Nova Books

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.

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 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.

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.

Britt Montero is a half-Cuban newspaper reporter living in Miami. Britt claims to resent too much being made of her Cuban heritage, but focuses on little else, and the other half of her heritage doesn't even rate mention. While Britt is onto a big story about missing boys who all look alike, and tries to devote her time to gathering information for it, her personal life and Cuban roots keep getting in the way. She finally decides to take the time to delve into the mysteries of her own past when a prominent Cuban figure who has insisted only Britt may interview him reveals that he once knew her father. He also tells Britt about her father's diary, which supposedly still exists, even 30 years after her father was executed by Castro. Britt becomes even more entangled in Cuban exile politics when another of her father's old pals embroils her in his dramas. It all comes to a head with the arrival of a hurricane, which also ties in with the missing boys from Britt's big story, which answers all of Britt's questions, but leaves some of her issues unsolved.

The things that I disliked about this book are minor. Britt's best bud is a gullible idiot who gives an obvious liar and cheat way too many chances. Britt's either not too bright herself, or just a lousy friend, because she encourages it every time. Then, too much stuff tied together at the end, kind of a 2-for-1 special that would have been better kept separate. Also, Britt didn't solve her mysteries through deductive reasoning, but rather through dumb luck, which isn't my favorite way to see a suspense draw to a close.

While I didn't hate the book, I didn't find much to rave about, either. Britt is likeable enough, but doesn't have anything about her that stands out. She's not incredibly funny or clever, the side characters aren't all that special, and nothing particularly amazing happens. It's just sort of...vanilla. The story was good enough not to bore me, but not compelling enough to meke me pick up the book if I had something else I could do instead. It's just another selection from another mystery series with a female lead. Some people who really love books like that will likely love this one, but I like something with a little more oomph. I won't recoil in horror when I see Edna Buchanan books for sale, but I won't be knocking anyone over to get at them, either.

For the record, I am reviewing this book as a book on tape. The dastardly plots amongst the Cuban exile community keeps this book racing along. Unfortunately, the soap opera of Britt's erratic love life slowed the story down. Nevertheless, it is a good book and I gladly recommend it.

As for the book on tape aspect - it was very well read, including pretty good accents for the aging Cuban conspirators. Good job.

Like the author once did, Britt Montero thrives as a driven, resourceful crime reporter for steamy Miami's major daily. But the car-bombing of a Cuban journalist gives her job an uncomfortably personal dimension and perhaps it's that which compels her to look into an old missing-boy case for a distraught parent. Montero's digging uncovers a disturbing pattern of similar-looking missing boys, all thought to be runaways and given short shrift by the police.

But Montero is taken off the story in order to conduct an interview with a difficult leader of the Cuban-American community. Half-Cuban herself and long feeling an empathy with her dead freedom-fighter father, Montero accepts the assignment unwillingly but finds Juan Carlos Reyes intriguing.

Unbeknownst to her, Reyes knew her parents. He claims to have a diary of her father's somewhere in storage and promises to find it for her. Montero's mother suddenly refuses to speak to her and another old Cuban, a blustery fighter still trying to mount an invasion, tells a different story about the diary, tying it into the journalist's bombing murder.

The two story lines unfold in parallel as a killer hurricane (which Montero ignores) summons strength for an attack on Miami. Buchanan brings it all together in a splintering, action-packed conclusion featuring mayhem, murder and gruesome revelation. A fast-paced story, determined, likable heroine and rich Miami setting.

This book has it all -- murder, kidnapping, political prisoners, mother/daughter conflicts and even an Act of God. Once the action starts, it doesn't stop. I have a few small quibbles with the book (for instance, the crime that starts the book is never fully explained), but it doesn't really detract from your enjoyment. Best of all, I liked Britt. Her frustration about her story of a lifetime getting pushed to the back burner really rang true with me.

