Walsh Books

I just don't know about this book. I was excited about the subject and thought the concept was great. I found the thought of Dr. Gregory working for an organization that donates its time to solve cold cases to be fascinating. The first part of the book is regular Stephen White with all his facts, his twists and turns and getting to know the main characters. However, the back end of the book is what got me. It was like he had led you to a point where the deaths could be solved and the murderer or murderers could be 2 or 3 people. Then Mr. White sat down and said to himself, well let's make it someone else, but have all those others involved too. It was weird. I agree with some of the other reviews I've read about this book. It was implausible that Dr. Gregory even makes it out of this book alive after the situations he's painted in, but it's fiction so oh well. I found this book very interesting and easy to read and get into, but I also found the end of it maddening. I recommend it to readers of the Dr. Gregory series and to anyone looking for a good book just beware of the back third of the book.

The plot is good, the characters do act reasonably enough, there is some thrill, the location is well described, what else one would ask for?

And I liked the part where a pacticing clinical psychologist married to an ADA thinks that somebody else but not him is rich (in political sense).

It is too graphic for my modest tastes, though.

In this 8th addition to the series, Dr. Alan Gregory and his pregnant wife, Lauren Crowder are asked to offer their services to a volunteer based law enforcement agency by the name of Locard. The agency members have voted in agreement to take on their next assignment - to solve a mystery that is about a dozen years cold. It was 1988 when two high school friends, Tami and Miko were murdered. With Lauren's legal input and Alan's expertise as a clinical psychologist, the group of mixed professionals enthusiastically start their investigation.

This was neither my favorite nor least favorite book of the series so far. While it kept my interest, it lacked some of the energy and charm that I found with previous installments. We didn't get to see Alan at work in his downtown office and I actually missed the interaction between Dr. Gregory and his patients.

I do have to say this...for such a wimpy hero, Alan sure does find himself in a mountain of danger and often. He constantly worries about getting into trouble with his wife, he cannot stomach blood and guts, and when dire circumstances require that he handle a gun, he needs help turning the safety off! Nevertheless, for such a wimpy hero, he sure is lovable.

I appreciate good writing, I really do. This novel delivers that; White brings the characters alive quite well and weaves a good narrative that ties them all together naturally with very believable encounters. The trouble is, there's nothing interesting about them. It's a dull story, and that's really disappointing. I don't think I'm going to give up on White as an author, maybe I just chose the book to get acquainted with him.

In this, the eighth Alan Gregory thriller, the Colorado-based clinical psychologist and his wife, Boulder Assistant District Attorney Lauren Crowder, are asked to assist a private organization known as Locard. Comprised of former and current prosecutors, federal law enforcement agents, and forensic specialists, the group (named after the legendary 19th-century French detective Edmond Locard) specializes in providing assistance to local police in solving "cold cases," i. e., unsolved cases that have been open for an especially long time.

In this instance, Locard is investigating the murder of teenagers Tamara Franklin and Mariko Hamamoto, two close friends who disappeared from their homes in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, one cold November evening in 1988. The girls' bodies were discovered a few months later when the springtime thaw melted the snowbank in which their killer had hidden their corpses. Because the bodies had been mutilated (Tami's body was found sans a hand, Mariko's was missing the toes of one foot), local police sought an opportunistic killer, either a serial killer or a drifter, an approach that proved unsuccessful.

Asked to perform a "psychological autopsy," Gregory conducts interviews with several people connected to the case, including the girls' parents, siblings, and friends. His inquiries also bring him into contact with Mariko's psychologist, Dr. Raymond Welle. Welle has also known tragedy: Four years after the girls' disappearance, Welle's wife Gloria was apparently murdered by another of his patients, the severely depressed Brian Sample. The crime drew national headlines and propelled Welle into the public eye, first gaining him a syndicated talk show, then a Senate seat. Suspecting that Welle knows more about the case than he lets on, Gregory doggedly pursues the Senator.

Gregory's odyssey into the past affects him in varying ways. Of course, there's the thrill of the hunt, the intellectual challenge, and the satisfaction of bringing a criminal to justice. But that's not all, as Gregory becomes involved on a very personal level. His many interviews bring home a hard fact to the psychologist, namely that human beings inflict great damage on each other every day. He's reminded that murder has a ripple effect, irrevocably changing the lives of both survivors and victims. Gregory's personal life is also impacted by the investigation, as he becomes the target of forces anxious to conceal the truth. Touchingly, his thoughts in moments of peril always turn to his pregnant wife, and how he now has even more to live for than before.

