Valley of the Raven
Ken Ramirez
Twilight Times Books
Paladin Timeless imprint
PO Box 3340, Kingsport, Tennessee 37664
1933353759 $18.95 www.twilighttimesbooks.com
Aaron Paul Lazar
Reviewer
Valley of the Raven is a captivating novel set in the beautiful foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountain range. When teenagers Ty Dettin, his younger brother Seth, and their pal Tanner White set out for a typical dirt bike ride in the California Sierra Gold Country, they are unaware of the life-altering adventure lurking around the next bend. Tooling along in the spring sunshine, Ty and Tanner follow Seth onto an overgrown trail that leads to decrepit buildings, vestiges of the California gold rush days, when the land was ravaged for the sake of monetary riches. While poking around one of the shacks, the trio discovers a map buried beneath floorboards in a tin box.
The yellowed map appears authentic, providing a detailed sketch of a gold-filled cavern, signed by “Coop.” Fueled with a desire to discover the gold, they set out to investigate.
In a strange and magical twist, the trio happens upon an elderly Native American woman, Nevar, who lives along the banks of a river in a remote and magnificent valley. She connects with them spiritually, most particularly with Ty, accompanied by her totem, the raven. Said raven, Kaji Taka, appears at all crucial points of the adventure, assisting and protecting the boys as they move closer to the awful truth of a pending scheme that threatens Six Hills and its pristine reservoir. Ty is touched by this encounter, haunted and somewhat frightened, but he cannot stop thinking about the old women and the strong urge to visit her again.
In a parallel effort to claim the gold of their ancestor, “Coop,” recently released jailbird Curtis “Junior” Cooper and his brother Carl begin an expedition to mine the gold. Assisted by fellow ex-cons, Skinny, a chain-smoking expert underwater diver who watched his abusive father drown in the pond by his home when he was a child, and Steve “Eight-Pack” Hunt, a body-builder mechanic who resembles a big Swede, Junior and Carl plan to drain a pond that hides the gold-filled cavern.
Mr. Ramirez expertly weaves yet another theme through the novel, bringing us back in history to the life of Buffalo soldier, Clay “Coop” Cooper, a strong and upstanding black man who fought bravely for the American army, and with his meager savings purchased the land that includes the valley in which Nevar appears to them. He and his wife, a lovely Lakota woman named Maka, begin a life in the rich Sierra valley, and implement a plan to purchase as much of the land as possible, donating it to the people and forbidding it to be sold privately in the future. The diverse history of the Native American tribes, the Buffalo soldiers, and their plights are beautifully told by Mr. Ramirez, a teacher himself, through scenes in a classroom where his own teaching abilities become apparent.
When the boys and their friends discover the Coopers are planning something so dastardly the entire region is threatened, they push forward with great integrity and courage, in spite of the mind-numbing roadblocks that constantly impede them. Ty is drawn to a destiny ingrained in his part-Comanche genes, and moves forward on a path of sheer lunacy and utter heroism as he endangers his own life to save the land and people of Six Hills.
Mr. Ramirez has created a lyrical world that breathes with life. The boys’ dialogue is natural and real. Their actions, fears, discussions, and reactions ring true, a testimony to the author’s acute understanding of youth.
Aside from the engaging storyline, Mr. Ramirez’s has painted enchanting descriptions of the countryside, as in this excerpt:
“As the sun crested over the surrounding granite peaks in the glorious morning scene reflected on the lake, its surface completely smooth, not a wave, not a ripple, a true mirror – Maka’s Mirror. The sky and lake together burst into a flaming golden-orange, accented with large white clouds whose fiery bellies seemed almost metallic. A small flock of Canada geese circled the lake and then, with extended webbed feet and outstretched wings, skidded across the surface of the placid mountain water, their honking amplified by the stillness of the dawn. When they finally settled on the water, the wakes of disturbance rolled through the liquid canvas, sending splinters of color and sparkling reflections in every direction.”
As the completely satisfying adventure escalates toward a pulse-pounding finish, Mr. Ramirez incorporates surprising, yet believable twists in his characters, all the while subtly sharing life lessons about responsibility, stewardship of the land, respect for people of all nationalities, and following one’s destiny. The most important lesson deals with the insight that our natural world – with its sparkling streams, wildflowers, tall pines, and unspoiled wilderness – provides the true “riches” which transcend monetary wealth.
I highly recommend Valley of the Raven to readers of all ages. It will quench a deep universal thirst for adventure and heroism. My only question is this: will Mr. Ramirez grace us with a sequel?
Afrika Midnight Asha Abney, Reviewer
http://www.clearblogs.com/afrikamaabney
Ms. Vickie M. Oliver-Lawson is a public school administrator, wife, and mother from Baltimore, MD. She is the author of Vocal Moments (a collection of various poems designed to inspire, heal, humor and give you food for thought), released in 2003 and published by Poeticjava Publishing. Ms. Lawson is also the author of In the Quilting Tradition (a story about the interaction between a young man and his grandmother as she tells him about the tradition of quilting from an African perspective) released in 2005 and published by Poeticjava Publishing. "Vocal Moments" is an excellent of poetry that touches on a variety of subjects such as self, life, love, women, world, health, spirituality and humor written by Ms. Oliver-Lawson. Some of my favorite poems include “Call Me Woman”, “Daughter of Eve”, “I Am”, “The Urban Warrior Queen” and “Like the River.” From reading her poetry, it is clearly evident that she wrote these poems based on her personal lifestyle and travels through life. This collection of poetry is indeed a book that you want to share with your loved ones.
The End of Days: Armageddon and Prophecies of the Return
Zecharia Sitchin
William Morrow/Harper Collins Publishers
10 E. 53rd St., NYC, NY 10022
0061238236 $25.95
Ana M. Gomez
Reviewer
The End of Days is the seventh book in Zecharia Sitchin’s Earth Chronicle series. This publication and the series of books in general, aren’t for someone looking for light reading. Sitchin’s interpretations are highly controversial, and highly compelling given he is one of the few people on the planet capable of reading the ancient written language Cuneiform. Sitchin continues building his case backing his belief that men, like us, came from the planet Nibiru in search of gold, and gave ancient man an evolutionary jump-start. He builds a compelling case that the gods and man really walked together on Earth five-thousand years ago.
End of Days is a thought provoking, compelling work, which examines biblical and Mayan prophesy, and mythology for the different meanings of the books title; all the while referencing ancient history, archeological records, astronomy and modern science. Sitchin’s effective use of graphics in the work allows the reader to see what he sees as he presents his interpretation, leaving the readers wanting more as they examine ancient tablets. Those who enjoy ancient history, archeology, and the sciences will savor this slow and highly interesting read.
In the end, you will not look at historical figures, such as Alexander the Great and Sargon the Great, or the sign of the cross, in the same way as Sitchin explores the interaction of ancient man and the Gods. In the end, you may very well believe there was more than one Exodus in ancient times. The question left in the minds of readers will be: Is the biblical ‘End of Days’ about Armageddon or the return of the Anunnaki to Earth?
Autobiography of My Mother
Meg Stewart
Random House
947174166 8230 27.95 Brit. pounds
Ann Skea
Reviewer
What do you do if you have spent hours talking to your mother and recording her memories, researched some of the family history, and published it all as a ghost-written autobiography, and then you read a chapter headed 'Mistress and Wife' in someone else's book and realize that there was something your mother omitted to tell you?
This is what happened to Meg Stewart, whose mother, Margaret Coen, was a well-known Australian artist and whose father, Douglas Stewart, was an equally well-known Australian poet.
Margaret Coen's 'autobiography' begins with the story of her grandmother, Margaret O'Connor, who arrived in Australia in 1844 as a sort of mail-order bride. Her husband, Patrick Moloney, was a prosperous 'New Chum' who was thirty years her senior. He had migrated to Australia in 1838 to work on the land and he had done well. He saved enough money to buy a property in sheep country south west of Sydney and then, not wanting to marry a convict woman, he wrote back to his parish priest in Ireland and asked him to find him a wife. So, Margaret O'Connor, aged eighteen, set off for a new life in Australia. Between them, Paddy and Margaret Moloney produced eleven children in twenty years, and their seventh child was Margaret Coen's mother, Mary Moloney.
Margaret Coen's paternal grandfather was also Irish. He had been attracted to Australia by the discoveries of gold, but he soon bought a hawker's cart and did so well that he eventually established a General Store in Yass. He became a wealthy and prominent citizen but died at the age of fifty-six. Grandma Coen, who was also considerably younger than her husband, took control of the store and ran it for the rest of her long life. The Coen family, who were staunch Catholics, also prospered and grew, and religion in Grandma Coen's house was taken very seriously. There was daily family prayer, one son became a Passionist priest and three daughters became nuns. Margaret, who was born in 1909, spent much of her childhood in her grandmother's house and was so impressed by the religiousness that she decided she was going to be a saint. Fortunately, she remained a very normal, mischievous child, and her memories of those early years are fascinating.
Equally fascinating, are her memories of her unusual schooling at a small Sydney boarding school, Kincoppal, which was run by the Sacre-Coeur nuns, many of whom were French.
A major part of the book, however, is devoted to Margaret's memories of life as a budding artist in Sydney in the 1920s and 1930s, and her later years as an established artist, familiar with all the most prominent artists, poets and writers of the time. The Circular Quay area of Sydney at that time, was a place full of art-schools and artists' studios. During the depression years of the early 1930s, space could be rented in old buildings very cheaply. This suited the artists, because their earnings, too, were meager. They clearly enjoyed life, however, and hardship probably bonded them together more firmly than financial security might have done. Margaret Coen remembered an easy-going group of artists, art teachers, artists' models and other creative people who frequented their own chosen coffee houses and pubs in the area, where they would sit and talk for hours. She especially remembered the parties. The annual Artists' Ball was the highlight of the year, and it was obviously a very lively and uninhibited affair. When Margaret's mother, concerned for the reputation of her daughter, ordered an older brother to escort Margaret to the ball, Margaret worried that he might be shocked. Luckily, he dropped her off and disappeared for his own night on the town, then returned to pick her up later.
Amongst the artists and poets Margaret knew were Antonio-Datillo-Rubbo (who taught her), Grace-Cossington-Smith, Thea Astley, Donald Friend and Ken Slessor. She also befriended a visiting American illustrator, Jack Flanagan ( whose work she had long admired) who filled her head with stories of famous artists in New York, fed her Clover Club cocktails, and introduced her to another artist, Norman Lindsay.
Lindsay, whose many paintings, etching and sketches of nudes had made him notorious in Australia, was a driven man. When he was not painting, etching or writing books, he worked on model ships for which he made every piece himself. Margaret tells of one attempt he made to relax by taking up cards: he cut out and painted every single card himself. Margaret had clearly idolized Lindsay because of his work. When she eventually met him, he became her mentor and taught her a great deal about water-colour painting, at which she became expert. And Lindsay, so it seems, also became her lover. In remembering her life, Margaret told her daughter nothing about this.
The unexpected revelation of this affair to Meg Stewart as she read Joanne Mendelssohn's book, Letter and Liars, left her distressed and, as her mother's biographer, "stricken". The term 'mistress', with all the connotation it has acquired, particularly upset her. What did she do? She set about finding out if it was true. Family, when she consulted them, knew nothing and didn't believe it. The author of a book about Lindsay's art charted the progress of the affair from Lindsay's work. And although her mother's undated correspondence with Norman Lindsay (which, after her mother's death, Meg had deposited unread at the State Library of New South Wales) revealed an "undeniable bond" and real affection between the two which lasted until Lindsay's death in 1969, there was nothing "salacious" in them.
So, Meg Stewart updated her mother's 'autobiography' with newly revealed facts about her art, then simply added an extra chapter about her own researches in to the 'affair'. She describes the process of reading and dating her mother's correspondence with Lindsay as "by turn tantalizing, tacky and addictive", and her conclusion, finally, is "What does it matter?". Her mother was loved by two remarkable and creative men, her own father, who had also been a close lifelong friend of Norman Lindsay, and Lindsay himself. If she chose to forget "the sexual indiscretions or passions of youth" or to keep them secret from her daughter, it was nobody's business but her own.
Meg Stewart's Autobiography of My Mother is the sort of book many of us would like to have written about our mothers but left it too late to sit down and record all the details of their memories. It is a fascinating account of a life and a fascinating picture of Sydney in the early years of the twentieth century. Sadly, there are only two of Margaret Coen's painting reproduced in black-and-white in the book, but there are photographs which show that she was as a beautiful young woman, and an etching of a party by Norman Lindsay in which someone who Meg says looks "very like my mother" is dancing, scantily dressed, for an appreciative audience.