Buchanan's Britt Montero is a tough independent woman--which is always nice to see but her relationship with her fictional partners is weird. In ACT OF BETRAYAL, the reader is never privy to why Montero and McDonald's relationship is on and off. Furthermore, the author never allows the reader to glimpse, in any depth, what goes on in Montero's brain after the unexpected meeting of the two men in her life. I noticed the same lack of depth in MARGIN OF ERROR--as far as whoever Montero's present heart throb happened to be. The romances are sort of eruptive and then dormant. In addition to a lack of depth in part of Montero's character, a lack of depth was evident in other parts of the book. For instance, I found the reason behind Reyes' perversion to be very weak and unsatisfying. I also found that the plot would ebb and flow with too much detail and then not enough. The plot would nearly stumble and then rush to finish.

My 1st time to read Robert Andrews and don't know what to expect, but the moment I started to read the 1st page, I just got hooked on it! I felt that I step into their world and just follow Frank and Jose as they unravel the mystery and it just get interesting as it goes...

I recommend it...!

I got to around page 100 and they still had no leads. Not a hint. I gave up because not only that but the writing and rest of the story (if you could call it that) was boring as all getout.
FLAT

OK, OK, I confess right up front! This clever boy got snookered "big time" trying to unravel the fundamental whodunit quiz in Robert Andrews' latest murder mystery "A Murder of Promise" (Putnam). It wasn't totally my fault, you see, it's just that the author has apparently perfected his craft beyond reasonable expectations. The last 50 pages accelerate the reader through the narrow historic streets of Georgetown and a rabbit's warren of falling dominos and the sweet fulfillment of a most unexpected conclusion. I was so totally consumed by the story that the Flight Attendant on the airplane I happened to be on was close to slapping me upside my head to get my attention to prepare for landing. In this case, the author won, he sucked me in and beat me, but in the end I won as well from having read this excellent book. This is a darn good yarn!

The second installment of Robert Andrews' immensely satisfying crime-novel series chronicles the exploits of two career-long D.C. detective partners struggling with the ugly reality of a serial killer in the nation's capitol. This is a story where they are murdering more in Washington than the congressional budget. Not that murder of any kind is rare in the District, but this book is rare and remarkable on a number of levels in its own right. Initially the reader is struck with the story's compelling, drag-you-along depiction of the gritty nuts and bolts business of police work. However, somewhere around the second chapter you suddenly realize what in my opinion is the true merit of this outing and that comes in the form of Mr. Andrews' decidedly rare ability to paint extraordinarily rich textures within the characters of the humans involved and the landmark environment they inhabit. As the book is written totally in dialogue, it is extremely easy for the reader to get the very real sense they are somehow personally involved. In fact, at points you almost feel like you're eavesdropping (like you'd stop, please!).

Another of my favorite aspects of this book is Andrews' almost casual, matter-of-fact, inclusion of the little discussed history of some of this town's more prominent landmarks. If you are a son of the District as I am you take great delight in his mention of such places as Jenkin's Hill (a.k.a. Capitol Hill), Gen Washington's provision for the defense of the nation's new capitol in the form of stately Fort McNair, and his striking use of the unique Hains Point sculpture, "The Awakening." I wonder if that's what the artist originally had in mind? Anyway, blend in a healthy splash of D.C.'s ubiquitous political intrigue and he satisfies even the most serious case of Potomac Fever. This story makes ALL the stops! Made this homeboy smile.

All in all Robert Andrews finds a most ingenious way to breathe life into the well-worn whodunit vehicle and adds another "absolutely, must read" to the mystery genre. Well done sir! Well done indeed!

Oh, by the way, my sincere apologies to the character that I was so resolutely convinced was in fact the most hideous, vile, and murderous scoundrel. How was I to know? Nothing personal!

As an avid reader of good mystery and police work novels, it escapes me how any reader of A Murder of Promise could find it
"boring." Instead, Robert Andrews has done it again: Written an
intelligent, interesting novel, further developing his two main
characters, whose personal and professional relationship alone
would make the book worthwhile. Andrews has supplied a mixture
of creativity and reality, mixing the Fisher King and Holy Grail
plus very wild computer virtuality with real characters, real
situations, and real knowledge of Washington, physically and
politically. Those with any knowledge of the Washington scene
will find the book particularly absorbing. His State Department
characters, father and son, are certainly credible. In sum, this
is a difficult to put down, fast paced, and intriguing mystery;
and I doubt that many readers will figure out the culprit before
the very end. Highly recommended.