If you had to choose one word to describe this novel, that word would probably be "intimate," in the sense that the reader's involvement in the narrative increases as Gregory digs deeper in his search for the truth. Of course, White pays a lot of attention to Gregory and Lauren Crowder; after eight novels, they feel like old friends. But White also lavishes a great deal of attention on the rest of his cast -- supporting characters are given sufficient substance to keep them interesting, from Kimber Lister, the somewhat pompous, agoraphobic leader of Locard, to family friend A. J. Simes, a retired FBI psychologist who, like Crowder, suffers from multiple sclerosis.

That's not to say that everything's perfect, however. For instance, the answer to the riddle Gregory faces is so complex that, once the perpetrators are revealed, it takes page upon page of exposition to explain their actions and motivations, causing one to wonder why they don't just shoot Gregory and be done with it. This is only a minor criticism, however, rendered inconsequential by the air of intimacy and immediacy White creates.

I got this book dirt cheap at HalfPricedBooks so I can't complain too much, if you can get it cheap why not!

I think it will be a good reference book for beginning directX programmers. What you end up with is a simple working 3d game engine. Most of what you get is functions to simplify the iterface with dx8.

However I found the writing style highly annoying. My english teachers repeated over and over "take out the fluff". And when all you are looking for is information (its a programming book not a novel) this book has way to much fluff. The author actually says his English teachers would never have guessed he would write a book (or if he did it would look like this book).

The examples he shows in the book are not all on the CD and he doesnt always give explicit enough instructions to setup the examples yourself (for me). Which code base am I suppose to use for this example, the final code base? chapter 5 code base?

But hopefully this will serve as a basic (and cheap) introduction which I will supplement with some internet research. My next step will be to code a simple game using the engine from this book, but that will definitely require some additional resources

I am now half way through this book and find it ok in some ways and not ok in other ways.

The CD does not correlate at all well with the examples in the book. This is a serious flaw, imho.

I judge most of the text in the book itself to be adequately written. It could have been better.

The book does seem to cover the important issues, however, so it does have value.

One can learn from this book.

I am not sure how to get the 3d examples to run in full screen, but if you make a few changes, they will run windowed pretty well.

First off you need to change the function InitDirect3DDevice that initializes direct x.
change to: d3dpp.BackBufferFormat = d3ddm.Format;
change to: d3dpp.Windowed = TRUE;
and comment out anything that starts out with d3dpp.FullScreen

then there is something wrong with the printing of the frame rate
comment out FrameCount(); from GameLoop()
comment out PrintFrameRate(); from Render()

it also makes it nice to change the window style to an overlapped window, hope that helped.

I see that many readers seem to have had problems getting the samples to compile. Having trouble using your compiler and debugging tools? I ran into compile errors, fixed them. Had a few runtime errors, fixed them too. Got every sample up and running with no tears.

Many of the readers who expressed dismay at simple compile errors go on to state that the have "solid" or "sound" or "extensive" C++ experience....

My only real complaint is that EVERY SINGLE VOLUME in the original Premier Press series had that danged C++ primer section that takes up almost a third of the book, rewritten over and over by each successive author. Thankfully, the newer books in the series seem to have dropped this bad habit. The end samples had that "cool" console and background that resized the background image for every frame - thus bad framerates. If you resize the image on load and then render the new image to the buffer instead it eliminates tons of overhead - bringing framerates up to the cap of 60fps on most systems (I have a computer graveyard here and some of them were only able to reach 28fps - p2/400 w/256MB RAM and an old Voodoo 2). Eliminating the background starfield brought the framerate up to 60fps on all of my systems.

Zen Lesson 1: Optimization is all in YOUR head.

And as far as "figuring out what order to call" various functions - a little time with a piece of paper and a little know-how with flowcharts might help you out there.

Some day you should try sitting down with a technical whitepaper on a system and try sorting things out from that. Too many people are apron-string programmers who can't figure out anything for themselves - hand-holding babies without a clue. Stop whining, learn something about the trade you're trying to embrace, and realize that mommy isn't going to code your game for you.

Have a nice day and happy coding.

Richard

This book hardly qualifies to use the word Zen in its title if refering to Direct3D. Of the 16 chapters in the book, a mere 5 of them actually deal with things related to Direct3D. The first seven chapters deal only with Windows programming, which anyone who is reading a "Zen" book should already know. There is a lot of time spent talking about using the GDI with DirectGraphics surfaces which, by the author's own admission, is not adequately fast enough to write a game.