At Play in the Killing Fields
Joseph DeMarco
AuthorHouse
1663 Liberty Drive, Suite 200, Bloomington, IN 47403
1425986692, $15.49 1-888-519-5121
Barry Allen
Reviewer
At Play in the Killing Fields is a series of three very different science fiction stories that center around Joe Kaye (See also: The False Prophet of Fennimore Place). Although each story is significantly different they seem to carry similar themes about energy, education and the conservation of our planet's natural resources.
The first story is called Nightmarchers, and is written in first person where Joe Kaye is the narrator telling the story. Nightmarchers is a Hawaiian ghost story about the desecration of Hawaiian Heiaus (Temples) and a brief history of the overthrow of the Hawaiian Monarchy. In the story the narrator (Joe Kaye) is a teacher and writer who is haunted by a ghost because of his grandfather's participation in the destruction of Puu Kapolei (an ancient Hawaiian temple). After a recurring dream of following a little green bird, Joe Kaye starts to expect that he might have been a Hawaiian in one of his past lives.
The second story, titled The Chemicals Between Us, takes place on earth, 2000 some-odd years after mankind has been extinct. When Drogen a strange alien, with his genitals on his face, delivers a package to earth, he gets more than he bargained for when he takes a book that seems to be haunted by ghost of Joe Kaye. Through the book (that Drogen takes) and flashback memories the reader observes Joe Kaye's philosophies about life and energy.
The Chemicals Between Us is really interesting and deals with a lot of holistic ideas about energy and dis-ease (See also: Heal Your Body, The Celestine Prophecy, What the Bleep Do We Know About Anything, The Secret of Shambhala).
It is during the story The Chemicals Between Us that the reader learns about Joe Kaye’s prophecy about the end of the human race and various other strange practices such as Voodoo Botany.
The third story The Spit of Siann takes place back in the present several years after Nightmarchers but before Joe Kaye makes the prophecy. The third story is written in third person, but maintains a child’s perspective through the eyes of a messed up little 12-year-old named Siann Campbell. Siann is in seventh grade and her teacher is a weird hippy from Hawaii named Joe Kaye. Siann gives her teacher a hard time because her father has died, and she is being raised by a mother who has little time and even less energy to raise a 12 year-old. The story focuses more on education but ultimately talks about what Joe Kaye refers to as the End of Time.
This book is very imaginative and reminds me of a cross between Ernest Hemingway's Islands in the Stream and anything by Philip K. Dick.
The Power of Simplicity
Patty Kreamer
Publish Connect
2429 Silver Oak Place, Pittsburgh, PA 15220
0972000119 $14.99 1-412-344-3252 www.byebyeclutter.com/books.htm
Bonnie Jo Davis
Reviewer
Patty Kreamer is a professional speaker, author, consultant and residential and corporate organizer. Patty is the President of Kreamer Connect, Inc., a Pittsburgh-based company that helps individual and corporate clients become more productive and perform better while at the same time simplifying their work and lives. Patty has created the twenty-six week e-course "Making Life Simple... Again!" and authored the book "But I Might Need It Someday".
The Power of Simplicity includes a foreword, acknowledgments, introduction and an author biography. It is organized in the following chapters:
Chapter 1: Imagine the possibilities of simplicity
Chapter 2: Tackling the physical side of simplicity
Chapter 3: Confronting the emotional side of simplicity
Chapter 4: The Power of pause
Chapter 5: Taking inventory
Chapter 6: See it, say it, believe it...And it will come
Chapter 7: Dealing with procrastination...NOW!
Chapter 8: Take time to make time
Chapter 9: So many choices...not enough time
Chapter 10: Speaking simply...
When I began reading this book I was struck by a profound statement made by Patty in the introduction. She says "The issue is that as human beings, we tend to allow life to be difficult. Unfortunately, we are not alien creatures that would be satisfied with just the basics of survival: air, water, food, and shelter." Human beings complicate their lives endlessly and then find themselves trapped in overwhelm, depression and physical complaints triggered by their inability to make good choices.
You no longer have to be trapped. The Power of Simplicity will teach you that everything boils down to a choice. Patty defines choice as:
CHOICE
Contemplate
Having
Only
If
Considered
Essential
In addition to choice Patty defines clutter as nothing more than unmade decisions. Don't think that Patty drops these bombs and then walks out the door leaving you dumbstruck. She sticks by you throughout the book giving you concrete examples of making better choices and simplifying life the easy way. She teaches you how to make life more enjoyable not only for yourself but also for your family, your friends and your co-workers.
If you are overbooked, under stress, disorganized and at the breaking point then you need to read The Power of Simplicity. Think of Patty as your friend and this book as a step-by-step instruction manual for living a healthier and more simple life.
A Woman At War: Marlene Dietrich Remembered
J. David Riva, editor
Guy Stern, advisory editor
Wayne State University Press
The Leonard N. Simons Building, 4809 Woodward Avenue, Detroit, MI 48201-1309
0814332498 $50.00 http://wsupress.wayne.edu 1-800-978-7323
Cassandra Langer
Reviewer
Why is this book worth read, worth buying? Well, it's a truly memorable book and it's quotable. Marlene's grandson, David Riva has hilarious and beautiful memories of his grandmother the late Marlene Dietrich not as the Von Sternberg icon so famous from the golden age of Hollywood studio icons but rather as a "woman at war." The spirit of the real Marlene hovers over Riva's book like a guardian angel. This beautifully put together volume is much more than a coffee table decoration. Featuring a series of interviews with the famous; Burt Bacharach, Cher, Rosemary Clooney and Hildegard Knef and less well known but equally wonderful people, Riva's interviews reveal a woman many who have watched her films are totally unaware of; Marlene the hero.
David Riva's journey in retracing his grandmother's footsteps began with a conversation in the kitchen in the 1980s while she was cooking him up a breakfast of her famous scrambled eggs. Mass as she was fondly known in the family began answering a question David had asked about performing. Before he knew it she related her experiences about working for the USO and performing in the Ardennes forest during World War II. The time she spent fighting against Hitler and all he stood for in her Native Germany. As a German she knew what was at stake and she never had a question about what side she was on. As a child David loved to tell his friends that his grandmother had won the Medal of Freddom. Smiling, Marlene would say, "Be sure to tell them which side I was on."
I am a collector of film stills and an art historian as some of the readers of my reviews know. Marlene has been my hero since I was a teenager. There are a number of reasons I have loved and admired her. One is her incredible insistence on being a free woman; free to make the choices that suited her as an individual regardless of other people's expectations, free to love who she would love to hell with what other people thought or said and free to practice her craft to the very best of her ability. That's the kind of woman Marlene was but she was much more. When I began collecting film stills of her I also began collecting press photographs. One of these showed her return to Berlin after the war. There were signs of hate everywhere saying stay out, go home, traitor and riots (143). These are pictured in the book as well as photographs of Marlene freezing her can off along with the troops and giving aid and comfort to the Allied forces in Europe. Speaking of these experiences she commented, "It was a hard time, it wasn't easy. But it was wonderful.(46) These remarks are supported by wonderful photographs of Marlene at war. David's interview with William F. "Buck" Dawson is an eye opener. Dawson is a WW II.veteran of the Eighty-Second Airborne Division. He was one of the first Americans to enter Berlin and was in charge of the press corps. he helped put Marlene back in touch with her mother. He met her in the Ritz hotel,dirty, exhausted and still dressed in combat gear. This interview has great picture of Marlene dressed in fatigues and combat gear. (50-51) What Dawson's interview and many others in the book reveal is how truly beautiful, remarkable and vulnerable Dietrich really was.
I supposed I am one of the few who was well aware of her war activities before I ever saw David's book but he has added so much more to who she really was. This was a woman who cast aside all pretensions and went to work fighting the enemy. She put on an American uniform, worked for the USO and spoke out against Hitler on the radio and in every other way she could. Marlene knew the power of images and used hers to fight against the Nazis in every way she could. In another interview historian and biographer, Felix Moeller points out that Marlene and Leni Riefenstahl were like polar opposites; one working against Hitler and the other supporting him all the way. Marlene, recollects, Col. Barney Oldfield, a celebrated war correspondant, had this radio program called "Marlene Sings to Her Homeland." It was the only way she could communicate with her mother in Berlin. This led to her performing for the troops when the war started. What comes across in David Riva's book is how deeply committed Marlene was and how useful she was to the war effort. The boys loved her because she told raunchy jokes and made them laugh. She was more like a buddy than a Hollywood movie star.
Guy Stern who acted as an advisor on this book and is a distinguished professor of German and Slavic studies a Wayne State University, was serving in Belgium. He and a few buddies went to see Marlene perform. She came out on stage and stepped up to the mike and said, "Fellows, I may have to break in the middle of a song to excuse myself, and, heck, you know the reason why. This brought down the house since they were all suffering from the trots because of the bad food and rotten conditions. She was one of them and they knew it.
My favorite interview is with one of my favorite singers, Rosemary Clooney. It is one of the most intimate and warmly felt tributes that I have ever read on a printed page. I am so deeply moved that David Riva was able to share it with his readers. Clooney speaks of Marlene's sense of camaraderie. To me it is evident from the first illustrations for one of her many reviews, one of which is shown on page 4. I encountered this very piece at a photography show in New York City several years ago. The dealer was from Germany and had a sensational photograph of Marlene and a sister actress in a very intimate setting which I would dearly have loved to buy but it was far out of my price range as was the illustration on page 4 which he also was selling. But it stuck in my memory and I was delighted to encounter it again in David's book. What comes across throughout is Marlene's intensity and sincere dedication to her craft. The thing she respected most was courage and work. What comes across is how very human Marlene Dietrich the person was. What a very beautiful individual she really was warts and all.
In concluding I want to say I had the pleasure of meeting and speaking with David. he is a charming and delightful man whose sincere admiration and respect for Mass is evident in every page of this wonderful homage to her. I cannot think of a better book to give anyone. And especially anyone interested in a book that embodies the meaning of what one reporter tagged, "The Greatest Generation's" contributions to the world. They did make the world safer for democracy and Marlene Dietrich's contributions make her a hero for all of us particularly now when we have American boys and girls dying for that ideal in Iraq and elsewhere so others can enjoy some of the benefits we take for granted.
I'll try and catch up on a couple of other books later i.e. Kate and one or two others. I'm sorry but I've been swamped with paid work so no time. Hope this finds you well. This is a great book.
Flight Risk
Kim Baldwin
Bold Strokes Books
430 Herrington Road, Johnsonville, NY 12094
1933110686 $15.95
Cheri Rosenberg
Reviewer
Kim Baldwin’s fourth action-packed novel, Flight Risk, is a suspense and romance lover's dream. Blayne Keller and Alexi Nikolos are formidable opponents at first but their undeniable attraction, even under incredible circumstances, doesn’t diminish one’s hope for them to become allies, to survive against all odds, and to let love bloom.
Blayne works as a travel agent in her close friend Claudia’s family business. She fantasizes about saving enough money and getting away from Chicago for a South Pacific adventure in the Fiji Islands. A petite thirty-year-old, Blayne is feisty, independent, outspoken, and a stubborn redhead. When she inadvertently witnesses a murder, Blayne has to be gutsy if she's going to live through testifying against the boss of a major crime family. Entering WITSEC, the Federal Witness Protection Program, and permanently relocating and leaving her friends is not the vacation she has in mind when she finds herself running for her life.
Blayne and Alexi form an instant connection with just one look, but with all that Blayne has endured up until then, it’s understandable that the witness is suspicious of everyone, even Alexi, an Inspector with WITSEC, that she meets in her travels.
A commanding presence at only 5’6” tall, Alexi is confident, smart, sexy, and considered by many to be infuriatingly complex and controlling. She doesn’t allow romance and relationships to get in the way of her job or her sexual dalliances. At least, not until she meets Blayne. If anyone can penetrate Alexi’s cast-iron exterior, maybe Blayne can. Blayne does her best to entice the inspector to no avail but the sexual tension between them is thick because Alexi doesn’t give easily in to temptation. “Damn. Damn. Damn. Blayne sucked in several deep breaths in an effort to dispel the anger and frustration coiling low in her belly. She did it again. I swear to God that woman is going to make me implode if she keeps this up” (p. 195). This is one of Baldwin’s cliffhanger chapter endings, which increases the tension, not only making it impossible to stop reading (and you’ll have to read the book to get the full effect), but also making the rewards of the wait that much sweeter.
Hunter's Pursuit will always be special, but Flight Risk proves that this author is not a one-hit wonder. Baldwin balances action plot with romance. Her characters are rich and unique and each has a distinct ‘voice’, often rendering dialogue tags superfluous when distinguishing between Alexi and Blayne, yet Baldwin employs its use when appropriate.
