Churchill Books

In "Agents of Repression" authors Ward Churchill and James Vanderwall have demonstrated the true workings of American "democracy" in all its glory.

The "Agents of Repression" exposes how the FBI launched one of its major programs of repression (COINTELPRO) in order to disrupt lower-class solidarity by instigating violence in African-American ghettos, direct participation in the police assassination of a Black Panther organizer, burglaries and harassment of the Socialist Workers Party over many years, and other methods of defamation and disruption.

A tremendouly important book and essential reading for anyone living under the delusion that America stands for liberty, justice and fraternity.

This is a well researched book that documents the role of the FBI in denying and disrupting the civil rights of Americans from is earliest days right up to the late 80's when it was published (and continues today).

As for Mr. Churchill, I agree with a past reviewer who says "THE DOCUMENTED FACTS PRESENTED HEREIN SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES, even if the messenger is of questionable taste."

Every American who is concerned about the possible violations of our civil rights via the "Patriot Act", as well as the arrogance of the Bush administration concerning our constitutional rights, should read this book.

Two other good reads in this area are the already recommended "It Did Happen Here: Recollections of Political Repression in America" by Bud Schultz & Ruth Schultz AND "The Price of Dissent: Testimonies to Political Repression in America" by Bud Schultz.

All of his books are based on lies. He states he is writing from his personal Native American experience, but he forgot to tell people HE IS A FAKE INDIAN.
I am a Native American and most of the Native American community from the 2 largest Native American newspapers Indian Country Today and News From Indian Country and International AIM know this fake wannabee is fraud and a phony.
He lied on his resume to steal a job set aside for a Native American professor. He has never faced the same discrimination as real Native Americans. He is a Cultural "Identity Thief" for his own greed and ego.
He has no shame profiting off of American Indians. He makes over $100,000 a year off a "playing" Indian. Some Anti-capitalist phony? Why take those "Eichmans" money, unless you're a hypocrite. We all know you're a big phony.
IF HE LIED ABOUT HIS NATIVE AMERICAN HERITAGE, THEN HOW CAN ANY OF HIS WORKS HAVE ANY CREDIBILITY?
In fact the so-called ancestor he claims "Indian" from was actually an INDIAN KILLER and killed Creek Indians in a story by the RockyMountain News, one of the largest papers in Colorado. The same tribe Churchill said he originally was from.

DON'T BUY BOOKS FROM A LIAR. BUY BOOKS WRITTEN BY REAL NATIVE AMERICANS.

If he had any honor he would step down and GIVE THE JOB TO REAL NATIVE AMERICAN and stop using the guise of American Indian to enrich himself. He is a cultural identity thief for his own agenda, big bucks and EGO.

In the introduction, Churchill and Vander Wall trace the founding of the FBI in the mid-20's by J. Edgar Hoover, as he emerged from helping carry out the Justice department's anti-leftist terror campaigns during and in the years following World War One, to its official authorization by Franklin Roosevelt in the mid-30's as a full-fledged sophisticated political police with virtual impunity. They note that the FBI was grossly incompetent and unwilling at fighting serious criminals like the Mafia, prefering to go after the petty criminals of the Dillinger variety, car thieves, and so on to gain cheap publicity for the bureau and its director and that their chief function was and is to protect the economic and political status quo from threats by organized leftists and others. They note the immense propaganda machine constructed by the bureau to portray Hoover as a great crimefighting genius and hero, though he was nothing more than a crazed, reactionary and very cunning bureaucrat, and the effective techniques of making "friends of the bureau" in certain media outlets who would tell the public what the bureau wanted them to know and the techniques of intimidation against those media outlets or ex-bureau agents who wanted to come out with the truth about the FBI.

They move on to discuss Cointelpro, the greatly successful attempts at infiltration, disruption and weakening of dissident groups, extended from the usual Communist and Socialist party targets, to various leftist groups, people like Martin Luther King, but especially the Black Panther Party in the late 60's. Making massive use of declassified FBI documents and other sources, the authors note the FBI attempt to split the BPP, provoke violence between members or factions or with other militant black groups, to spread media disinformation about them and to drain their resources and mental stability by subjecting its leading members to repeated arrests on spurious charges. These objectives were accomplished by fabricating anonymous letters to particular prominent individuals within the party alleging that other party members or factions were plotting against or even planning to murder them, the use of infiltrators/provacateurs to further egg on the factional strife (e.g. the split between Eldridge Cleaver and Huey Newton) and encourage violence between members (e.g. the murder of Fred Bennet by member Jimmie Carr who suspected Bennett of being a police informant, after being led to this impression by police informant Thomas Mosher; Carr himself was later murdered by two Panther members who suspected him of being a government agent) or between the BPP and the Ron Karenga's organization(e.g. the murder of BPP leaders Alprentice Carter and Jon Huggins), the use of "bad-jacketing" through infiltrators to spread the false idea that certain members of the party were government agents (e.g. which resulted in the murders of Huggins, Carter and Carr and which led to Stokely Carmichael's expulsion from the party by Huey Newton), the spreading of media disinformation about alleged financial impropriety and other crimes among certain party members to encourage mistrust and suspiscion within the party, and so on. Two particular cases examined are the murder by the Chicago police of Chicago Black Panther leaders Fred Hampton and Mark Clark in December 1969, using a detailed floor plan of Hampton's appartment that had been provided by FBI infiltrator and Hampton's bodygaurd William O'neal (for which the survivors of the attack and families of the victim were awared 1.8 million dollars by an arbitrator in 1983). They move on to analyze the spurious (mostly through the use of FBI informer Julius Butler and the efforts of infiltrator Melvin Cotton Smith) robbery/murder conviction of Los Angelas leader Geronimo Pratt in 1971, who had been subjected to much harrassment and arrests on spurious charges by the LA police before the 1969 murder of Caroline Olsen, and according to police infiltrator Louis Tackwood (who helped the FBI murder George Jackson) and "Cotton" smith, had specifically been designated to be "neutralized" the LAPD.

