Robertson Books

Set in Beirut, Lebanon, in 1983, this is the story of the wife of an American journalist covering the "military presence" in the country just as the fighting among middle eastern sects and US interests gets going, leading up to the truck bomb that took out over 200 marines in their headquarters, and the aftermath of that event. The political scene is filled in with suspenseful detail, but the personal story here is really the driving force of the book. Lara, "Mac" McCauley's wife, feels stranded by her husband's neglect and turns for friendship to the other journalists on the scene, striking up a bit of romance with one man in particular, the somewhat mysterious Thomas. We know from the first page that Thomas dies, and that Lara feels responsible. Her husband's behavior is not exemplary - Mac's affair with his interpreter becomes flagrant, and he becomes abusive to Lara (a pattern we are shown has existed all along in his adult life); she becomes more involved with Thomas and other Lebanese people who befriend her as she tries to make sense of her life and place in the world and in the war-torn country. With Lara as our narrator, we know that Mac's affair and hers will have ripple effects on the lives of others, all disastrous - her narration of events is compassionate and displays her desperate struggle to survive amid the unraveling and deceptive foreign world she inhabits.

In the throes of civil war, 1983 Beirut is a hotbed of warring factions and competing interests, the Americans about to engage in a peacekeeping mission in a place that has known no peace. Journalists gather at common watering holes, in this case The Commodore Hotel, sharing the tales of their wanderings over the globe reporting world events and cheering one another after brutal days best faced in the oblivion of drink. New arrivals, Americans Barrett McCauley and his wife, Lara, join this eclectic band of brothers, most of them, like Mac, addicted to the danger and an urgency to tell a story that can only be written by observers of the daily carnage. At the Commodore, the unofficial headquarters of the Beirut press corps, Lara makes friends with Thomas, a bit of an outcast now that the McCauley's have arrived.

An outsider herself, nothing more than Mac's wife, Lara is attracted to Thomas' sensitivity: "Fluid in the languages and cultures of other lands, he was at home in none."
Clearly Mac is a bully, a fact Lara either ignores or denies, struggling to map out a small territory in a war zone that terrifies her with its recurring carnage and mix of Syrians, Lebanese, Israeli's, Americans, Palestinians, Maronite Christians vs. Druze, Hezbollah, CIA, an ever-changing cast as volatile as the weapons that inundate the city. Her naiveté is stunning and dangerous, inciting Mac's jealousy and brutality, blundering through tradition in her need to explain the inexplicable: "There was no peace. There was no quiet. This was Beirut." Unlike her husband, ever in a hyper-vigilant state much like Frances in Hilary Mantel's Eight Months on Ghazzah Street, Lara clings to Thomas for comfort, careless assumptions fueling her rationalization of the choices she makes.

To understand the nature of the Middle East in 1983, the conflicts that rage unabated, exacerbated by the intrusion of other countries is challenging; but in this tense novel, the debris of death clears incrementally, allowing a view of passionate individuals, true believers, arrogant opportunists, helpless civilians and the international journalists in search of the story, "a place where rampant evil was an inventive, daily occurrence". Lara's passivity is most unsettling... and dangerous, approaching every circumstance of her life dressed as a victim of circumstance. She should leave Mac. She doesn't. She should have realized the danger. She denies it, the theme the fierce partisan battle in Beirut vs. the internal struggle of a woman who continues to betray herself out of fear; unfortunately, her personal discomfort reaches outside the marriage, destroying others, contributing to the chaos. Out of place and out of her depth.

In 1983, Beirut is a pivotal piece of the violent game that will play out over the years, culminating in the destruction of the World Trade Center. Unfortunately, it is Lara's immaturity that defines her time in Beirut, confronted finally by an elderly woman: "You amaze me Lara. All this time here and still you are so clumsy, still you trample like and elephant into such delicate areas." The Ugly American writ small, but deadly. Luan Gaines/2007.

This is an incredibly well written novel. The parallel universes of the protagonist, Lara, and the situation in Beirut, as both fall into deepening chaos is a timely story paralleling what seems to be happening in the Mideast today. Season of Betrayal is a very worthwhile read, which I highly recommend.

I just finished Season of Betrayal. It is a stunningly well-written book and is a fascinating tale, even were it not so well-written. It could only have been written by a woman. There is not and probably never has been a male author clever enough to write what you wrote. It earns my highest accolade for a novel. Wow!

The cover photo of a shattered church is probably what induced me to cast aside my disinclination to to read novels by women (they tend to dwell too long on lip gloss and chintz prints for my taste). To think I almost missed what seems an accurate description of the chaos in Lebanon in 1983 and the US presence there.

Your story resonates with our current stumbling in Iraq in the midst of animosities a thousand years old, in which we played no part and of which we have little understanding, just as when the Marine barracks in Beirut was bombed during your stay there in 1983.

Even for those without an interest in Mid-East wars, yours is a charming and realistic love story, worth anyone's time to read, savor, and consider what it all means to all of us. Thank you for a wonderful book.

