Nova Books

Picked this book up in a bargain bin several years ago. Hadn't heard of the author, in fact haven't heard much since, but thought I'd give it a try. Unfortunately, I was disappointed.

While I did dedicate the time to finish the book, mainly because I really wanted to know how it would all end up; I just wasn't that impressed with the overall story. Judging by the description on the back I thought it would be much more exciting and worthwhile than I felt it ended up.

I certainly can appreciate the point the story was trying to get across, about how life used to be in the south for blacks. And while I did find the two main characters pretty entertaining at times- I just felt the entire story and cast fell short for me. It was not very suspenseful or exciting or even what I felt "all that deep". I would not recommend this book to a friend...

To really appreciate Terry Kay's "The Runaway" you need to have lived in that time and place -- Georgia, 1949. I did, and I know that Kay has painted it perfectly. I knew those people, remember them well. Before reading the book, I'd read a generally positive review in an Atlanta newspaper, but one that said the book was "overpopulated with stereotypes." What I found was a true portrait of people and place. Like all Southern towns of that period, conformity was enforced at least by social code, if not by law; it would be hard to write a truthful story and not have characters who seem stereotyped. It was a stereotypical period when change required daring, and the soldiers returning from war came home to fill the bill. They'd taken on a sense of purpose: defending human liberty and dignity. Terry Kay tells us that these are the forgotten heroes, the Southern ex-soldiers who stood up and said to their neighbors, straighten up and play right. They faced as much danger, if not more, than when they'd faced the German Nazis, just by saying, "Why don't you leave him alone? What did he do to you?" I said that to three white men one night, when they were picking on a young black man, and I barely escaped with my life. Of course, that was in 1963, and it was a far more dangerous thing to do in 1949, Kay's scenario in The Runaway. It was men like Sheriff Frank Rucker who led the way, who showed us how to speak up for another man's dignity, even when it wasn't safe. Kay's people may be fictional, but they had counterparts in real life. Stereotypes? Hardly.

Of course, Terry Kay's writing is moving, nearly ethereal in places, as usual. I was also impressed with how many phrases he was able to use from the dialect of the time: "naked as a jaybird," "a fart in a windstorm." He's a master. So we can forgive him the line on page 381: "Getting out of his car, Hugh walked over to Fuller." Even the greats are allowed one of those now and then.

Terry Kay has had a successful career as a purveyor of popular "Southern" fiction. But those of you who love his novels, please, there are better writers out there. Try some of them. Lee Smith, Fred Chappell, Charles Frazier, Doris Betts....and so on. The author of this book uses his self-described "bag of tricks" to manipulate the reader. Go elsewhere for your reading pleasure.

50 years after the period during which they are portrayed to have occurred, Terry Kay has produced a wholly entertaining novel concerning the lives and times of peoples in the "deep South", those who had participated in WWII and how this apparently affected the way they considered their black neighbours afterwards.

I would have considered "The Runaway" to be just like countless other novels, a way of excusing past acts which today would be considered inexcusable and reprehensible. Except that it started my mind wondering about what people today still have problems getting to terms with. Tolerance, or the lack of, still affects the way most people consider their fellows. Today, the differences tend to be mainly represented by religious beliefs or sexual preferences. We haven't yet learned to "Live And Let Live" as far as this is possible.

So if you read "The Runaway" which I whole-heartedly recommend, just spare a thought for all those others whose lives may be unbearable today because of "intolerance".

Oh, how I adore good Southern writing, and oh, how "The Runaway," meets all my critera for achieving that accolade. Set in rural Georgia in the 1940's, the tale is rich with eccentric characters who "guaren-damn-tee" to provoke empassioned feelings. The dialogue is sharp. The plot trenchant. Humor, racial tension, and suspense drive this story along like a raft on a ever-winding river. Each twist and turn swirls the story into unexpected surprises, and rafts the reader over waterfalls of human frailities and outlandish behaviors.

Terry Kay style is a blend of Mark Twain and William Faulkner; his writing is that clever, that diverse, that colorful. I applaud his masterful abilities, and encourage all lovers of southern fiction to pick up this vivid, delightful, insightful page turning tale. This is most definitely a MUST READ!!

Earl V. Pike tools along in his pristine Mercedes. An errant driver toys with him. But Pike holds his growing rage within . . . for now.

Carsten Stroud has written a perfect suspense novel. Pike is but the first of many well drawn characters who feel and sound real. There's Earl V. Pike. Jack Vermillion, parter in Black Water Transit, a shipping company. His partner Cheek Johnson. And more.

I don't like to describe plots and story lines because I feel it detracts from the pleasure of approaching a novel fresh, withoout a hint of what happens between the covers.

But I don't mind at all telling you that Stroud's characters are rich, his plots and sub-plots intense and believable and, most happily, every page compels you to read the next and the next.