The final project of the book is to simulate a solar system with planets and moons revolving around the sun. There is no discussion whatsoever about keyframe or skeletal animation techniques.

Mr. Walsh may be living in a world where all 3D games are space shooters where we only have to be able to rotate planets and spaceships, but maybe he should realize that the rest of us are not. Anyone interested in really programming in 3D needs real animation techniques which do not just include rotation and translation.

This is all beside the fact that you have to recompile all of the code on the CD because the compiled version is the same program copied over and over and over...

Your money is much better spent on a better book. Even Advanced 3-D Game Programming using DirectX 7.0 by Andre Perez is a better but out-of-date choice.

Although I don't program in Perl, I bought this book because it was recommended as a reference for using TK with the Ruby language, since there is no good documentation for Ruby/TK. I found the book very easy to use, and was able to make some fairly complex GUI's pretty quickly. I use the book a lot, and highly recommend it.

This is a solid tutorial that goes through the most important components in Tk and contains good illustrations. You won't become an expert (see that word "Learning" in the title?), and the writing is clear but not spectacular. Before getting this book I tried to read up on Tk on the web and spent many hours trying to get a simple text component to do my bidding. After having read this book, it took me an hour to get the entire app done. Don't repeat my mistake; get this book if you do Perl/Tk!

This book would be more aptly titled "Perl/Tk: Lengthy Appendices, with Introduction". As some other reviewers have noted, the book presents the Perl/Tk interface in repetitive and extrodinary detail. Unfortunately, no concise summary of all this information exists on 1 or 2 pages, so the book fails to hold a niche as a desk reference.

If you're looking for raw and useful code, you'll be disappointed for sure--the book consists of almost none. The in-text examples are short and trivial, rarely serving a useful or real world application. This would not be so bad, had the author included some complete (or perhaps even partial) solutions to the suggested exercises, found at the end of nearly every chapter. Unfortunately, such code is nowhere to be found.

So what redeeming qualities does it have? I approached this book without experience with GUIs or Tk, and while learning Perl. Through the help of this book I've picked up the basics I need to create programs which allow for simple GUIs to make my programs accessible to those scared of the command line.

I bought this book with experience with GUI programming experience in both Windows and Linux, but had never really tried TCL/Tk. Perl being my latest obsession, I decided it was time to write some graphical front-ends for my scripts. As I scoped out the field, I reallized that the pickings were slim: only 3 books soley on the TK Perl module. Figuring I wasn't ready for the "Mastering Perl/TK", I bought the "Learning Perl/Tk" (with the Pocket Reference as well). Having finished and applied the knowledge I acquired from the book, I must say that the book leaves a rather strange "after-taste". While it is certainly sufficient for actually learning Perl/Tk, it really moves rather quickly and doesn't cover much in the full scheme of things. Will you be able to write pretty GUIs for your Perl scripts? Why of course, but don't expect to learn anything too complex. I found that this book alone is really not good for learning how to create complex GUIs that are on par with standard GUI APIs found on most desktop computers, and thus some online research is neccessary.

On a more positive note, I really like the way the book is organized. Much better than "Programming Perl", "Learning Perl" or "Mastering Regular Expressions". Just about every other page has a code demonstration and screen shot of how one of the widgets/concepts is implemented. Very nice, when compared to standard O'reilly work.

In a nutshell (no pun intended), "Learning Perl/Tk" is a good reference book that introduces Perl programmers to the Tk module, but really falls short of perfection by not demonstrating the practical integrating of Tk within a Perl script. If you have experience with TCL/Tk, buy "Mastering Perl/Tk" instead, but if you have no Tk/GUI experience, pick this one up and purchase "Mastering Perl/TK" after you have the basic/intermediate concepts down.

I used this book to learn the basics of Tk with Perl under Windows, and found it a fine, concise and clear reference. It got me quickly to the point of being able to develop useful graphical applications and gave what I felt to be a good grounding in important concepts and points. It does not address absolutely everything you will eventually need to know, but at least you will have a good grounding and probably find the subsequent learning curve a lot shallower as a result. Important coverage of the geometry managers (pack, place and grid) is well presented and good examples are given. Numerous other possibly trivial but extremely helpful things are here too: how to set the size and initial screen location of Tk-generated window (use the 'geometry' method), a good discussion of the colour-management issues of the various widgets - including how to find the file of colour definitions under various operating systems, and a clear explanation of the various ways to call subroutines (and pass parameters to them) using '-command'.