The bulk of the book is centered on the particularly severe Cointelpro operations (using many of the same operations as against the BPP, using such infiltrators as Douglass Durham and even possibly being involved in murder, as in the case of Ana Marie Aquash) directed against the American Indian Movement (AIM), particularly at the hub of its activity, on Pine Ridge reservation, Sioux territory, South Dakota, the center of great natural resources eagerly eyed by corporations, throughout the 1970's and beyond. The AIM had risen as a particularly effective organization to fight government violations of Indian treaty and civil rights (what little of those remained). The AIM organized "the trail of Broken Treaties" in 1972, a caravan of veichles that led thousands of Indians to Washington D.C. to hold protests. The authors document a patern of government lies and duplicty with regard to accomodating the protestors and other promises which led to the provoking of the AIM (along with the Bureau of Indian Affairs head in solidarity which got him fired afterward) taking over the Bureau of Indian Affairs building in Washington. The government blithely broke promises of non-prosecution of the BIA building incident, after the building had been released. On Pine Ridge, the government had been pouring funds into Dick Wilson's machine, who won the 1972 tribal presidency with considerable fraud, and proceeded to set up with FBI and Bureau of Indian affairs funds a paramilitary organization with the appropriate acronym of GOONS, who used terror against the inhabitants of Pine Ridge where AIM had widespread support. The next incident was the infamous "Siege of Wounded Knee," March-May 1973, the site where the army had massacred hundreds of Indian women and children in 1890, and where AIM leaders had gone to stage a press conference, only to find the Wounded Knee territory surrounded by FBI and Bureau of Indian Police, which AIM decided not to countenance, and they held down fort within Wounded Knee, gaining widespread international support and aid, with the FBI escalating the situation with its advanced weapons and other illegal Pentagon aid, with Dick Wilson's GOONS setting up illegal roadblocks and engaging in great violence with FBI support (but opposed by the U.S. Marshalls in this instance). After Wounded Knee, Dick Wilson's terrorists escalated their campaign, including murder, against AIM, with AIM members and traditional Indians filing innumerable complaints with the Justice Department and the FBI, which pleaded "lack of manpower" to deal with the situation, though their numbers continued to increase on the Pine Ridge reservation (in support of the Dick Wilson and theGOONS). Next came the "Oglala incident" near Pine Ridge in June 1975, with highly provocative FBI activity near the "Jumping Bull" compound in Oglala near Pine Ridge to "serve" a federal warrant for two youths who allegedly had gotten into a simple fist fight with a White boy shortly before. This resulted in a several day firefight with the Indians (most of whom carried weapons because of the climate of terror in the area) inside the "Jumping Bull" compound which resulted in the deaths of two FBI agents. The FBI proceeded to launch a reign of terror against Pine Ridge after the incident, looking for the murderers of the two agents, conducting innumerable warantless searches, ransacking houses, beating and threatening people. The authors examine the spurious charges brought against such AIM leaders as Richard Marshall (for murder and eventually released), Dennis Banks and Russel Means(both of whom suffered innumerable charges, including those for the incident at Wounded Knee, which judge Fred Nichol dismissed in 1975 on the grounds of gross FBI misconduct and fabrication), Bob Robideau and Dino Butler, and especially Leonard Peltier, who was alleged to have conducted the "execution" of the two FBI agents at the Oglala firefight. Peltier has become one of the international symbols of the American injustice system, promting widespread calls for his release and retrial, including from the Canadien government which originally extradited him back to the United States. For instance, a three judge panel in 1985, took note of the "improper conduct" of "some FBI agents" in Peltier's case, but ended their investigation there by saying that "we are reluctant to impute further improprieties to them."

The closing chapters deal with the FBI's increased attention on Cointelpro activities in Puerto Rico in the 1980's, including murder and burglary and harrassment. They continue with an account of large-scale burglary and harrassment operations against groups oppossing U.S. support for the Death squad regimes in Central America in the 1980's, particularly against the Committee in Solidarity with the people of El Salvador (CISPES). The FBI could never find any evidence that CISPES or

This ever-timely book documents the FBI's activities against the new left. Under the guise of preventing communism, then-director J. Edgar Hoover ordered agents to infiltrate the black power and American Indian movements.

Comprised of young articulate and intelligent young activists, both movements delivered a scathing critique of the American system, the system itself was structured to support and maintain racism. This scared many traditionalists who genuinely believed America to have the best form of government.

Since the traditionalists held the power in America, they did not want to cede it to `different' people. The words and actions of radicals ultimately hit much closer to home than they had wanted to admit. Consequently the FBI was used to `contain' these people.

Because the public had an image of the FBI as brave and heroic men (women were not agents until Hoover's death) the activists who attempted to publicize the actual behavior were derided. After all, it seemed a surreal proposition that the United States would defend democracy by stifling the actions of it's own citizens.

Counter Intelligence Program (COINTELLPRO) events included the soapish (spreading rumors about the sexuality of an `activist colleague') to the deadly (the FBI attempting to murder new left leaders---and leave the cases closed) but all undermined the rights of all American people to live in a democracy.

The American people only now know about these events themselves because of the Freedom Of Information Act.

Ward Churchill and Jim Vanderwall deliver a thought provoking book needing to be read by everybody and anybody concerned about the current state of affairs. The book's emotional tone is expected given the subject matter--and especially relevant today when so many of our public officials want to expand wiretapping in the name of 'security'.

Communism and the red scare are (long) gone as an alibi, but what will seriously prevent the FBI from resuming their role as America's political police?---if they are not doing so already?

so after seeing Braveheart the movie I wanted to learn a a bit more of English history. This compressed (Readers Digress?)version of WC's opus zips along and gives the basics of English & North American history but the main emphasis is commentary on the leadership successes and failures of various kings, dukes, generals and politicians. WC loves the battlefield and gushes respect for combat leaders. The writing, turns of phrase and opinions expressed are superbly crafted. The book starts with pre-Roman Brits and ends with the passing of Queen Victoria, with England and the USA the leading world powers facing the 20th century together. Churchill pushes the theory that human events have always been directed by "special beings" with greater energy and the will to get what they want. He seems to be saying through parallelism, "see, i'm the same as these guys, I too am great, QED". His book, or at least this version, glosses over and I think misses other factors that may answer why, in the course of human affairs, events happen apart from the English speaking personalities, such as technologies, climate changes, other cultures. Bottom line though, if you need a concise history on your bookshelf, a used copy of this will do well.