The promise evoked by Robert Andrews first mystery book, good as it was, is realized even more fully in "A Murder of Promise".
As with his first book, Andrews captures the reader's interest as the book begins and never loses it. Beyond the mystery itself, which unfolds in an intriguing manner and pace, the further development of Detectives Kearney and Phelps both as investigators and as people makes the reading experience more enriching and engaging. I found the depth and breadth of Kearny's style and character not only interesting, but very valuable to the story line in explaining his thought process and actions. Hopefully in the next of this series the author will allow us to spend more time with Jose Phelps as well, getting to know him even better.
The plot is excellent and quite believable, and the sense of place this book creates is even stronger than its predecessor. It also adds depth and meaning to the story line. The dialogue is even more crisp and authentic than Andrews' previous book, which was good indeed.
This is an excellent work of fiction, which goes far beyond the standard police procedural in giving us real characters who act in ways that are human and credible to the reader. Well worth reading.

There's a certain kind of journalism/travel writing/ethnography that greatly appeals to me, in which the author immerses themselves in a culture or subculture that I find fascinating but have no desire to visit myself. This book is exactly in that vein, as Conover took a break in 1980 from attending Amherst College to ride freight trains as a hobo. I found his experience compelling enough to later check to see if he had written anything else, and only then realized that the naive 20-year-old who rode the rails grew up and spent a year as a prison guard as research for his critically acclaimed book Newjack: Guarding Sing Sing.

As a product of a nice upper middle-class family and a student at a prestigious liberal arts college, he had to undergo a physical and psychological transformation to embark on his trip. And he began his hobo journey with the vague sense that riding the rails would both tell him something about America and bring meaning to his anthropology classes. One of the common pitfalls of such experience journalism is that the author has a somewhat silly romantic notion as to what awaits him. Fortunately, while Conover was somewhat naive, he did enough background reading to have realistic expectations about what he'd encounter.

It's fascinating to watch him dive into the hobo way of life, picking up the tips and tricks that sustain the mostly male subculture. He runs the gamut, from literally jumping on and off moving trains, to spending nights in missions, dumpster-diving food, working welfare systems for food stamps, giving blood for money, calculating the cheapest way to get drunk, setting up camp in hobo "jungles," working in the fields as a day laborer, and much much more. Along the way, his simple and clear writing conveys how he shed his notions of what to expect along the way.

While he's generally sympathetic to the hardships endured by many of the people he meets, he's also honest enough to let their stories speak for themselves. And while some are certainly driven to the nomadic life by their economic circumstances, the hobo life seems to attract a certain type of man who has trouble living within the norms of society and feels the need for freedom from these norms. This psychological aspect of the hobo life is one area where Conover left me wishing for a little deeper insight into the people he meets. He does, however, spend a good amount of time grappling with other aspects of their psychology, especially the instinctual distrust they have of anyone, even those they get to know well.

At the time of his trip, many people were surprised to know that freight-riding hobos still existed and had assumed the practice was long dead. Some 25+ years after his trip, that assumption seems likely to be more on target, if for no other reason than the post-9/11 tightening of all forms transportation security.

Recently I developed an interest in freight hoppin' and the Hobo lifestyle and I began to look around for books to read. Out of the few I found here on amazon I'm glad I choose Conover's adventure.

The meat of the book consist of a young Conover traveling across the west by freight meeting tramps (as they like to refer to themselves as, rather than "Hobo") He meets a variety of different individuals, and quickly learns tramp etiquette. He also learns how to survive off the system by using "Sally's" (Salvation Army) and "Willy's" (GoodWill) along with the missions and the availability of food stamps (Which most of the other tramps use to buy alcohol with)

On one occasion he finds himself in an awkward position and is unfairly jailed because of his unruly hobo appearance. He remarks had he been neatly dressed he would of never encountered this problem. This really starts to give him an insight into the disadvantages hobos have with the law.

I used to think of the rails as a romantic place to be. The sights from the trains, the freedom, and the adventure, but Conover's journey suggest slightly otherwise. Romantic as they may seem, the rails are a dangerous place to be...other tramps, bulls, kids throwing rocks, etc. After you've been riding them for a while you're hardened and the romanticism slowly dissolves away when you're fighting to survive.