Stroud is an absolute master and "Black Water Transit" is perfect suspense.

Jerry

Black Water Transit is like many thrillers -- interesting enough to finish but forgettable right after finishing them. Stroud's plot is interesting but not particularly memorable, and the same applies to his characters. While Black Water Transit is entertaining, I couldn't develop a strong sense of caring about what was to happen and to whom it was to happen. As a result, I often found myself checking to see how many pages I had left so that I could move on to my next book. Overall, I wouldn't recommend that you rush out to read Black Water Transit. On the other hand, I don't think you'll be disappointed if you do decide to read it. For me, reading Black Water Transit was like chewing a piece of gum --the taste while chewing it is familiar and enjoyable, but because the taste is similar to most other pieces I've chewed, it becomes forgettable soon after experiencing it.

You hear this a lot in book reviews, but this is a novel that you need to prepare to read in one sitting. The author ties together several subplots to weave a very taut, exciting story. There is plenty of action, good character development and a sense of intrigue that keeps you reading just to find out what happens next. This is one of the best police novels I have read in quite awhile. Although somewhat violent, it all feeds the plot line quite well without being gratuitous. I highly recommend this book.

Black Water Transit by Carsten Stroud is a taut, nail biting thriller that I could not put down! (Yes, I know that it's cliche, but in this case it's true!)

I do not normally read crime fiction, and only chose this book when I ran out of other reading material... I did not realize what I was getting into! Stroud is very witty and has a narrative style unlike I've ever read. He writes in such a way that you understand exactly what words sound like coming from the characters' mouths, and he captures the essence of internal thought and turmoil like they were your own thoughts.

The action of this book is very fast-paced, and he endears you to the characters very quickly. The plot is sinuous and keeps you guessing until the very end. This book has everything from romance to the Mob, from bad-guys who turn good to good-guys who turn bad, and revenge coming out the wazoo (technical term)! I recommend this book to anyone!!

I loved Stroud's book and thought Black Water Transit was one of the most original plots that I have read in a long time. Jack Vermilion, the main character is successful businessman and the owner of Black Water Systems a shipping company. He enjoys the sucesses of his life except for his dissapointing son, Danny, a thief and drug addict. In federal prison, Danny calls and begs for help. In an effort to help his son, Jack turns informant on a client, Earl Pike, who wants to ship some guns to Mexico. When feds move in to yank the shipment, several agents are killed and of course Jack is blamed and not Pike. Pike, a former army colonel and sniper feels he has been betrayed by Jack and starts his own personal vendetta. The edgy writing of the story gives it the added substance that some writers lack. The characters were razor-sharp and very believable. This is the type of book that you won't want to put down until you are finished. Although, I initially had some problems with going back and forth in the chapters with the different story lines and characters, in the long run it was one hell of a read!...

I'd love to say that this pabulum would never have gotten published were Tommy's surname not Steinbeck but I know better. Worse writing, in other ways, has already gotten published, and lauded, but that still doesn't excuse the vomitus that Tommy has wrought. Such is the degraded state of current American literature.

Yes, there is no denying that the existence of this book, and whatever piece of dreck Tommy is concocting for his Great American Novel, is nothing short of literary debasement, and sickens me even more than the far more widespread practice of literary fellatio (in the flesh and in print) that results in so many non-talents landing book deals, only to have their crap sitting on the shelves of clearinghouse book distributors, next to Tommy's dreck, for at least their garbage do not involve desecrating the name of a great writer. Still, one wonders what the real dark motives are that Tommy has for brutalizing his father's name to such a shameful degree. It never ceases to amaze me how base, cynical, disrespectful, uncaring, and money hungry people can be. If I had any doubts how low individuals could sink I only have to turn toward old Tommy Steinbeck.

No two ways about it--I just loved this book. Every story is a gem, but best of all was the last and longest tale, Sing Fat and the Imperial Duchess of Woo. While the previous several stories all enchanted me, Sing Fat was really a tour de force of writing, with exotic characters and language specific to a time period. The words are evocative of powerful emotions and the characters just come right off the page into your reading room.

Steinbeck has mastered the literary genre of the short story, just as have two of his contemporaries, Annie Proulx and Jhumpa Lahiri. With the right screenwriter, the story of Sing Fat could be as successful a movie as Brokeback Mountain, adapted from Proulx's short story, or The Namesake, the movie adapted from Lahiri's brief novel by the same name. It's remarkable how easy it is to visualize Steinbeck's characters as his words and writing are that good. For anyone who likes short stories, or for anyone else for that matter, this is a great selection.

Ballantine isn't a small publishing house, but few would have bothered with a book of short stories.

Down To A Soundless Sea by Thomas Steinbeck, son of the California literary legend, John. A collection of seven (which must be a magic number) short stories, all of which takes place in Big Sur. A limited geography with unlimited stories to tell. Steinbeck is every bit the writer that his father was, and it was better that the son waited until he was absolutely ready before he tossed his fate upon the fickle tastes of the reading public. This book is a gem and like all good things, was worth the wait.