I must agree with the previous reviewer - the full four volume set is an essential purchase; this edition is not. Lacking in pre-Norman invasion history (I read the stuff on Roman Britain in about ten minutes, which really isn't enough considering the importance of this period to the island's history, as well as that of its offshoots) and skewed towards American material when available (there's lots of material on the civil war - funny that, given Commager's previous efforts), this volume doesn't do justice to Churchill's marvellous volumes.

As for the book itself, whilst the underlying historiography of Churchill's history may no longer be fashionable (it's a bit too conservative for my liking), the quality of the writing more than makes up for such deficiencies.

As a very busy mother of six, I don't think I would ever have time to read the complete four volume set mentioned by other reveiwers. In the Preface, Mr. Commager writes, "This book is not, after all, meant for scholars, who will go to the original, but for the large reading public which Churchill himself most wanted to reach..." This abridgement was perfect for me. I did read part of the original ten or twelve years ago when my husband was studying it for a college research paper. My favorite part was the way Mr. Churchill related the Norman Conquest. This section in the abridged version is just as delightful as I remember the original being.

"On September 28 the fleet came safely to anchor in Pevensey Bay. There was no opposition to the landing. The local "fyrd" had been called out this year four times already to watch the coast, and having, in true English style, come to the conclusion that the danger was past because it had not yet arrived had gone back to their homes."

Mr. Churchill's style is witty and refreshingly NOT PC! I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in a broad overview of English history.

I studied English history in school and found the intertwining of "houses" and kings confusing and could never get their relationships organized in my mind.
Churchill's narrative style, along with the charts of the succession of royalty clarifies it for me. Further, knowing the succession provides "hooks" for mentally assigning other historical figures to particular eras, such as Becket, William Wallace and Joan of Arc.
It also tells the "rest of the story" for popularly well know stories such as the (fictional) Robin Hood era. "Everyone" knows that while Richard the Lion Hearted was imprisoned Prince John tried to take over the kingship, but was frustrated when Richard returned. However, how many people know that when Richard was mortally wounded in a subsequent battle he designated Prince John to become King, and that it was this King John who was forced to sign the Magna Carta?
True, this is an abridgement of Churchill's writings, but it is, nonetheless, Churchill's writings and remains fresh, direct and pungent.
Read this book!

If you can chose between the single volume and 4 volume versions, go for the later. It is definitely worth your time. Churchill's writing is as clear, witty and straightforward, as he was as a politician.

Churchill proves to be a great historian.

Fear of Frying is a very light easy to read mystery. The downside is the story is very predictable which hard core mystery fans might find disappointing. Also although the main plot is wrapped up the minor side plot involving the evil environmental extremist group and the resort is never resolved, although one could argue this makes the book a lot more realistic. The fact remains though that this story is very enjoyable and has characters many will be able to familiarise with from those they come across everyday in the real world. A short read only 206 pages in large print, if you've got a few hours to kill you won't be disappointed by picking this up.

In Fear of Frying a couple of middle aged women set off for a rural resort in the Wisconsin Woods. They are one of a number of couples assessing the resort and its programs as to its suitability to be an external educational facility for leadership camps and the like. They can't get enough of the high quality food and luxuries but when they search for a missing watch at a rural cookout site they are shocked to discover the body of one of their fellow assessors with a frypan beside it. When they go to inform the lodge and the police they are further shocked when the sheriff tells them there's no dead body there. Insisting there is they are further humiliated when the corpse walks through the door without the frypan head injuries they described. Embarrassed they sneak off to their cabin but after a nights sleep are determined to discover what really happened and restore themselves in the eyes of their fellow assessors and the resort owners.

The opening scene, a journey to a wilderness camp, captured my interest instantly, especially following Jane's angst about whether she would have to resort to "peeing in the woods." Would this truly be a resort to relish, as Shelly was working too hard to promise? Loved the way, upon arrival at the camp, Jane's angst was suddenly soothed by the actual nature in "nature," simultaneous to Shelley's greater fears being augmented.

Jane's spirits began their sap rising routine when she saw the fresh coat of paint on the camp's welcome signs. Her spirits continued the upward surge as the birds, bees, flowers & trees began randomly staging their magic.

Shelley's spirits were fried like a finger in a light socket when, arms bundled with beauty enhancements dangling electrical cords, she discovered the cabin's kerosene lantern sans electrical accouterments.

I won't say more about that; wouldn't want to spoil the fun of your discovering in-plot the interesting ambiance of this unusual camp's arrangement of just the right luxuries couched within an almost Amish austerity. With the joys of both maximist and minimalist tendencies mixed chust so, I could make-do with this setup, especially within the pages of a book.

Rubbing my virtual fingers together, I willingly showed up for the breakfast "continuum" of offerings, along with Jane & Shelley, drooling for crisply fried bacon, scrambled eggs and Velveeta (that rich brand would be my cheesy addition to the plot), balanced with a cantaloupe slice and molasses-bran toast from the health side of the food group. I like to mix health business with spiritual pleasures, as long as I'm not being fooled by the fake food fru fru.

What I wonder is what will pseudo-science do when Mulder and Scully finally place Truth into a Common Knowledge medium, as a last-ditch message to save the health of humanity on its last legs and breath, after that pair of rogue FBI agents join forces with Marshal McCluen (Marshall McLuhan), and conglomerate his clues within the Truth Track, on the wrack in the Village Green for all to see.

Okay. All right already. I'll untie the above syntax knot.

A fear of frying is what it's all about all right.

And what I really want to know is HOW did that fear get so built up to fly in everyone's face when they were chust trying to eat a good Amish, farm fresh, hearty-for-the-heart breakfast.

While I'm on this, "And-what-about..." track, what about the French, who do all sorts of fries, super sauce meat drippings by adding BUTTER (they're too smart to "buy" plastic goo), and have the grace of gall to not die of collective heart attacks?

Huh? Huh?

What about that???

Why don't they die like flies on the vines of cholesterol?

And, do NOT copy out and use "DUH" as an excuse.

McDonald's is "to die for"; it is NOT to die from.