It’s a pleasure following Baldwin's career from Hunter's Pursuit, through the riveting adventures Force of Nature and Whitewater Rendezvous to Flight Risk. Her gift for writing action amidst romance becomes more evident with each endeavor and this reviewer looks forward to future projects penned by this fine author. Flight Risk is popular lesbian fiction at its best—it’s exciting, hot, and satisfying with a few surprises. Pick up a copy today. Focus of Desire is coming in October 2007.
Flower Confidential: The Good, the Bad, and the Beautiful in the Business of Flowers
Amy Stewart
Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill
PO Box 2225, Chapel Hill, NC 27515-2225
1565124383 $23.95
Kelli Christiansen
Reviewer
My mother, an avid gardener with a beautiful rose garden, recommended Flower Confidential to me. While her employ of the proverbial green thumb results in much more success than mine, I do enjoy playing in the garden and love having flowers in my yard and around the house. Flower Confidential opened up to me a world previously unknown, I suspect, to many gardeners and flower-lovers.
I confess this is not a book I likely would have picked up if not for the recommendation from my mother the gardener. But the topic became quickly absorbing; I soon found the book hard to put down. Author Amy Stewart uncovers the hitherto largely secret world of the manufacture and business of flowers. From flower auctions in Holland, to rose farms in Ecuador, to the cultivation of lilies in California, Stewart’s own enthusiastic interest for the subject matter comes through clearly in this fast-paced reportage of the industry, and that enthusiasm is infectious. She brings to light issues that most of us might never have thought of — and makes us understand flowers and the floral industry to such an extent that we may never look at a rose, a tulip, or a lily in the same way ever again (not that that’s a bad thing).
The title of the book is clearly a take-off on Tony Bourdain’s wildly successful Kitchen Confidential. While not as acid or disturbing as Bourdain’s expose, Stewart aims to uncover the flower industry, which she does fairly and passionately — without preaching her own point of view.
Avid gardeners, flower-lovers, environmentalists, and even business types will find this book of interest. While the topic may seem nichey — it’s about flowers, yes, but more than that — it raises some topical, even political, questions, touching on the interplay between business, immigration, and labor, for instance. She writes about a visit to Quito in Ecuador, “As the quality of Ecuadorian roses continues to go up, the pressure mounts. That is, they all have to grow a perfect flower. And that creates pressure — pressure on workers, pressure on natural resources, pressure on trade negotiations, pressure on infrastructure. The result is a host of problems. Not just in Ecuador, but also in other Latin American countries and in Africa, that attracts criticism from human rights and environmental groups around the world.”
Over the course of a year, Stewart traveled the world in search of details for her story. In doing so, she found herself uncovering not only details about the business of growing and selling flowers, but also bigger issues. I know I’m seeing the tulips in my garden a little bit differently today than I did yesterday. When I think about the journey that little flower went through to end up in my vaguely pathetic garden, I smile, but I also have to shake my head in disbelief. Stewart’s book illuminated this topic for me in a way I doubt any other book could.
Flower Confidential is the author’s third book, following The Earth Moved and From the Ground Up, a memoir of Stewart’s attempt to grow her own garden. Stewart lives in California, and writes for the North Coast Journal, Organic Gardening, Bird Watcher’s Digest, and the San Francisco Chronicle, among others.
Zebra Murders: A Season of Killing, Racial Madness, and Civil Rights
Prentice Earl Sanders and Bennett Cohen
Arcade Publishing Inc., New York
116 John St. #2810, New York, NY 10038
1559708069 $26.00 www.arcadepub.com
Kevin J. Mullen
Reviewer
In his 1968 book, The Police Establishment, ex-FBI Agent William W. Turner argued that police departments around the country were unable or unwilling to handle racial matters fairly and effectively. To make his case regarding San Francisco, Turner cited the Police Commission’s treatment of an African American officer assigned to the minority oriented Community Relations Unit.
In an off-duty fracas in October 1966 in Oakland, the officer had been fired upon by one of two men engaged in a dispute with a streetwalker. Hailed before the police commission on a charge of conduct unbecoming an officer, the officer resigned from the department. According to most in the minority community, says Turner – a position in which he seems to concur –“an indiscretion on (the officer’s part), ordinarily punishable by a reprimand and transfer, had been magnified into a cardinal sin in order to put the Community Relations Unit on trial.”
As things turned out, the officer, who had been in a relationship with the prostitute for several months, was waiting in her nearby automobile while she serviced tricks. It was after one of the johns demanded his money back that the officer got involved and the shooting resulted. Moonlighting as a pimp by a sworn police officer has always been considered something more than an indiscretion, yet Turner viewed the legitimate attempt at discipline as an affront to the African American community.
The curse of racism and its varied consequences have in some way infected just about every aspect of American life for centuries. In the last 50 years or so these issues have profoundly influenced the external relations and internal operations of many of the nation’s police departments, all of which has given rise to a literature, as represented by Turner’s book , that tends to view the world through a lens of racial injustice.
Now comes The Zebra Murders: A Season of Killing, Racial Madness and Civil Rights, in which retired African American San Francisco Police Chief Prentice Sanders and his writer, Bennett Cohen, make their contribution to the genre. As suggested by its title, the book deals largely with that part of his career in which Sanders was involved in the investigation of a series of black on white homicides which terrorized San Francisco in the early 1970s. The Zebra killings were the most atrocious manifestation of a phenomenon which began in the 1960s when homicide rates soared in urban America generally.
By the late 1970s, San Francisco’s homicide rate was 18.5 per 100,000 population, up from 5.9 in an equivalent period in the early 1960s, much of the increase driven by a rise in black on white killings. It was in this climate that the Zebra killings occurred. The book is written from Sanders’ point of view, as well it should be. The question becomes, however: how does that view square with objective reality?
Sanders starts with a description of his attendance at the autopsy for the first victim, Quita Hague. Hague had been seized with her husband while walking on Telegraph Hill on October 19, 1973 and taken to an isolated area of the Potrero District where she was brutally butchered. Her husband survived. The case differed from the other 73 homicides preceding it that year only in its brutality and seeming senselessness. When 28 year old Frances Rose was shot by a black man who invaded her automobile on October 28, there was no reason to connect the Hague murder, other than the race of the perpetrator.
The killing of Saleem Erakat in his market on Turk Street on November 25 might have been a typical robbery murder except that the killers took the trouble to bind the victim and shoot him execution style. On December 11, Paul Dancik was killed while approaching a street phone booth. Police found that both Erakat and Dancik were killed by the same .32 caliber weapon, an uncommon size for such crimes. A week or so later three more white victims were shot down in the street without provocation in the space of a few days, all with the same weapon.
Realizing that they had a terror spree on their hands, department officials formed a task force under veteran homicide detectives Gus Corerris and John Fotinos. Two robbery detectives, Jeff Brosch and Carl Klotz, were assigned to assist the two lead detectives. Other homicide detectives were to continue taking cases in rotation as was the standard procedure, but under the coordinative supervision of Coreris and Fotinos. For a time the killings seemed to stop. Then they resumed in late January when four whites were killed and one wounded in a two hour rampage. Again there was a brief break in the killings until April 1st when Thomas Rainwater was killed in the street. On April 16, 1974, the last victim, Nelson Shields was killed with three shots in the back.
A simple recitation of the murders fails to convey the effect of the reign of terror on the city at the time. City residents were terrified at the seeming randomness of the attacks. The streets were deserted at night, and intense pressure was put on the police to bring the case to a successful conclusion. In the course of the investigation, investigators became convinced that the Nation of Islam, the black separatist group, was involved. In the absence of any hard information, almost in desperation, the department established controversial procedures to stop and question all young black men found out at night. Finally in mid-1974 the killings came to an end after 14 whites had been shot or hacked to death on the city streets and several more were seriously wounded.
There is an early published account of the case, Clark Howard’s 1979 Zebra: The true account of the 179 days of terror in San Francisco, a workmanlike job which covers much of the same the same ground. But what Sanders can bring to the subject, of course, is an insiders’ view of the case.
Promotional material provided by the publisher of the Sanders/Cohen book describes the Zebra case as a “riveting story, told by San Francisco’s first black police chief, of the racially-motivated serial killings that terrorized the city in the winter of 1973-4, and how it was solved by black detectives.” Even allowing for the customary hyperbole to which publishers are inclined, that statement is over the top. The case was eventually solved, after a massive amount of leg work by a large number of detectives--not just Sanders and his partner-- when one of the killers decided to claim the $30,000 reward offer, and contacted the police. Wisely, when the book came to print, the version claiming exclusive solution by Sanders and his partner was not in the main text of the story. Still, as some reviewers have noted, and as the dust jacket text of the book asserts, we are incorrectly led to believe that Sanders and his partner "spearheaded" the investigation which led to the solution of the case.
The reviews so far have been mixed, ranging from the fawningly adulatory: “The Real Deal” and “Stunningly Researched” to severely critical: “Not the Real story” and “You’ve got to be kidding.” Sanders and his partner, Inspector Rotea Gilford were in fact assigned to three of the 14 cases credited to the Zebra killers but their involvement in the solution seems to very much less than is suggested in the book.
The book is littered with errors and misstatements, too many to catalogue in a single review. Examples will have to suffice. If Sanders is the hero of the story, he also provides a set of villains. In his version of events, that role is played by an amorphous band of what he calls a “white Irish old-boys network.” “In 1973,” he claims, “only one man who wasn’t Irish had the rank of captain or higher in the SFPD.” As a simple matter of fact, at the time of which Sanders writes, the chief and almost all his top staff was demonstrably un-Irish. The Homicide Detail was riddled with Irish old-boy operatives as well, according to Sanders, from Charles Ellis, the detail’s commander, on down. Retired Captain Charles Ellis will doubtless be surprised to find out that he has been transformed into an Irishman. The fact of the matter is that Irish-named detectives were a distinct minority in the detail at the time.
A more egregious mischaracterization is Sanders’ discussion of an attempt by adversarial forces to find out where the man who had given up the suspects was being housed for his own safety. By Sanders’ account, the president of the OFJ, who also happened to be a member of the Nation of Islam --the very group of which the killers were members-- approached the lead investigator in the case and asked him where the principal prosecution witness was being sequestered. Sanders more or less brushes off that overture as an innocent act, saying, “It’s more than possible that someone in the Nation told him (the officer) they were afraid Harris was being held against his will, and all they wanted to do was ‘talk’ to him.” Yes. And John Gotti had someone ask an FBI agent for Sammy “The Bull” Gravano’s address in the Federal Witness Protection Program so that he could update his Christmas card list. In the end, it is for Sanders’ colleagues in the Homicide Detail at the time to report on just how involved Sanders was in the final resolution of the case.
While the story of the horrendous spate of murders serves to hook the reader into the book, its underlying purpose – the real purpose it would appear—is to provide a platform for Sanders to vent about what he sees as a career’s worth complaints about his victimization by racist forces, both during the Zebra investigation and otherwise. To that end he recounts the efforts of the Officers for Justice, an association of largely black officers, against what they saw as discrimination in selection, treatment and promotions of minority police officers. In 1973, with Sanders playing a prominent role, the OFJ filed a lawsuit in Federal Court claiming discrimination in hiring and promotions and petitioning for relief in the form of preferential treatment in future hiring and promotions.
According to the Sanders/Cohen formulation “It was proven that some of the tests given to minorities were statistically more difficult than those given to whites.” (This sentence doesn’t make sense. They probably mean to say that the statistical difference in results between whites and minorities proved that the tests were biased against minorities, a very different thing.) In any event, the statistical disparity was seized upon by the court in 1973 in a preliminarily finding of disparate treatment. The judicial proceedings which followed were intended to test the validity of that finding. After years of legal wrangling, the case finally came to trial before Judge Robert Peckham in November 1978. The plaintiff’s first witness – and only witness as things turned out -- was Homicide Inspector Prentice Sanders.
It was brought out on cross examination that for all the discrimination he claimed, only one other member his academy class had advanced farther in the department by 1979. And it was pointed out that good things had come to Sanders sooner than most. While his academy classmates were settling into their final patrol assignments, Sanders was assigned -- by non-civil service appointment-- to the much coveted robbery detail, a promotion his fellows could not hope to make for several years more at least. And at the time the OFJ case was filed, he was assigned to the Homicide Detail, the most prestigious non-management assignment in the department.