Being a life-long John Steinbeck fan, I began reading this book with the clear objective of "being gracious" and trying not to expect too much, since it might fall short of his father's talents. I was so pleasantly proven wrong! Thomas Steinbeck has NOT had to fall back on his family name to be successful. His writing can stand alone on its own merit. I love this book, and while I have already recommended it to friends and associates, I will not be getting rid of it by passing it on, as I often do. It's a "keeper" and I will read it again. Thomas Steinbeck can clearly turn a phrase, and it appears that he can do so naturally. He clearly possesses acute observational skills, and knows human personalities. His characters are full of life and are fully three-dimensional. One does not walk away from this book wondering "Why was this guy or that girl in the plot?" They all hold intrinsic and valuable places in the whole. Not only are these stories interesting and often entertaining, they hold social redeeming values. Thomas Steinbeck, with one book, has shown serious readers that a new kid is on the block, and is a force to be reckoned with. This book is a must read.

Just finished Thomas Steinbeck's book and did enjoy it very much. The characters are odd and varied and all seem perfectly real....I expect most are based on real people. Most of these stories, for this is a collection of (not too) short stories, are stories that were repeated around the Steinbeck dinner table when Thomas's dad, John, was still alive.
The writing style of some of these stories is quite formal, stiff almost at times, and yet they still seem to work. Although the writing is formalized it does have a beauty to it often, a lyrical quality, great selection of words.
In many ways this writing of the son of Steinbeck does remind me of the writing of the father, and certainly that's a good thing. I live on the Central Coast of California where most of these stories take place, and the history in these episodes is right on the money.
If I had one complaint, it would be the same one I've always had for John Steinbeck's writing too: both authors are perhaps overly fond of the tragic ending...which I find odd. I myself am a writer (Birthday Boy, Happy Hour, Safe Sex in the Garden, Allergy-Free Gardening, etc.) and I don't prentend to been even in the same league as John Steinbeck, but still: Every writer I ever met was first of all, dying to get published; then they were dying to make some good sales, to get good reviews, to make some money, to savor some fame. Few writers quite pull this off, but John Steinbeck did so and then some. He was a smash success at an early age and sold books like mad for most of his adult life. I would think his view of the world would be strongly positive, but the opposite seems to be the case. The red pony dies, the huge pearl ruins everything, the big guy accidentally kills the girl, the funny guy trips on a board and breaks his neck. Thomas Steinbeck gets into this tragedy groove too, certainly in the last story in the book, which is the best one too, the strongest,,,,but not to give away the ending.
I think, bottom line is this: it is a really good book, very interesting and well worth reading. The son writes darn well. Must be in his blood.

The rest of the family made me leave the room during the last hour I read this book because my laughing was disturbing to them. What a great story!

I stumbled across this book and had no idea what a find it was to be. I picked it up on recognition of Tom Bodett's name even though I was unaware that he is an author. This is a whimsical, amusing, touching ride that carries throughout the entire book. A large cast of characters reside in this book and you have to stay close or you'll lose track of the threads that eventually tie this story together. I have shared this book with many and all have been greatly impressed. I highly recommend this book.

this book was a great read and so very fun. It follows many charcters and then shows how they all converge at the end, it's just a great story and a beautifully written novel.

I picked this up in a bookstore because I recognized Tom's name (probably like most of America) and had no idea what a great story teller he could be. The book takes different stories and weaves them together in a most clever fashion. Makes me wonder if it wasn't composed as separate books - then combined - Ha! Caught Ya! That's the secret! I certainly didn't guess what was coming next and that made the ride even more enjoyable. The characters had depth - no broding overwrought fatalists - and they were living very real lives. The humor that is 'snuck in' is great and adds to the whole experience. Good stuff here.

I just finished reading this wonderful book and felt my heart warmed over. Tom Bodett's writing took me into his characters lives with such grace that they became like my own family. Funny,sweet and thought provoking. I am off to read more of Tom Bodett today!

This is my first encounter with a Margaret Truman mystery; I choose this audio book after reading her obituary. I did enjoy the experience overall - she had a very engaging writing style. There are spot-on descriptions of characters that fall into classic archetypes. And the book is full of rich detail on the Washington and arts milieu. I especially appreciated how facts about Lincoln's life and death were made relevant through various characters. However, I found the story itself serviceable; there were several plausible suspects to keep me guessing, but not much action or twists.

Johnny Wales is six feet, four inches. He is employed as a stage hand at Ford's Theatre. He trained as an actor and stage technician at the University of Wisconsin. He hears park rangers conducting tours of the facility. Next, Johnny runs into a dead girl, Nadia Zarinsky, an intern who worked for a senator.