When are we Americans going to get. A. Clue. Maybe a Coke, too.

Guilt is the USA's most abundant commodity, and we're selling the heck out of it, as non-profit agents, of course. Wouldn't want to earn a buck then be told to give it away, instead of spending or saving it for ourselves.

We use that self-replicating commodity (guilt) like super glue to stick every pseudo-science tenant to our foreheads. We carry on by forcing a habit of looking in the mirror at the stupid tenants, avoiding the shame of seeing the eyes of that starving soul looking back at us, sadly wondering why we believe that to be Good we're supposed to kill the flavor in life.

And what would we see in that mirror if we looked beyond the false-god tenants (which are very difficult to read, not just because they're smudged full of Sacred Fertilizer, but because they're reversed by being reflected through a mirror)?

Maybe we'd see someone blessed to not be starving (because he's living in a wealthy country), who's been cursed to eat only food with the flavor religiously leached out.

It's not the fear of frying, precisely, which has us brainless and clueless. BTW, my friend Dr. BJ Ferrell noted that the brain is 90% cholesterol. Cholesterol is not only a GOOD thing; it's vital to the health of the nervous system, including the backbone, which we have less and less of.

It's the fear of ...

Lost my train of thought again. Forgot to put enough butter on that molasses bran toast I mentioned above, so my thoughts got off track and took on a tangent. Then one of my prime soap box collections slipped under my feet. That's my excuse for spouting off at the mouth when I might not know what I'm talking about.

Anyway, this novel caught my attention instantly and held it like super glue throughout the subplots, machinations, schemes, and dreams coming true about luxury bathrooms in the wilderness.

But, the real question is, did Jane have to pee in the woods?

In conclusion I might note that I felt a healing force work its way back in time, through my early history, as I skated through the mystery menagerie with Jane & Shelley within the scrumptious setting of this particular summer camp. My personal experiences with summer camps were all literal nightmares, which made this vicarious adventure such a deeply enthralling read that it chust may have erased the scars from that ugly history.

Can you beat that? Probably.

But I'm thankful for my new well-being which arrived at the conclusion of living through this story (which in a Jane novel is always a sunny-side-up or over-easy treat).

What a gift for the price of a paperback.

Maybe if more people regularly read the escape fiction of their tastes, the medical profession might have to worry. There's something very health shoring in the sensual process of reading a good novel with the heavy head cushioned atop a few cozy pillows feather-touched and fluffed by butter-colored lamplight.

Before I close my mouth and eyes on the last page of FEAR OF FRYING, I should mention that there's a book in the Jane Jeffry series which opens more directly along the lines of my above diatribe on unfair food bashing. That book is THE CLASS MENAGERIE. Need to get it. For my health.

Linda Shelnutt

P.S. Marshall McLuhan wrote THE MEDIUM IS THE MASSAGE (implying more than "message"). I visited the Amazon buying page for that book to check spelling of his name. The 15 customer reviews there were amazingly insightful as well as delightfully (and crisply) worded. Even the slight criticisms felt clean, clear, and honestly helpful. Without reservation, I voted "Yes" on each of the 15 reviews. They told me more about the book than I "got" when I read it in college, umpteen Ages ago, and returned to memory and life what I did get. Borm in 1947, I'm in the Baby Boomer crowd. (Maybe I should go post this P.S. into a review?)

Jane and Shelley, who are best friends, camp out at a camp resort that has invited several people. The "camp" atmosphere is very cozy. I thoroughly enjoyed the camp activities, and Jane and Shelley's friendship.

This book is full of food, fun, adventure, coziness, interesting people, murder, and a very interesting plot. I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I highly recommend it to anyone who loves cozy mysteries.

Although I probably say this about every book in this series, but I think this book is one of the best in the series. Actually, this whole series is so fun and cozy. And some of them have really "fun" atmospheres, such as this "camp" atmosphere.

Jane and Shelley are going to check out a summer camp for kids. Camping is NOT Jane's idea of fun and she and Shelley certainly were not prepared for a murder in the process! Then, before anyone can check out the crime scene, the murdered corpse disappears! This is really a bad moment for Jane and Shelley as they're the ones that discovered the body to begin with! Great, fun mystery.

Jane Jeffrey, suburban housewife and sometime detective, accompanies her friend Shelley to learn more about a summer camp for their community's students. What they never expected though was the remote campsite, interesting guests and murder.

Fear of Frying is the 9th book in the Jane Jeffrey series which I first began reading in 1998. The series began with the recenly widowed Jane as she helps to solve the murder of a local housekeeper in Grime and Punishment and has continued with other murders and personal events. Note the clever titles based on other well known book titles.

For the most part I have enjoyed all of Ms. Chruchill's books and Fear of Frying is no exception. I am also in the process of reading the author's second series, the Grace and Favor series which began with Anything Goes.

If you enjoy light and cozy tales of murder and mayhem, consider reading either of these series and enjoy.

I READ THIS EDITION IN CHINA PUBLISHED...

DO YOU THINK STUDY IMMUNOLOGY?

GOOD CHOICE THIS BOOK...

This is an excellent book on the subject. The only catch for me is that, if you are abolutely new to immunology, this book might be a little confusing at first. You have to be able to understand some basic terminology to work with this book, once you have it going through the book is absolutely pain free.

I READ THIS EDITION IN CHINA PUBLISHED...

DO YOU THINK STUDY IMMUNOLOGY?

GOOD CHOICE THIS BOOK...

The text is confusing, very baddly structured and hard to read. Because of the many different authors, the text is not concise. The diagrams and tables are often unprecise, leaving you with even more questions instead of answers. The book is a absolutely not the wright choice for learning immunology. For that I recomend Alberts: MBOC (immunology chapters) and Abbas 5th ed., which are much better books.

I used an earlier edition of this text to study for Pathology board examinations (with the American College of Veterinary Pathology), and found it readily understandable (for someone with a veterinary degree and Master's degree in pathology) and well-laid out. I was so pleased that I purchased this recently for an associate starting a Ph.D. The text has chapters covering general immunology, evolution of the immune system, species differences, and essentials for understanding most aspects of immunology, from cytokines to cells to roles in infectious disease and cancer. The new edition incorporates recent information while retaining the basic flow. Altogether, this is still the best text on the subject that I have seen!