His claims of humiliation by whites were put to the lie when the defense introduced a set of photographs showing that Sanders had willingly decked himself out in racially offensive primitive African garb. At the close of Sanders’ testimony, the judge commented “This man has not been discriminated against,” and informed plaintiff’s attorney that they better get a better witness if they hoped to prevail. The court then adjourned until December.
It was during this period, on November 28, 1978, that former Supervisor Dan White entered City Hall and assassinated Mayor George Moscone and County Supervisor Harvey Milk. When the court reconvened on December 5th, the judge said, alluding to the Moscone/Milk murders – with a non-sequitur worthy of inclusion in a list of logical fallacies—that “Before the resumption of the trial with all its unavoidable divisive and embittering consequences, I desire to continue the trial for one additional week and request counsel for all parties to meet and confer.” What the OFJ case had to do with the Moscone killing is still not clear. In the following months, in the usage of Thomas Sowell, the city “preemptively surrendered,” and what resulted was a consent decree by means of which appointments to and promotions within the department were governed for years to come.
Since the question of whether the examination process discriminated was never really tested in a contested judicial setting, this would be as good a time as any to explain why minorities did not do as well statistically as whites in the civil service promotional process. Why did the minorities fail? Why couldn’t Sanders, who placed third on his entrance test, pass promotional examinations without special help from the courts?
The answer lies not in discriminatory practices but in the culture of the examination process itself as it then existed in San Francisco. Simply put, those who scored highest on the examination were those who studied the hardest. Despite obvious defects in the straight paper and pencil tests then in vogue, there was some solid, job-related content to be acquired in the preparation process. Truth to be told, the actual examination was more of an obstacle course, designed to exclude those who had not studied rather than as an instrument for determining suitable candidates for promotion. That said, neither was it designed to exclude any group based on race or ethnicity. The process was objective and fair, and discriminated only against those who did not study. The same cannot be said about the process which replaced it.
In an ironic way the department, in its stumbling efforts to accommodate itself to minority demands, may have in fact put black officers at a disadvantage when it came to civil service promotions. It was evident at the time to anyone paying attention, that the department officials put black officers in “plum” jobs as soon as they could. Witness Sanders’ speedy ascension to the Inspectors Bureau. Other minorities were assigned to high visibility non-uniformed day watch positions in the Hall of Justice. That practice, whether done for altruistic or political reasons, backfired in a way that made minorities less likely to pass the regular civil service tests.
The officers who tended to do best on the promotional exams, whatever their ethnicity, were the men working nights in the outlying district stations-- switching back and forth weekly from an evening to a midnight watch -- looking for a way out and up. Who – white or black—wanted to give up a clean day job in the Hall of Justice to go back to work nights as a sergeant in a district station? And with the best and brightest of the minorities in plum jobs, the pool of likely successful minority candidates was accordingly reduced.
There may be another explanation as well for poor minority showings. As the trial date neared in 1978, the city’s attorneys began deposing the plaintiffs. Before the plaintiff’s attorney got the court to shut off pre-trial discovery peremptorily, assistant city attorney Ken Harrington was able to get the president of the OFJ to admit under oath that he and other OFJ members discussed the possibility of deliberately doing poorly on the 1976 sergeant’s exam to strengthen their court case. He also admitted that he had read only three of the ten books on the scope announced prior to the test.
Perhaps the above factors were not the sort of thing that the court wanted to entertain, but that’s what the situation was, and, more to the point, they offer an explanation for minority failure to compete successfully in written civil service examinations without degenerating into racist formulations on either side of the equation. Furthermore, they may help to explain in part the mystery why Sanders, who was smart enough to pass third on his entrance examination, turned up 190th on the 1976 sergeant’s list, and was unable to be appointed lieutenant without help from the courts. The prize went to those who studied. It was that simple.
At one point in the Zebra investigation, Sanders had an epiphany which tied the killings to the OFJ suit. “That’s when it hit me,” he says. “The same thing that sparked the killing was getting in the way of solving it. As hateful as the killers were, it was racism that lit the fire that burned inside them. And it was racism that kept the department so white we didn’t have enough black officers to infiltrate a group like the one we were after.” Sanders ends his book with a suggestion that more minorities be hired so that better intelligence inroads can be made into minority communities. It’s generally conceded that a diverse department is a good way to get better intelligence, but it’s not the panacea it’s often envisioned to be. In the Zebra case investigation, the best efforts of Sanders and other black officers to turn up information in the black community came up empty. And remember, at the time, in the heyday of what he calls a “white Irish old-boys network,” 75 percent of homicides were solved. More recently, with blacks in top command positions and presumably situated throughout key positions in the department, the solve rate is 43 percent.
In the end, what grates on the officers who knew and worked with Sanders is his obviously opportunistic ingratitude. The man was pampered and promoted by the department at every step along the way. He was assigned to Robbery Detail with only two years in the department, a position that it took others ten years to attain at the time. A few years later he was assigned to the Homicide Detail. There he remained for 25 years until promoted to lieutenant over dozens of others who had bested him in the civil service examination. After serving a short stint in the Records Division he was appointed assistant chief in 1996. And in 2002 he was appointed chief of police.
All that time, his career was accompanied by a background noise of controversial and questionable activities which it is doubtful that others would have survived (and which are too extensive to detail here). Yet he goes on, as he has since he joined the department, complaining of how he has been used and abused by the very organization which made him what he became. It’s disgraceful.
Running with the Wind
Nell Stark
Bold Strokes Books
430 Herrington Rd., Johnsonville, NY 12094
1933110708 $15.95 www.boldstrokesbooks.com
Mary Jane Lowe
Reviewer
Sail away in Promising First Novel.
Running with the Wind is an engaging engrossing debut novel by Nell Stark. Corrie Marston, a graduate student in engineering, spends her summer teaching sailing in Rhode Island. Corrie is talented, intelligent, fit, good looking and very good at sailing--Olympic-class good. Denise Lewis was Corrie's crew for the Olympic trials. Their relationship was intense, exciting and closeted, as Denise wasn't ready to come out. Before long, Denise left Corrie for the security and validation of a heterosexual relationship with William, Corrie's brother. The siblings have always had a competitive streak but this blow created a rift between them. Since Denise and William's engagement, Corrie has shut off a great deal of her pain, anger and her capacity for love. She has "made a point to hook up with friends--not random, but no strings attached"(47).
Corrie is one of the most thoughtful and articulate depictions of a bisexual woman this reviewer can recall. As a friend of Corrie comments, "I get the feeling that gender doesn't really matter to her. That it's just another physical characteristic like body type or something"(48). Still, Corrie admits to herself that "seducing men made her feel powerful, somehow. Whereas women just felt good" (49). Some elements of Corrie's view might make readers uncomfortable. She has not dealt with the emotional scars from Denise's rejection and that has pushed Corrie into a patch of windless water where she is foundering.
Quinn Davies, an intelligent, shy, 27 year-old woman in vet school has been convinced by an old friend, Drew, to take sailing lessons this summer. Quinn's gift with animals results in her helping Corrie's dog, Frog when she has an accident. The event places the two women in more intimate surroundings than the marina. Aware of Corrie's approach to sex, Quinn, despite her attraction to Corrie, is careful. For Quinn, "The entire idea of casual sex-- even between friends--made her uncomfortable. Sex meant losing control, and losing control meant whoever you were with could really, truly see you. Not just physically because you were naked, but emotionally--and what if they didn't like what they saw? Even if they did, you could never take it back. Sex wasn't like blurting out a confession by accident that you could then pretend was a joke. It was permanent"(48). With this thoughtful self awareness, Quinn refuses Corrie's causal overtures.
When Corrie realizes that William and Denise will be sailing in the annual Regatta, she decides to court Quinn in a face-saving plan to prove that she can get a girlfriend. Despite her sexual experience, Corrie is the naive one in many ways and the leaks in this boat appear quickly as Corrie, whose observing ego is not very strong, begins to fall for Quinn. Yet the more "innocent" Quinn understands more of herself, Corrie, and the nature of love and loyalty. The two women will have to find winds of trust and love for the relationship to sail.
Appropriately, sailing is one of the characters of Running with the Wind. How Corrie, Quinn, William, and other characters approach and relate to the sport is fascinating and revealing. The race scenes, both impromptu and formal, kept this reviewer turning pages. Further, Stark uses the various characters' understanding of sailing to explain sailing elements without distracting the reader with details. Corrie's frame of reference for a great deal of life is sailing and her analogies are nautical. She understands the boats, the sails, the wind, the sea and her role as a sailor. Corrie finds solace in the power and non-judging challenge of the wind and the water.
Running with the Wind is a fast-paced read. Stark's characters are richly drawn and interesting. The dialog can be lively and wry and elicited several laughs from this reader. Like Kallmaker's All the Wrong Places, the discussions of the nature of sex, love, power, and sexuality are insightful and represent a welcome voice from the view of late-20-something characters today. Stark also captures lovely, intimate, and vivid moments such as, "Corrie remembered how smooth and soft [Denise's] eyebrows had felt as she traced them with one forefinger in the aftermath of their lovemaking" (14). The love scenes between Corrie and Quinn are erotically charged and sweet.
Running with the Wind is a wonderful debut novel which holds great promise. It's a touching romance with lively, realistic characters in an interesting setting. This reviewer looks forward to reading Stark's future stories and in the meanwhile, recommends readers pick up a copy and set sail.
What Got You Here Won't Get You There: How Successful People Become Even More Successful
Marshall Goldsmith with Mark Reiter
Hyperion
77 West 66th Street, 12th Floor, New York, NY 10023
1401301304 $23.95
Peter Hupalo
Reviewer
What Got You Here Won't Get You There: How Successful People Become Even More Successful by Marshall Goldsmith and Mark Reiter is written for successful people who want to improve their social skills and eliminate behavioral flaws.
Goldsmith and Reiter write: "At the higher levels of organizational life, all the leading players are technically skilled. They're all smart. They're all up to date on the technical aspects of their job. … That's why behavioral issues become important at the upper rungs of the corporate ladder. All other things being equal, your people skills (or lack of them) become more pronounced the higher up you go. In fact, even when all other things are not equal, your people skills often make the difference in how high you go."
Goldsmith is a professional coach who helps CEOs, army generals, and upper-level executives overcome "classic destructive smart-person behavior." After discussing the beliefs shared by most successful individuals, Goldsmith chronicles twenty-one bad habits they tend to acquire.
Among these bad habits are:
* The Obsessive Need To Win
* Making Destructive Comments
* The Obsessive Need To Tell The World How Smart We Are
* Speaking When Angry
* Trying To Add Too Much Value To Other Peoples' Ideas
* Not Listening
* Goal Obsession
The bad habit underlying many of the others is the obsessive need to win, even when winning is counterproductive. Goldsmith and Reiter tell us the story of a father playing basketball with his 9-year-old-son. The game started with the father encouraging his son, but at the game progressed, the father's need to win kicked in and the father began playing aggressively to maximize his score. The need to win can overcome our common sense and damage relationships.
Goldsmith and Reiter explain how the competitive need to win affects conversations. We want to sound smart, although to others we often sound "unfoundedly omniscient." According to the authors, many bad habits are linked to "information compulsion" or the desire to share information we know, even when we know we should just be quiet.
Many successful people tend to pass judgment, but need to learn to be more reflective. Goldsmith and Reiter suggest: "Try this: For one week treat every idea that comes your way from another person with complete neutrality. Think of yourself as a human Switzerland. Don't take sides. Don't express an opinion. Don't judge the comment…."
But we're warned not to use the ubiquitous "pseudo-self-depreciating remark" to gain a insignificant conversational advantage. The authors write, "When a colleague at a meeting starts off by saying, 'Maybe I'm no expert on inventory control…' you can be sure that the comments that follow will suggest that he does think of himself as an expert on inventory control. When a friend launches into an argument by saying, 'I probably wasn't paying attention…' you can be sure that he's planning to show you that he was paying closer attention that you ever suspected."
Goldsmith and Reiter explain how this conversational one-upmanship is counterproductive and only serves our ego. For example, when we respond to somebody's idea with a "That's great, but wouldn't this be better?," rather than helping the person refine their idea (as we believe we're doing), we're taking ownership of the idea away from the person and, ultimately, making him less desirous of pursuing the idea. While we might have a marginally better idea, the overall goal is hindered. Ultimately, as a leader, you want to empower other people and turn other people in your organization into winners.
When working with clients, Goldsmith solicits feedback from the person's associates, family, and friends to obtain an accurate picture of the social flaws that afflict the individual. For those working on their own, What Got You Here Won't Get You There: How Successful People Become Even More Successful offers several ideas for honing in on the areas you need to improve.
