Pervalism
M.E Ellis
Wildchild Publishing
P.O. Box 4897, Culver City, CA, 90231-4897
1934069213 $15.99 www.wildchildpublishing.com
Aaron Paul Lazar, Reviewer
www.legardemysteries.com
Pervalism is a gripping journey into the tortured mind of serial killer John Brookes. Abused by an odious mother and adored by a doting father, Brookes' psyche is scarred from childhood. His sins begin with animal torture, which gives him a weighty sense of power and a bizarre sensual release. Although the torture scenes were tough to read, the story beguiled this reader with ghoulish fascination and it was impossible not to read Pervalism in one sitting.
Pervalism is not for the faint of heart. Brookes' vile behaviors escalate as he reaches his teen years. When his promiscuous mother bears a child, resultant from an affair, his jealousy erupts into obsessive rage. She appears to love the new baby. Yet Brookes is riddled with questions, ripped apart by the disparity. How could she have hated him so much, yet love the squalling baby who now rides in his old pram? His hostility and excessive envy push him to stalk her, and when opportunities ripen, he drives her to a ghastly deed.
Oddly enough, Brookes matures into a seemingly normal man who marries, has a child, and holds down a job as a hospital janitor. Yet, perhaps it isn't really so strange, when one considers the current day killers who are unmasked and found to be living sedately in suburbia, reportedly considered "nice, quiet neighbors." Brookes holds out for several years without giving into his baser needs. The devil quiets when he learns to love his wife and son with ferocity. When Brookes' family is treated poorly, a rumbling sense of outrage collides with old feelings of violence and revenge, and the grisly deeds of his earlier life are perpetuated.
As the body count rises, Ellis exhibits a unique talent in her ability to provoke understanding and empathy for her homicidal protagonist. Brookes' pain is palpable. His fears understandable. His rage predictable. Each time he kills anew, however, the horror escalates to unpredictable levels.
M.E's skill is consummate. Her voice, consistent and eerie, will ensnare the most reticent reader. An English setting, the backdrop for Brookes' heinous acts, provides a rich tapestry of British culture that weaves depth and a strong sense of place into the work. John Brookes becomes eerily lifelike in this potent and unforgettable thriller. Watch the book trailer at http://www.youtube.com and purchase either the ebook or print book at www.wildchildpublishing.com.
The Lobotomist
Jack El-Hai
John Wiley & Sons
0471232920 $27.95
Alma Halbert Bond
Reviewer
The Lobotomist: a maverick medical genius and his tragic quest to rid the world of mental illness
Today the word "lobotomy" evokes images of medical savagery: innocent lives wrecked by experimental procedures and misguided psychiatrists using the insane as guinea pigs. The man behind this controversial surgical procedure, whose tireless advocacy led to 50,000 lobotomies performed in the United states, is the subject of a new biography by Jack El-Hai. The Lobotomist: A Maverick Medical Genius and His Tragic Quest to Rid the World of Mental Illness, from John Wiley & Sons, offers us a picture of the man behind the icepick, Dr. Walter Freeman.
Walter Freeman was the physician who refined and promoted lobotomy, an operation which cut the frontal lobes of the brain in the attempt to relieve psychiatric disorders. In his fifty-year long career, he performed nearly thirty-five hundred lobotomies, including the first of such surgeries in the United States. Walter Freeman is not a particularly appealing character, at least as El-Hai presents him. The only time I really liked him or felt much for him was when he took his sons on camping trips and when his son Keen died.
I don't envy El-Hai his task. He probably presents Freeman in this unempathetic manner because he was a remote, detached person who displayed a minimum of emotion about anything except psychosurgery. Nor is his wife Marjorie fleshed out. El-Hai tells us that the marriage is deteriorating, but does not show what is wrong, besides stating that Freeman carried on extramarital affairs. The author never informs us what was amiss in the union that necessitated the affairs. How did Freeman treat his wife? Was he loving, gentle, generous? Abusive, sadistic, disinterested? Did he love her, or she him? From El-Hai's reports, the marriage, like Freemans' personality, seems estranged and without affect. We are not told what Marjorie was like as a person, what she saw in Freeman, why she married and stayed with him for decades, and what comfort or companionship, if any, he found in her. In fact, we are given little insight into the depths of his nature.