Whether you like fiction or non-fiction, "Season of Betrayal" will draw you in. Margaret Lowrie Robertson writes a compelling tale of human drama, intrigue and relationships but wraps it in a slice of Beirut that historians and journalists would be proud of. She demonstrates a familiarity with the city and subject that could only come from first hand experience. The words on the tongues of the denizens of the post-Marine-Barracks-Bombing Beirut ring oh so genuine. Her style is spare yet she communicates so much with so few words...not surprising given her experience as a TV Journalist. "Season of Betrayal" delivers a contex and understanding of the Mideast that you don't realize you've gotten because the story keeps the pages turning so fast. This is a great one.

This book has great pictures and quite a bit of information put into a simple style. My class and I enjoy using it when we teach/learn about weather. It even has a center section that folds out to reveal the picture of a huge tornado. Other than the global warming and global freezing propaganda on the last pages, it is a great book for class, homeschool, or even reading with your children.

Please note that this review is actually for Burrough's other book, A Guide to the Weather, published by Fog City Books. I'm posting the review here since it doesn't come up on any of the other searches I tried. So I apologize for that in advance. But as this is a good book, I wanted to at least write about it here.

This is a beautifully illustrated and attractive volume that recalls the DK books of recent years. It seems publishers are going all out on the design front to make their books more visually appealing than the competition's. Besides pure aesthetics, I'm not sure why this is, but no doubt it helps differentiate their books from the competition, since basic science books pretty much have to present the same information.

Also, the books appear to be getting bigger, longer, and thicker. It's almost as if the publishers have concluded that for a special topic like this, it's the only book on meteorology the average person will ever buy, and so they're going all out to make their book bigger, better, more attractively designed and illustrated, than the competition, hoping they'll choose theirs over the others. Having worked in the publishing industry for 7 years, I have some background in book design, but that was 20 years ago, and things have probably changed a lot, but that's the impression I get from looking at these sorts of science books for the layman.

This is actually written by a team of authors, so it's really a group effort. Each chapter is written by a particular author, although one author (whose name escapes me) writes more than one chapter. The book is divided into eight chapters covering the traditional meteorological topics such as typical weather phenomena, basic forecasting and prediction, and some history. More modern developments are covered in the sections on Adapting to the Weather, Evolution and Climate, Electronic Instrumentation, Seasonal Forecasts, and The Future of Forecasting.

Climatology is covered in a nice section, which discusses the different types, from tropical to semi-arid to desert to arctic. Also, there are sections on Coping with Cold, Coping with Heat, and Coping with High Altitude, and on weather modification. (BTW, a little trivia here, the brother of fiction author, Kurt Vonnegut, is the inventor of cloud seeding and won the medal of the American Association of Meteorologists for this contribution).

However, one subject I didn't see covered was on fronts, although perhaps I just missed that part, since I didn't read every section, since some of them were redundant for me and I already knew about.

Most of the specific topics are covered in two-page spreads, with a number of these making up a chapter. These vary in length, the biggest one being the one on cloud types, which illustrates dozens of different types of clouds, several of which, unless you're a previous student of meteorology, you probably haven't heard of before, such as mammatus, kelvin, lenticular, pyrocumulus, and so on. The photo illustrations here are also excellent.

One minor quip here; I didn't see a spread for noctilucent clouds, which are caused by meteoric dust in the upper atmosphere. These are usually only visible at dawn or dusk. Most meteors burn up in the Mesosphere, a warm layer about 50 miles up, above the stratosphere but below the ionosphere. However, that being said, this was the best coverage of cloud types I've seen so far. The author also explains where they occur and how and why they form.

Almost one-third of the book is devoted to the section on "Weather in Action" and those chapters, which cover dew, fog, frost, clouds and cloud phenomena, storms, drought, floods, and optical effects in the atmosphere, such as coronas, halos, irridescence, sun dogs, etc. Finally, there is a Resources section at the end with suggestions for the further reading, and an index and glossary.

Overall, a well written and beautifully illustrated book on the weather, covering the subject in a thorough yet fairly non-technical way that should be accessible to most readers.

This book is a rare find! It is written in such an easy to understand language and style that it will be an excellent resource to own! It is complete and thorough, yet written for upper elementary grades through, and including, adulthood. I would recommend this book for anyone with children or who is interested in learning the "whys" behind the weather.

It has been said "people complain about the weather but never do anything about it." Perhaps that's because they don't know much about it. This book will help you learn more about our weather. I was looking for a book that explained about various weather phenomenon and came across it. I loved it not only because of the pictures and descriptions in the last chapter on various weather types (different kinds of fogs, clouds, storms, precipitation, optical effects, etc), but also for lost of other information covered in the book, but also because the book's other chapters also contained so much excellent information. Subjects like Understanding the Weather (which covers the atmosphere, sources of weather, global wind patterns and different kinds of winds, frontal systems, etc.), Forecasting the Weather (obviously that has never been an exact science!), Changing the Weather, and also a secion on different climates and how humankind and animals adapt.

There are lots of pictures and diagrams in this book which help to explain key weather concepts. One day I will force myself to read this book cover to cover instead of getting sidetracked at all the gorgeous illustrations and pictures in this book, every time I pick it up to read it.