Johnson and Klayman are partners in the police force. A homeless man, Joseph Partridge, claims he saw a man hit the woman. Mackenzie Smith is teaching a course entitled Lincoln the Lawyer. Mac's wife, Annabel, is a gallery owner. Her friend, Clarise Emerson, is the theatre director. Clarise has been tapped to lead the NEA. She is a former wife of the senator. Johnson and Klayman interview an English actor and employee of the theatre, Sydney Bancroft. Johnson is a scholar of jazz, and Klayman a scholar of Lincoln. In fact, Klayman has enrolled in Mac's class. Since Clarise's son is charged with the homicide and Mac and his former partner represent him, things start to get interesting.

In the end, Clarise withdraws her name from NEA consideration. The actual murderer is discovered in very vivid fashion. The couple of Mac and Anabel Smith are pleasant characters as are the twosome of Johnson and Klayman. The intelligence and taste Margaret Truman brings to the task of crime writing are welcome qualities.

Margaret Truman's mysteries get better with each new one that appears. In this one, she uses Ford's Theatre as her site. Anyone who has visited Ford's Theatre will agree that she picked a place with the right atmosphere for a mystery. Someone murdered Nadia Zarinski in the alley behind Ford's Theatre. She was an intern for Senator Bruce Lerner, and there are rumors of an affair, so he is a suspect. The murder also casts an unwanted spotlight on Clarise Emerson, Lerner's former wife, head of the Ford's Theatre Society, and presidential nominee to chair the National Endowment for the Arts. Aging actor Sydney Bancroft claimed that Jeremiah Lerner, son of the Senator and Clarise, had been dating the victim. A surly brat, he ran when confronted by detectives, and was soon arrested for the murder. Clarise begs law professor Mac Smith to help her son. Mac and wife Annabel, an urbane couple, are in many of Margaret Truman's mysteries. Mac agrees to help, and the real mystery unfolds until it reaches a surprising climax. This is a splendid tale, with real characters (not cardboard) and a nice pace.

This was not one of Truman's best books. I kept waiting for some action and mystery... and then it did not come. The other Capital Crimes book I read most recently (Murder at the Smithsonian; Library of Congress) had a lot more intrigue. I did like the many DC references, but those are in all of her books... hopefully Ms. Truman will have some better books to offer in the future.

In her latest novel, Margaret Truman stages "Murder at Ford's Theatre" with a cast drawn from recent headlines and past novels in her Capital Crime Series. The murder of Senate intern Nadia Zarinski, romantically linked to her boss, outside the historic theatre now run by the senator's ex-wife and Hollywood producer, Clarisse Emerson, who is preparing for her confirmation hearing as the next chairperson of the National Endowment for the Arts sets off a media frenzy all too familar in the nation's capital. The case is so sensational that Truman's favorite Washington couple, George Washington University law professor Mackensie Smith and his wife Annabelle, are compelled to play leading roles once again. Supporting cast members and Lincoln buffs, detectives Klayman and Johnson, representing the Metropolitan Police Department, and Sydney Bancroft, aging British thespian and Ford Theatre artistic director, add colorful moments to this fast paced drama.

It is impossible for me to criticise Truman's work. Her attention to detail especially about local landmarks and legends in Washington, DC provides the reader with a sense of place that locals recognize and visitors remember. I don't doubt that Truman strolled the cafes and galleries of Dupont Circle sipping latte at Kramerbooks & Afterwoods researching the details about historic Ford's Theatre that she got correct right down to the spelling.

Above all, "Murder at Ford's Theatre" is first rate suspense. Whether you live inside the infamous beltway or not, add this book to your list right away.

I recieved the book in a timely manner and it was in very good condition. I would recommend the book. I enjoyed it.

I think this book was easy to fallow and anyone who enjoys a love story that is almost real. Will like this one. You almost feel like you are apart of the story.

I felt that this book was beautifully written, and says a lot about human nature. I think that this book would appeal more to a female audience because of the focus on a woman who has to deal with the death of a child and the realization of the fact that her marriage is falling apart. I like that fact that each chapter is told from a different character's point-of-view giving you insight into each of them. I also liked the fact that it was a romance novel but not a sappy one. This was true to life and easy to relate to making the novel more appealing to an audience. I personally would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys romance and happy endings.

This page-turning story is filled with heart-warming romance and the pain of reality. I found myself giving Nora advice and hating Neal for his selfishness. You tend to see a lot of yourself in Nora when she has these major decisions to make about her life and the life of her daughter in coping with the death of her son. This story makes you look at your life and wonder if you could have the same strength as Nora. This book was written elequently.