Ms. Walsh's style is light and conversational, not at all 'difficult' and without the usual 'clever geek' frills (for example, I personally hate the use of 'foo' and 'bar' as variable and function names everywhere in computing books - it smacks of self-congratulatory cleverness, and more than a tad 'Oh, don't you get it?'). Fortunately that is absent here.

Highly recommended if you are new to Tk under Perl, as it contains essential information and is well written and presented. Definitely worth the money.

I didn't like the book fireweed because it wasn't very interesting. The book also didn't have a lot of suspenseful events. The book, Fireweed, was about a boy that had problems at home with his aunt, he runs away from his house and he was sent to London. In London the buildings were falling and the streets were bad because London was bombed, in London he meets a girl on the street, she also ran away from home. She asks him if he has money because she was hungry. He didn't have any money so the girl took him to a diner. They had to hold hands so people could think that they were brother and sister. She had enough money for bacon and eggs. There was a war during the time. The boy was sad because he wanted to get his fathers address from his aunt before he left but she wouldn't give it to him. He wanted his fathers address so he could write to him. The boy and the girl were talking about there life's and how they ended up in London. I didn't like reading the book because it was pretty boring and I couldn't really understand what they were talking about. I think that this book is for people that like to read about love stories.

Fireweed

Do you like books about love and war? If you do you, will love Fireweed. This book is about two young kids that find each other. They both ran away from their homes and families. They found each other and they fell in love. When this was going on, there was a war. This war was WWII. This war was very dangerous and they were tying to survive it. This took place in London. This book is about beating the odds and surviving with each other.

The characters of this book are called Bill and Julie, but the boy in this book lies about his name. His real name was not Bill. I really didn't like this book. I guess I'm not a person that likes to read books about love and war. This is not my type of book to read. When you would read this book, you would know what would happen next and that did not make it interesting. It's like, if you know what was going to happen next, why read the rest of the book? But if you like books about love and war, this is the book for you.

In my own opinion this book wasn't very good. It is about a boy and a girl that run away from their families. They tell everybody that they are brother and sister and that their names are Bill and Julie Vernon-Greene. This book is unique because it takes place a long time ago. It takes place during the 1940's in London during WWII. This book is written in the form of a novel. There are blazing streets, toppling buildings, air-raid wardens and Rescue Squads. I didn't like this book because I'm not interested in those books that take place a long time ago.

Fireweed is a coming of age story in WWII London. Two teenagers learn about self-reliance and responsibilities as they survive on their own during the bombing of London.

Ms. Walsh captures the angst, selfishness, and drama of the young having to cope with a world that is suddenly changed forever, as well as the resilience and ingenuity that came with suddenly having to take care of themselves and eachother in a time when life continued on as bombs falling at any time became almost commonplace.

I read this book first as a pre-teen. It has haunted me for years and is still touching now reading it again at 32.

Fireweed is written by Jill Patton Walsh. Fireweed is a book about romance, you should read this One! Now! This book is written by a first person point of view. Fireweed is about these two kids named Bill and Julie that both of them ran way from their parents and they met each other on the train station and they went out to eat, but there was a war taking place and Julie got hurt. What do you think happened next? Try and finding out , Reading this book was very easy for me because a lot of kids run away from home and desperately parents don't know which way to find them. What I did like about this book was that the story it was nice and one thing I didn't like was they said in chapter three and they start telling the beginning. My opinion about the book was that there was too much love it was kind of annoying and how they met each other and that was boring so only because I say I didn't like it that doesn't mean that you don't like it and if it is interesting to you go ahead and read it. ENJOY!

While certainly an enjoyble read and very well researched,John Evangelist Walsh's book 'Midnight Dreary' does not present an utterly convincing case as to the cause of Edgar Allan Poe's death.
I really did enjoy reading this book and it does present a nice picture of Poe's final days.The real problem is that Walsh's theory is really to dependant on a certain amount of speculation,and as another reviewer noted Walsh seems to bend the facts to make it fit his theory rather then the other way round,like assuming Poe's visit to John Sartain was in fact in October instead of July of 1849 as Sartain said.Well its obvious a certain amount of speculation is needed to come up with any idea as to how Poe died as there are simply not enough established facts as to what occured during those 5 days that Poe was missing and the events surrounding it to say for certain what occured then.That being said the speculation in this book does go a bit over board and is based it seems on mainly cicrumstancial evidence.As for Walsh suggesting certain people in those times where in fact mistaken or lied about the dates that things happened,well thats just unacceptable.

