Rhode Island Books

I have purchased this book for my brothers because it contains the recipes from our youth....and for my children, so that I can write anecdotes for them and keep the memories alive. This nostalgic collection of 'famous RI recipes' is just the best!

This book provides a good introduction of the state to the first time visitor to Rhode Island, as well as authentic recipes. It was also a welcome gift to my homesick aunt in California...

I purchased this book because I grew up in Narragansett RI. (My great Grandfather was a chef in Providence.) I moved away and miss it terribly! These recipes brought back wonderful memories of my home state. Some of the recipes have a valuable familiarity about them that makes me smile. When I make food from this book, everyone is very impressed and I feel like a piece of home is always with me.

Being a native Rhode Islander transplanted to New York I found myself missing the old RI grub. I longed for "tree all da way" and Palmieri's Pizza Strips and a cold Del's, but to no avail. Nothing here compares to a weiner from Olneyville.

Are these recipes exact duplicates? Not quite, but close enough to take the edge off the homesickness. I highly recommend this book to any lost Rhode Islanders longing for home-even just a taste of it. Just the names conjure up memories of Providence and the ocean--Silver Lake Pizza, Coffee Milk, Lemon Squares and Zeppoles, Rhode Island Clear Chowda or Buddy Cianci's Marinara Sauce.

Now--if I could just figure out how to make Allie's Doughnuts.....

The Revolutionary War army of Rhode Island was in poor condition, so they decided to enlist slaves in the army. The slaves would make the same pay as whites and earn their freedom. The book also discusses the Native Americans who were colonists's slaves after King Philip's War (100 years before the Revolutionary War), whose descendants were still slaves at the time of the Revolutionary War. The drawings are interesting and the information about this unique part of US history is fascinating.

Rhode Island's "Black Regiment" was made up primarily of slaves who had been promised freedom in return for fighting. This is a fascinating story, thoroughly told and amply illustrated with original watercolors, maps, historic images and documents, with sidebars for clarifications. Though designed for Grades 2-6, I feel the reading level and type size are really more suitable for 4-6, though younger grades will definitely enjoy it as a book talk.

A bit of history regarding the American Revolution is relatively unknown and rarely taught in school. In order to fill out its military forces, the fledgling state of Rhode Island recruited into the ranks of the American forces hundreds of black and Native American slaves who worked on plantations in the state, promising them their freedom at the end of the war. Several black freemen also responded to the call, making up the first predominantly African-American fighting force in U.S. history. Within weeks of its creation, the Black Regiment was thrust into the Battle of Rhode Island -- the only major land battle against the British and their Hessian mercenaries in New England during the American Revolution. The Black Regiment Of The American Revolution was scrupulously researched by author and library program coordinator Linda Crotta Brennan, and superbly illustrated by Cheryl Kirk Noll for young readers ages 7 to 11 and grades 2 to 6. No elementary school or community library should be without at least one copy of The Black Regiment Of The American Revolution for the American History and Black Studies collections.

For many years, the view was widely held that Japan's Midway Operation in June 1942 was limited to two major aims. The first was to extend Japan's eastern defensive perimeter to the Midway Atoll, and thereby deprive the United States of its last island outpost west of Hawaii. The second aim was to draw the aircraft carriers of the United States Pacific Fleet to a decisive battle off Midway where they could be destroyed by the Japanese Navy.

Powerful historical evidence now indicates that Admiral Yamamoto had a third aim when he launched his Midway Operation. He did not intend simply to capture Midway Atoll and garrison it. The Japanese knew that it would be impossible to supply, maintain and hold a tiny atoll so far from Japan. It was too small to develop into a stronghold. Moreover, it was within range of B-17 heavy bombers based on Oahu. If he succeeded in destroying the carriers of the US Pacific Fleet at Midway, Yamamoto intended to use Midway Atoll as a stepping stone to attack Hawaii. At the highest levels of Japan's Combined Fleet, the plan to attack Hawaii was known as "Eastern Operation".