Most important in a book entitled The Lobotomist, as a psychoanalyst I can only speculate as to why he was so besotted with psychosurgery. El- Hai tells a good story and has done excellent research, but his psychological understanding of Freeman would have been deepened by the psychoanalytic approach Freeman hated. Not incidentally, why did he hate psychoanalysis so much? Was he afraid he would discover it was the force of his unconscious sadism that led to his obsession with psychosurgery? One gets a sinking feeling on reading about the operations Freeman conducted utilizing an icepick from the kitchen.
The following report by Freeman after he performed a lobotomy on a huge, aggressive woman suggests that if not sadistic, his behavior was boorish and unprofessional. "He could teasingly grasp her around the throat, twist her arm, tickle her in the ribs and slap her behind without eliciting anything more than a wide grin or a hoarse chuckle (p. 150)." In discussing his lifelong lack of enthusiasm for psychoanalysis, Freeman wrote, "Insight is a terrible weapon, and few know how to use it constructively. When we really get to know what stinkers we are, it takes only a little depression to tip the scales in favor of suicide (pp. 127-128)." Perhaps this statement tells more about Freeman than it does psychoanalysis. Freeman was a solitary, uninteresting child, adolescent, and man, except for his fascination with the brain, which began as early as his first year of medical school. A neighbor called him, "indifferent, aloof, conceited, peculiar and eccentric (p. 152)." "Medicine held my interest to the point where I excluded many other things," he said "In fact I was barely unaware of my family (p. 43)." Even when Freeman's father was dying of cancer, he spent little time with him. Freeman was equally uninvolved with his mother. He admired her energy, but felt little affection for her. "My eyes were moist when I saw her fighting the oxygen tent, but dry when she died," he reported (p. 82).
Surgery in general bored him, and he said he liked the preliminary neurological work-up in the laboratory too much to become a surgeon. Freeman was a prolific writer, leading to the publication of numerous articles and books. His first book, "Psychosurgery," written with his most important collaborator, James Watts, was approved of by the press, which uncritically accepted their theories. Nevertheless, many of his medical colleagues disapproved of Freeman's willingness to promote lobotomy in the popular press, along with his entire career.
Whatever his shortcomings, Freeman was a talented writer. I like his description of why he kept a beard for most of his life, which makes him sound almost human. Both his grandfathers and his father had worn them. "Those who have never grown beards cannot appreciate the delicious feeling of a breeze blowing through it on a warm summer day as the car covers the miles," Freeman wrote in a personal manuscript. "There is the softest titillation, like the caress of a beautiful woman (p. 49)." Too bad he didn't apply this sensitivity to his personal relationships.
As the savant promoting the widespread use of psychosurgery, the solitary Freeman at last had found a role which took him back to people. Mental hospitals around the country invited him to operate on their patients. He enjoyed displaying his skills, passing on his knowledge to others, and salvaging people trapped in the worst and most hopeless medical facilities in the United States. He liked the role so much that once he even refused to let a broken arm keep him from demonstrating transorbital lobotomy. Yet nothing lasts forever. After a half century of fame and fortune, Freeman's raison d'etre came to an end. The introduction of psychotropic drugs, the gradual emptying of psychiatric hospital beds, and the ascent of psychoanalysis heralded the retreat of lobotomy as an important method for "curing" mental illness. Freeman, however, never accepted the possibilities of the new medications, but persisted in believing that psychosurgery would again take its place in the treatment of the mentally ill.
He was proved wrong. Psychosurgery never again returned to center stage in the treatment of psychiatric illness, and Freeman slipped into a new chapter of his life in which everything he believed in was lost to him; his accomplishments, his convictions, and his marriage. He spent the last years of his life traveling alone about the country wracking up research on patients upon whom he had performed lobotomies. He died of colon cancer at the age of 76.
"The Lobotomist" is recommended for people interested in the history of psychiatry, who want to learn about the meticulous research concerning the development and waning of psychosurgery, and to know something about a man famous in his time who otherwise might be lost to history. El-Hai tells a good story, which holds the interest of the reader. For those who seek an in-depth portrait of Dr. Walter Freeman, however, that book has yet to be written.