He wrote this in the late 80s as well. I imagine to hop a train these days, in 2007, would be close to suicide with the abundance of terrorism laws. It'd be interesting to see how the Hobo population has changed since then though.

Ted Conover is good at immersing himself in the subject on which he is writing, whether it be the world of illegal immigration in Coyotes, or that of prison guards in Newjack. In this work he immerses himself in the world of hobos. It's one of his earlier works, and it's obvious that his style had not yet matured as it did in later works such as Newjack. He takes the reader along as he goes from being a college student, to being a hobo. Along the way he both shares the stories of other hobos he encounters as well as some of the inernal struggles he experiences. This book is a worthwhile and enjoyable read.

This book is part of the "Vintage Departures" series, a group of travel books from unusual angles. Some examples are a book about gamblers and the gambling world, "back country" travel in the most remote parts of the world, inexperienced mountain climbers, and near poetry. This book tries to take a different look at our own country, as as seen through the eyes of a constant traveler, the railroad tramp.

While it does indeed describe some of America, the author quickly loses focus on the aspect of seeing American through the eyes of the hobo to looking at hobo society itself. For the most part, he does this latter quite well, except where he finally intrudes and makes a bald statement of his opinion, and what he deems to be the reader's opinion, in the last page.

Conover is refreshingly naive, in some ways, and not afraid to place his naiveté in what could be considered a work of autobiography. While I doubt someone could use this book as a manual for catching a ride on a rail, it does allow for enough detail to catch some understanding of the complexity and difficulties accompanied thereto. As a travel book, it's interesting and worth the time.

Although twenty years isnce it was first published, the book has a timeless aspect that is quite moving; essentially, Rolling Nowhere is an indictment of how the most wealthy, powerful and materialistic nation in the history of human civilization treats those who have fallen through the cracks. As taken in and enthralled as I was by the author's experiences, I was in the end more saddened than anything alse.

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.

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.
(...)

The Amos Walker series is an outstanding one if you like your private detectives male, tough and laconic. If you like to read about Detroit, so much the better. In A Smile on the Face of the Tiger, Mr. Estleman has risen above the rest of the series by turning Amos Walker into a detective surrounded by a pulp fiction mystery in a pulp fiction book. The book reminded me very much of the classy Hoodwink by Bill Pronzini in the Nameless Detective series.

I listened to the unabridged audiocassette read by John Kenneth, and especially recommend this way of enjoying the book. The telephonic versions of voices are particularly well done, and add a lot to the realism of the story.

Louise Starr, the sexually provocative book editor from Amos's past, has started up her own title. Pulp fiction author Eugene Booth has inexplicably cancelled his contract to reprint one of his paperbacks from the 1950s, Paradise Valley. Starr hires Amos to find Booth and learn why Booth has declined. She hopes to persuade Booth to change his mind. Relying on clues from Booth's novels and leads from his last address, a trailer park near the airport, Amos soon locates Booth through his acquaintances. That shifts the scene to northern Michigan where Booth and Amos become whiskey buddies . . . until tragedy intervenes. What does it have to do with a race riot in the 1940s, a 50-plus year-old murder, and a contract killer?

It's hard to know what to praise the most in this book: the pulp references; the remarkable descriptions; the tough guy dialogue; the action; or the subtle misdirections in the plot. Each aspect is very fine. Seldom does an author totally stump me on motive, but Mr. Estleman easily ran circles around me. I enjoyed the suspense of his unraveling of the tangled skein of clues.

As I finished this book, I realized that it is very easy to delude oneself about what is going on. Facing unpleasant truths is a critical element in improving your situation. It's a worthwhile lesson from a very enjoyable book.

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.

There are lots of references where to go for additional information and even a nice glossary of Chinese characters.

As a novice in Chinese and Eastern Philosophy, I began reading various books,
intent on culling the beauty of Eastern Thought. When a good friend loaned me this book, the essence of eastern thought blossomed in my mind like a flower. Wing-Tsit Chan is a true sage himself, and to be so scholarly as to translate Confucius and Lao Tzu himself is just added understanding. A rare insightful and scholarly work that I would highly recommend.