I love this book all about weather, how it occurs, what makes our planet hum. It has helped me read the sky far more clearly & understand daily forecasts. It is filled with gorgeous photographs & easily interpreted diagrams. I never knew there were so many forms of fog!

I thought that this novel was well written. I am not usually taken in by spiritual or magical worlds that often appear in novels, sometimes out of nowhere. However, I feel that Robertson did an extremely good job in painting a vivid portrait of how this magic "medicine" and spirituality surrounded and weaved through the culture of the Native Americans. Robertson's eye for detail and precision is very apparent; I felt that he explained details of battles and battle discussions in a concise manner. I felt that since Native Americans were very respectful of animals and their importance in the chain of life, it was extremely important for Robertson to incorporate that into his novel along with the principles of Quakerism, as told by Sarah Kilory.

When my friend Kathy handed me this book as something to amuse myself while she was on the phone long-distance I was immediatly sucked in and had to take it home with me to finish. The combination of historical fact with creative writing gave me the feeling that I was right there with American Woman through her many adventures and I was loathe to say goodbye at the end of the novel. In my opinion the fantasy does work and I didn't balk at the transition into the spirit world. I particularly enjoyed Coyote and his shifty nature. I would recommend this book to anyone with an interest in Native Americans or someone just looking for a good read. American Woman always moved along at a good clip and didn't get bogged down, a rarity in historical fiction.

"American Woman" was an excellent read. I would compare it to "Little Big Man", only from a woman's point of view. Love, survival, and spiritual lessons abound. My wife couldn't put it down!

I haven't even finished the book yet and already recommend it to anyone willing to imagine our Native American history, myths and realities full force. The chapter on the Spirit World is not as silly as Lindat5, Custer historian, criticizes;to myself, an ignorant reader wanting to learn more about what Native Americans went through and believed, the Spirit World put us stiff and incredulous white folk right into the heart of American Indian's mythology. Plus, its very creative. To read real historical fiction with such creative writing is for me a real real treat.

American Woman is a double edged historical novel of dual cultures' experiences filtered through a gritty perspective of irony and wit. Set at the time of the battle of the Little Big Horn, told by a blonde, Quaker second wife to a Shyenna warrior named Yellow Leg, American Woman weaves the fabric of myth and history simultaneously. Humour, acerbic wit, and slanting perspectives lead to unforeseen levels of involvement. Humanity is both reduced and elevated. Sarah, the witch who does not know she is a "bruja" has vivid and relentless visions. Lakota and Shyenna customs presented are well researched by the author. One of my favorite chapters deals with the naming ceremony for Nothing, Sara's sister-wife Raven's daughter. Raven invites Sara to the ceremony, which is for women only.

"We stood our daughter up, so everyone would know what a fine child she was. Firelight danced in her dark eyes. It was a grave moment. She was about to lose her baby name forever and get the one she would carry into womanhood. Shyenna women did not collect and discard names like a Lakota brave. Many carried their adult name throughout their lives.

Raven recited Nothing's story....And what a story it was. Once I would have dismissed it as extravagant superstition - but if any of these women disbelieved it, they were polite enough to sit on their doubts. I stared at the little girl, thinking about that first day in the Center of the World when I had been enraged at her bare existence. Now I wanted to hug her. But it would have been disrespectful - too Wasichu. This was her moment, not mine...Raven announced, 'She shall be named for the mother who cared for her when she was sick, who cradled her when I could not, and who called for the Southern Herd to save her. From now on my daughter will be American Woman.'

I was as stunned as anyone. You could have heard a feather fall in the lodge.

Raven continued in her flat, cool way, 'Her mother does not need that name. She has the one given to her in the Spirit World. She is E-hyoph'sta, Light Haired Woman.' It was the first time any Lakota Eater had called me that. That triumph alone would have choked me - but it was trivial compared to seeing a little black-eyed girl standing straight in her white deerskin, beaming because she bore my cast-off name.

I pulled my blanket up over my face and cried. Through the tears and blanket I could hear women approving. It was wonderful, strange, and awesome. When I recovered, we ate until the lodge was littered with gnawed bones (pp. 312-313)."

Vivid and heartrending, American Woman tells a tale of blood by mixing bloods and perspectives. A new truth emerges, washed with the broken refractions of human tears.

Nancy Lorraine, Reviewer

As a wife of a soldier who is preparing to be deployed to Iraq, I thought this book would be a perfect way for the kids to express their feelings and write down their thoughts.

I was very disappointed when I saw that the "maps" were just a grayed out block of continents. There were no countries listed on it....something you would expect from a 4th grade continent quiz.

There were no colors in the pages, just the plain black and white text. No photos or other eye catchers for the kids.

The calendar it came with only has enough for 6-7 months and the blocks are really small. There is no way my 8 year old can write small enough to fit anything in there. Most soldiers are deployed for a lot more than 6 months, so I can't even really use that part of the book.

The pages for the kids to write down their feelings are VERY LIMITED. There is one and a half pages for "What I am feeling" and other such titles. How is a child supposed to use this journal for a whole year with that kind of limited space?