My first in this series to read and it stood on its own very well. The characters were welldefined and the only part I didn't like would be how I felt when it ended and I read the title again. I felt silly for not figuring it out more!

Lily and Robert fill in at a nursing home and quick as you please, a patient dies mysteriously. Typical plan follows to question everyone and it leads them to the killer.

Robert and Lily Brewster are siblings trying to make ends meet during the Depression. They have inherited their great uncle's mansion, but still must take in boarders and do odd jobs to earn money. In this installment in the "Grace and Favor" series, they take temporary jobs in a nursing home. Before long they are involved in another mystery when one of the patients is smothered in his bed. There are plenty of suspects, including the patient's wife and family, many of whom haven't seen or talked to him in years. But then another body turns up and the Brewsters, along with Chief of Police Howard Walker, work to find out if the two cases are related and catch the murderer.

"It Had to Be You" is an amusing, if light mystery. The historical details, Franklin Roosevelt has just been elected President, are the most interesting parts of the book. Lily and Robert and strong characters, maturing with each book in the series. While there have been hints in the descriptions of the various books that Lily is attracted to Howard Walker, it doesn't come across that way in the book, there's no sense of any attraction between the two of them. I hope that's developed in future books.

The mystery itself is pretty light. Jill Churchill throws in plenty of suspects, but it's pretty obvious from the beginning who the murderer is. I read the book hoping that Churchill would throw in a plot twist and have someone else commit the murder, but I was disappointed. And she never explains why the murder took place when the victim was very ill and hours away from dying.

This is a good but unchallenging mystery.

After reading the last entry in the Jane Jeffry mystery series and being less than impressed, I was hoping for more from the latest in the Grace & Favor series. Unfortunately, I was disappointed again. While the book does do a wonderful job of transporting the reader to a small town in New York during the Depression, it does a less than masterful job of solving the mystery in the book.

If you have not read the book, you may wish to skip the rest of my review as it will not tell you whodunnit, but will give away some of the plot.

The story opens with Lily and Robert having gotten yet another part-time job - this one at the nursing home up the road. The first day that both of them are working there, a crochety patient is suffocated to death in his bed. The odd thing is that the patient had slipped into a coma and according to Miss Twibell, the proprietor of the home, would have probably passed away that day regardless. While this detail is constantly mentioned throughout the book, the resolution does not explain the need for the patient to be murdered when he would have died anyway. There are many unresolved details in the book that are probably there as red herrings, however instead of being neatly explained later, they are just left hanging at the end of the book. I don't know if Ms. Churchill originally intended for another character to be the murderer or not, but I feel the book could have been much more entertaining from a mystery perspective had she chosen another character for the villain.

If you are looking for a entertaining and diverting read with a secondary mystery, this book would be fine. However, if you are expecting a rollicking mystery with a twist, skip it. Not Ms. Churchill's best - not even close.

It's 1933. Lily and her brother Robert not only take in boarders at Grace and Favor, but they also take on jobs now and then. Miss Twibell who runs a local nursing home has hired them while her assistant nurse is out sick.

There are many colorful characters in the home. One old man, Sean Connor, is the only seriously ill patient. He is also very hard to deal with. He slips into a coma and passes away. No one was surprised by his death as he was very ill. That is, until it is discovered he was murdered. Why would anyone murder him when he only had hours left? He wasn't well liked, even by his family. So, there are lots of suspects. He had several visits the morning he was killed.

Then a body surfaces when the spring arrives and melts the ice. Could this be the young mad who had disappeared last winter? Or has a third crime been committed?

Lily and Robert become involved in helping to solve these crimes. Plus Robert makes some great suggested to Miss Twibell to upgrade her home and assists with those upgrades.

Motives for Mr. Connor's death are not as abundant as suspects, so it takes a lot of detecting and interviewing for it to be discovered and the guilty party caught.

I love this series. Lily and Robert are terrific. This is one of the few series set back in time that I enjoy so thoroughly. Jill Churchill has done a wonderful job creating these characters and the setting. The other people in town are also great characters in this series. They are all so well crafted. I feel like I'm there when I read a book in this series. Her books are so easy to read, and you don't want to put them down.

I highly recommend this book. The Grace and Favor series is not to be missed.

Our story begins on Friday, March 3, 1933. Robert and Lily Brewster are siblings trying to make it through the Depression. They live in their great-uncle's "Grace and Favor" mansion, penniless but doing well. Franklin Roosevelt's inauguration is under way. Robert even makes a very uncomfortable trip to Washington to witness the historic even.

The day after Robert returns home (he needed a day to recover), he goes with Lily to their new temporary job. Miss Twibell has turned her huge house into a nursing home and one of her employees is out sick for awhile.

Trouble follows the Brewsters, as it normally does, One of the elderly residents, Mr. Sean Connor, is murdered in his bed. The bizarre thing is that everyone knew Mr. Connor only had a few more hours to live anyway. Why would someone bother to kill him? Since he was such an ill tempered man, he had no close friends. No one seems to have liked the man; not even his wife or kids. His children has had no contact with Mr. or Mrs. Connor in years.

Chief of Police Howard Walker is on the case, but he cannot seem to make much head way. Not for lack of trying though. Howard is an excellent cop. The Connor case is not the only one on Howard's mind. Spring thaw has turned up another body that had spent the cold months under an iced over pond.

***** Be warned that this is a reprint! Now that you know, let me inform you about his good mystery. The author did an outstanding job with this tale. The characters are all believable and the era description is true to form. Historical data has been inserted as well, which gives it all a realistic glow. Author Jill Churchill's fan base is about to grow. *****

Reviewed by Detra Fitch of Huntress Reviews.

This is an excellent treatment of the interaction and the motivations of the four leaders of the WWII in Europe. The time-sequenced approach works well to show the drama of the time. Roosevelt comes off particularly bad in my opinion because of his Chamberlanish approach to Stalin.

This is a solid book with an extensive investigation behind it. The personalities of the "warlords" are nicely portrayed and one does get the felling of being in the middle of the discussions and the negotiations of the leaders. I recommend this book if you are interested in knowing what each of the leaders were after, what their objectives were, and how the planned their actions in order to achieve them.