We owe a great debt to the late Professor Chan for having translated this anthology of selections from over 2,500 years of Chinese philosophy. To my knowledge, this is the only anthology that gives so many selections from so many different periods in Chinese history. Perhaps there never will be a book like this again, at least by one scholar, because I doubt anyone else is competent to translate so many texts from so many different periods.

That being said, this book also has serious limitations. Arbuckle's review (which is nearby) expertly identifies many of them. Here are some more. Chan's English is much better than my modern Chinese, but he still sometimes lapses into incoherence. With a few exceptions, his comments on the translations are both confusing and confused. Chan likes to use Western philosophical terminology, but he is not in command of it. It is neither accurate nor helpful to describe the Ch'eng-Chu wing of Neo-Confucianism as "rationalistic," and the Lu-Wang wing as "dynamic idealism."

For many of the philosophers that Chan covers, this is still the best source for translations. This is especially so of later Chinese philosophy. I know of no better translation of selections from Ch'eng Yi and Ch'eng Hao, for example. But for many other philosophers, you would be better off with translations with a more narrow focus. Daniel Gardner's _Learning to Be a Sage_ is a great source on Chu Hsi. And I would (not surprisingly) recommend the anthology I co-edited for translations from ancient Chinese philosophers. (D.C. Lau, Victor Mair, and Burton Watson have also produced more extensive translations of major early Chinese philosophers. Look up their names here on amazon.com.)

I have to admit to one thing; this book is not for the timid. It took me a long time to read and the myriad of names and dates did confuse me. This massive work of over 800 pages (it is a bit of a misnomer as the book is about 780 pages of text and notes - the rest is appendix, bibliography and index) is really an almost exegetical read of Chinese philosophy.

Wing-Tsit Chan obviously took great care to plan out this book. The main advantage of this book is that it makes a whole range of primary sources accessible to the English speaking reader. As best as these books can get, it tries to cover the whole gamut of Chinese philosophy from pre-Confucian all the way through to Maoist China. If there is one thing that stands out is that Chinese philosophy is just as (and I hate to juxtapose - but I will this one time) convoluted and affected by forces as (or even more than our very own "western" tradition) acting on it. If you take the analysis from Confucian to Neo-Confucian (and even beyond), this development takes a tour de force through a variety of schools inclusive of (but not excluding others) of Taoism, Buddhism, modern neo-Rationalist and neo-Idealist movements.

The book is full of valuable "digressions" (if you can call it that) of details concerning the various players that are involved in the process of change. As if almost being the de facto standard, he starts with Confucianism and presents important extracts. Certainly, we have to be a little critical of what he opts out by what he opts in - but that is the work of specialists. Chan writes from and about the Analects and follows is metamorphosis through Mencius, Hsun Tzu, and Tung Chung-Shu. Later, he deftly shows how different (significantly different) Confucianism is from Neo-Confucianism. Also important is Chan's treatment of the Tao-Te Ching and its impact on the modern epistemological and metaphysical traditions.

For those who have studied humanistic Chinese traditions will form an opinion of the Chinese as hard-core pragmatists with no sense of aesthetics or metaphysics. This book will, as it did me, pleasantly change all that. Despite the strict adherence to age old traditions, influences most Buddhist - clearly show a bent toward the metaphysical. I have to admit that I would on the occasion get caught up in the almost obsessive references to things like the turbidity of water and how it is correct or not to use it as a metaphor for some essential things like man's nature.

Last but not least, are how interestingly Chan talks about the traditions in the west - especially Kant, Bergson and Nietzsche. Oddly enough, for those of you who were paying attention, the digression at the end about the signs and symbols sounded suspiciously like Claude Levi-Strauss. For the novices out there, I highly recommend this book as a starter but certainly one cannot neglect the complete The Analects, Doctrine of the Mean, The Great Learning, The Classic of Filial Piety and the works of Mencius to get some sense of modern day sino-based traditions. Despite having been written in 1969, the book is as timeless as ever and one of my personal favorites.

Miguel Llora

I agree with the other reviewers that this book is somewhat dated. However, it still ranks as one of the most accessable books in print about Chinese philosophy. Chan is an expert at culling the essential material from the various sources and distilling them into coherent chunks. However, Chan is notorious for leaning too heavily on the Confucian side of Chinese tradition.

