader, but I would recommend it to anyone interested in the history of the British or Irish novel--it is the only novel Stoker set in his native Ireland. One wishes Stoker, as a more mature writer, had written another novel of Ireland, perhaps with vampires included.

- Tyler R. Tichelaar, author of Iron Pioneers and The Queen City, available on Amazon.

`The Snake's Pass,' the first novel written by Bram Stoker, was published in 1890, about seven years before his Dracula.' You may expect from this title something very bizarre and weird, some strange tale Poe would have written, but the truth is `The Snake's Pass' is fairly orthodox love romance set in the mountains of Ireland.

The story is simple. It is about one Arthur Severn, young and rich Englishman traveling around Ireland. After one stormy night, he encounters a beautiful girl named Norah living with her father Joyce, who was ill-treated by Black Murdock, greedy `gombeen' man (Irish name for moneylender) who had mercilessly taken away their land. There is sub-plot about the hidden treasures of French army, and the local legend about the confrontation of Saint Patrick and The King of the Snakes.

Though the folklore surrounding the evil `King of the Snakes' plays the significant role in the earlier chapters of the book, the story is basically about the adventures of the hero and narrator Arthur, whose love for Norah plays the central role of the novel. Unfortunately Arthur is not engaging enough as character because he is just a rich gentleman from England, whose success is guarantees by his social status. There is no real conflict in his story. Things go too smooth for him.

Bram Stoker effectively captures the gloomy atmosphere of the rain-swept land of west Ireland, but these vivid descriptions of the swamp and slime are often forgotten before the more ordinary story about the hero and his love. Obviously Stoker intended to use the macabre legend of the snakes as sort of metaphor like Shakespeare's Birnam Wood, and the idea of the moving mountain bog might have been more interesting if he had introduced the snake legend with more subtlety.

As it is, Stoker, who had not found the right voice suitable for his supernatural tales yet, sometimes spends too many words on the long geological descriptions, but these prosaic details are painfully tedious, slowing down the actions and weakening the supernatural undercurrent of the novel. Stoker also minutely describes the slimy bogs and incessant raining in the mountains, both of which suggest the dark force affecting the people there, but Stoker's touch could hardly be said imaginative. He surely draws the rocks and trees in the landscapes, but his vision does not have the evocative power of the Whitby cemetery scene, later seen in `Dracula.'

As love story `The Snake's Pass' is nothing remarkable, and as macabre tale it is not simply macabre enough. The book is a romance but flatly told, and most of all, few things are really unpredictable. Not a bad novel at all, but not a great one either.

This book is full of political commentary with good use of non political stories as well as in your face political stories. The use of everyday people who move through their own days and lives is positioned in direct opposition to the "Troubles" that are a part of their lives. Whether the story is about two men from different sides, or a grandmother waiting up for her grandson, you see that the people have a mission and it is to help each other understand or just get through the days. There is also social commentary on the lives of these Irish Catholics who are the poor class in Northern Ireland. These stories are wrapped around less obvious commentary that strikes one as just plain good story telling. It is the way the book is set up that may bring you to a greater understanding of the way things are seen in N. Ireland. Gerry Adams loves his country and you can see it and feel it in the descriptions of his surroundings and the simple people he knows. I loved these stories and am even more admiring of the man who wrote them. He is a man of his people.

Irish-Americans love affair with terrorism continues with this book with Jimmy Breslin (who should be ashamed of himself) adding his endorsement of the bearded killer.Adams may or may not have some talent as a writer but I suspect his shady past adds a sick and decayed glamor in the minds of his fans, particularly in the US which has a distant and romantic view of IRA violence. On an ironical note I wonder how many Irish-Americans who died in the WTC were Noraid members.