New light was thrown on the full scope of Japan's Midway Operation by Professor John J. Stephan in his book "Hawaii under the Rising Sun: Japan's Plans for Conquest after Pearl Harbor" (1984), University of Hawaii Press. At the time he wrote that book, Dr Stephan was Professor of Modern Japanese History at the University of Hawaii. Professor Stephan speaks and reads Japanese fluently, and he has lectured at the National Defence College at Tokyo and major Japanese universities (including Tokyo and Waseda).

Based upon extensive research and documentation, including the combing of Japanese archives and discussions with Japanese military historians, Professor Stephan claims in his book that the aims of Japan's Midway Operation were not limited to destruction of the US Pacific Fleet and the capture of Midway Atoll as an end in itself. He claims that the capture of Midway Atoll was intended to be the first stage of a more ambitious plan that would culminate in a major Japanese attack on Hawaii. The next step would be the occupation of America's Johnston Island (710 miles south-west of Pearl Harbor), and then establishing bases on Hawaii, the largest island in the Hawaiian archipelago. Having established air and naval bases on Hawaii, Stephan claims that the Japanese intended to launch air and naval attacks on Oahu from those bases. Professor Stephan claims that the planned operations against Johnston Island and Hawaii were aspects of what was known collectively at the highest levels of Japan's Combined Fleet as Eastern Operation, and that Eastern Operation was predicated on the destruction of the carriers of the US Pacific Fleet at Midway. As Admiral Yamamoto saw it, the placing of a Japanese noose around Oahu, and relentlessly tightening it, offered the best prospect of drawing the United States into peace talks that would lead to recognition of Japan's claim to domination of the western Pacific region and save Japan from a prolonged war that Yamamoto believed would inevitably be disastrous for Japan.

Professor Stephan supplies extensive references in his book to support his account of Japanese strategic planning for an attack on Hawaii in 1942, and intra-service and inter-service squabbling between Pearl Harbor and the Battle of Midway (these references appear as page notes at the end of the book). Many of his references are Japanese sources, both published and unpublished. The distinguished Japanese military historian, Ikuhiko Hata, lends his support to Professor Stephan's research and conclusions about Imperial Japanese planning for an invasion of Hawaii, as does Professor Henry Frei who lectures in Japanese history at Tsukuba Women's University.

Professor Stephan claims that on 3 June 1942 (Tokyo Time) Major General Tanaka instructed his subordinates in the Operations Section of Army General Staff to prepare a feasibility study for an assault on Oahu (p.119). On 5 June 1942 (Tokyo Time) the four fleet carriers of the Japanese carrier striking force at Midway were destroyed by SBD dive-bombers of the US Pacific Fleet. For an extensive illustrated account of the momentous Battle of Midway and its importance in the overall scheme of World War 2 see my web-site at

www.users.bigpond.com/pacificwar/Midway.html

Professor Stephan claims that the disaster at Midway put an end to "Eastern Operation", and that on 8 June 1942 (Tokyo Time), all training for the Hawaii invasion was cancelled (p.120).

CONCLUSION

Professor Stephan limits himself to an examination of Japan's strategic aims when it launched the Midway Operation in June 1942. He tells us what Admiral Yamamoto was planning to achieve in Hawaii if the Midway Operation fulfilled Japanese expectations and produced the annihilation of the US Pacific Fleet. In my view, Professor Stephan has very properly, and sensibly, avoided the quite separate and speculative issue of whether or not Japan had the capability to capture or seriously threaten Oahu if it had succeeded in destroying the US Pacific Fleet.

As a Pacific War historian and author of the Battle of Midway web-site (reference above), I found Professor Stephan's scholarship impressive and his conclusions about Japan's Midway Operation convincing. His research and conclusions about the full scope of the Midway Operation resolve the difficult problems raised by the suggestion from Japanese naval officers Fuchida and Okumiya in their book "Midway: The Battle that Doomed Japan" that the aims of the Midway Operation were limited to the destruction of the US Pacific Fleet and the capture and garrisoning of Midway Atoll as an end in itself. If the Midway Operation is accepted as being the first step in a Japanese plan to seize Hawaii and thereby persuade the United States to take part in peace talks favourable to Japan, Midway is clearly entitled to be viewed not only as the most important battle of the Pacific War but also as one of the five most important battles of World War II.