Ungrateful Daughters: the Stuart Princesses Who Stole Their Father's Crown
Maureen Waller
Hodder & Stoughton
0340826142 $12.56
Brenda Daniels
Reviewer
I selected this book thinking it was a historical novel. I have always enjoyed the medieval era and stories relating to royalty. The mix of fact and fiction enthrals me! Ungrateful Daughters is non-fiction, however. It is a historical account of King James II and his daughters, Anne and Mary, who usurped the English throne. The closest the book comes to fiction is conjecture. Nevertheless, it is an exciting and thoroughly researched account. Although non-fiction, the book is told in story format, making it more interesting. Indeed, the opening lines of the prologue read: "The seamen peered through the gloom at the tall, gaunt figure sitting motionless by the fire. Swathed in a broad-brimmed black hat and long dark cloak, he bore an uncanny resemblance to the late King Charles I…"
Apart from the attached comprehensive bibliography it is apparent from the text that the author has done extensive research and formed her own opinions. For instance, it was widely rumoured that Queen Mary Beatrice's December 1687 pregnancy was a lie. Waller, however, says: "It was ridiculous for the Queen's detractors to infer that she was past childbearing years. She was only twenty-nine years old." Waller includes many quotes from original documents and letters of the time, for example: "'If you are crowned while I and the Prince of Wales are living, the curses of an angry father will fall on you, as well as those of a God who commands obedience to parents'" (James II to Mary of Orange). Illustrations, a genealogical table and a 'cast of characters in the royal family' were helpful references as I found it difficult to keep a track of the numerous Marys, Annes, Charleses, Jameses and Williams!
Although written in plain English, this book is not light reading and will most likely be enjoyed only by devotees of the genre. It is a highly informative and entertaining account of a complex historical period. One in which Catholicism waged war on Protestantism, the Dutch waged war on the English and family members waged war on each other. Other titles by the same author include 1700: Scenes from London Life and London 1945: Life in the debris of war.
Our Misunderstood Bible
George E. Mendenhall
BookSurge, LLC
5341 Dorchester Road, Suite 16, Charleston, SC 29418
1419637223 $10.99
Burton H. Wolfe, Reviewer
http://burtonh.wolfe.googlepages.com
Professor George E. Mendenhall and I view the Judaeo-Christian Bible from two different perspectives. Mendenhall, Chairman Emeritus of the Department of Near Eastern Studies at the University of Michigan, finds that the narratives, especially those in the Old Testament, "are bound up with the historical experiences of ancient human beings" (quoted from his introduction). I view all of the "books" of both the Old and New Testaments as fiction: the propaganda of ancient Hebrew scribes promoting beliefs in the precepts and customs of their particular sect.
Why, then, have I bothered to read and review Mendenhall's latest book? I have done so because Mendenhall challenges traditional translations and interpretations of the Bible and, in the process, he corrects prevailing ignorance and nonsense generated by theologians and so-called "scholars" who often turn out to be quacks perverting historical facts and even the scriptures upon which they claim those "facts" to be grounded.
Over the years Mendenhall's challenges to traditional renditions and interpretations of the Bible, as well as to standard assumptions in the works of writers dealing with ancient history of the Near East (or Middle East), have led many scholars in the field to call him a "heretic." The standard bearers are not happy about Mendenhall's getting in their way with his findings in such prior works of his as Law and Covenant in Israel and the Ancient Near East, The Tenth Generation: The Origins of the Biblical Tradition, and Ancient Israel's Faith and History. His critics, however, have enjoyed no success in refuting Mendenhall's facts and interpretations. They are based not only on his vast knowledge of ancient languages and customs, but also on his frequent participation in archaeological expeditions that have resulted in findings not consonant with traditional beliefs.
Revelations in Mendenhall's latest book, Our Misunderstood Bible, may prove to be the toughest yet for traditionalists to deal with; and he thinks that the blunt manner in which he expounds them is the reason why publishers told him the book is "unmarketable" and he had to resort to bringing it out via the BookSurge division of Amazon.com. I doubt it. The book is simply too skimpy for marketing to book stores and libraries. When a book is as tiny as this one, it is impossible to print the title and author on the spine, and that becomes a big obstacle to sales and distribution as well as to library shelving and cataloging. It is to be hoped that Mendenhall will expand upon the themes in this little but important book, so that it can become a standard reference work shelved in many libraries.