If you want a decent account of Poe's final days and another theory as to how the man died this book is worth reading however if what you seek is a book to put forth a truly convincing theory on Poe's death this book will be a bit of a disapointment

An interesting Poe murder theory.true Poe did make alot of enemies and even if it is gossip it can still hurt a persons reputation,especially if the gossipers themselves are socially prominent,"In my opinion of course Mr.Poe is a(gold digging,womanizing,drunkard-personally i respect the mans' works but can't stand him as a person)"The book spends some time going over alot of these rumours that even if untrue do seem to stick.Silverman in his book suggested that Poe may have been impotent,but this work turns him into a probable lecher(all rumour however)I am convinced that he was engaged to Elmira Shelton(a wealthy widow and childhood sweetheart of Poe) at the time of his Baltimore/Richmond/ Philly mishaps.Poe's ego would make him feel justified in such a high stake game for after all as poe would remind one,"I wrote "The Raven" .The book strongly suggests that Ms. Shelton"s 3 brothers were anything but impressed with Mr. Poe and may have engineered his unfortunate mishaps resulting in his demise.The Shelton brothers and both of Elmira Sheltons'adult children wanted nothing to do with Poe and may have seen his engagement as an attempt by Poe to "land a cash cow" for his pet projects.It's all speculation but it could fit as logically as the bunk about the election day "cooping" which the author proves false to at least my satisfaction.the pictures in the book all relate to this detective story. Is the stern face of Elmira Shelton the result of a stern Puritanic faith or is she hiding a terrible secret?Kissinger always said "even the true paranoic has real enemies",and Poe would definitely have made headlines for todays tabloids.Remember he married his 13 year old first cousin and then the rumours of alcohol and opiates not to mention the harsh criticisms of other writers that could be studied by those wishing to give "the perfect insult"..I always theorized that maybe Poe had a diabetic episode in Baltimore that left him at the mercy of urban predators who stole his clothes,then beat and robbed him.It never entered my mind before reading this book that maybe someone was hired for the job and Poe became only too aware of it.DT's have little to nothing to do with this book.It is a detective story that Poe himself would have been proud to write.

What kills John E. Walsh's book is that he spends the first half of his book debunking others for their half-cooked theories on Poe's death and their basis on speculation rather than evidence. The second half of the book is Walsh's own half-cooked theory on Poe's death based on speculation rather than evidence.

And to the "doc" who posted: many doctors have considered this case over the past 150 years and each has come up with a different final answer. His alcoholism is not a fact and is in wide dispute, and he may have been sober for at least a year before his death. Case closed...?

Those who take issue with John Evangelist Walsh's "Midnight Dreary" are, I think, missing the point. Certainly, there is truth to the suggestion that this is two books, one, a detailed recreation of the last days of Poe and two, the author's attempt to make sense of the random data and form a reasonable explanation.

In the first instance, Walsh succeeds beyond one's expectations. I ahve read dozens of biographies of Poe and have not come across a good deal of this material. Letters, journal entries, recollections of personal interviews - Walsh succeeds in bringing extant material to light.

In the second endeavor, Walsh has not been as successful. In my opinion, he falls into every theorists greatest trap - attempting to bend the facts to fit his hypothesis. In several cases, Walsh accuses his subjects of faulty memory and/or outright embellishment. "Such and such can not have occurred on this date, but if we assume that the wrier was incorrect and it actually occurred on blah-blah date, then it all makes sense." No. No and no. As observers of history, we do not have the luxury of assuming those who lived it were forgetful liars.

Nonetheless, this IS an interesting book and it is a treasure trove of data for those interested in Poe's death. Additionally, it is written in an interesting, conversational style that I found quite readable. I enjoyed this book, as a reader and as an historian.

John Walsh's book is certainly a good read and the only people who seem to have trouble with it are people who don't understand that all the pieces of the puzzle aren't available and never will be. In situations like that, good investigative work has to be used--along with a good understanding of your subject and the times to make up situations not known. John Walsh certainly has both. I was thoroughly enthralled by his storytelling and even more impressed by his deductions and his careful telling of where he got his information. Of course, there are some things he doesn't know so he deduced them based on the knowledge at hand. If done intelligently (as done here), it will convince the reader. I think Edgar Allen Poe would rest easy knowing someone finally straightened out his last days.