My professor, Wm. Theodore de Bary, arguably Chan's successor, occasionally raises points in class regarding problems with Chan's work. In Wm. de Bary's point of view, the problems are not serious but they are worth addressing in a revision. For example, Chan uses the phrase "Doctrine of the Mean" following an earlier translation while a more accurate translation would be simply "The Mean". Chan has similar problems with English-language usage, but these only occur in exceptional instances. More often he gets bogged down in terminology that was commonly in use during his period but now seems dated.

Another matter to bring up, although not necessarily a problem, is Chan's personal faith in Christianity, which may have influenced his choice of word usage and selection of materials.

Objections aside, this is a wonderful book that anyone with more than a passing interest in Chinese philosophy will find useful. After reading this book, one might want to move on to Prof. de Bary's newly-revised "Sources of Chinese Tradition", and then on to more specialized works.

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."

Finally Brooks took some risks and put his characters really on the line. I found this the best plotted one of the series! I loved it. The characters' explorations in their prison are wonderfully done, especially those they make into themselves. I think Brooks put more meat in this one, and that is why I like it so much. You gotta read this one. It is definately the most satisfying of the bunch, with the G'Home Gnomes being the coolest part of the book practically. Read it.

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.

A touching christmas story, about the devotion of a little boy who tries to give his four year old polio cripple sister an angel doll as a christmas gift.
The story is narrated by his best friend and paper-route partner.

This is a simple story about devotion and love... Good read.

We've known Jerry and Linda just over a year as neighbors. While our interactions with them were somehow special as Jerry walks his dog past our home each day, reading The Angel Doll opened an entirely new journey deep into the heart of the person we knew only casually. Aside from the fact that it is an "easy read" for anyone, the book opened the soul of what we have come to love about the people of the Blue Ridge Country. It epitomizes all that is so genuine and real about those who touch us on a daily basis. As you step each step with Jerry through the lives of those involved in his story, it also takes you through the world in which he lives. Mountain people have always been an interesting study, but somehow the people of the Blue Ridge are different and Jerry has enabled those people to absolutely come to life.

It has a universal appeal to both women and men, children and adults and puts a mirror in front of all of us. There are stories scattered throughout the book to which all of us can relate in our own little worlds. I would strongly advise anyone contemplating ordering the book to go ahead and order the sequel since the two are inseparable and the sequel is a true continuum of the first.

I am amazed at the diversity with which Jerry is so talented and skilled.

Thanks so much, Jerry and Linda for not only the book but your friendship! Also, on a personal note, thanks Linda for the delicious chocolate pie you brought, it was yummy and we could literally taste the love!

Big Huggggzzzzzzz

The Angel Doll is a quick read and one to surely bring tears toyour eyes. It is a beautiful story, (definitely one for the holidayseason), set in the South in the 50's. This is the kind of story thatone would want to read to their children each and every Christmas.With the "me" generation is full force, this tale will bringhome, in full force, the power of love and caring and friendship.This tale will leave its full impression on your heart and leave youwondering about the mystery of the dolls. I just discovered on ...,that there is a sequel to this lovely tale and can hardly wait to readit! Uplifting tale for the entire family and I strongly encourageparents to have their children read it!

Whitey Black has a chronically ill younger sister Sandy and all she wants is a Christmas angel doll. It is the 1950's and Whitey and his friend are working together on a paper route. The setting is the rural south and friendship is at the center of this wonderful story.

This is the premise to a blessed event that will fill the lives of many sick children for years to come. It is a story of remembrance and benevolence. It is a heartrending tale of a young boys love for his sister. For those of you who enjoy THE CHRISTMAS ANGEL there is a sequel titled, A GIFT OF ANGELS. This is a superb pair of books with appeal for the whole family, a Christmas tradition. Kelsana@yahoo.com 12/25/01

This is one of the best books I've ever read. It's sad that the boys sister is sick, but glad because he cares so much for her, he wants to by her a book called THE ANGEL DOLL. After he reads her the book she wants an Angel Doll for Christmas. In order to figure out what happens in the story, you have to read the book. I would reccomend this book to anyone who likes Christmas stories, and to anyone who likes sad and happy stories.