If Gerry Adams had not decided to become one of the many who have fought for a united Ireland, and eventually head of the Sinn Fein, the political party engaged in joining the Six Counties with the rest of Ireland, he could have certainly found a place in the literary tradition of Ireland. "The Street" is an extremely well-written, insightful "insider's" view of the situation in Northern Ireland over the past few decades, since "The Troubles" escalated again in the 1970s. Not all of the stories are about the violence, however. Some of the best are about trying to get beyond the violence to understand why so many of Ireland's people have felt so strongly that it was worth fighting for so long. Some of the stories are simply astute character studies that are charming from beginning to end. It would not be too far a stretch to compare this book, in spirit at least, with another famous, slim book of stories by a master writer, James Joyce's "Dubliners." Indeed, Adams's stories do for the North what Joyce did for Dublin: they open a window on a fascinating, diverse group of people in a place that could fascinate all by itself. Adams's short stories are the kind that you can go back and read again and again. The book offers yet another reason to hope the situation in Northern Ireland can be resolved soon: so that Gerry Adams can spend more time writing.

This book is not meant to be a complete account of the story. It is an abbreviated version meant for a quick read to get a gist of the storyline. Taking that into perspective, it is a good book to get if you are a Star Wars fan. However, if you expect a complete chronicle of the story, then you will be sorely dissapointed, like the last reviewer was. It is meant to be a collectible to be put on a shelf with the other abbreviated version of the other movies.

I'm not sure what I expected, but this wasn't it. The story is clear enough, but the writing style is very bland. An attempt is made at Yoda's style of speaking, but without much success. The illustrations are not quite right. There's no excitement here, either in prose or pictures.

Though it's a book for kids (my guess, ages 8-12), it seems to me the small size would put off most children.

I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone except a Star Wars completist.

My wife and I are doing everything we can to encourage our 7-year-old to read, and since he loves Batman Beyond, this book was a natural choice. The book tells the origin of "Batman Beyond" effectively, if very sketchily. It is presented in comic book (or maybe graphic novel) format, and the artwork is solid, standard, comic book style art.

Although the book is supposed to be targeted for children 4-8 years old, I'd narrow that range to 6-8. Your average first grader will have a bit of difficulty with many of the words.

The strongest recommendation I can make for this book is that my son read the entire book on his own initiative without any prompting or encouragment from us. That was the first time he ever read a book completely on his own, so needless to say, I'm thrilled.

I love the fact that my son is into Batman Beyond for many reasons. One of those reasons, or so I thought was to encourage his desire to read. Not true with this book.

My son is almost 4 and loves books but this one has comic book style format on every page. He likes that he possesses such a book with Batman Beyond on the cover but loses interest when I try to read it to him. Maybe when he is older this will not be an issue.

The basic premise of The Leader And The Damned is interesting -- i.e., the attempt by the Gestapo to kill an English spy to prevent him from revealing that from 1943 on the man supposed to be Hitler was actually his double, and that the real Hitler had died. This book had the potential to be very good and exciting. Unfortunately, what it lacks is an author skilled in being able to make you care about what happens next and in creating believable, three-dimensional characters. Other than Forbes mentioning the names of characters (fictional and real), he provides little to no description of their background, appearance, etc. They are so "cardboard-like", that I found that it difficult to read on to find out what happens next. There's no question in my mind that with a more skilled writer The Leader And The Damned could have been one of the better WWII thrillers. Instead, at best, I would consider it to be only fair. Unless you have an unsatiable need to read WWII thrillers, do yourself a favor and skip this book.

The story of a British spy who penetrates Nazi Germany, gets his information and then tries to escape. Only the British can be this paranoid about spies, governments, double-dealing and triple-dealing. It's a well thought out plot, good writing, and so believeable. Get this one, sit down, fasten your seat belt and hang on for dear life because nothing is what it really seems.

The Director of the London National Gallery approves art historian Reggie Lee's concept to display three "original" works of artist Caravaggio, who created in 1605 the altarpiece St. Cecilia and the Angel and subsequently made two copies. She knows that the Getty and the Louvre each have one and assumes it should prove no problem to find the third.