You have to have VID enterprise edition if you want to hop on database stuff. That is one thing. The other is that author does not give full and detailed explanations of his doings-global.asa file is not always created by itself but rather you have to go into ODBC to set it up!!! Other than that it has some BASIC intro to ASP. These Dummies books do not offer much for 30 bucks. They worth barely 20, that is why I order them through Amazon.

I own several VID 6 books and this one answered many questions the others didn't. It was easy to understand and I would highly recommend to anyone. The book doesn't cover everything; however, it covers the most common tools you need to get the job done. Wonderful book!

I like books that teach by working through a sample project. The best of these types of books will give you the basic aspects of programming to get you up and running. This book is bits and pieces of Visual Interdev, but just when you think you're off and running it stops short, which is my take on the whole book.

I bought Visual Interdev 6 for Dummies because I wanted a quick tutorial aimed at someone with no previous exposure to Interdev. I was looking for something that would walk me through all aspects of the program in a way that was easy to understand. Unfortunately, this book didn't meet my expectations at all. The first few chapters gave an adequate overview of the layout of the various windows, menu bars, etc., but as soon as the book progressed into work samples I started feeling lost. The progression of the sections didn't seem to flow together in a logical way, and the practice scripts and projects were sometimes poorly explained. By the time I reached Chapter 10 or so I was feeling like a total imbecile for not understanding the examples. I finally gave up on it and bought Practical Visual InterDev 6 by Michael Amundsen, which has exactly what I wanted--clear, concise, step-by-step examples. I breezed through the whole book and now feel like an Interdev pro! And I wish I had never bought Visual Interdev for 6 for Dummies...it was a waste of my money and time.

If this book is the best of the "Dummies" series, then I know to steer clear of these books. The book provides few examples where the user is walked through a project from start to finish. The author merely explains aspects of the project as he sees fit.

Walsh certainly comes up with an interesting topic that has been bypassed by other historians. The case involves Duff Anderson and his use of a deadly weapon in killing a large man. Because of his friendship with the family, Abe Lincoln defended Duff in court and got him acquited of the charge of murder. In the trial itself, Abe may have used an incorrect almanac, and this was not challenged by the prosecution. Because of this, a guilty man may have went free. Walsh also questions other Lincoln cases in the book. This is all interesting reading, even though unproven.
I give the author credit in writing about a topic that has not been explored in great detail. He writes this as history, but there is not enough evidence here to convict Lincoln. Lincoln used the full extent of his powers to defend his client. At this stage, there is not enough documentation to prove he doctored the almanac. This is a quick short interesting read.

I think this book is an interesting evocation of the ethical scruples of Lincoln as lawyer. Contrary to the conclusion drawn by the author, the sources he relies upon demonstrate that Lincoln was ethical in the zealous representation of his client, an accused murderer. Even under today's legal standards, Lincoln would have been correct to instruct a witness that he was only interested in the witness's ability to testify on a single factual aspect of the trial and to instruct the witness to tell him nothing else except the truth about that single fact. During his preparation for trial, when the witness tried to stray from his instructions and inform Lincoln of other observations, Lincoln would have been within his right to interrupt and remind him that he mustn't offer additional observations beyond the fact requested.

Even today we instruct juries that they may believe all, part, or none of a witness's testimony. Lawyers are held to no different standards in their use of witnesses at trial except lawyers may not offer a witness whose testimony the lawyer believes would commit a fraud upon the court. Lincoln never placed this witness on the stand to elicit any testimony other than what the witness stated to be the truth. Thus the claim that Lincoln "suborned perjury" is naive and insulting. For all that, I enjoyed the underlying research, and the author's exposition of it. It does strike me that consultation with an attorney would have vastly improved the history and dampened the sensationalism.

"Moonlight" by John Walsh is an embarassment to honest Lincoln scholarship. It is a book with enormous potential to illustrate one of Abraham Lincoln's most famous legal cases, but instead it weaves a narrative feculent with specious logic; the factual assertions of unknown, unknowable and unproveable theories; and assumption after assumption after assumption. Walsh proves some important points, and makes good use of some primary and secondary sources. He offers a detailed account of the murder, the trial and the outcome that cannot be found elsewhere. However, the positive attributes of the book become overshadowed by Walsh's outrageous assertions of supposition as fact, his assertions without qualification or citation, and his complete reliance, as unassailable proof and fact, on the second-hand interview of a trial juror 50 years after the trial. More than once Walsh makes unknowable and unproveable assertions, then admits he can't prove them, then dismisses this serious circumstance as unimportant. For example: "That the charge was levelled during Lincoln's senatorial campaign of 1858 is stated in many sources but I have not been able to document it." (p 155) "Moonlight" is a lost opportunity. The frighteningly childish writing quality, the fanciful indulgences, suppositions, specious logic, appearance of questionable sources and Walsh's own obvious insularity in his investigative objective, make this book a sham, and an insult to the field of historical research.