I often judge a book by where it takes me next. This book started me down a path to 'The Dark Valley (Brendon), 'Stalingrad' (Beevor), 'Rites of Spring' (Eksteins) and 'Nazi Games' (Large). So, maybe it wasn't great scholarship as a reviewer said. It was an enjoyable read.

It is a book that is very interesting to read and I would give a higher rate if it was not for something big missing. They concentrated the story on Europe, they forgot Japan and Asia. That was a World War, and not an European War.

I guess the way Japan functioned during the war is not so well known so there is something important missing, who was the Japanese leader that influenced the major decisions, how he thought? What was happening inside Japan during this period of time? What kind of leadership they had? What was the role of the emperor? of General Tojo or Admiral Yamamoto? Any of them was the major war brain?

In continental Asia, there was a major drama happening in China at the time, two importante leaders in world history,Mr. Chiang and Mr. Mao would unite forces to fight a foreign enemy... what roles they played, what was the interaction with the USA at the time, how this influences the USA attitudes toward China until today?

If we look at the Allied powers there was two real superpowers, USA and USSR, Britain had not the resources to fight the war, but Churchill was put in the book because of his personality, without the USA he would have played a very different role in WWII. The italian leader, Mussolini was also someone to be analyzed, he was in a position similar to Churchill, with fewer resources and a weeker player, but it would complete the picture.

I would add a few other questions regarding Mr. Roosevelt and his style of management...How advanced he was in concepts of Management? what concepts he applied? how good he was in identifying talented people to do the required tasks? how he motivated the whole free world to work together in the future? the depth of his vision for the future and what mission he established for the Allied powers and his mistakes... The Roosevelt administration used how many concepts of modern management theory?

All my questioning above is due to the fact that I liked very much to read this book. It may not be very precise in its research, but makes you feel closer to the minds and the thinking that the major players did... I would add a companion book to this one:Why the Allies Won by Richard Overy.

This is supossed to be "through the eyes and minds of Htler", among others.
Yet the authors do not even mention HITLER'S WAR , by David Irving , or THE STRUGGLE FOR EUROPE, by Chester Wilmot in their Bibliography, which are considered by John Keegan to be the two books in English that "stand out from the vast literature of the Second World War".
Don't waiste your time.
Read the above two books instead of waisting your time with this one,
as I regretfully did.
The fact that you can now get them on Marketplace for $1.74 less than a year after publication speakes volumes about what actual readers think.
Very very few of us care to retain this shoddy scholarship in our libraries.

I liked Black Out and Old Flames, but this book just isn't worth the money. John Lawton ought to give me a free coupon to his next book--it HAS to be better.

Poor plot, very little time with Inspector Troy, and everybody and every situation is one-dimensional.

Re-read the earlier books and wait for your library to order this one.

I began this series out of sequence with "Old Flames", a very clever 1950s spy thriller. This novel picks up Inspector Troy's career at an earlier stage, during WW II, but before the action of "Black Out". Though Troy doesn't get center stage, this is still an excellent story, with its fascinating picture of early 1940s London and the last few months before its two biggest players, the US and USSR, entered the war.

Recommended, in spite of a couple of others here thinking that a prior UK publication is grounds to knock a perfectly good novel.

This is my first read of the "Inspector Troy" series which I gather has many fans.

The time is 1941. An Austrian close to SS factotum Reinhard Heydrich is a spy for the Americans and about to be uncovered. Hurriedly, he fakes his death in an air raid and runs. To where, we don't yet know.

Calvin Cormack, a U.S. Army intelligence officer in Zurich is told to go to London. In London, Cormack, the son of a Congressman who is against American involvement in Europe, is teamed with Walter Stilton, a seemingly plodding Special Branch Inspector.

Stahl, the fugitive Austrian, is in England: so Cormack believes.

The search by Stilton and Cormack begins and the bodies start dropping soon enough. Cormack is drawn into the family life of Stilton and Lawton weaves a plot that beautifully brings in English life, American politics and the family of Freddie Troy. Troy is a homicide detective for Scotland Yard.

Lawton does a nice job of sketching out his characters. Interestingly, Troy plays an almost secondary role, although he is the ultimate hero of the book. The novel does move along nicely, but it is so laden with detail that it does seem to slow down from time to time.

Overall, Lawton does a wonderful job of creating the atmosphere of 1941 London. The characters are all believable, the story more complex on a personal level than most mysteries and the plot doesn't have any disturbing jumps. Overall, a very entertaining read.

Jerry

I haven't read any of the other Inspector Troy novels; I picked up this one because the jacket's reviews were attractive. I realize now that the review excerpts focused on what I liked about the book (its terrific recreation of a time & place) and were silent on what didn't grab me (the characters & plot).

It's almost worth reading just for the "feel." This is what it must've been like to sit around the kitchen table of a middle-class London policeman in Spring of 1941.

But while the novel is literate and well-written, there's something distancing about it. I found Troy the less interesting and less sharply delineated of the two major characters (Troy and an American soldier, Cal Cormack), and Lawton spends much more time on Cormack. The spy / murder-mystery plot plays out without much momentum; better are the glimpses of the internal politics of the police force and diplomatic services.

I expect I'd like Bluffing Mr. Churchill much more if I already had some investment in the continuing characters. I doubt I'll hunt out the other books in the series.

WARNING TO LAWTON FANS. THIS BOOK IS IDENTICAL TO "RIPTIDE."

I read this first as a medical student and now as a clinician, keep referring to it whenever my ECG skills need to be brushed up. It is very concise and easy to read. the basic concepts and the various findings in common conditions ( axis, intervals, arrhythmias and MI) are presented in a clear and simple manner that is very easy for the beginner to understand.

As I stated in other reviews, most of the ECG books on the market are nothing impressive. This was obviously another book I ordered and sent it back. I'm not sure why it's so hard to find books on this subject that are worth the money?

Good book. Easy to read. I beleive it has a couple misprints (for example: page 16 Fig. 1.16 - Text describes Left Axis Deviation, figure underscore states - Left Axis Deviation, however figure depicts Right Axis Deviation). Otherwise this is a reasonable book for introduction to EKG.