This journal is NOT FOR EVERYDAY USE by the children. It can only be used to highlight certain feelings. Like I said, I really expected something more and something the kids could really use on a day to day basis to write out their feelings.

I think it is okay for what it is, but the reviews I read made me think it was some great book that really helped the children and gave them room to express themselves. There was no publisher or Amazon description and you could not look in the book electronically.

I would recommend you get a diary and small map book to go along with this. A scrap book would also be a good idea to compliment the limited book.

I have a 5 year old who is faced with dealing with Dad's 2nd deployment. We've talked to him about it and explained that this time daddy will be in a place with phones etc... He is very smart for his age and is well aware of what daddy is leaving for. Being a miitary family comes with a great deal of pride for the entire family, but at the same time it comes with many other feelings that sometimes are hard for a 5 year old to explain, or actually want to explain. this journal makes that difficult experience easy to express and in some ways a little fun. He can fill it with things to show is dad when he comes home, and he looks forward to writing in it already

Bought this for my 8 and 11 year old girls. Their dad is deployed for a year. Both of them really loved the journal and were very busy writing and looking up information. Very interactive with lots of interesting information about different countries. My girls liked that the book offers questions to talk to their dad about. Questions about where he is...not just dadddy we miss you. It also makes writing about how you feel fun with choices offered in a creative way. We have been doing the military thing for 16 years and I tend to be a little jaded but I would really recommend this book to others....also not just for deployed parents, this book would work just a well for Aunts, Uncles, Brothers..etc.

I like the design of the colors on the journal. I like to write about things that happen at school. I write what I will say to my dad when he calls next time. I draw pictures on the blank pages. I write poems. I miss my dad. This is a good journal. From Kacee.

I am a fourth grade teacher and I ordered this journal for the kids in my class last year. For the military kids, we focused on having them write about their experience during their parent's deployment. For the nonmilitary kids, we focused on learning about common deployment locations and thinking about what it would be like to have a parent deploy. All of the kids LOVED the project. The journal writing extended naturally into other areas, such as using the globe, learning simple phrases in other languages, learning about the cultures of people in places like Iraq and Afghanistan. It has been positive and rewarding for everyone. I think the nonmilitary kids have a better appreciation for the challenges of military life and the military kids felt like others really cared about their situation. And they loved having their own place to write about this time in their lives. Wonderful journal and idea. I highly recommend it to families but also to teachers and counselors, especially in elementary and middle school settings. I have incorporated it into my plans for the coming school year b/c I was so pleased.

I bought this book solely because Scott Robertson wrote it. Normally I would have passed this book by thinking it was a children's book on drawing hotwheels. Boy was I surprised when I received it.

This is not as much a book on drawing cars but a book explaining how to use perspective when drawing vehicles which could be used for all types of vehicles. I've read many books on perspective and this one has been the most well developed instruction on vehicle perspective. His instructions are very detailed with great illustrations for each step. And we're not talking about glossed over quick 3 step instructions, most instructions are over 10 steps. So he goes slow with enough detail to not miss anything necessary to truly understand this topic.

Another bonus, is that he explains in detail how to render with various art media and also step by step how to render in Photoshop. These instructions are as detailed as that for drawing in perspective.

This book was a Great Surprise! I wish I had found it earlier. I probably could have forgone many books for what I've found in this one. Don't let the name fool you, pick this book up no matter what level of artist, illustrator, cartoonist or designer you are. Great book!!! 5 Stars.

Purchased for a 7.75 year old boy who loves to draw. He likes it but not as well as the drawing book by Hart.

Great Value - My son just keeps using this. For the enjoyment he receives from this guide, it is worth twice as much to me.

The minute this book arrived and I saw how great it was I realized that I would need to give it as a gift to a designer friend. Then I needed to order another copy to keep for myself. If you are a designer, want to draw cars, or are just a fan of Hot Wheels cars, Scott Robertson's book is a wonderful insight into the world of unlimited transportation imagination. Kids of ALL AGES would love this book!

this book is probably one of the best books on drawing cars. lots of great pictures. and really great art of street rod cars. much better than How to Draw Cars like a Pro. everything you'll need on drawing cars is in here!

This was one of those rare occasions where, although I wanted to unravel the mystery, I didn't want the story to end. Indeed, the characters are that compelling.

Each of the main characters has a dark side, cultivated by past experiences. Those experiences shape who these characters are, perhaps setting the course for future actions. The author does a superb job of interweaving these characters and their experiences.

My only criticism is that I did not feel the ending was as strong as the rest of work. The chapters leading up to those last two chapters deserved a more dramatic ending -- something that could have been achieved had the author ended the work on page 278.

Sometimes less really is more.

I understand that to leave us with a happy-ever-after ending would have been a complete tone break for the work, however, I don't think it would have been such a stretch for the author to have let the novel end with Adrian's last sentiments. If he had simply alluded to what he ended up spelling out in those last two chapters, the ending would have had far greater impact.

In the words of Leslie Silbert (from The Intelligencer) "what good was life without romatic dreams, in spite of their foolishness."