This is nearly a very good book. Walsh has done credible research and his bibliography is helpful. He clarifys the issues in the almanac trial and provides a picture of Lincoln at work as a defense attorney as few have. BUT.. In his introduction Walsh says, "no fictional coloring has been added" and eveything "rests squarely on documented sources." If only that were so. The tone of the book is like an over-ripe romance novel. I counted two !s and five usues of italics for emphasis in the introduction alone. He virtually admits he can not prove any of his more florid conclusions. A defense attorney is not on a quest for the truth. He or she need only make the prosecution's case look uncertain, which is what Lincoln did. Walsh states that Lincoln could not help the man convicted of killing Metzer, "without endangering Duff [Lincoln's client.]"
Duff had already been aquitted. He could not have been tried for the same crime twice. It is a shame that with all the good work he did Walsh did not present the case in a factual matter. he could have raised very interesting ethical questions about the role of a defense attorney with a very probably guilty client. He did not.

Walsh does diligent spadework with the original sources and clears up many misconceptions about the famous "Almanac Trial." Unfortunately he engenders a few misconceptions himself. The greatest misconception he engenders is his portrayal of Lincoln as behaving in an ethically challenged fashion. Not so.

Walsh reports that Lincoln, in his investigation, told a witness not to tell him about inculpatory evidence against his client and then goes on to have the witness manufacture exculpatory evidence. Not so. Walsh serious misinterprets what was going on. One of Armstrong's friends stood ready to testify that the slunshot found at the crime scene was his, that he had set it aside and forgotten it at the scene, and that insofar as he knew, Armstrong never had it. The slungshot was allegedly used by Armstrong to beat the victim. The witness also would have testified that he saw Armstrong hit Metzger with a wagon hammer, not a slunshot, but Lincoln didn't inquire into this evidence and didn't present it at trial. Lincoln did nothing unethical. As the representative of the defendant, who has a Fifth Amendment Privilege, Lincoln was under no duty to disclose inculpatory evidence. He was quite possibly foolish in calling the witness because the prosecution might have wheedled the information out of the witness on cross, but that didn't happen.

Walsh then speculates that Lincoln told the witness to testify that he mislaid the slunshot and the witness obliged. This speculation is contrary to the probabilities. The witness was afraid he would be asked on cross if he saw Armstrong hit Metzger. If he had been asked, he would have admitted it. If he was such a liar as to make up a story about mislaying the slungshot, he would not have stuck at lying and saying he never saw Armstrong hit Metzger.

Walsh then claims that when the star witness for the prosecution disappeared, Lincoln personally had him hauled into court so he could cross examine the man. Not so. Lincoln would have been happy to have the witness, one Allen, not appear, because he was the heart and soul of the state's case. Without him, there was no testimony that Armstrong hit Metzger with anything more than his fist, which could not have produced the injury. Lincoln retrieved the wayward witness because he learned that Armstrong's family had hidden him to keep him from testifying. If Allen had failed to appear on his own, Lincoln would have been under no obligation to go get him. But that is not what happened, Lincoln's "allies" spirited the witness away and he could not be party to such a circumvention of justice. When he found out about the maneuver, he ordered them to bring Allen back.

Then Walsh claims Lincoln lied in final argument. Judging by the eyewitness reports, Lincoln said some things that would never be said in a modern courtroom, but the 1800's were a time of bombastic oratory. What Lincoln supposedly said was nothing more than that, bombast aimed at stirring up sympathy.

Walsh's book shows that Lincoln comported himself strictly within the bounds of legal ethics, but you have to ignore Walsh's off-the-mark analysis to see it. I'd give the book two stars if it weren't such a goldmine of information on the trial.

This is the best review of the law firms for the prospective associate. In contrast to similar resources, its reviews do not merely parrot the happy-face PR from the firm's web page. There is a big difference between law firms that is difficult to ascertain from the firms' published materials or from a handful of half hour interviews -- every law student choosing between bigfirm jobs should read the Insider's Guide.