. Equipped with Japanese language skills and academic experience in Japan, Dr. Stephan conducted exhaustive research into military and civilian sources in order to develop the full story of Japan's designs upon Hawaii in the early stages of WWII. His book reveals a serious intent to actually invade and occupy the islands, primarily to deny the U.S. Navy its natural springboard for challenging Japanese advances in the Pacific. The kicker in that regard was the Doolittle Raid in April 1942, which convinced the Japanese Army that Hawaii was a threat that had to be neutralized.
. A secondary goal was to liberate the "Asian" poplace of Hawaii (which to Imperial Japan was everyone there except Caucasians) and bring them into their Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere. Some Japanese even advocated annexing Hawaii outright, as a natural extension of their own island nation.
. One surprise to this reviewer was learning the extent to which many of Hawaii's ethnic Japanese citizens directly participated in the mother country's war, at least before Pearl Harbor. Many served in the Imperial armed forces (i.e., in China) and others returned to Japan before Pearl Harbor to support the war through academic or jounalistic pursuits. There is no suggestion, though, that Japanese-Americans in Hawaii (after Pearl Harbor) engaged in any such activities.
. The book also reveals that a Japanese attempt to take and hold Hawaii was most likely doomed to failure; a potential calamity on a grand scale. By late 1942 (the proposed time frame for the invasion) U.S. forces on Oahu alone were far superior, at least in numbers, to the proposed Japanese invasion force. Ghastly attrition of invasion troops would have been unavoidable, even if the campaign was ultimately successful. And once in control of Hawaii, Japan clearly didn't have the logistic capacity to sustain themselves there--there's no way their merchant marine could have replaced the necessary constant flow of supplies coming from the U.S. Both conquerers and conquered would have faced cruel deprivation in a few short months.
. Clearly, Hawaii would have been Japan's "Bridge Too Far." Everyone--Japanese, Hawaiians, and other Americans--were far better off because the Battle of Midway put an abrupt end to the whole idea.
. In summary, this is a fascinating topic that will hold the interest of any serious student of WWII in the Pacific. Dr. Stephan's treatment of it is highly detailed, thoroughly researched, and presented in a manner that holds the reader's interest from cover to cover.

This is true scholarship in service of a great question. A distinguished historian at University of Hawaii, Stephan analyzes the place of Hawaii in Japanese military strategy in WW II. Obviously, this raises the question of the fate of Japanese-Americans during World War II. The issue has received illumination in recent books by Greg Robinson and Eric Muller. Stephan offers a politically incorrect interpretation that indicates that the Japanese military thought they could rely on using American Japanese for their purposes following a successful invasion of Hawaii. The prospect cannot be denied. With internal national security issues more vital than ever, Stephan's book should be on the minds of all serious students and citizens today.

This is a very cool CD showing you the various Newport mansions. You can pan around inside the rooms, looking at all the walls, even the floor and ceiling.

I like it because when you visit the mansions there isn't time enough to see them all, and with this CD I can see them all. Also, I can go back to the rooms that I like and study the details in that room. It is very interesting.

Anyway, I would recommend this CD. It makes great use of new technology and is fun and easy to use.

I just love the Newport Mansions. This CD is great because I can never remember all the details when I visit the mansions, and this CD lets you pan around and up to the ceiling and down to the carpet, also zooming in. You can see all the details that give the rooms their luxurious feel.

Also, it's great because I haven't been to all the mansions and through the virtual tours I can see which one I most want to visit next.

Now, if they could just figure out a way to get the CD to give you that musty dusty smell of the actual mansions...