So why the five stars when I am so clearly frustrated with what the author chose for an ending? Because the first 278 pages are that good.

As you read the series of Steinhauer books you move thru the decades from the 50's forward solving murders. You also get a full history lesson on modern communism and its evolution. This book takes you forward with the old characters aging and falling away and new members of the force stepping up. Recommended.

I found the book to be well-written, but not enjoyable. None of the characters is admirable and most are nihilistic, which may very well be an authentic characteristic, given life under an authoritarian regime. The plot device of having the main characters' country be unnamed was distracting. One jarring note in an otherwise realistic portrayal of the Eastern bloc security services was the casual murder of a CIA officer, something which during the Cold War would have had grave consequences.

The story begins in Prague in 1968 when Peter Husák is being questioned by the police after being picked up trying to cross the border. Peter claims that his two friends Toman and Ivana actually made it across the border. The Russian have invaded the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic to free it of corruptive influences. Peter's college roommate is active in the student underground and when Peter is released from jail and returns to his room, it's to disbelief and recriminations and the threat of bodily harm. He's an outsider and has no place in the underground, in the college, or with those he thought were friends. In his wanderings to avoid his roommate, Peter befriends a young Russian soldier, Stanislav Klym who is soon to go home and longs for his girlfriend Katja Uher. Stanislav has everything Peter wants -- but then Stanislav is paying for the drinks...for now.

We then jump to 1975 and Libarid Terezian who is being sent to an international conference in Istanbul. Libarid plans to never come back from that conference but the plane is hijacked and all his options change when his seatmate, Zrinka Martrich, rises to speak with the terrorists. Captain Gavra Noukas and Katja Drdova are assigned to the case. Gavra believes Ludvík Mas is behind the hijacking somehow and he's warned off by his mentor Brano Sev.

The story alternates between the 1968 timeline and that of 1975 but since the names don't match up the reader is left wondering how and when these two separate stories will connect. It doesn't take long to realize that nothing is as it seems. People are hiding information not only from the reader but from each other. There's so much going on that once you get into the stories, you can't wait to find out what's going on. Who's the good guy? Is there even a good guy? Can you trust anyone to be what or who they seem to be? There are so many twists and turns that it's difficult to figure out what the connections between characters are -- and the depth of those connections. Even when you finish the book, there isn't a nice neat ending.

If you don't like a bit of ambiguity in your novels, you probably won't like this book. It's well written and the characters are clearly delineated but the motives and interconnections are murky -- even when you are told a fact it's best to believe that it's not the whole truth. The believability of the underlying plot and narrative doesn't mean that everything is neatly laid out -- like life some threads are never neatly tucked in and smoothed out.

On April 23, 1975, Turkish Airlines Flight 54 explodes in flight following a hijacking by the Armenian Army of the Liberation. Soviet bloc country homicide detective Katja Drdova is assigned to investigate. However, since the incident is an act of terrorism by an enemy of the state, Secret Police agent Gavra Noukas also makes inquiries under the close scrutiny of his mentor Major Brano Sev; as a police peer of the lead cop, Libarid Terzian, is of Armenian descent and was on board.

At the same time of the tragedy and the subsequent official investigations, Czech student Peter Husak, a victim of the Soviet crushing of the 1968 Prague Spring, resurfaces. However, the case seems to swing away from Peter towards a female passenger Zrinka Martrich, whose lack of information in official records makes her the prime suspect. Gavra interviews her doctor and her brother. He shares a tryst with the sibling, but finds the medical practitioner murdered.

This Iron Curtain historical police procedural is a terrific thriller that hooks the audience from the onset as readers follow an intriguing mentorship that teaches the rookies sleuthing techniques and political considerations that often trump the investigation (sounds like the US Attorneys scenario). Training Sev also controls the official inquires. The story line is fast-paced but it is the unnamed Soviet satellite country bought vividly to life that makes this a top rate whodunit.

Harriet Klausner

The book is a bit stilted in places and the storyline didn't flow a few times. I don't think children would notice. It was the author's first book. I LOVE the descriptions of what she bought and then how she used the items to make paint. The book is set in the 1400's.

The illustrations are beautiful.

Marguerite's father Jacques is the most famous manuscript illuminator in Paris, when he is injured and cannot finish the book he is working on, Marguerite sets out to do it for him. We see Marguerite travelling round Paris buying the things she needs to complete the book, then we see her preparing the pages, mixing the paints, and completing the picture her father was working on. The story is accompanied by beautiful illustrations showing life in medieval Paris and details of illuminated manuscripts. This charming book is an ideal intoduction to the middle ages for children (especially girls) showing that there was more to the period than knights in armour and plague. A lovely and unusual book.

The illustrations are beautiful, and the historical information about illuminations was wonderful. We enjoyed reading it, and it inspired my 5 year old to make her own fancy lettering with drawings and illumination (gold glitter!).