The Mephisto Club
Tess Gerritsen
Ballantine Books
1540 Broadway, New York, NY 10036
0345476999 $25.95 www.randomhouse.com 1-800-726-0600
Rocky Reichman
Reviewer
Did you ever read a novel where it started off slow but then came to a stunning climax by its end? Hopefully, your answer is yes.
The above aptly describes Tess Gerritsen's The Mephisto Club. The book starts off slow. It continues slow. Then, finally, toward the conclusion of the story, the writing becomes fast-paced. The story unfolds. The mystery slowly unravels. The reader is left with a sense of astonishment--not necessarily for a good reason. Sure, many aspects of the novel may be predictable, but that doesn't counter the plot's twists or strange ending. The final conclusion will undoubtedly leave many readers confused. Wondering where they all. Not safe, readers will see next time they encounter a story like this.
But stop. Wait a moment, there is good news. Despite the underexplained ending, Gerritsen more than makes up for the story's fault with a heart-stopping theme and witty prose. Her characters are complex. Gerritsen's given them deep psychological depth, too. Her beautiful prose helps the reader glide through the story. Gerritsen even manages to incorporate a theme with deep symbolic meaning into her cool prose and hot twisting mystery. Evil. That's the theme. Wonderful, yet complex. The interesting theme helps readers forget that the story ends unfinished. It provides a lantern to Gerritsen's readers. A light they will need when they close the book. Evil abounds everywhere, demons live among us. The book tells us of a subspecies of demons who have evolved alongside mankind for the ages. Call them serial killers. Label them idiosyncratic freaks. But no matter what, Gerritsen's theory about and theme of evil is palpable. She gives good evidence both that evil exists and does not exist. What's the final answer?
You decide. You may find it astonishing.
Bethany's Bookshelf
Your Picture Perfect Wedding
Galina Vitols & Mia Johnson
Booksurge
5341 Dorchester Road, Suite 16, Charleston, SC 29418
1419624954, $17.99 www.booksurge.com 1-866-308-6235
In "Your Picture Perfect Wedding", award winning wedding photographer Galina Vitols has teamed up with seasoned writer for national bridal publications Mia Johnson to provide non-specialist general readers with a thoroughly 'bride & groom friendly' guide for selecting exactly the right wedding photographer for their very special day. Weddings are such important occasions that a lot of money and planning go into them, vows are exchanged, and a sanctioned life-time commitment put into effect. It's the photographs taken in documenting this very special event that provide a kind of family heirloom and one that can never simply be re-done if not accomplished properly the first time. "Your Picture Perfect Wedding" lays out all the steps to evaluate and secure an appropriate photographer, the kinds of pictures to expect and require, even what to do with those photos that provide a visual record of such an important and memorable occasion. There's even a terrific chapter on 'Finding Love and Great Wedding Photographs – The Second Time Around'. "Your Picture Perfect Wedding" truly lives up to its title and is enthusiastically recommended reading for anyone contemplating matrimony.
I Can Do All Things Through Christ Which Strengtheneth Me
Charity Gustovic
Booksurge
5341 Dorchester Road, Suite 16, Charleston, SC 29418
1419634364, $12.50 www.booksurge.com 1-866-308-6235
Sexually abused as a child, Charity Gustovic struggled with years of depression, finally finding healing through the Christian faith at the age of 27. Her poetry reflects her dealing with personal demons and ultimate victory in Christ. Here captured in lyrical verse are Charity's observations on the essential role of faith, her belief in God, and her experience of religion as a fundamental aspect of her own personal recovery from the injustices of the past, as well as the promises of the future. 'Grace': Lord, give me the patience/to love more than I know how./Lord Grant me the patience/to find reason in everything, somehow./Help me to put out the anger/that burns so intense inside./Help me to see you Lord./Help me to let you be my guide./I know, My Lord,/you have lived here as well./And I know you kept your Godly life/in the midst of this living hell./You felt the same as we do now./But you found a way/to keep the evil at bay somehow./You are the strongest one known to man./I am asking for your help, Dear Lord,/let me hold your hand?/Come and hold me tight,/as I battle/this ongoing fight.
The Oil Vendor and the Courtesan
Feng Menglong, author
Ted Wang & Chen Chen, translators
Welcome Rain Publishers, LLC
532 LaGuardia Place, Suite 473, New York, NY 10012
1566491401, $25.00 www.amazon.com
Skillfully translated into English by Ted Wang & Chen Chen, The Oil Vendor and the Courtesan is a collection selected stories by Feng Menglong (1574-1646), during China's Ming dynasty. Merchants, scholars, housewives, magistrates, craftsmen, courtesans, abbots, nuns, and children populate these creative, witty, and insightful tales, which cover a surprisingly broad cross-section of Chinese life of the era, both urban and rural. As engaging for lay readers as it is for dedicated students of Chinese culture and literature, The Oil Vendor and the Courtesan is a wondrous work of classical literature, highly recommended. Readers hungry for more are sure to enjoy the previous anthology in the series, "Two Slaps" collecting more tales by Feng's contemporary, Ling Mengchu (1580-1644).
Susan Bethany
Reviewer
Betty's Bookshelf
When Skylarks Fall: A Joe Box Mystery
John Robinson
RiverOak
Cook Communications Ministries
4050 Lee Vance View, Colorado, Springs, CO 80918
1589190548 $13.99 www.CookMinistries.com/RiverOak
All too often, Christian fiction is syrupy, preachy, and ultra-religious, with salvation treated as an instant cure-all and Christians as perfect, squeaky clean wimps. That’s why I was delighted to discover John Robinson’s Joe Box mysteries. Joe Box (a P.I. who lives and works in Cincinnati, Ohio) came to know the Lord in his early fifties, after a life spent living hard and drinking to excess. Now, he’s struggling to overcome old habits and built new character traits, after a lifetime spent living for himself. It isn’t easy, but with the help of his church, the encouragement of a pastor who holds him accountable, and a desire to live up to what his girlfriend expects out of him, Joe’s becoming a new man in Christ.
Robinson gives poor Joe almost more than he can handle in When Skylarks Fall, though. First, a famous country singer needs Joe to find out why someone is harassing and stalking her, and she’s willing to pay top dollar. Joe’s good at what he does, true, but he’s by no means world- famous. Kitty Clark could afford anybody she wants. Why him? And the longer he works for her, the odder it seems. Why him? Who is Kitty Clark, anyway?
Then, Joe himself is targeted by the stalker, and Joe’s girlfriend Angela finally tells him something she’s been hiding about her past. As one secret after another blows up in Joe’s face, it’s all he can do to keep his mind on business long enough to get the job done. He needs to pay attention, though – someone wants to kill him, and separating the good guys from the bad guys isn’t as easy as it sounds.
In Search of Eden
Linda Nichols
Bethany House
Baker Book House
P.O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516
0764201670 $13.99 www.bethanyhouse.com
Ever since Miranda Isabella DeSpain was forced to give up her baby at the age of fifteen, she’d been drifting, afraid to get involved in life, afraid to let herself get too close to anyone, for fear of losing yet another important person in her life. Now, as she approaches her 27th birthday, she’s wondering if she can finally settle down somewhere and recreate herself.
First, though, there’s a loose end she needs to take care of, in Abingdon, Virginia. Once in town, she meets Joseph North, the chief of police, an upright and dedicated man whose entire life is geared to performing his duty and taking care of those he loves. As he and Miranda get to know each other, he becomes suspicious of this woman who’s popped up out of nowhere, with no past history as far as he can tell and no real reason to be where she is.
Then, he discovers that Miranda has a baby picture of his fifteen-year- old niece, Eden. What does she want with Eden, and why is she hiding her past? Nichols tells the story with beautiful language and nicely-fleshed- out characters and ends it with a lovely twist. There are discussion questions in the back for reading groups that want to use In Search of Eden as a reading choice. This is Nichols’ first novel (although it doesn’t read like it), but I predict it won’t be her last.
Dream Jobs to Go: Book Reviewer
Deborah Bouziden
Intellectua.com, LCC
Dream Jobs To Go
6947 University Blvd., Winter Park, FL 32789
No ISBN http://www.dreamjobstogo.com/titles/djtg0018.html $12.95 E-book
This ebook works just like a website, with clickable links and pop up email message blanks, but it also prints out nicely, for those who prefer reading on the fly (or in the tub). Oklahoma author Deborah Boudizen, who has written hundreds of reviews and several books, knows her topic and doesn’t pull any punches. She’s honest about the pay (slim to none, in most cases), the education and training required (usually also slim to none), and the pros and cons of reviewing. (My favorite? Stacks of free books that have to be read in a timely fashion – and from my reviewing experience, I’d say that it is both a pro and a con!)
Bouziden also interviews three other equally-honest book reviewers, who give a blow-by-blow account of their writing days, explain what they like and dislike about the job, and tell what they’d do differently if they were just starting out. Bouziden then explains how to break into the field, includes a list of resources (for those who want to know more), and offers a list of links that can be used to track down markets and locate new books to read and review. Finally, and possibly best of all, she offers a step-by-step outline of the reading and review-writing procedure.
If Bouziden’s book has one flaw, it’s that most of her information is geared to online markets and reviews. This didn’t surprise me – it is an ebook, after all - but it does give the reader the impression that the most important review markets are online. It’s true that many (probably most) websites depend on volunteered reviews and are always in the market for more. However, if you want to make any money at reviewing, you will need to look for better-paying markets (which are mainly print markets); at the most, what you’ll get from a majority of the online markets is a free book.
Of course, if you’re a bibliophile (and aren’t we all?), this is almost better than pay. To have someone send you a free book and all you have to do is read it and tell others what you think about it? Yes, please! This is why this is considered a dream job. And for bookaholics, free reading material means more money to spend on other stuff. Now, all you need to do is find a day job that’ll pay you to hold down the fort while you sit around and read….
The Literary Press and Magazine Directory 2006/2007
Council of Literary Magazines and Presses
Soft Skull Press
55 Washington St., Suite 804, Brooklyn NY 11201
1933368160 $19.95 www.softskull.com www.clmp.org
From Rick Moody’s lapel-grabbing foreword to the Q&A sessions with top people in the literary field to the press listings themselves, this is a book that is meant to get you excited about the opportunities available in the world of independent publishing. It will also equip you to do something about it; it isn’t billed as “The only directory for the serious writer of fiction and poetry” for nothing.
The listings are in alphabetical order and include print magazines, online publishers, and small presses in the US, Canada, and England. Some publishers appear more than once, depending on which categories they fit into, and there are additional indices in the back that break listings down by geography, publisher type, writing genre (fiction, non-fiction, poetry, book reviews, translations, etc.) and methods of submission (unsolicited, simultaneous).
The listings themselves are very detailed and include contact information (including URLs that take you to previously published work), a sampling of published authors, reading periods, reporting time, author payment, circulation figures, format, and other helpful details. New in this edition: tips for success from leading editors, profiles of various publishers and editors, leading literary webzines, and a listing of Canadian literary publishers and journals.
The Q&A sessions interspersed throughout the book are especially helpful. For example, “Communicate with other writers you trust about where to send your work, and ask them if they think it is ready. Buy more books and read more. Revise. Shorten. Revise.” [Chris Fishbach, senior editor, Coffee House] Or “The single most effective way to improve your own writing skills is – in my opinion – to read LOTS of the best of the kind of writing you want to do. (Also, take notice: What publications do you like to read? Those might be good places to start sending your work since you and the editors obviously have shared tastes.)” [Kathleen Volk Miller, managing editor, Painted Bride Quarterly] If you want to succeed in the literary marketplace, adding this book to your collection will be a big help.
Betty Winslow
Reviewer
Bob's Bookshelf
Introduction to California Soils and Plants: Serpentine, Vernal Pools and Other Geobotanical Wonders
Arthur R. Kruckeberg
University of California Press
2120 Berkeley Way, Berkeley, CA 94704-1012
0520233719 $45.00 hc
0520233727 $18.95 pbk www.ucpress.edu 1-510-642-9737
California boasts an abundance of endemic plants because of its rich geologic diversity. In "Introduction to California Soils and Plants" Arthur Kruckeberg looks at what he calls the "Kooky soils" that have shaped the state's rich flora.
This very readable book shows the patterns and relationships among rocks, vegetation, and plant species in areas as diverse as the Channel Islands, the Central Valley, and the High Sierras. You'll find 148 photographs (most in color), six maps, 11 line illustrations and 16 tables devoted to defining and explaining the state's natural wonder.
Using lively prose showing how geology shapes plant life, the author provides a geologic travelogue of California's unusual soils and land forms and their associated plants. Here's the perfect way to obtain a greater understanding of California's remarkable biodiversity.