Seriously, this is very cool and if you are only visiting Newport for a short time, it's worth it to see which mansions you really want to see in person.

Jilla

After the other reviews in this column piqued my interest, I picked this CDrom up in one of the Mansions stores a couple of weeks ago,and boy, am I glad I did! Great insight to the construction of the mansions including, the materials used, styles used, builders etc.. There is a brief narration for each one that gives dates & facts , along with 8 classical tunes that play at random as you wander about. The only constructive criticism is that you don't get narration for each room as you enter, just at the beginning of each VR tour. I'm sure it would've been too costly and time consuming to do that anyway. But, you can even do an auto tour where you sit back and relax, while the camera pans to different rooms, or you can do the manual tour at your own pace. Great quality! Runs smoothly with no popping or skipping, and the picture quality is terrific! You can zoom, spin, look down, up, to get a closer look at that special vase, or to look at the gilded ceiling tiles. Great for those who have never been to get an inside look, or a great momento for those who have visited the 10 mansions from the preservation society. You'll feel like you've wandered back in time to the Victorian age on Bellevue Ave.......................

Gaustad did an excellent job of portraying not only Williams' beliefs, politic and theology but the state of the world that led to their development and need. Very readable, never boring, practical and insightful to William's America as it is to ours. WE could learn a great deal from Williams, even so mamy years later. Gaustad truly brought him to life.

This beautifully written book brings to light, in an understated but poetic way, the genius and greatness of the man who, as Gaustad says, "was out to do nothing less than alter the institutional structure of the Western world." It is a measure of our time that many people, especially young people educated pursuant to the fashionable bromides of contemporary social science education, have never heard of this first founder of liberty of conscience and disestablishment of religion in America. In our epoch of attempted "faith-based" governmental initiatives, Gaustad's book reminds us, by constant reference to the writings of Roger Williams, of those principles that, after a bitter struggle of more than a century, came to distinguish this nation from the government-controlled religion and thought of the rest of the world. The life of Roger Williams shows that deeply held religious belief necessarily implies an unwavering commitment to the principle of absolute separation of church and state. Williams' life also demonstrates that at least one colonial leader tried, unsuccessfully, to overcome the tendency of the Puritans to treat Native Americans as less than human or as mere subjects for conversion to Christianity. The tragedy of Williams' life consisted solely in the failure of his decades-long effort to resolve the conflict between rapacious, religiously hypocritical English settlers and the Native Americans. The triumph of his life was his original pronouncement, in this country, of the enduring but often threatened principle that government should be restricted to civil, not religious, tasks. More than a century later, Jefferson and Madison built on the foundation that Roger Williams so nobly established in his writings and in the constitutional documents of Rhode Island.

Gaustad's Liberty of Conscience is the second biography of Roger Williams I have read this summer. Perhaps because the first, Covey's The Gentle Radical, was so prolix, I loved Gaustad's work. His selection of historical data, his clear sequencing, and his explication of Williams's own writings make this a delight to read. Seventeenth-century Britain and colonial America and all those names one vaguely remembers are vividly described. The prose is clear and attractive. I came away with a new appreciation of Williams. Gaustad sees him as the first to set forth those principles of religious liberty that were picked up after him by Locke, Penn, Jefferson, and others and which we take for granted today. Toleration is a subject of current conversation within the United States. This biography depicts someone who fought for toleration in a time when people were being banished and even executed for not believing what the political powers said they must believe. It really gives a healthy perspective on our times. I recommend it highly.

These books are REALLY good. Alice Turner Curtis has the remarkable ability to be able to blend delightful, historically accurate plots with an old fashioned charm and morality.

I read this series as a child, and I was very happy to see them reprinted, and keeping all the lovely illustrations intact, too. Now I can buy them when I have children, continuing the tradition.

This book told about the Revolutionary War through the story of 11 year old Penelope Balfourd, who lives on a farm on Rhode Island with her mother and older brother Ted while her father fights in the American army. Penelope is determined to do something for her country. She manages to deliver a message to the American army. Because of her message a British officer is captured. I really enjoyed this book.