The Edge of Honor, written by a retired Navy captain, tries hard to bring the reader into the Navy world and capture the reader's imagination, but doesn't quite succeed. With its stiff prose and bland characters, the novel plods along without building much suspense until two-thirds of the way through, when plot, action, and character finally combine to produce a page-turner. Until that point, however, the military jargon is overwhelming, even with a glossary included at the back of the book. Deutermann's attempt to have the reader learn along with the new guy simply makes the hero look unappealingly naive. A few scenes of life aboard a ship in the Gulf of Tonkin during the Vietnam war are extraneous to the plot, do not build character, and are not strong enough in a literary sense to merit inclusion in the book.

Retired navy personnel may find this novel an intriguing description of an ultimately dysfunctional ship, but to the outsider it has little to offer.

This is a great book from the perspective of someone who actually served in Combat Information Center on board the ship which was used as the model for the book. I was dissappointed in the drug related issue since drugs were few and far between on the ship at that time. It took the shine off an otherwise stellar read. In all other aspects. particularly the operations and technical info this was first rate with few exceptions.

For those us that experienced Viet Nam as junior officers in the United State Navy, this book is more fact then fiction. Americans would be well served if this novel is made into a movie, providing of course that Mr. Deutermann is given complete artistic control. America needs another glimpse of this part of our history as seen through the eyes of young Americans in a bad place, at a bad time, doing the best job they can. To all that shared this experience and to P.T.Deutermann, Capt., USN, I say Bravo Zulu and godspeed.

Well, Captain P.T. Deutermann USN (Ret) has done it again. He has written another well thought-out military thriller that also has all the ingredients of a good mystery. With each book released, he just gets better and better.

LT Brian Holcomb is a young surface warfare officer who is trying to undo the damage of a potentially career-ending fitness report. Attempting to do so, he takes an assignment to a guided missile cruiser, the USS JOHN BELL HOOD. Once aboard, he realizes that he will have his hands full. Drug abuse is rampant and as those of us who remember 1969 can attest, the American war effort was already universally reviled by civilians and military people alike.

LT Holcomb leaves behind his wife Maddy who is beginning to feel the stirring of restlessness and the desire to be her own person. She realizes as she embarks on a career as a banker that she does not need to be the good little Navy wife and stand by her man. She does not need to be Mrs. "Lieutenant" Holcomb to have a life of her own making.

But Brian is at war and the USS JOHN BELL HOOD is on the firing line in the South China Sea. Mr Deutermann does an outstanding job of describing life at sea during those unpopular war years. He knows from whence he speaks, having commanded a cruiser himself.

Mr Deutermann served his country in the Navy for more than 25 years. He has captured the essence of that service and what sacrifices are made by service members to a "T." If anyone doubts what naval service during the Vietnam War meant, I recommend that they read this book. It is a great look into that period of time and what it meant to value duty, honor and country.

Brian Holcomb is a fine character and a better junior officer than he gave himself credit for. Peter Deutermann did a great job with all of the characterizations in this book, but especially Holcomb's Commanding Officer. I would go so far as to say that if schools around the country pick a naval story to replace THE CAINE MUTINY in their American Lit classes, then this should be the one. But don't take my word for it, read this book and you'll be hooked. You'll go looking for the backlist of all the books by Peter Deutermann and you won't be disappointed.

Thank you Captain Deutermann for another great read. BZ from a former paratrooper.

This is the best contemporary Navy story I have read. Many of us who served in the Navy in that era fought the same fights on our ships as did LT Holcumb on the mythical Hood. (Don't think the problem Holcomb had on the Hood didn't exist - it did. We had a similar experience with drug use on my ship as several key personnel we were removed from duty at a critical time.) The CIC scenes in the book are excellent - they brought back memories of long, difficult watches. The relationship between Holcomb and his Chief is well done - with Holcomb trying to learn from the more experienced man, while trying to provide leadership. Further, Deutermann well describes the loneliness and stuggles faced by spouses left behind when the ship deployed. While I am an avid reader, I rarely reread a book. However, I've reread this one several times. It is highly reccommended. REC