Fantasy Baseball and Mathematics
Dan Flockhart
Jossey-Bass/Wiley
989 Market Street, Fifth Floor, San Francisco, CA 94103-1741
0787994433 $24.95 1-800-225-5945
Anyone involved in the education of a child realizes that the process of learning to read, write, or master mathematical concepts can be very challenging. Fortunately, there are some useful guides available that provide assistance to those who are involved in teaching these disciplines.
Focusing on the interest young people have in fantasy sports, Dan Flockhart has developed an innovative program that uses real world sports data to capitalize on this recreational pastime while teaching kids math.
"Fantasy Baseball and Mathematics" is a resource both parents and teachers will be interested in. Appropriate for students in the fifth grade and higher, this guide encourages the youngster to create his or her own fantasy baseball team. Then each week the newspaper or online resources can be used to locate the players' statistics in order to calculate the points earned by the team.
Preparation time is minimal once the game is set up and the youngster can play the game with friends or other family members. The book contains directions on how to select players, read box scores, collect data, and compute points.
Handouts or worksheets are provided for each step of the process. The mathematical concepts the game touches upon include graphing activities, working with fractions, linear equations, statistics, data analysis, and probability.
One of a new series of books, there are similar guides for football, basketball and soccer available. If you are trying to make math mastery more accessible and enjoyable for a young person, this approach is definitely worth a try.
"Purpose Writing" outlines a way to create a flexible writing framework that will meet the needs of older students. Designed for educators and parents who may be home schooling their children, this book presents a writing workshop model to fit the needs of a variety of adolescent learners.
Offering specific strategies that promote student engagement and providing day-by-day descriptions detailing two representative writing units, the authors' goal is to replace that "I hate writing essays" attitude with a more positive one. This field tested approach explains how to create conditions where genres can be explored and reluctant writers can increase their facility with many different types of material.
Best of California's Missions, Mansions and Museums
Ken and Dahlynn McKowen
Wilderness Press
1200 5th Street, Berkeley, CA 94710-1306
0899973981 $21.95 www.wildernesspress.com (510) 558-1666
Ken and Dahlynn McKowen's "Best of California's Missions, Mansions, and Museums" profiles 135 historic and cultural landmarks throughout California. Rather than cover every historically significant venue, the authors identify and offer expert commentary on some of the most interesting destinations for experiencing the state's rich and eclectic past.
An interesting aspect of the book is that the authors visited the sites they include to "kid test" the exhibits and activities associated with each location. Besides highlighted "theme" itineraries, such as tours for kids, romantic getaways, and outings for the serious history buff, this well illustrated guide contains dozens of trivia questions about peculiar, historical and entertaining California facts.
Laid To Rest In California
Patricia and Jonathan Brooks
Insiders' Guide/Globe Pequot Press
P.O. Box 480, Guilford, CT 06437
0762741015 $15.95 www.insidersguide.com 1-800-962-0973
"Laid To Rest In California" by Patricia and Jonathan Brooks offers a guide to the cemeteries and grave sites of the Golden State's rich and famous. The final resting places for sports legends, politicians, business titans, authors and movie stars are pinpointed here, along with a little information about each individual.
Besides details on the cemeteries' locations, visiting hours, and how to find the famous burial sites, the authors include information about related homes and nearby museums that might be of interest. In an unusual twist, sidebars recommend local restaurants for those who might have worked up an appetite during their cemetery trek.
After visiting John Steinbeck's grave at the Garden of Memories Memorial Park in Salinas, California, the authors suggest a stop at the downtown National Steinbeck Center and then lunch at the nearby Victorian Steinbeck House restaurant where the author's family once lived. Even if you don't plan on any field trips to these locations, detailed obituaries, sepulchral photos, and fascinating trivia make this an unusual but entertaining guide book.
You Know You're In California When…
Saul Rubin
Insiders' Guide/Globe Pequot Press
P.O. Box 480, Guilford, CT 06437
076273745X $9.95 www.insidersguide.com 1-800-962-0973
In "You Know You're In California When…" Saul Rubin looks at 101 quintessential places, people, events, customs, lingo and eateries of the Golden State. From valley girls to veggie burgers, the Lone Cypress to Legoland, and the Haight-Ashbury to Hearst Castle, this book underscores what makes California such a unique and interesting place to live or visit.
To see where fiction and reality intersect the author suggests a walk through Monterey's Cannery Row, while the place to find people on horses shouting "Yahoo" is the California Rodeo Grounds in Salinas. After paging through this thin paperback you may wish to check out Bubble Gum Alley in San Luis Obispo. Or better still, drive a little farther south to feast on the barbecued tri tip at the Far Western Tavern in Guadalupe (just outside Santa Maria) or sample some aebleskiver in Solvang.
Bob Walsh
Reviewer
Buhle's Bookshelf
A Primer On Biblical Studies
John Paul Hozvicka
Trafford Publishing
2333 Government Street, Suite 6E, Victoria, BC, Canada, V8T 4P4
1412077079, $13.50 www.trafford.com 1-888-232-4444
An author, theologian, and expert in the Holy Scripts, John Paul Hozvicka sees to provide the non-specialist general reader with an informed and informative introduction to what the Bible has to teach us in "A Primer On Biblical Studies". The Bible as an ancient body of writings is presented in a context that includes antiquarian writing methods, manuscripts, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and other sources of written records. Readers are also informed on how the canonization of the Bible came about. The apocryphal books that are a part of the Roman Catholic canon but excluded from the Protested canon are explained. Of special note are the chapters on 'The Language of the bible' and Biblical Reference Skills'. Very highly recommended reading for members of all Christian denominations and church affiliations, "A Primer On Biblical Studies" also covers analysis and criticism of biblical literature, the writings of the early church fathers, theology, apologetics, and the chronology of the Bible.
Mary: Shadow of Grace, new expanded edition
Megan McKenna
New City Press
202 Cardinal Road, Hyde Park, NY 12538
1565482603, $13.95 www.newcitypress.com
Written by teacher and theologian Mary McKenna, Mary: Shadow of Grace is a methodical examination of the life of Mary, mother of Jesus Christ, as told through scripture. Chapters quote passages of scripture and then discuss their nuance at length, offering historical, theological, spiritual, and even metaphorical interpretations of Mary, her relationship with God, and her role as Mother of the Savior. Now in a newly expanded edition, Mary: Shadow of Grace is as much an uplifting expression of worship as it is a methodical and scholarly study. "Theologically, the term 'virgin' is connected to the long history of Israel, which is characterized as the woman, wife, beloved of Yahweh, who is more often unfaithful, wanton, worshiping other gods and sacrificing to other powers and forces. But Mary is a virgin. She is faithful, not like Israel with its long litany of infidelities. Mary is not just an individual Jew, but the woman of the Jewish people; she receives the promise for a virgin people, with a pure, single-minded heart."
Willis M. Buhle
Reviewer
Burroughs' Bookshelf
The Way We Were
Charles Dishno
Airleaf Publishing
419 Park Avenue South, New York, NY 10016
159453957X, $14.95 www.airleaf.com
The Way We Were: Growing Up in a Small Oregon Town Life as it was in the 40's &50's is the true-life memoir of author Charles Dishno, and his adolescence in the small town of Bly, Oregon. Peppered cover to cover with engaging anecdotes of small-town life a half-century ago, The Way We Were vividly brings memories alive, from fond remembrances of a sixteen-year-old friend who died tragically in an auto accident to the thrill of watching cowboy and Indian movies at matinee showings to the shocking day the fire house burned down and much more. A highly readable account of a bygone but not forgotten era.
The Scientific Worldview
Glenn Borchardt, Ph.D.
iUniverse
2021 Pine Lake Road, Suite 100, Lincoln, NE 68512
Progressive Science Institute
PO Box 5335, Berkeley, CA 94705-0335
0595392458, $26.95 www.iuniverse.com
Written by Glenn Borchardt, Ph.D. (Director of the Progressive Science Institute, Berkeley, California), The Scientific Worldview: Beyond Newton and Einstein is more of a philosophy text than a science text. Questioning the twentieth century "scientific worldview" systems philosophy, which focuses too heavily upon systems and too little upon the influence of environments, "The Scientific Worldview" instead advances a system of "univironmental determinism" - a mechanism of evolution (not just Darwinian evolution, but all aspects of evolution) based on the fundamental axiom that whatever happens to something results from the infinite variety of matter in motion within and without. The ultimate logical extrapolation of the system is the predicate that the universe had no beginning and will have no end. The Scientific Worldview is most readily understandable by intermediate to advanced students and scholars of philosophy, though novice and lay readers willing to apply serious thought and study will be able to follow the complex tenets discussed. A revolutionary reexamination of longstanding conceptual assumptions about the base nature of life, the universe, and everything.
John Burroughs
Reviewer
Carson's Bookshelf
The Shifting Sands
Layne West
AuthorHouse
1663 Liberty drive, Suite 200, Bloomington, IN 47403
1425935281, $15.49 www.authorhouse.com
Written by Layne West (former Mayor of Oregon, Illinois), The Shifting Sands: An Epic Tale of Ancient Erotic Intrigue, Romance and Adventure is an erotically charged fantasy novel about a past world that could have been, when monsters ravaged humanity. One female monster in particular has devoted herself to devouring humans engaged in sexual congress, so as to prevent procreation; other monsters specifically seek to castrate men and ingest their seed. Virile men are a rarity, women are desperate for sexual partners, the widowed Queen is losing her mind, and the human race is in imminent danger of extinction. Passion, excitement, courage, violence, and raw, dripping sensuality bring The Shifting Sands to a red-hot boil.
The Right Hand of Allah
D.E. Dawning
BookSurge, LLC
5341 Dorchester Road, Suite 16, Charleston, SC 29418
1419634151, $18.99 www.booksurge.com
Written by home designer and builder D.E. Dawning, The Right Hand of Allah is an action-packed novel about a counterterrorism agent thrust into an extraordinary position. When a terrorist bomb claims Kelly Rogers' life, he reawakens in the injured body of his Arab killer. Rogers is propelled into international counterterrorism intrigue, supported by two extraordinary women (one, the wife of his killer and the other his handler as well as possibly the most deadly woman alive) and hailed as a 'Chosen One' prophet who allegedly met with Allah in Heaven. A building vortex of action and adventure forms the heart of this fast-paced, thrilling odyssey.
The Adoption Mystique
Joanne Wolf Small, M.S.W.
AuthorHouse
1663 Liberty Drive, Suite 200, Bloomington, IN 47403
Roberta Ross Public Relations (publicity)
PO Box 41016, Bethesda, MD 20824
1425961797, $28.95 www.theadoptionmystique.com
Written by Joanne Wolf Small, M.S.W., The Adoption Mystique is not a general book about adoption, but rather a focused, politically-minded call for the civil rights of adoptees, specifically the right to access their own birth records and learn about their birth family's genetic heritage. Many American states deny adoptees the right to learn about their ancestry; others allow it under abrogated circumstances, and many subject those adoptees who inquire to rigorous interviews or worse, treating them practically as potential criminals. The Adoption Mystique examines fundamental myths endemic to the closed-adoption practice, debunks the claim that open birth records will lead more potential mothers to choose abortion over adoption (it hasn't in the two U.S. states that have always had open birth record laws), and calls vociferously for the civil rights of adoptees. The Adoption Mystique is uncompromising in its view that adoption should be a process that considers the rights of the adoptee over the wishes of the birth parents or adoptive parents in instances where no compromise is possible, examines bias against adoptees in the media and society, and debunks the myth that an adopted person is sundered of ties to their heritage, or that they should just "get over" the need to search for their birth record information. Strongly written and highly recommended.
Since the death of her daughter, Katharine Macklin has suffered from agoraphobia. Although Sergeant Richard Slater doesn’t believe in ESP, Katharine’s psychic abilities helped to find her daughter’s body and now Slater needs her help. A serial killer is on the loose, murdering young girls and leaving their untouched bodies wrapped in plastic, missing one shoe. Although Katharine is initially reluctant to help, she is pulled into the investigation when a small child named Bernie appears on her computer and shows her the shrine the killer erected with the missing shoes of the dead children.
Slater is frantic to find the killer yet Katharine holds close to her heart a promise Bernie extracted from her which reveals the motive behind the killer’s actions. As the investigation continues, she connects with the killer’s mind and tries desperately to figure out who the next victim is. Once the killer senses Katharine, he threatens her life and that of Slater’s small daughter Michelle. Despite warnings, Slater’s ex-wife doesn’t believe their daughter is in danger and Slater is torn between protecting his child and another the killer has targeted as the next victim. Although Katharine fears for her life, she cannot allow the killer to act again and begins a frenzied race to find and stop him before he can add another shoe to his collection.