I read the complete set of books as a young girl. Fifty years ago, I found them in the Warwick Public Library, yellowed, loose-leafed, dog-earred, but very interesting. Imagine my delight when I learned they were being reprinted. Presently, I am buying them for my granddaughter. Having performed some genealogical research, I find that Colonel Barton, who captured General Preston in this story, was a distant relative of mine. I went to church in the meeting house at Warwick. It still stands. I have no reason but to believe that Alice Turner Curtis, the author, researched her books well, and that her writtings have historic happenings supporting them. Give to all the female 9-10-year-olds and enjoy them yourself. They may lack sophistication for many 11-12 year-old girls of today, but read them to your child or grandchild and establish a bond. These make excellent gifts to "young maids."

Great reference for a first-time overnight camper who won an award for beginning kayaking at Camp Starfish in NH this summer!

This is an excellent book for those yakers who are looking for an escape from motor boat laden waters. It is well illustrated and has helpful tips on where to put in and what to expect as you traverse the water ways.

we live in broad brook, connecticut and this is the first year we've had kayaks. in the early summer we met a woman on the scantic river near the somersville dam and she recommended this book. best tip of the year. there are so many great paddles in here that you'd never know about just by looking on a map. we'd been driving around, shooting in the dark, and mostly being disappointed by what we found. every paddle we've taken out of the book has been excellent. can't recommend it highly enough.

Very colorful narrative of a lesser known civilization predating the Roman Empire. You will enjoy the writing style and find the culture fascinating.

Richard Berthold, a gem of an teacher and research/writer, deserves congratuations for a superb book--not to mention promotion to Associate Professor if he does not already have it.

The hidden error which slipped by the publishers was reference to one "Testicles" in the index which is supposed to be pronounced as the Ancient Greeks would have done. Such an addition is typical of the Berthold's sense of humor and just one of the reasons he is the best prof at the University of New Mexico.

This is not a great book, but it is an elegantly written and very readable account of the history of the Rhodian republic from its formation at the end of the 4th century BC to its absorbtion into the Roman Empire in the 2nd century BC. Sure, it's scholarly crap, but regular humans can actually read and enjoy it, especially if they skip some of the scholarly argument. Can you find the gross joke that slipped by the editors? Hint: look in the index.

While best known as a champion of religious freedom and the founder of Rhode Island, Professor Gaustad also shows that the thoughts and actions of Roger Williams demonstrated that equitable relations between European Americans and Native Americans could have been nurtured and sustained.

By the early 1630s Williams rejected English claims to Native American lands. This led him to also challenge the legal foundation of the English colonial charters in North America. Ultimately, Williams was banished from Massachusetts Bay colony as much for insisting that Native peoples were the true owners of all they possessed as for his insistence on the unalienable liberty of conscience.

In 1636 he escaped deportation to England by fleeing Massachusetts. Williams would not have survived this wintertime ordeal without the aid of the Wampanoags. He acquired land from their chief sachem, Massasoit. When Plymouth colony claimed that he still resided within their territory, Williams moved again. The Narragansett sachem Canonicus befriended him almost as an adopted son. Soon afterward Williams established a trading post.

From this remote vantage point he began an intensive study of Native (Algonquin) languages, customs and sacred ways. In 1643 he published his cultural findings in a book entitled, A Key into the Language of America. Many of his findings and admonitions disturbed the English settlers. He rejected their claims of cultural superiority, and asserted that in many exchanges the Indians acted with more Christian virtue than the colonists. Williams also rebuked attempts to evangelize or convert Indians as religious persecution. In recognizing their common humanity, he championed "soul liberty" for Natives and Europeans alike.

In contrast to Plymouth or Massachusetts Bay, which did not obtain title from the Indians before they began their plantation, he insisted that the only legal and moral method of obtaining Indian land had to come from their free consent. Williams discovered that although Native Americans had conceptions of land, resources and ownership that differed from Europeans, Indian peoples had definite ideas about the extent and derivation of their commonwealth.