I loved this book and was very disappointed in the Hallmark presentation. They took a book about a verbally abused woman who, after a tragedy, gets a second chance to fulfill herself and changed it into a movie about a man finally becoming the head of his household. They totally turned it around and made the husband into the good guy and the wife a selfish, self-centered person. The husband doesn't shoot the horse but the wife almost does!! This was not the book I read. I wish they had just used some other book and not ruined one with a totally different message and story.

This deceptively simple novel seems to be cut from the cloth of Jack London stories and Eskimo folklore. A meditation on desire, courtship, human aspirations and man's relationship to the natural world, this story has similarities to the Jane Campion film, "The Piano"--which also centers around a mute female and a big, obvious symbol. In "The Seal Wife", the looming symbol is the scientist Bigelow's huge weather kite, which almost seems like it has (Wilhelm) Reichian overtones.

Main character Bigelow is a dreamer adrift in a wilderness town populated with coarse frontiersmen, and a few women. He loses himself in his work, and in his pursuit of a mysterious, silent Aleut woman who seems as out of place in the 1915 Anchorage settlement as Bigelow himself. The story takes on mythic overtones when the woman disappears for a long period, as enchantresses often do in fairy tales. There are hints that the Aleut may represent an animal spirit which has taken on human form. On another level, she seems to represent the need of Bigelow, a weather scientist who has his 'head in the clouds', to connect and become 'grounded' by an elemental, earthy and sensual woman.

A novel like this lives or dies by the grace of its descriptive language, and Harrison is masterful with details. There are many beautiful, impressionistic passages. The story itself is purposefully gauzy, and some readers who like less style and more plot may find themselves wondering, "where's the beef?"

I found this book more satisfying than "Gould's Book of Fish"--which also attempted to mix science and psychological symbolism. I found it drier and less original than something like Rachel Ingalls' "Mrs. Caliban". (For a much wilder take on gender and shapeshifting, try Peter Beagle's extended short story, "Lila the Werewolf"...)

I look for Kathryn Harrison to do even better than "The Seal Wife" in the future.

Passionate and beautifully written, but when the book veered from the relationship between the protagonist Bigelow and the Aleut woman it was not quite as compelling for me. I found all the characters fascinating - how could you not with Harrison's rich earthy descriptive storytelling, but I couldn't sustain interest in his work - and that takes up a good deal of the book.

Bigelow Greene, a twenty six year-old meteorologist from the Midwest, is hired by the Weather Bureau in 1915 and sent to the frontier boomtown of Anchorage, Alaska, to set up an observation station. Unfortunately, due to the department's new budget, the young man barely earns a living wage. He must find additional work to survive life in the harsh Arctic climate, where below freezing temperatures and 20 hour-long winter nights present a major challenge to one's sanity. "The Alaskan sun remains unknowable, every day a new prank, pulling along its bows and parhelia and other odd, errant optical paraphernalia, too lazy and distracted to achieve altitude, rolling along the tops of mountains, infusing the icy fog with a strange and sullen greeny glow." In his solitude, Bigelow sees all matter of surreal phenomena from his observatory windows which he would have never before called weather. He questions whether he can survive here. He doesn't think he has mastered the "required optimism" to do so. Descriptions of the physical world, like the one above, provoke one to wonder whether the landscape is depicted from a real life perspective or from an emotional one, a reflection of Bigelow's inner world?

There is a woman, called the Aleut, who lives in a frame house on the mud flats outside of Anchorage. Bigelow becomes obsessed with her. He finds her beautiful. He visits her. They drink tea, share meals, have sex. She bathes. He watches. They never talk. He knows nothing about the woman, about her life, her history, not even her name. Although he speaks to her, he never knows whether she understands him. However, she allows him to watch her "as intently, as much and as long, as he wants and the reason for this comes to him one night. She is self-possessed. She possesses herself." This makes him want her all the more. She becomes necessary to him. Then, one morning, she is gone. And he is shattered.

Bigelow, begins to drink and look for sexual pleasure with other women, mostly local prostitutes, to ease his pain. He is devastated by the Aleut's disappearance. He temporarily becomes involved with a shopkeeper's daughter, who sings, but is unable to speak. She stammers so violently that she communicates only through written notes. However, his fixation with the missing Inuit woman continues and follows him into his dreams. An introverted, sensitive man, Bigelow does not fit in with the coarser men from town and so he is left virtually alone.

The young scientist originally accepted his low paying job because it would give him the opportunity to prove a meteorological theory he had long been obsessed with. He hypothesizes that a great current of air sweeps in a circular fashion from the poles to the equator and back again, causing the air high over the poles to be warm, and the air over the equator cold. His dual obsessions with the meteorological project and with the Aleut woman continually vie for first place in his mind and with his energy. He designs and constructs an enormous kite to take temperature readings thousands of feet above the earth, which will enable him to prove his theory. The kite and his documentation also serve to distract him from his emotional pain and loneliness. The narrative focuses as much on Bigelow's inner obsession with the Aleut woman, as on his professional passion for charting the weather, with "recording a narrative that unfolds invisibly to most people." Unbeknownst to Bigelow, his newfound success with the kite has made a name for him in Anchorage as a scientific innovator. No matter how successful his work is, however, he finds no peace of mind.