600 years ago, Lady Isabelle of Paris ordered a book from Papa Jacques, a famous book maker and he has only three days left to finish it. However, Jaqueses' eyeglasses is broken. So Jaqueses' daughter, Marguerite finished the book for him. Margurite went to Master Raymond's house for gold leafs, a farm for parchment, the market for eggs, goose feathers,parsley, and a pot of honey, and finally the apothcary for dried saffron flowers, madder roots, a cake of vermilion, some wax, pine pitch, and some lapis lazuli stone. At her house, Marguerite prepared he pens and paint. Then Marguerite started to paint. On one page, which was decorated with Lady Isabelle's favorite daises Marguerite colored Lady Isabelle's robe and hair. When Isebelle came to check on the book, she was very impressed.

Wow, this book has the most beautiful illustrations I have seen in a long time! My daughter and I just love the story and the fold out pages! We have been inspired to do more digging into this topic. I am going to share this book with my Grade 2 and 3 art students. A definite must for little artists.

Upfield has a skillfull panache for generating a superb ambiance for his numerous "cozy murders". And this one is a real zinger.

Right away, the reader begins to wonder, how in the world is Inspector Napoleon Bonepart ("Boney" to his pals) going to solve a murder that took place out to sea, off the Australian coast? All the clues appear unretrievable, at the bottom of the ocean! But Boney wades right on in, now worrying in the least about this actuality and he DOES come up with clues -- he even manages to get in a good amount of exciting fishing time.

Boney is half-caucasian, half-Aborigine, and he utilizes his almost magical indigenous skills to solve the toughest of crimes where others have only failed. His superiors are always pushing him on time but Boney ignores them, (and their hollow threats to fire him for insubordination), plodding along and never failing to unearth the criminal. This particular entry is also a bit of a thriller near the end as the stormy action escalates and suspense builds.

Arthur Upfield is a real "find" for mystery lovers and his unique detective, Napoleon Bonepart, is at least a match for Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes. Upfield's other "Bony" mysteries, such as "Murder Down Under," are equally great. Don't miss this one!

This book is quite different from most modern writings in fiction in that it is written in a more literary sense. The writing could be compared somewhat to a Hemingway novel. The entire environment and the characters are so richly painted and crisply defined that you not only enter the story but really feel it as well. The story takes place in an australian fishing village where you'll feel like you've lived for a while when you're done reading. If you're a person who likes the true mystery in a story this reading is for you. If you only like blood, gore and unending suspense and thrills with your mystery fiction I'd highly suggest you go elsewhere. The story is believable and well conceived as well as very well written for its time.
Anyone who enjoys fishing, especially deep sea, will really enjoy the book and it's attention to detail with respect to fishing for marlin. Just an added bonus for a few readers out there but another fine point that shows the author goes to great extremes in an unbelievably concise manner to bring in every detail. The overall story develops a little slowly, but the rich detail, believability and fine characters make this a great read for those who would enjoy a more literary fiction novel.

As an Arthur Upfield fan of the first water I feel like an apostate for giving one of the Master's works only four stars, but this one deserves it. The ending's trite. Sometimes Upfield's a poor closer and this book is one example. Otherwise the story's compelling and for most of the book this one's vintage Upfield. Get "The Mystery of Swordfish Reef," forget that you read somewhere that it has a weak ending, and enjoy. Maybe for you the last will be as good as the first. Then buy another Bony mystery and another and another 'till you've read them all. They're all good and, maybe they all truly deserve five stars.

The opening is quite promising with the disappearance of the Do-Me (kind of an unfortunate name) along with her captain, herone man crew and the angler who hired them. Then the angler's head with a gun shot wound turns up in a trawler's net. An attempt is made to investigate, but the police are stymied. So they send in Napoleon Bonapart, their best detective.

Then Boney starts to fish-- and he fishes and he fishes. I don't have any ethical problem with fishing as a sport, but I found myself feeling a bit indignant about the wastefulness of catching a 580 lb. fish for sport, hanging it up by it's tail on the "town triangle" to have pictures taken, then disposing of it after a few days when it probably rank.

Boney the fisherman is not nearly as interesting as Boney the detective.

Oh, as for the mystery, it was pretty obvious by mid book (if not earlier) who had done the angler in and why. The how was not as obvious though.

Unless you like long descriptions of fishing activity I recommend reading The Bone Is Pointed or one of the other books in this series instead.

I've been reading Arthur Upfield's "Bony" mysteries for several years now, hunting them down as I can, as they were written in the late 40's and 50's. ...the books are absolutely awesome in their sense of the place that is Australia, the character delineations and the incredible world of "the tracker," someone who can read "the story of the bush" to tell what happened. In all of these mysteries, I've never figured it out before Bony did. The pace of the stories is slow, even languid, but the books are very well written, and full of information about a place most of us will never visit, and its culture. Sometimes Bony goes undercover, as he does here, and these are my favorites. "Bony" is Napolean Bonaparte, the detective: a half aborigine, half white man. He's smarter than anybody, and while he sounds like a pain in the neck, in the book his manners are smooth and charming. There is nothing vulgar (except drunkenness) in any of these books. I find them fascinating, and enthralling. Mystery at Swordfish Reef is one of my favorites.

This product was delivered in a timely manner and was just as the description had listed... Positive purchase experience.