Unfortunately, the growing English population and insatiable desire for land led to territorial encroachments, jurisdiction disputes, and devastating warfare with Native communities. Williams decried that land had become "one of the gods of New England." To forestall the outbreak of King Philip's War (1675-76), he offered himself up as a hostage to the Wampanoags to reassure them that their sachem, Metacom (Philip), would be returned to them by the Massachusetts authorities safely. When the war broke out, Williams sided with the English in what he perceived as self-defense.

The bloodiest conflict in American history ended decades of his tireless efforts to forge a peaceful "middle ground." But his legacy remains. Roger Williams became a trusted friend, honest broker and cross-cultural diplomat. He was one of the few seventeenth-century colonial New Englanders who achieved some success in bridging the cultural gap between European Americans and American Indians.

Kudos to Professor Gaustad for another excellent book about one of America's greatest "planting fathers." I now wish he would write another book for the Lives and Legacies series on William Penn.

I met Professor Gaustad in 1988 when I moved to Riverside to pursue an advanced degree in history. He struck me at the time as a dignified careful historian who nonetheless could capture and make real the religious conflicts of centuries past. Gaustad has not lost any of his gifts as this recent book demonstrates. He does a masterful job of presenting the key elements of Roger Williams' life and development. From his conflicts with Cotton Mather and his eventual expulsion from Massachusetts Bay Colony, to his friendship with Native Americans and the founding of Rhode Island, Gaustad presents what we know of William's life in an easy to read narrative. He also includes selections of Williams' works so that modern readers can get a flavor of the writing of this influential founder.

What makes this book so fascinating, however, is that Williams was a real visionary. He alone among the early colonial leaders advocated a complete separation from civil (government) society and religion. A firm believer in the Bible, Williams was skeptical of all attempts to form a genuine "New Testament" church. Only the return of Christ himeself, Williams believed, would truly restore the church of the apostles. Until then Christians could only use the powers of love and persuasion to convince others of their views. Williams adamantly opposed having the state interfere with any religious beliefs, even those which are non-Christian. This was quite a leap for an 17th century thinker.

But if Williams was widely rejected in colonial New England for his views, his distinction between civil society and what he called "soul liberty" eventually became dominant in the United States and later, much of the Western World. Gaustad attributes not only the First Ammendment, but also such modern documents as the Vatican II Declaration of Religious Liberty and the 1978 Indian Religious Freedom Act to Williams' continued influence. All of which points to one of the great ironies of history. America is, as people on the religious right have claimed, a Christian nation. But it is also a nation founded upon a particular view of Christianity, one which expressly prohibited ties between Church and State. And Christianity of all stripes has flourished in precisely this environment. Moreso than any other Western Nation, the United States remains firmly and devoutly Christian. Undoubtedly, the "free market" in religious thought William advocated has produced this spiritual abundance in much the same way that the free market in economics has produced material abundance. Christians everywhere should take note of this.

This is an effective and concise biography. I especially appreciated the author's approach. He could have drawn in a lot of irrelevant material, as authors of biography tend to do, but, to his credit, did not. I enjoyed the writing -- and that, too, is a rare comment on a bio, especially one of a subject from this time. It's not easy reading quotes from the colonial period; the language was so formal. I like that Gaustad "translated" so much of Roger Williams' words. The latter sections of the book were especially interesting. Williams may have influenced Locke -- an interesting tidbit about a noteworthy life.

Roger Williams has been dead almost 400 years, yet his lessons and views are as pertinent today as they have ever been. The battles he fought regarding Church and State, the battles for freedom of conscience, mind and religion, are still being fought today, just as heatedly, by parties and groups just as determined. Basic freedoms must be defended--and earned--by each generation. There will always be a place, a much needed place, for Roger Williams in the discourse of United States history and the basic freedoms we take forgranted, yet must defend, every day.