"The Seal Wife," is a finely detailed, well-researched historical fiction that concerns the development of scientific technology before WWI, turn-of-the-century Alaska, and the growth of one man's character. Kathryn Harrison's language is richly metaphorical, especially when she describes the Alaskan landscape as seen through Bigelow's eyes. Her characters, especially the women, are of mythological proportion, more archetypical than three dimensional, and extremely mysterious - although I find Bigelow to be quite realistic. I am a big fan of Ms. Harrison's and while this is an excellent novel, I do prefer her more contemporary work.
JANA

Kathryn Harrison's The Seal Wife is quite an intense read. It is the story of Bigelow Greene, a young man who moves to Alaska in 1915 to establish a weather station. He becomes obsessed with a silent Aleut woman he becomes sexually involved with and when she mysteriously disappears, his world, and perhaps his sanity begin to crumble. He becomes involved with another silent woman and his simple life grows more and more complex. The brutal Alaskan landscape serves as an excellent backdrop for this novel and its language. The Seal Wife is certainly not for the faint of heart--Bigelow is obsessed with sex and Harrison is not afraid to delve deeply into that obsession. If you can take that, try this intense read. It's hard to put down.

Extremities define - they map out the boundaries of continents and nations, of worlds, and of our bodies. There are several extremities at work in Kathryn Harrison's novel - and the unforgiving Alaskan weather is one of them. The central character, a meteorologist named Bigelow, is sent to Anchorage in 1915 in order to begin recording weather data for the US government. He is at first excited by the prospect - both by its frontier location and by his potentially pioneering work - but he soon falls prey to forces beyond his control, both in his heart and in his physical environment.

Bigelow finds himself both physically and emotionally hammered by the isolation enforced upon him by his surroundings. He thinks he is prepared for the time-toppling 20-hour winter nights and the seemingly endless days of the summer months - he soon finds that he is sinking deeper and deeper into loneliness. He finds a bit of solace in the company of a native woman - known simply as the Aleut woman, her name never being revealed to either the reader or Bigelow - and he becomes more and more obsessed with her silence. She never speaks a word to him - the only noises he ever hears from her are her quiet moans during sex. Rather than being driven away by this, he is drawn more and more to her because of it. When she suddenly disappears - without an explanation of where she's going or when or if she'll return - his life is thrown into chaos.

He soon finds another woman with whom he becomes infatuated - she sings, accompanying the silent films that are shown periodically in a tent, projected onto a sheet. She is as mysterious as the Aleut woman - it takes quite a bit of detective work on Bigelow's part for him to discover her name and where she lives. When he does manage to meet her, he is struck by a strange parallel to the Aleut woman - this girl is also silent, except for her songs. She communicates with him by way of a pencil and paper, and lets him know that she can't speak - she can sing, but only the words written by others. She cannot even use song to communicate her own thoughts.

... I think that Harrison has endowed both of them with a lot of character and, in their own ways, a lot of things to say. This is particularly true of the Aleut woman - for a character that never utters a word (none of her thoughts are ever presented, either), this reader came away with a deep sense of her personality. She is a uniquely strong character - she lives her life as she chooses, and no one (especially Bigelow) is going to dictate what she should or shouldn't do. The method he finally finds of communicating with her, of touching her on a deeper level, is a memorable one - I'll leave it for the potential reader to discover what that is.

Bigelow himself is a less-than-admirable character, albeit a sympathetic one - meaning that I didn't necessarily like him as a person, or approve of his methods of dealing with those around him, but that I could understand how extenuating circumstances (as well as what was revealed of his upbringing) had formed him into the person depicted here on these pages.

Overall, I found the book to be compelling and entertaining - and I thought the style with which Harrison composed the novel was perfect for the story and setting. The author has a great gift for images: `God exhaling clouds of geese' (p.224); and `Like a key, the thought of her eluding him turns in his flesh' (p. 29). This is great writing.

An Amos Walker Novel. OK, this might have been it, the one I knew he had in him. No wasted words, no extraneous action, no bogus reaction. Pure noir that rings true on the level of Chandler and Hammett.

Perhaps its not coincidental that the subject is an old pulp fiction writer who is asked to resurrect his career and ends up resurrecting old wounds.

You will like this book. Very good story.

Everyone to his own. This is a good mystery, but I cannot see giving it 5 stars. I prefer Lawrence Block, but that's why there's chocolate and vanilla. The thing I liked the best about the book (especially since I collect quotes) is:
There once was a lady from Niger
Who went for a ride on a tiger.
They returned from the ride
With the lady inside
And a smile on the face of the tiger.
(...)