This a pretty good reference for basic EKGs. Easy to read and refer to but the 6th ed has very little change from the 5th ed. I have them both. Basically prettier paper and a slight change in the books layout; otherwise it is word for word as the older 5th ed.

The book is very clearly written. The new edition (6th Edition) is printed on nice glossy paper in two-colours (helpful for ECGs). The book is very clearly written, and can be read in one sitting (several hours, unfortunately). The methods for reading ECGs are pretty good, and stresses the understanding of the underlying electrical conduction of the heart. The ordering of topics is well-thought out, starting with ECG introduction (placement of leads, what we are seeing, etc.) to conduction problems, to heart rhythms, to abnormalities in the P, QRS and T waves.

I think the book is as simple as it gets for ECGs. It doesn't mark the exact location of the arrhythmias, but if you are a medical/health professional (or student), it should be assumed that you must know something about the heart (and conduction) prior to learning how to read the ECG. It probably also assumes that you are reading the book somewhat in sequence/order, so you actually know what the author is talking about when he comments on each of the ECG print-outs. If you cannot follow the comments for each of the graph, it probably means that you have missed a good portion of the book.

There is a short section in the latest edition including 10 ECGs to test your own understanding. It's a bit less than ideal, but there is a companion book they are trying to sell...

There are two companion books for this book that look equally good (haven't read those). The ECG in Practice and 150 ECG Problems. All 3 books are sized correctly (small) and can be carried anywhere... making it excellent for reading anywhere!

I am not sure what bothers me most about this book- the tedious dialogue, the major focus of the story on the point of view of a pacifist objector, or the liberties taken with Churchill and his innermost thoughts. There is so much great non-fiction out there on Churchill that this book to me was a total waste of time. Read the Manchester series or Gilbert's abridged official biography and get the scope of the man and his times- this is much better than page after page of the suspended belief that is this book.

There is a built in audience for all things Churchill and this author apparently has the credibility to move books- this does not mean that Churchill is accurately portrayed or that the story is engrossing or plausible. Churchill's real life suffices and sustains any treatment and with the breadth of choices out there it is unfortunate that any student of Churchill would fall for this book.

I picked this up at a sale rack at Borders- I fell for the cover and the subject matter. If you have read anything at all of substance about Churchill then I would suggest avoiding this one.

I picked this book up on the sale table at a bookstore (sorry Amazon) and found it so compelling that I had to order the others in this series by Michael Dobbs (from Amazon this time). I day-dreamed through most of my history classes but have found that some of the current "historical fiction" and the well written non-fiction history books have drawn me into a sincere desire to study what I so foolishly skipped in my girlhood. I am also enjoying the reviews from all of you who have always valued our past.

Michael Dobbs does a superb job of breathing life into Churchill. Although we all know the outcome of the war, witnessing the events through Dobbs' creative hand makes them all the more real. Although firmly grounded in fact, Dobb's fiction takes readers into Churchill's soul in a most believeable - and suspenseful - way. The huge and complex character of Churchill is exposed warts and all but always magnificently, and the well-known events it deals with like the evacuation of the British Army from Dunkirk get brought vividly to life. I particularly enjoyed the contrast between the high politics centered in London and the agonies of war witnessed from the mud through the character of Donald Chichester, the ambulance auxiliary in France - two totally contrasting heroes of the book, Churchill the aging warrior, and Donald the young conscientious objector. And could Joe Kennedy, the US ambassador to Britain at that time, have been such a villain? Dobbs lays him bare. I know it's a novel, but for me it brought home the truth of warfare much more effectively than many history books I've read. I found the characters gripping, they got me thinking, and I was left wondering which bits were fact and what was the fiction - and wanting to find out more. A great read.
It's about time that Dobbs is getting better US exposure. We want more!

Michael Dobbs yet again brings to life an icon of the 20th Century. We learn a great deal about the man, Churchill, both his passions as well as his demons. Dobbs' portrayal of the machinations of Kennedy/Halifax bring texture to a relatively brief but critical period following Churchill's ascendancy as PM and the heroic days of Dunkirk. The sidebar drama of the Chichesters adds additional color and brings out in clear fashion how monumental events engineered by national leaders impact the daily lives and struggles of an average family. Churchill, himself, comes across in all his complexity and imperfections as a man possessed with a determination and fundemental vision ironically more in tune with that of the average Englishman than that of the gentry class into which he was born. His ability to rally the British people over the heads of his political opponents is clearly set forth by Dobbs, who more than most understands the dangers of moral relativism taking hold of the debate in times of crisis.

Winston Churchill was done no favor when he was named Prime Minister in May of1940 just hours before Adolph Hitler's invasion of Belgium, Holland and France. As the world watched in horror, Hitler's army marched through those countries with surprising ease and pushed Britain's forces to the coast at Dunkirk where they seemed to be trapped like fleeing rats. Never Surrender tells the story of what turned out to be one of the most important three weeks of the twentieth century. It was during those dark days that Churchill almost single-handedly managed to keep his government from suing for peace with Hitler even when it appeared that his country would soon have no army or air force left with which to fight.

Michael Dobbs portrays a Winston Churchill who at times seems to succeed in spite of himself. Despite his bouts of depression, his drinking habits and the fact that most of his colleagues were convinced that he was already a failure, Churchill gave his countrymen the will to defy Hitler when it seemed near impossible that their resistance could ever succeed. The Winston Churchill of Never Surrender is a man filled with self-doubt, a man who still craves the approval of his long dead father, and a man who is willing to do whatever is necessary to save his beloved country. If he has to lie to his fellow ministers and staff, he will do it. If he has to ask thousands of men to sacrifice their lives in a hopeless battle to win time for others to escape Hitler's trap, he will do that. He understands, even if only a few others do, that negotiating with Adolph Hitler is the same as surrender, and he will never surrender.