Jefferson, Adams, Washington, Franklin and others may have gotten more "ink," than Roger Williams, but he may be the most important one of them all. If there had been no Roger Williams, there may have been no Frankliln, Jefferson, Washington and Adams, certainly not as we know them. Williams earned for them the right to think,worship and speak on their own.

A good book, easily and quickly read, giving the reader a keen appreciation of the difficulties, trials, tribulations--and the vision--of that day. And it speaks pointedly to the challenges of this day...If the reader wants an understanding and appreciation of Religious Freedom, how we got it, what it means, and why it is essential to the country, then and now, this is the book to read. A Word of Warning: Religious Conversatives of this day may find religious freedom, true religious freedom, dangerous and threatening!!!

Being a mystery writer with my debut novel in its initial release, I genuinely enjoyed Richard Rosen's STRIKE THREE, YOU'RE DEAD. Having written, early in my career, a series of mystery short stories set against a bush league baseball backrop, I know well the territory Mr. Rosen is exploring. Harvey Blissberg is a star player on the expansion Providence Jewels. He was once a star for the Boston Red Sox. His best friend is murdered, and Harvey finds himself forced to solve the crime. This book won an Edgar in its initial release. FADEAWAY, STURDAY NIGHT DEAD, and WORLD OF HURT followed it. Now a decade later, Mr. Rosen is resurrecting his series in a few months with DEAD BALL. Mr. Rosen's series is a fine one, mixing equal parts of mystery and baseball ( and as Robert Parker once wrote about Troy Soos's excellent baseball mystery series,"Equal parts of baseball and mystery are the perfect combination.") Read this book as soon as you can.

Center fielder, Harvey Blissberg, wasn't happy about the move. After five good seasons with the Boston Red Sox, they left him unprotected in the expansion draft, and before he knew it, he was on his way to play for the Providence Jewels. But that's baseball, and the season wasn't a total loss. This was his best year, yet. He was really in the groove, hitting above 300, leading the Jewels in batting, doubles and stolen bases, and dating the very beautiful and talented sportscaster, Mickey Slavin. But all that good fortune came crashing down around him when his friend and roommate, relief pitcher, Rudy Furth, was found murdered in the club house whirlpool. What kind of trouble could Rudy have been into that would get his head bashed in with a baseball bat? As the days drag on with the police investigation going nowhere, a frustrated Harvey decides to take matters into his own hands and find the truth..... It's easy to see why Richard Rosen's, Strike Three You're Dead, won the Edgar Award for best first novel. This is a very intelligent and entertaining mystery, full of subtle twists and red herrings, vivid scenes, marvelous, engaging characters, and witty and irreverent writing and dialogue. Mr Rosen's indepth knowledge and expertise in the world of baseball adds real credibility to the story and once you meet Harvey Blissberg, and the rest of the gang, you'll be hooked. So sit down and get comfortable; Strike Three You're Dead is about to grab you on page one and I can guarantee this mystery won't let you go until you've read the very last page.

If you're a baseball fan and a murder mystery fan then you will enjoy this work from R.D. Rosen. Harvey Blissburg, star player on a hapless expansion team, is suddenly involved in a sensational mystery as his best friend and star reliver Rudy Furth is found murdered in the whirlpool. With the help of Mickey, his sportscaster girifriend, Harvey doggedly puts together the pieces of the puzzle trying to find out who murdered his best friend. One red herring after another intervenes - a love struck fan, an inept and unscrupulous cop, the team manager's amourous wife who has a story of her own to tell and a small time hood. But Harvey presses on, all the while trying to hang on to his fading career and reach a .300 batting average.

The book gives an amzingly detailed portrait of a baseball season as a backdrop for the murder. This will appeal to baseball fans (such as me). But the author does not spare any detail in providing the reader with clues as to who the murderer is. He balances the drama of a baseball season with the drama of a murder mystery and does it very well. I read this book in a day because I did not want to put it down.

Strike Three You're Dead has alot to offer for baseball fans and murder myatery fans. It is very entertaining and spellbinding.