A SMILE ON THE FACE OF THE TIGER by Loren D. Estleman is Amos Walker at his detecting best. A cold case comes to light as Walker goes looking for Eugene Booth who shouldn't be missing.
Booth has a writer's dream come true when his forty-year old pulp fiction title has interested a New York publisher.
But career infusion be damn, staying alive is more important. Was the fiction piece a thinly disguised version of the truth? Does Booth know more than he will admit about an old murder as a hit-man awaits trial wanting to sell his own story?
Through numerous Amos Walker stories Loren Estleman keeps us turning the pages.
Nash Black, author of WRITING AS A SMALL BUSINESS and SINS OF THE FATHERS.

I picked up this book because of the title. I opened it and read:

"Bang! Bang!Bang! Bang!
Four shots ripped into my groin, and I was off on the biggest adventure of my life.
But first let me tell you a little about myself.
--Max Shulman, Sleep Till Noon (1950)"

Estleman can't top that, I thought, and then I read his opening lines:
"I thought I'd never see her again. But never is longer than forever."
And I was off on another adventure with one of my favorite PIs, Amos Walker. Estleman's writing flows, with seldom a sour note or wrong or useless word.

Amos is hired to locate a writer who returned his advance and dropped out of sight. The publisher is a handsome blonde named Louise who has started her own company, and the author, Eugene Booth, hasn't written a word in 40 years, but is back in style.

Louise explains: "He's part of that whole tailfins-Rat Pack-lounge lizard-swingers revival ... The contract was to reprint Paradise Valley, his best-known novel, with an option on three others if he sold through."

Finding Booth is no problem for Amos, but the trail leads back to a 1943 race riot and three lynchings, two cops caught in the middle of it, a moldering web of lies and coverups, and Glad Eddie, a nasty hit man who has written his memoirs.

I don't know where Estleman finds his characters, but Eugene Booth and his friend, Fleta Skerritt, are worth the price of admission. Fleta's mind comes and goes, but in her dreams she's still the blonde in the red slip on all those lurid paperback covers of the 1950s. Eugene is an old coot with no illusions and one desire: to rewrite "Paradise Valley" the way the story really happened.

I hated to close the book on Eugene Booth, but at least Amos is still around. If Estleman keeps writing them, I'll never run out of Amos Walker books.

Terry Brooks' THE TANGLE BOX receives veteran narrator Dick Hill's excellent style and decades of experience as it tells of Ben Holiday, a former Chicago lawyer now king of the Magic Kingdom of Landover. Ben finds himself imprisoned within the Tangle Box, lost in its world, when conjurer Horris gets the upper hand and works evil - and a mysterious woman who has vanished from the elven kingdom is the only one who can rescue him in this fantasy thriller come alive in audio.

I am a huge Terry Brooks fan. This book does not disappoint. I have intorduced my grandson to Terry Brooks, and he enjoyed this book as much as I did.

A breathtaking, I have enjoyed every word, every moment, could not leave it until I reached last page and made me hungry for more...

As the fourth book in the "Landover" series, Terry Brooks's somewhat comedic-fantasy series (especially when compared to the serious "Shannara" saga), "The Tangle Box" continues Ben Holiday's adventures as king of a fairytale kingdom that he purchased in a shopping catalogue. Having successfully ruled Landover for several years, Ben is delighted when his sylph-wife Willow informs him that she is expecting their first child. However, the celebration is short-lived when the charlatan Horris Kew returns from exile in Ben's world to the Landover, with a new plan to cause havoc.

Having accidentally released a creature known as Gorse from a magical box, Kew becomes the unwitting pawn in its plan to seize control of Landover. Having lured the three most powerful individuals in the kingdom - King Holiday, the dragon Strabo and the witch Nightshade - Kew traps them within the confines of the Tangle Box in order for the Gorse to proceed with plans of domination without interference.

From this basic scenario Brooks creates three major storylines; one good, one mediocre and one just plain bad. The best plot is concerned with the situation that Ben, Strabo and Nightshade (who is Brooks's best Landover character) find themselves in when they awaken in the Tangle Box, unaware of their surroundings and stripped of their memories, magic and identities. Calling themselves the Knight, the Lady and the Gargoyle, the three companions (completely unaware that they are adversaries in real life) traverse the mysterious terrain of the Tangle Box searching for answers to their existence. Brooks plays a great psychological game between the three of them and surprising things happen that change their complicated relationships forever, especially in the case of Nightshade and Ben. Their love/hate relationship has always been a highlight of the Landover stories, and what transpires here has the potential for payoff in later books.

Meanwhile Willow is on a quest of her own, as the birth of a child with sylph and human parentage has complications. Seeking the advice of the Earth Mother, Willow is told that she must collect earth from three locations; Landover, Earth and the Faerie Mists in order to secure the safe delivery of her child. Joined by an old favourite, the faerie-cat Edgewood Dirk, Willow sets off on an intriguing (but hardly exciting) journey for the sake of her unborn child.