I give this a five-star rating because it so engagingly and cleverly presents a scientific view of the alleged phenomenon of synchronicity, thus appearing to have dealt with it fairly. And yet the book is centered on a basic fallacy: the idea that synchronicity has actual existence. In reality, synchronicity is merely a label for a general category of illusion: the illusion of connectivity -- of meaning, between or among elements that in reality are unrelated and meaningless as a pair or set. If a person is thinking of Hershey's chocolate and then sees a Hershey's wrapper on the ground, this may seem to possess meaning. But in reality a sense of meaning is only an idea that the person projects upon, and assigns to, these two factors that are, in reality, most often unrelated. That is, though the name Hershey obviously relates the two factors, the fact that the person sees the wrapper after thinking of the name is not necessarily other than a meaningless coincidence. After all, we think all the time, and see things all the time, and sometimes a thought and an object seen will match. Considering the plethora of thoughts and objects, this is only to be expected.

Combs presents a seemingly credible, but merely strawman, account of the scientific view of synchronicity, leaving a door open for Combs' mystical scenario, which to any competent psychologist or mathematician is simply nonsense. In this regard, Combs' presentation is analogous to the way creationists review the evidence for evolution -- only enough to present a substantial-seeming strawman which allows the creationist view to then appear to "prevail."

Realistically, each person's daily experience contains factors so numerous that, occasionally, two or more unrelated factors will seem to pair up in a related way. But this is much more reasonably accounted for by the human brain's pattern-finding, and therefore association-finding, tendency. Each human brain organizes percepts and concepts into arrangements that are meaningful for that individual. This is essentially the same mechanism that allows us to see faces in clouds, and lets us think that certain sequences of numbers on tossed dice constitute "runs of luck." I think it's a shame that Combs doesn't fully develop the common-sense thinking that accounts for coincidences in sensible ways, but I do understand that if he had done so, he wouldn't have produced a book that appeals to mystical-minded readers as does this one.

I read the first edition of this book years ago and the concepts in it have haunted me ever since. Then, I bought my own copy of this second edition and found that the ideas contained in it had lost none of their power and were every bit as profound as I had remembered.

Briefly, this book deals with the concept of synchronicity or meaningful coincidence. It deals with it on two levels, the level of science and the level of myth. Indeed, it is shown that synchronistic events in themselves demonstrate the interpenetration of matter (the realm of science) and mind (the realm of myth.) Synchronicity is shown to leap the gap between not only the conscious and unconscious aspects of the mind, but between the world of mind and the world objective events. In this way it corresponds very well to the myth of Hermes, the god of boundaries, and the messenger between the world of the gods and the world of men.

The greatest strength of this book over other treatments of the topic is the clear and up-to-date manner that it addresses the possible scientific explanations of synchronicity. It draws primarily from the world of the new physics. Here is an extremely clear explanation of Bohm's theories on a holographic universe with explicate (physical, day-to-day) and implicate (hidden and fundamental) orders. In spite of the references to the modern world of subatomic physics, it struck me that this sounds remarkably like the hidden currents of the cosmos that occultists have always alluded to. The pattern based theories of Sheldrake, Laszlo, and Chester are also examined and compared. Indeed, the concepts of morphic fields and resonance seem to uncannily resemble the old magical principles of sympathy and correspondence between our own world and the world of archetypes. Indeed, it is shown that a balanced mind (both hemispheres at the same frequency) in deep meditation or prayer may be able to "range" the implicate order and bring about increased instances of synchronicity. Since it is suggested that synchronicity is the real basis for all ESP phenomena ( telepathy, precognition, psychokinesis, etc.) it could be said that this is an effective explanation for the concept of sympathetic magic.

The use of the concept of the mythological trickster is especially appropriate and effective. Many times synchronistic coincidences seem to exist for no other reason that to shatter our preconceived and ossified concepts of the universe. That was also the function of Hermes/ Mercurius/ Coyote in mythology. It is also the function of this book in a world still mired in the dogma of materialistic scientism.

For all those potential readers and for those previous reviewers, I state that this book is one of a mere handful of books to adequately treat this subject with the respect and wonder that it deserves. Though few books deserve the title of "perfection" I must defend the authors in their attempt at covering this subject, however misunderstood.

This book is a brief attempt at exploring the concept of synchronicity. That being said, for what it is, it is an excellent coverage of the subject. Easy to read and quite relative to those who have experienced the phenomenon, (which, I assume, includes nearly every single one of us) this little text is a very wise choice for inspiration towards the wonder that is meaningful acausal experiences.

Yours truly,
Ph.D. student at the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology

Kudos to Combs & Holland for their superb presentation of what is arguably a very insubstantial concept. The selective exclusion of conflicting evidence or logical thought processes supports their thesis that "synchronicity" is not only a true phenomenon, but may in fact be the underlying fabric of the universe and all reality. I found the book to be an immensely enjoyable read, merely out of respect for the craftsmanship in manipulating tiny pieces of unrelated coincidence into a plausibly-reading worldview concept that will fly past the intellect of most readers (and may even gain acceptance as credible at the "metaphysical" level). These guys have outmanipulated even the world's top trickster of the moment, Karl Rove, by using his own techniques of selective evidence to support otherwise clearly flawed or weak arguments. Check it out!