Paranya provides an electrifying thriller here, allowing readers a peek into the mind of a serial killer and his twisted yet surprisingly comprehensible reasoning for murder. Nicely developed characters, plenty of psychological suspense, and a shocking twist at the end will leave readers thinking about this book for a good while.
The Nelson Scandal
Jackie Griffey
Airleaf Publishing
1600021336 $14.95 www.airleaf.com
Pine County Sheriff Cas Larkin is investigating two homicides, one man killed by blunt force trauma, the other shot. Although there is nothing to tie the two men together other than they were both drug users, Cas suspects their murders are connected. Cas’s wife Connie becomes interested in Edgar T. Nelson, founding father of their small town of Maryvale, and his daughter Mary Lou. Rumor has it that after Mary Lou ran off to marry a Frenchman, Nelson shot himself and Mary Lou never returned home. Connie finds dated material about the Nelsons in the basement of the town’s library, and while exploring hears someone crying. However, no one else is in the basement with her. Strange things begin happening in the library and several people think it may be haunted. When a medium confirms this, Connie begins to investigate who might be haunting the library and why, which leads to past murders that tie into the present two her husband is investigating.
Griffey has written a highly entertaining story, incorporating small-town charm with loveable primary and secondary characters wrapped around two interconnecting mysteries. The Nelson Scandal is part of a series that promises to snag readers’ interests and not let go, with nicely developed characters, appealing locale, and the unique juxtaposition of a professional investigator paired with an amateur sleuth.
Winning
Bryce Christensen
Whiskey Creek Press
9781593747978 $12.95 www.whiskeycreekpress.com
Dave Lloyd has lived his life as an agnostic, unswayed by two very important persons in his life, both devout Christians: the man who saved his life during the Korean War and Dave’s wife Susan. Dave teaches at Dilthon High School, where his nephew Brad Porter is also a teacher and football coach. Brad is a tenacious man who does not believe in losing and will not accept defeat. When one of Brad’s players commits suicide after failing to score for the team, Brad doesn’t make an appearance at the boy’s funeral and seems unconcerned he is the reason for the boy’s death. But when Brad faces a personal tragedy, he becomes a different man and trades his position as football coach for that of cross-country. There, Brad coaches a bunch of stragglers, encouraging them to do their best to win but preaching that losing is a part of life. When Brad’s car veers off a road, causing his death, the town believes he committed suicide but an autopsy reveals otherwise.
Dave is a man who tends to stay in the background, observing and offering quiet advice to others. Throughout his life and following the deaths of several close family members, he has privately agonized over his doubts about God, but through the people who travel in and out of his life, he begins to find some measure of understanding and peace.
Powerfully written with in-depth characterization, Winning is itself a winner. Christensen’s philosophical style will appeal to all readers, along with prose delivered with a luring cadence that at times comes very close to poetic. A poignant, thought-provoking story providing a galvanizing look at family dynamics, inner struggles, and the impetus behind certain driven behaviors, this book will hold the reader’s attention until the end.
Paper Woman
Suzanne Adair
Whittler’s Bench Press
0978526511 $19.95 www.dramtreebooks.com
Widow Sophie Barton helps her father run his printing press and tries to stay out of politics in the small town of Alton, GA, which remains peaceful while redcoats and colonists clash in other parts of the colonies. Sophie’s father, however, has been acting mysterious and Sophie suspects he has aligned himself against King George. Although Sophie is being courted by the major of the British garrison, she isn’t so sure she wants to become his mistress and move to England with him. When her father’s burned body is discovered, Sophie is placed under house arrest with orders to decode a secret message meant for him. She escapes with Mathias, her former lover, and embarks South, accompanied by her brother and Mathias’s uncle, in hopes of finding the person who killed her father. Their trip turns into an electrifying journey as they traverse through Floridian swamps, sail along the Caribbean, and end up in Havana, Cuba, pursued by the major and his lieutenant, a demented man who enjoys torturing those who oppose him, as well as two Spanish assassins.
Adair takes her reader on a thrilling adventure with Paper Woman. Packed with action and breath-taking suspense interwoven around a fascinating time in American history, with the perfect blend of romance, this is an exhilarating story that will captivate the reader from beginning to end.
Christy Tillery French
Reviewer
Dawn's Bookshelf
Because She Can
Bridie Clark
Warner Books
Hachette Book Group USA
1271 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020
0446579246 $23.00
What would you endure to have everything you've ever dreamed of? In her first novel, Because She Can, Bridie Clark tackles the classic "overcoming adversity and cruel boss" trope, only she does it with tasteful flair and laugh-out-loud humor. Claire Truman's job is in jeopardy, her latest love interest turned out to be as much of a loser as the rest, and her best friend wants to drag her to a high society function when she'd rather sit on her couch and indulge in the deliciously cliché week-long obligatory break-up mope. After playing the socialite at the opening of an Art Gallery, Claire's life changes almost over night: she starts dating the very eligible bachelor Randall Cox (her college crush and previously dubbed "Pabst Blue Ribbon" by the friends) who sweeps her into the upper crust, and she takes a job with the a big name publishing house as an editor for the infamous Vivian Grant, rumored to be the most dangerous woman in publishing. After warnings from her mentor, family, friends, and colleagues, Claire weighs the potential benefits of doing her time at Grant Books and decides that career advancement in the competitive world of publishing is worth whatever Grant can throw at her. In the mean time, Claire's romance with Randall Cox moves on fast forward toward happily ever after—or so everyone thinks.
Because She Can certainly sets itself apart among the recently repopularized "boss is evil" genre, but this novel is not about glorifying the cruelty of an employer so much as it is about the strength, intelligence, and internal resilience of a woman able to capitalize on any opportunity presented to her—no matter how overwhelming. Whatever you do, don't let "Villainous Boss Malaise" keep you from this novel; if you do, you'll miss the differences that make this novel stand out so successfully—in fact, you'll miss the entire point. The heroine, Claire Truman, is not a naive greenhorn suddenly thrust into the scary world of executive business with a boss who Torquemada would applaud—she's an smart professional who accepts a job with a rumored tyrant with open eyes, and knowingly prepares herself for exactly twelve months of exhaustion, late hours, and psychological abuse all with the knowledge that regardless of the questionable stability of her boss, her term with Grant Books will further her career in ways that a lateral move in the field never could. Vivian Grant and her eccentrically cruel behavior are catalysts for story progression, true, but Claire's careful navigation through her balancing act between advancing in a career and thriving relationship is what makes this story and these characters so addictive. Claire dives in and learns everything she possibly can—good and bad—from Vivian Grant and her colleagues at Grant Books, while other heroines in this genre spend the length of a novel overcoming self esteem issues in regards to their career, body image, and personal worth. Clark's heroine recognizes her own potential before she accepts the position and even squares off with her future boss over her initial contract offer (much higher than Grant actually expected to pay out). Because She Can isn't a how-to guide on how to weather abuse for the good of your career—it's a treatise on knowing when enough is enough, in both the career and social worlds, and acting on it.
Because She Can is as much about deftly handling potentially explosive female working relationships as it is about translating those skills in a personal setting. Not only refreshing in its approach, Because She Can is genuinely funny and inspirational. Clark's Characters are memorable and carefully written to project their distinct personalities, and yet are so recognizable that it becomes difficult for readers not to see their own coworkers and friends in these roles. Each character—even odious Vivian Grant—is accessible. Because She Can manages to convey an uplifting message of self confidence and risk taking without bludgeoning the audience over the head—not an easy task in today's sound bite culture.
The Rose of York: Fall from Grace
Sandra Worth
End Table Books/Metropolis Ink
P.O. Box 682, Yarnell, AZ 85362
0975126490 $16.95
"Now is the winter of our discontent
Made glorious summer by this sun of York."
Richard III, I.1.1-2
For all the disservice done to Richard III by Shakespeare, his opening lines of Richard III could do no more to accurately divine the shift in thought that Sandra Worth's trilogy seeks to influence about the last Plantagenet king of England. In "The Rose of York" trilogy (Love and War, Crown of Destiny and Fall from Grace), Worth joins the likes of Shakespeare, Sir Thomas More, Horace Walpole, Alison Weir, and Beth Marie Kosir in her contribution to the commentary about the most reviled king of the English monarchy. Unlike most of her colleagues from the Early Modern period, however, Worth is not writing to appease a crown; she has no sedition laws poised to censor her text; she isn't a mouthpiece of Tudor propaganda. Instead, Worth's historical fiction sets out to correct centuries of rumor, political attacks, and exaggerations that have molded the image of Richard III into a villainous, "bunch-backed toad."
In The Rose of York: Fall from Grace, Richard III is deeply in love with a woman, with the law, and with his quest to embody the ideals of King Arthur. Rather than displaying the Machiavellian suspicion that Shakespeare's villain thrives on, Worth's Richard III is too trusting and makes decisions based on the hope that the inherent good in his courtiers will outweigh their greed and opportunism. Unfortunately, the malicious scheming and plotting of individuals like Buckingham and Lady Beaufort consistently undermine the progress and general good that Richard III's new laws promote. Far from the traditional depiction of Richard III as a murderous opportunist, Worth's characterization of Richard highlights the villainy and cut throat tactics of those who would become the central core of the Tudor court.
In Rose of York: Fall from Grace, Richard is a handsome, athletic man who risks his own health to comfort his dying queen. He is a man touched by beauty and tragedy. He is a man who did not covet the title of King, but bore it with a raised awareness of responsibility and desire to change the world. Many historical fictions fall off the razor's edge and either inundate the reader with facts and dates, or dismiss historical accuracy altogether. Worth's Fall from Grace treads that ground carefully by giving Richard a voice that is idealistic and genuine—if not a little naive. Captivating description and real, recognizable dialogue act as a vehicle for not only historical accuracy, but a heartbreaking romance. Though readers will undoubtedly know the outcome of the story before they open the cover, Worth's skill as a storyteller heightens audience investment in the personal lives of these historical figures and makes their tragic ends more than just an historical laundry list of dates and names. The complex relationships of the medieval court of England become easily navigable through Worth's vibrant characterizations.
Attempting to overturn history is no small task. The complexities of court interactions and allegiances have always been convoluted, and the interpretations of those interactions have most often been told by those who had the most power. Thanks to Shakespeare, Richard III's legacy has been one of deformity, conniving, regicide, cruelty, megalomania, usurpation, and murder. When such a negative portrait has been painted (indeed, even physical portraits were altered to reflect propaganda spread by the Tudors to alter the legacy of Richard) and maintained for generations, persuading an audience to consider facts more closely can be a monumental undertaking. Luckily, Worth's intensive research brings together historical documentation and private correspondences to piece together the facts about Richard III's rise to power and his short reign. Most of these facts have been available to the public, but to get an audience with a set view to revisit those same facts for reconsideration is a decisive task. Not surprisingly, Worth tackles the public opinion and wrestles it into experiencing familiar facts from a new, creative point of view.
Through the parsing together of timelines, records, and documents that have survived over 500 years of threat and suppression, Worth manages to paint a picture of Richard III that stands in direct conflict with what most people are familiar. The text is far from a didactic gloss of historical dates, names and locations, but it manages to recreate the life of Richard III with such vivacity and personality that it will forever change the mental image of one of history's most hated monarchs.
Dawn M. Papuga
Reviewer
Debra's Bookshelf
Will Storr vs. The Supernatural
Will Storr
Harper
0061132195 $13.95
Journalist Will Storr wrote a piece for Loaded magazine about his experiences tagging along with a demonologist on a couple of errands--recording electronic voice phenomena (EVPs) in an allegedly haunted house in Baltimore, meeting with a suburban mother in New Jersey who is a habitual Ouija board user and may be possessed. Storr entered the project a skeptic, but he couldn't rationalize away everything he witnessed with the demon investigator. Will Storr vs. The Supernatural is the result of his decision to pursue the paranormal further. Storr's original article appears as the book's prologue. In subsequent chapters Storr details his further experiences: meetings with various groups of paranormal enthusiasts (such as the Scooby Doo-ishly named "Ghost Club"), a walk in the woods with a Druid, the few minutes he managed to stay in the most haunted room of Britain's most haunted house, an interview with a woman who, in her youth, was the central figure in a celebrated case of possession, an afternoon spent with the Vatican's chief exorcist. The stories Storr has to tell are at the least interesting. One, about an English pub said to be haunted by its former landlady, is downright chilling. And Storr's account in his last chapter of an alleged case of possession in Texas is horrifying--not because demons are on the loose but, alas, because humans are.