That leaves the last major storyline which is unfortunately both predictable and convoluted. While Ben and Willow are gone, Questor Thews (the court wizard) and Abernathy (the court scribe) must deal with the bothersome Horris Kew. Introducing objects called "mind's eye crystals" that show the bearer their heart's desire, Kew suggests distributing them to the kingdom - an idea to which Questor and Abernathy foolishly agree. Unbeknownst to them, the crystals are merely a distraction from the Gorse's true intentions in taking over the kingdom.

Unfortunately, the Gorse makes a generic villain whose personality, motivation and evil plan is just plain boring, and the clownish Horris Kew isn't much better. (Neither is his bird Biggar, whom I would have mentioned earlier if he hadn't been such a pointless character). The execution and resolution of this particular storyline drags the story down considerably.

Nonetheless, "The Tangle Box" is an entertaining enough tale if you're looking for pleasant escapism. Deepening characters and expanding relationships, this bodes well for future books in the "Landover" series and is sure to be a hit with fans - Brooks even throws in a quick reference to "The Lord of the Rings" when Biggar suggests he and Horris escape to the world where the people with the "big furry feet live". However, for newcomers it's best not to start reading here; retrace your steps till you find the previous books in the series: "Magic Kingdom for Sale/Sold!", "Wizard at Large" and "The Black Unicorn."

In The Tangle Box, Ben Holiday, king of Landover is trapped away from those he loves. Willow, his wife, is on a journey alone carrying their child. In the meantime, havoc ensues in Landover with the arrival of a past citizen, who had been exiled, Horris Kew.

Both Willow and Ben are searching for answers. Willow the answer of how to safely deliver her child, Ben the answer to who he is and how to escape. Neither is aware of the importance of the others journey.

The books in this series keep getting better. This one being my favorite so far. Some of my favorite characters are back, including Edgewood Dirk and Im finally seeing some character growth in Ben. A 3.5 star book for me. Im looking forward to finishing the series with the next book...Witches Brew.

I recently finished Vegas Rich by Fern Michaels and I must say it was a painful process. A part of the book (when Fanny just got into town) mentions that the character could never live in a town that looked like what it was in broad daylight, cheap and tacky. I feel that way about these ignorant, unrealistic characters that Michaels chose to create. Yes the novel does leave food for thought, and the thought is, who would be stupid enough to keep taking the abuse the antagonists in this story keep dishing? You are supposed to respect and admire the heroines in the story. I kept finding myself let down by the pitiful reasons the self-righteous protagonists in Vegas Rich had for prolonging their suffering, not to mention causing the perpetual demise of the dynasty. Technically the book is poorly written, there are not enough transitions to really let a reader immerse themselves in the `world' the author is trying to create. Also, a lot is left out in terms of dialog, and by dialog, I mean who is saying what to whom. Makes for a confusing scene and really breaks the `fourth wall'. I wish I wasn't one to finish every book I picked up, but I am and this is my first review, so I don't want any Michaels fans to take this too seriously.

Read all three books in this series and was very happy with the story. Fran is an excellent writer.

You will find this book hard to put down. Interesting characters, good storyline. The book is intelligently written and has great depth.

After reading some of the heavy-duty-mind-expanding-womanly books a la Oprah, I needed some mental reading relief. My mother gave me this book and said, " Read something without thinking about it!" So I did and my mind was freed and I am now ready to start Vegas Heat! Map of the World will have to wait!

I'll admit it -- I was suckered into getting VEGAS RICH because of the name Coleman. I thought to myself, "Is Fern Michaels creating an alternate history for the Coleman family, this time in Vegas?" I was half right -- there are Colemans involved, but not the ones I thought I would see from her TEXAS series. No, this deals with Sallie Coleman, Seth Coleman's younger sister, and her quest to make something of herself, thanks to the kindness of one of her clients -- Sallie's a prostitute, you see, in the early 1920s in the small and dusty town of Las Vegas. It's an interesting premise and I'll give credit to Michaels for creating Sallie's story and where her life goes from there. Had I never read her TEXAS series, I might have been completely drawn in...but I'm not. Michaels starts to occasionally drop in "crossovers" with the Colemans of Texas, and it's there I have the problem. Suddenly, Agnes Ames (Billie Ames Coleman's mother), companion to the callous Seth Coleman, has a heart! Billie Coleman flies out to see Fanny Coleman (Sallie's daughter-in-law) frequently! Sallie helps out Coleman Enterprises with her money! These intersections with the TEXAS characters don't pan out in terms of complimenting the TEXAS novels in the continuity department -- and for me, that's a glaring error. Those problems aside, it's a fair first novel for Michaels in her new series. If you like family sagas and Fern Michaels, you'll be content.