Shockingly, Louvre Italian masterpiece administrator Antoine Rigaut refuses to loan the museum's copy. Since lending is a normal practice, Reggie goes to Paris to plead her case in person with Rigaut. However, he avoids her like she has the plague until he is found dead, an apparent suicide. Reggie is further stunned when a seemingly fourth copy surfaces. This makes her believe one of the originals is a fake; perhaps created in 1937 when the Louvre copy was recovered after being stolen. When the English expert meets Rigaut's mother, she begins to learn the true early twentieth century history of St. Cecilia and the Angel.

CARAVAGGIO'S ANGEL is an excellent art mystery starring a likable protagonist who goes from art historian to amateur sleuth in her efforts to learn the truth. The story line is fast-paced with the historical aspects adding a terrific taste of the early seventeenth century art world and the not so rare museum thefts of the early twentieth century from a modern perspective. Ruth Brandon provides a wonderful thriller that hopefully will lead to more blending of masterpieces with mysteries.

Harriet Klausner

CARAVAGGIO'S ANGEL (Ama. Sleuth-Dr. Reggie Lee-England/France- Cont) - Okay
Brandon, Ruth - 1st in series
Soho/Constable, 2008, US Hardcover - ISBN: 9781569475195

First Sentence: It wasn't even my school fête.

National Gallery curator Dr. Reggie Lee is working on putting together a small exhibit of the three Caravaggio paintings "St. Cecilia and the Angel." Although the Getty has agreed to lend their copy, the Louvre is now stalling and she cannot reach her contact there. While in France, she unexpectedly comes across the third painting. The owner grants permission for it to be shown but her son, a French Interior Minister, refuses.

Two sudden deaths and the appearance of a fourth copy of the painting make Reggie even more determined to uncover the truth both of the painting and of the deaths.

This book really is for the art lover. I appreciate art, but not enough to be entranced by this story. The mystery really is about the paintings and their history.

The characters, other than Juliette, the elderly lady, never came to life and I am so tired of characters, both male and female, being sexually attracted to each person they meet.

Sense of place was there, but so much more could have been done to make it real. The murder mystery is rather weak. The resolution was given but while the outcome for the person responsible was speculated, it was not actually realized.

For me, this was only an okay read and it's unlikely I'll read the next in the series.

This is a large heavy book that has little really useful information considering its size. Digital Video for Beginners by Colin Barrett is a much better choice.

Don't end up like me-time wasted at camera store book racks;
fatigue from endless internet book searches. Eliminate the grief. Buy "The Complete Digital Video Guide" by Bob Brandon.

Chapters include: choosing a camera; using your camera; your camera and light; composition; telling a story; capturing sound and pictures; building your story; shooting a personal profile; editing your video.

A professional videographer's lifetime of experience distilled into an essential book. Strunk & White for digital video.

This short piece or 'chapter', as it could have been, wonderfully explained how others had been dealing with the attack while Raoden was bringing the light back to Elantris.

Now, this would have been a lot better if only it had been IN the book. I realize it had been written seven years before publication and he didn't get the feedback until after it was published.

So considering everything I give it a 4/5.

Granted, at less than half a dollar it's hard to complain, and to see a short little jag scribbled by the author of one of my favorite books is very interesting, but this short still falls a little flat.

For fifty cents, I'm not expecting professional editing, but there are unforgivable typos and grammatical mistakes in this piece that could have been rooted out with a little proofreading.

The chance to "peek" at Sanderson's "notebook" is very enticing and the short tale makes a neat supplement to Elantris. I'm even tempted to go back and reread the original work in order to refresh my memory on some of the plot points touched on by this short. This piece feels consistent with Elantris, making me suspect that it was written at the same time, but discarded since none of the PoV characters was present.

3 stars because it's half decent and you can't beat the price. At a higher price point I'd have been disappointed. Still, would a second or third read-through by the author to fix heinous errors have been too much to ask?

A side note: Amazon's online reader seems to underline text that should be italicized. I'm not faulting the author for this apparent technical problem, but I haven't read any other shorts here yet so I don't know whether maybe I should.