Happily, Storr never fully surrenders his skepticism. He isn't afraid to express doubts about the claims some of his interviewees make, if not in person then at least on the page, if not in bold type then subtly:
"'Hang on, he says, pausing with his duster and his can, 'I can hear sounds, like wooshing sounds.' His ear is cocked skywards. 'It's almost like windy conditions, even though it's not windy outside. Can you hear it?'
'Yes,' I say. 'Is it an aeroplane?'
'No, I don't think so,' he says. 'I heard it last night as well.'
We listen in silence as the aeroplane goes past."
Mostly, as in his report from the set of Britain's television series Most Haunted, Storr reports honestly on what he's observed and lets readers draw their own conclusions. He also considers possible scientific explanations for the ghostly phenomena he and others have observed, though in the end he finds that science in its current state cannot explain everything he's experienced. A fallen Catholic, he emerges from his research convinced that there is at least some kind of an afterlife awaiting us.
Storr's narrative is punctuated with some very nice bits of writing:
"I glance to my left through the window. There have been blizzards all down the eastern seaboard for the last three days. Fat whacks of snow cover the ground everywhere except the freeway. I pause for a second to watch the cars and trucks and monstrous articulated lorries bomb noisily through the night, all exhaust-steam and slipstream and white lights and red. And as I sit and look at the traffic, somewhere deep in my brain, a tiny alarm starts to sound. At this moment, I'm still barely aware of it. But I've just begun to sense that something isn't right."
Note that long fourth sentence in the example above, the repetition of the coordinating conjunction "and" slowing the reader after three short sentences in a row, the dactyls and rhyme after the comma. It's a sentence that begs to be reread.
Will Storr vs. The Supernatural is worth the read, because its subject matter is interesting and because Storr does a good job with it. Skeptics won't find his exploration of the paranormal convincing, I'm sure, but they should find it well-written, and possibly thought-provoking. I would only suggest that the author include in subsequent editions an index and some kind of documentation of sources and locations.
Secondhand Smoke is the second installment in Karen E. Olson's series of journalism procedurals. (See my review of Olson's Sacred Cows, the first book in the series.) Her protagonist, Annie Seymour, is a crime reporter for the New Haven Herald (the fictional stand-in for the author's former real-life employer, the New Haven Register). Annie lives in New Haven's historic Italian section, Wooster Square, the home of a great number of Italian restaurants, including a pair of nationally celebrated pizzerias. This time around her work keeps her close to home: an early-morning fire consumes the restaurant across from her brownstone, and a dead body is found in its ashes. The crimes bring the FBI, the mob, and Annie's enigmatic step-father to town. Annie investigates the arson and murder--her neighbors closing ranks to keep her in the dark about what's really been going on--while navigating an uncertain relationship with Vinnie DeLucia--marine biologist turned private eye--whom we encountered already in the first book of the series.
Annie is a hard-edged character, a bit foul-mouthed, callous and world-weary, and sick of her job after years of reporting on New Haven's criminal class. She seems to go to some trouble to hide her humanity from herself and others, but it's not clear to me precisely why she so armors herself. It's true that her relationship with her mother is strained, and her job as a reporter necessarily distances her from would-be newsmakers who don't want their peccadilloes showing up in the paper. The job contributes to Annie's identity as an outsider in her own neighborhood. But I'm not sure these sufficiently explain her cynical detachment. It would be nice, at any rate, to see her character develop some emotional nuance in subsequent outings.
Olson offers up a decent mystery her second time out, with a twist at the end you almost certainly won't see coming. And as with the first book--and as a New Haven native--I much appreciate that her series is so firmly rooted in the area: Wooster Square and the Q Bridge and Claire's Cornucopia figuring as backdrops this time around, Yale's Sterling Library and Sleeping Giant State Park in book one. I look forward to seeing where the next Annie Seymour mystery takes us.
Blue Shoes and Happiness
Alexander McCall Smith
Anchor Books
1400075718 $12.95
I've been wanting for some years to begin reading Alexander McCall Smith's No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency books. The series was begun in 1998, with another book added to it every year or two: the eighth book in the series, The Good Husband of Zebra Drive, is due out in the U.S. this month (April, 2007). At last, woefully behind the author's prodigious output, I have stepped into the world of McCall Smith's creation, beginning with the seventh book, Blue Shoes and Happiness. I was worried that I might miss something by jumping into the series late, but I don't think I have: I was never left puzzled, at any rate, by any of the references in the book.
Having read McCall Smith's three books featuring Professor Dr Moritz-Maria von Igelfeld (Portuguese Irregular Verbs, The Finer Points of Sausage Dogs, and At the Villa of Reduced Circumstances), I was expecting this better known series to be similarly charming and warm and well-written, and I was not in the least disappointed. The books, set in Botswana, feature Precious Ramotswe, a wise, "traditionally built" woman who has set herself up as a detective--after reading The Principles of Private Detection by Clovis Anderson--with a view to solving life's smaller problems:
"'Mma Ramotswe does not solve crimes. She deals with very small things.' To portray the smallness, Mma Makutsi put a thumb and forefinger within a whisker of one another. 'But,' she went on, 'these small things are important for people. Mma Ramotswe has often told me that our lives are made up of small things. And I think she is right.'"
She is assisted in this by Mma (the term of respect is pronounced "mah") Makutsi, a graduate of the Botswana Secretarial College, and by Mr. Polopetsi, who is also employed by Mma Ramotswe's husband, Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni, at Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors.
A number of problems are brought to Mma Ramotswe's attention in the course of this book, not all of them in fact small--a case of blackmail, a doctor prescribing unnecessary medicine to his patients, and not least Mma Makutsi's concern that she has scared off her fiancé with talk of feminism. But even with so much on her plate there is time for Mma Ramotswe to sit and think and to drink bush tea, to reflect on the traditional ways of her country and on the traditional troubles afflicting man, to enjoy a drive in her tiny white van and the enormous pleasures afforded by other small things.
McCall Smith's book is imbued with humanity and homespun morality. It's a gentle, languorous read that I suppose might not be to everyone's taste but which I find delicious. McCall Smith offers a gentle look at the human condition in prose that is sometimes poignant, sometimes humorous, and always immensely readable:
"'No,' said Mma Makutsi. 'I do not think that you need to go on a diet.' She paused, and then added, 'Others may, of course.'
'Hah!' said Mma Ramotswe. 'You must be thinking of those people who hold that it is wrong to be a traditionally built lady. There are such people, you know.'
'They should mind their own business,' said Mma Makutsi. 'I am traditionally built too, you know. Not as traditionally built as you, of course--by a long way. But I am not a very thin lady.'"
The book is also a sort of love letter to Botswana, where the author taught law for several years (at the University of Botswana), and where he reportedly saw a woman, chasing a chicken around a yard, who would, years later, inspire the character of Precious Ramotswe.
"So it was in Botswana, almost everywhere; ties of kinship, no matter how attenuated by distance or time, linked one person to another, weaving across the country a human blanket of love and community. And in the fibres of that blanket there were threads of obligation that meant that one could not ignore the claims of others. Nobody should starve; nobody should feel that they were outsiders; nobody should be alone in their sadness."
With four series and nearly twenty novels under his belt--to say nothing of his children's books and short stories and his academic writing, more than fifty books all told--Alexander McCall Smith is an impressively prolific writer. Lucky for us.
By the Time You Read This
Giles Blunt
Henry Holt
0805080619 $19.95
John Cardinal and his wife Catherine live on a quiet street in Algonquin Bay, an idyllic, lakeshore community in Northern Ontario (and a stand-in for the author's real-life hometown of North Bay, Ontario). Cardinal is a detective with the Algonquin Bay police department. Catherine is a photographer and teaches at the local community college, and she is a manic depressive. The couple's happy, nearly thirty-year marriage has been punctuated by Catherine's hospitalizations for depression, but when the story starts she has been out of the hospital for a year--taking her medicine and seeing a psychiatrist regularly. Still, it hardly comes as a shock to most of Blunt's characters when Catherine turns up dead, an apparent suicide. Cardinal himself doesn't seriously question the coroner's finding on the matter until he receives an anonymous "sympathy" card gloating over her death. Other pieces of evidence--but nothing definitive--also begin to suggest that Catherine's death was not a suicide, and Cardinal, on leave from the department, investigates the matter quietly. Friends on the force assist him on the sly, though under orders not to waste police resources on a closed case. Other cases under active investigation compel more of their attention, however, and in fact wind up being connected to Catherine's death--though not in a way that readers are likely to anticipate.
By the Time You Read This is Giles Blunt's fourth novel featuring Detective John Cardinal, though it's the first I've read in the series. The book reads like a standalone novel, which I mean as a compliment: I never felt like I was entering Cardinal's life mid-story; there were no awkward references to past cases thrown in to connect this installment up with previous books. The mystery of Catherine's death is not easily unraveled: the evidence Cardinal uncovers leads him to erroneous conclusions, and the reader is likely to be misled as well. Blunt's principal bad guy is an unusual character, with unusual motivations. His identity is revealed to us not quite halfway into the book, and when it comes the subtle revelation is downright chilling.
Pausing to think about Blunt's villain after my manic rush to reach the end, I'm not sure that he's a realistic character, but I was certainly able to suspend disbelief long enough to finish the book. By the Time You Read This is a real page-turner.
It Might Have Been What He Said
Eden Collinsworth
Arcade Publishing
1559708123 $23.95
Eden Collinsworth's It Might Have Been What He Said begins with an arresting first paragraph:
"Isabel could remember the precise moment she tried killing her husband. Strangely enough, she couldn't recall why."
The lines suggest what sort of a story might follow: layers of mystery and deceit to be unwrapped, and pieces of Isabel's mental puzzle connecting to form a clearer image of the events that precipitated the story's violent climax. But that's not what happens. The book tells the story of Isabel's marriage to James, an account that encompasses forays into their respective childhoods. Isabel's was something out of a gothic novel (so even the author tells us), with a distant father who communicated almost exclusively through New York Times clippings, an undemonstrative, mentally ill mother, and a by-the-book nanny. James is the scion of an aristocratic but money-poor Virginia family. James' principal problem is that he's fiscally irresponsible. Isabel's principal problem is James. Their marriage should never have happened, should not have lasted for as long as it did, and when it fails no one should be surprised. As for the book's first lines, their promise is never paid off: Isabel, as it happens, eventually regains her memory of the event without any trouble at all, and the attempted murder, when it's finally detailed to us, proves to be anticlimactic. Since it amounts to nothing in the end, it becomes apparent that Isabel's memory lapse is merely a device used to delay the narration of the dramatic scene.
It's difficult to become emotionally invested in Collinsworth's story. That Isabel and James' marriage ends badly is hardly a tragedy. And Collinsworth's characters are not credible: James is impossibly egocentric and shallow, Isabel impossibly self-possessed (though not, admittedly, when she tries to kill James), and their son Burgo impossibly precocious. Here, for example, is a conversation between Isabel and Burgo when he was perhaps five or six years old:
"'Can you think of fictional icons as symbols of something real?'
Finally, Burgo decided to give his mother a graceful way out. 'Yes, I can think of other examples.'
'They are?'
'Well, Batman is fiction. Ulysses might have been real, but the Cyclops wasn't.'
'The waiter in the Greek coffee shop near my office has a kind of Cyclops unibrow,' said Isabel. She realized she was digressing when she saw her son's impatient look. 'I believe Ulysses was real. Ten years and countless hardships later, he was still trying to return to his wife. Women like to put men to the test, my dear. When your time comes--and it will, Burgo--try to do the right thing.'
Burgo ignored his mother altogether.
'Even in our own family, there is fiction and fact,' he pointed out resolutely.
'Really?'
'Yes...you are fact; and Papi is fiction,' Burgo explained."
There are also episodes in the book that have no apparent purpose--the family's brief move to Los Angeles, their problems with an (impossibly) unpleasant neighbor. Even Isabel's extra-familial relationships--with her colleague John and with reclusive literary agent Monina--add very little to the story. Collinsworth's book has garnered a good deal of praise--Susan Cheever alone calls it "thrilling," "compelling," "gripping," "readable," and "shimmering"--so perhaps I'm missing something. But I left disappointed.
Debra Hamel
Reviewer
Eric's Bookshelf
Skydog: The Duane Allman Story
Randy Poe
Backbeat Books
600 Harrison Street, San Francisco, CA 94107
0879308915 $24.95 www.backbeatbooks.com
Despite his short career Duane Allman is one of the most influential slide guitarists in music history. In “Skydog” Randy Poe details the career of Allman from his days in the clubs to his session work for other artist to the glory days of the Allman Brothers Band. Using interviews with former band mates and friends as well as the few interviews conducted