James Robertson has written the most interesting, poignant, and thought-provoking novel I have read this year. His use of writing the novel as a sort of annotated manuscript provokes, in addition to its plot, the theme of faith. His characters are superbly conceived. The dichotomy of Gideon Mack, the protagonist minister who may be more devout than he would like himself to be, and his father, who Gideon so stubbornly insists he is nothing like, is interesting, especially near the end of the novel. These and many other qualities that other reviewers have given for you to read this novel, SO READ IT!

After reading the Testament of Gideon Mack, I am amazed by the depth of the book and the meticulous research that went into creating this modern Gothic tale. It's refreshing to read a book that allows the reader to arrive at her own conclusion.

While the book is a first person account of trials and tribulations of Gideon Mack, it is also an indirect account of Scotland's identity crisis over the last 30 years.

While there are many doubts surrounding the accuracy of Gideon Mack's account, the fundamental question that the book made me ask is the following: What is the role of religion in a society where anyone who converses with god or the devil is considered mad?

Superbly narrated with a range of Scottish accents by Tom Cotcher, "The Testament Of Gideon Mack" is a compelling fantasy novel by James Robertson that is completely original and inherently fascinating from beginning to end. A manuscript of Gideon Mack's experiences growing up a preacher's son, his basic atheism, his becoming a minister of the Scottish church despite his disbelief in God, his encounter with a mysterious Standing Stone where no such stone should be, his near death by drowning, his encounter with the Devil, his attempt to reveal what he has experienced and the catastrophic consequences that result, all this and more are delivered into the hands of a publisher after Gideon's sudden disappearance followed by the discovery of his body. The publisher commissions an investigation into the Gideon's life and the claims of his biographical manuscript. The results leave the listener spellbound and, in the end, confronted with their own decision to make as to whether Gideon's story was real, or the result of madness. Wonderfully entertaining from beginning to end, and very strongly recommended for community library collections, "The Testament Of Gideon Black" is a superbly recorded, 12-cassette audiobook with a total running time of 16.25 hours.

It was mystifying and powerful all in one and I'm not even sure why. It draws you in and builds to the breakng point and yet it doesn't let you down when it's over. The author left the end open for interpretation and didn't spoon feed it to us. The whole time I was reading it a somber feeling was in the air. It felt like one of those fall days when it seems to have a constant drizzle and the only thing to do is curl up in a corner and relax, that's the feeling I got with that book. Whether that helps somebody want to read it, I couldn't say.

James Robertson's "The Testament of Gideon Mack" is quite the most wonderfully engaging and satisfying work of fiction I have read in a long, long while. Considering the duds that made the Booker shortlist last year, I'm baffled as to why it made the longlist but went no further.

Gideon Mack, son of a Calvinist minister and himself a Presbyterian minister in the small Scottish village of Old Kirk, is a secret unbeliever. He ministers faithfully to his parishioners and preaches every Sunday to his flock without believing a word of what he's saying. In short, he is a spiritual imposter and a charlatan. Being a minister is just his day job. Yet, why is it that we can't help but come away with the feeling that he isn't remotely the hypocrite the above suggests he should be ? Could it be that we ask ourselves, how could anyone growing up in a family where the father (himself a man of the cloth) is as unnaturally severe and closed-minded and the mother as downtrodden and deflated as Gideon's be expected to believe in the institution of marriage and family and have faith in the existence of a loving God ? Sadly perhaps, the instruments of God are often his worst advocates.

Ironically, it is Gideon and not his religious colleagues or openly agnostic friends who are chosen to experience the spiritual awakening vis-à-vis an amazing encounter with the Devil during those missing hours between the time he fell off a cliff into the gushing waters whilst trying to rescue a friend's dog and the time he's delivered back into the arms of the living. The sudden appearance of a standing stone in Keldo Woods, a phenomenon though not exclusively visible to him but in fact observed only by him - is a spooky precursor of his strange encounter with the horned one. His conversation with the Devil reveals a message of abandonment by God, which in turn propels him to come clean with his community. His confession is unwelcome as it upsets the studied and ordered lives of those around him. His best friend's wife, Elsie, whom he lusts after and had a tryst with proves faithless even as a friend. His fellow minister, Lorna, who has long nursed a secret crush on him proves equally adept at shutting him out when the message of his strange encounter flies in the face of her religious belief. Are these people - religious or agnostic - in any sense better or morally superior to Gideon ? At least, Gideon was open and had the honesty and humility to confess his ignorance as a human being who may not know the truth but is vulnerable to revelations from the world beyond.

"The Testament of Gideon Mack" doesn't tell one to believe or not to believe. It does however nail religious belief to the realm of the unknown. People believe what they believe or want to believe. Regardless of the truth, with openness and humility, one is more likely to behave like a decent human being.

Robertson has written an incredibly rich and absorbing novel that is full of literary flourishes, wit and imagination. It makes for a thoroughly satisfying read. I can't recommend it highly enough.