On the downside, the selection of firms which are reviewed is somewhat limited.

The internet has essentially made this book obsolete since you can find more comprehensive research online. Also, heaven knows how they select the firms for the book since there are many very respectable firms that are unlisted.

This book had stale information when it came out years ago and now it appears that they don't plan to update it. I heeard that the original authors became embroiled in litigation and lost the rights to the book. Well it's a shame and it shows.

The information is this book is totally out of date and is approaching uselessness at this point. Try the Vault.com Guide to the Top Law Firms, or check out the Vault.com site, where all the law firms profiles are updated in real time.

I just graduated from HLS and I found this book to be pretty useful. Many of my classmates also used it. On balance, however, I'd say the Vault Reports guide was more useful. The Insider's Guide covers many firms, but the books sounds like it was written by law students -- a bit stilted and risk-adverse. The Vault Reports Guide was fresher and had deeper, edgier detail. In sum, I'd say both books are good efforts, but the Vault guide was my favorite.

Bottom line the book was very informative, which is what I was looking for. The writer takes a critical look at Opus Dei, and does a good job covering the history of the organization and the founder as well as describing current activities. If you are looking to learn about Opus Dei from an outsider's point of view, I highly recommend this book.

Though it is chocked full of supposedly crystal clear evidence of Opus Dei's evil ways, most of the research is plainly outdated and mostly irrelevant. I tried desperately to read this book with an open mind. Yet Walsh's tone becomes shrill bordering on the infantile with certain phrasing, particularly at the end of the book, not at all hiding his deeply personal hatred for Opus Dei. For a man who left the priesthood, it's hardly surprising that he would have an intellectual problem with celibacy amongst lay men and women. A Catholic group getting political when the Jesuit priest Fr. Drinan spent several terms in Congress? I can't help but find astonishing that a man who used to give out the sacraments to the Faithful could examine another Catholic group through such narrow lenses of supposed "left" and "right" and could leave almost no material in his "investigation" to the actual spiritual content of his subject.

This one shares the spotlight with Lucien Gregoire's "Murder in the Vatican' for tops in murder and intrique within the Church. I strongly recommend that you not pass this one up

If those writing negative reviews about this book are Opus Dei members, then those writing positive reviews about this book are limp wristed liberals. Give me a break. Try reviewing the book instead of pushing your agenda. Of course, people who liked this book were swayed by the agenda than any actual facts contained therein.

I'm not a member of Opus Dei, and even though I've read portions of The Way, I'm far from being an expert about Opus Dei. However, it was so glaringly obvious that Michael Walsh has a bone to pick and had skewed his facts so badly it really was an utter waste of time to continue reading.

How in the world can a Jesuit criticize any religious organization for meddling in secular politics? It's laughable.

One has to wonder why so many people have gone so far out of their way to throw insults and slander at others trying to live simple, Christ-centered lives as they go about their humble, normal, everyday activities. There are powers with which we are at war... powers that would like to see less Christ-centered, humble people running around.

It is easy to recognize that some or all of the negative
reviews for this book here on Amazon were written by Opus Dei members. Contrary to what they claim, Walsh has written a well researched history of the movement, reporting accurately and fairly on some of the controversy surrounding its founder and his legacy. This is a balanced work well worth the read.

I have some experience with programming (from school and from a few programs back in the 80s and early 90s.) but did not have any object oriented programming experience. This book brings you up to speed on OOP and teaches Java at a very basic level. I was able to skim through the sections that were too basic and learn what I needed to learn. Lots of great utilities on the CDs. You don't have to shop around -- one set of books and software will get you started. If you like Java programming, you can move onto other tools or get the professional versions of the software provided. Great package for the beginner or for a refresher!

Comes with 2 books and 2 CD-Roms. It is so easy to understand. Overall, 2 great books, and 2 great CDs.

This book is honestly the worst programming book I have ever read in my entire life. I've been programming with other languages for years, and never have I had a more horrible experience learning from a book. I thought that being a "Dummy Book" that it would be easy, but I was wrong. The author makes it hard to understand...And the REAL kicker is that the example code included on the CD ROM for the book, does not even match the code that is in the book! Some of the code that is written in the book will not even compile with out errors. Please, do yourself a favor, and do not buy this book.

Most of the information contained in the book can be located online for FREE! Don't waste your money, instead learn how to search the net for programming tips and tutorials.

Java 2 Toolkit was a good book it really helped me out. I learned all I know about Java.