But there is more to Never Surrender than Winston Churchill. Dobbs uses side stories and characters to further detail what was happening at all levels of British society during those crucial days. There are Don Chichester, a young conscientious objector and orderly with the British army in France and his Anglican vicar father who considers him to be a coward for not taking up arms against the enemy. There is Ruth Mueller, a German refugee and Hitler biographer, who has fled to England after being sickened by what has become of her own country, and who becomes an unofficial adviser to Churchill about what makes Adolph Hitler tick. There is even Joseph Kennedy, U.S. ambassador to Britain, who watches smugly, and almost hopefully, as Churchill's options become fewer and fewer, a man willing to mislead President Roosevelt despite the consequences.

Never Surrender is a suspenseful account of what one man achieved despite obstacles that would have stopped most men in their tracks. Faced with obstinate military leaders who would not follow orders, defeatist ministers who were ready to quit the fight, and self-doubts of his own, Churchill was still able to defy Hitler and to rescue more than three hundred thousand men from the beaches of Dunkirk, men who would live to fight another day. The world was lucky that Winston Churchill came along when he did. Michael Dobbs has done a remarkable job in explaining just how lucky.

This book is fantastic. I found it superb. Joseph Chamberlain was one of the giants of 19th Century English politics - the family owned a business now known as GKN Plc.

In the Conservative Party his great rival was Lord Randolph Churchill, father of Winston who started out as a Conservative, became a Liberal, and switched back to Conservative.

Chamberlain's eldest son Austen [his mother died 2 days after his birth] once dined with Bismarck and won the Nobel Peace Prize as Foreign Secretary. He died just as his younger half-brother, Neville became Prime Minister after a superb track record of social reform but inspired by his brother's work he found a very different Germany and dreams of peace became delusions

Offers an interesting perspective on the background to the rivalry between Churchill and Chamberlain. Of course, it wasn't really a rivalry at all until Munich blew up in Chamberlain's face. Until that moment Chamberlain was utterly dominant and Churchill was a widely disliked "has been". The author demonstrates how luck played a key role in elevating Churchill from the "backbenches" to the "Treasury Bench".

In my untutored opinion, the author is far too kind to Chamberlain who was, again in my opinion, an arrogant fool. Read Martin Gilbert and Richard Gott, The Appeasers, for a better take on the enormity of what Chamberlain and Halifax (et al) perpetrated.

Don't waste your time unless you have a strong interest in the gritty details of English history.

It is all well and good to make this big deal over Chamberlian's
conscience, honour etc something that history does not record that had much to do with stopping Chamberlian from breaking his word fairly fairly regularly. A leader has to take responsibilities for the decisions that he makes within the parameters that he works under. In Chamberlain's case, he totally misjudged Hitler and his regime. It is not like the Nazis made any secret of their aims. As this book points out many in his own party like Churchill were worried that his actions.

Before the war and during the war, Chamberlain failed to produce the type of leadership required by his nation.

To Chamberlain credit, as the book points out, once he realized that Hitler could not be trusted his appeasement policy came to an end. I wish that other world leaders would have this sort of moral strength to admit sometimes that what they did was wrong and try to correct it.

In a democracy, the people have the leaders they deserve. This would seem a rather self-evident observation, but one which is often forgotten when the inadequacy of Britain's political leadership facing Hitler in the thirties is discussed. As a citizen of a country that was ultimately liberated from nazi oppression by British troops, I certainly have no wish to belittle the heroism of the British people during World War II, but you need to make a clear distinction between Churchill's Britain living out its finest hour between 1940 and 1945 and the Britain of Baldwin and Chamberlain, struck hard by the twin calamities of World War I and the great depression and seeking only peace and comfort at almost any cost. This is what Burying Ceasar brilliantly demonstrates.

With the future of mankind hanging in the balance, the drama of Britain dealing with the menace of Nazi Germany boils down to a political and personal struggle between two elderly gentlemen, Chamberlain and Churchill, both striving to fulfill the ambitions of their fathers and families: Neville Chamberlain was both a son and a brother of great men, while Churchill, allthough the scion of a great family, was in reality the son of a demented political loser whom he nevertheless adored. No materialistic approach to history here - events are shaped by individuals, their qualities and flaws have decisive influence on the course of history. Burying Caesar portrays both men in an honest and objective way, neither vilifying Chamberlain nor glorifying Churchill and this is one of the great strenghts of the book.

It has been stated that the book seeks to redeem the reputation of Neville Chamberlain, but I do not agree. Burying Caesar merely frees itself from the conventional wisdom that Chamberlain was a narrow-minded and untrustworthy coward, showing us instead a basically decent and well-meaning politician who unfortunately (not least for himself) advanced to a position that demanded greater talents than this rather mediocre personality had been provided with. Chamberlain had been a reasonably succesful chancellor of the exchequer during the worst years of the depression and had his career ended at that, he would have been remembered in a mostly positive light as a minor figure of British history rather than as one of the worst failures of world history. Still, faced with an electorate which (naturally) did not want another war and hampered by his own lack of international experience, Chamberlain no doubt tried his best to serve his country. That he was no match for Hitler is obvious but one might wonder if any other British PM could really have prevented World War II (given, for instance, the attitude of France...).

Which brings us to Churchill. A vain, self-serving man of immense personal ambition, idiosyncratic in his view of the world yet ready to compromize if it might bring him back into the corridors of power. Not a man to be trusted, not a leader for times of great crisis. Yet history proved him right about the nazi menace and he turned out to be just the right leader for Britain when war came and the British people were ready once more to demonstrate heroism in the face of terrible adversity. Burying Caesar depicts Churchill with all his flaws, yet also shows us how he held on to his basic belief that Freedom and Justice would have to stand firm against Oppression and Crime and how that very staunchness made him into the leader now revered by all mankind - a fascinating portrait of the imperfect genius among men who were merely imperfect.

Graham Stewart writes historical non-fiction in the great tradition of British scholars such as A.J.P. Taylor, Corelli Barnett, Martin Gilbert etc. More, please....

Much has been written about Churchill's wilderness years in the 1930's ranging from the lavish praise of William Manchester to the scorn of a John Charmley. I have never before seen a history covering the precise topic of this book which is the rivalry between Churchill and Neville Chamberlain during the decade which began with Churchill an ostracized outcast and Chamberlain a rising star and yet ended with Chamberlain a scorned failure and Churchill a triumphant war leader.

Young British historian