Here are samples of Mendenhall's challenges to traditionalist views of the Bible:
+ "God" was originally "Yahweh," worshipped by the ancient Hebrews as their creator and protector. Hence, when Christians pray to "God" to "forgive us our trespasses," they confess that they and people of today known as Jews have inherited the same Creator and stand together as "all Hebrews."
+ Christians who promote "creationism" to deny evolution "make the name of God ridiculous."
+ The story of Noah's ark is merely a revision of the "Epic of Gilgamesh" written 4,000 years earlier, rendering the ongoing "search for the ark on Mount Ararat" a farcical pursuit. Nevertheless, Mendenhall maintains as part of the theme of his book, the story indicates the ancients' knowledge of a true historical event: a great flood.
+ The prediction of a son to be conceived by a "virgin" emanates from a mistranslation of the semitic word almah, referring to a member of a royal household and not to a virgin.
+ The term "commandments" in the "Ten Commandments" is a mistranslation of a word that the ancient scribes used to indicate commitment to the precepts for ethical conduct which they set forth, and they had no intention of presenting those precepts as any kind of order from God.
Because of the difficulties entailed in disseminating such a tiny book, I have to doubt that this valuable work of Mendenhall's will get much attention. That is a shame. I can only hope that he will find a way to expand upon his findings and produce a much larger, footnoted book that will be accepted by a publishing house committed to providing the promotion, distribution, and sales which this latest work of Mendenhall's deserves.
The Troublesome Amputee
John Edward Lawson
Raw Dog Screaming Press
5103 72nd Place, Hyattsville, MD 20784
1933293152, $8.95, 108 pages, www.rawdogscreaming.com
Cameron Pierce
Reviewer
Having already established himself as an excellent fiction writer (check out his first novel, Last Burn in Hell) and editor extraordinaire (Raw Dog Screaming Press, The Dream People, numerous anthologies), with The Troublesome Amputee, John Edward Lawson proves he's a poet to reckon with. Now, you may be wondering, "Doesn't he already have a few poetry collections available?" He does, but what primarily sets The Troublesome Amputee apart is the form. Ladies and gentlemen, this is no chapbook. This is a snazzy, jazzy, snuggle a legless woman's stubs, trade paperback collection of some of the most darkly humorous poetry you're likely to encounter. With poems varying from a few lines to a few pages, limericks about werewolves to a Chuck Palahniuk homage, even those who aren't poetry enthusiasts or genre readers will find something to laugh, squirm, and maybe cry about. As with anything of such variety and quantity (over fifty poems!), different pieces will appeal to different readers.
Bledful, one of the more serious poems, didn't do much for me. It seemed to lack the spark of originality that radiates from most of Lawson's work, but I'm sure it'll be a favorite for a whole legion of readers with tastes different than my own. All in all, The Troublesome Amputee not only confirmed John Edward Lawson as a triple threat (editor, poet, writer of fiction), but shows why he's among the leading pioneers of the Bizarro genre. As Jeremy Robert Johnson said, "Lawson has proven himself Bizarro's true bard, its mad laureate." Cover price is only $8.95, so shell out nine bucks and read him now, because you know what will happen when school curriculum boards catch on in fifty years, don't you?
Water for Elephants
Sara Gruen
Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill
P O Box 2225, Chapel Hill NC 27515-2225
1565124995 $23.95
Coletta Ollerer
Reviewer
This book takes the reader back to the 1930s when people traveled on trains putting on circus pereformances in small town America. We are introduced to the caste system in these enterprises: 1st class is represented by the boss. 2nd class is the populated by the performers. Everyone else comprises the lowest class: those who care for the animals, those who prepare food, those whose job it is to put the big top up and take it down and pack up and unload the cars on the train for the next stop. These last are the roustabouts.
Jacob Jankowski is an energetic, enterprising young man working toward his degree in Veterinary Science at Cornell when he becomes orphaned. He had planned to enter his father's veterinary practice after graduation. He discovers a second great loss when he is told there is no estate. His parents had mortgaged everything to pay for his University education. Despondent at this double whammy he walks out on his final exams amid waves of stress. He needs a change of scene and finds himself hired on as a roustabout with Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth. He meets and becomes friends with some of those employed there and makes a few enemies. The ebb and flow of those relationships rock the story. The narrative is further enhanced when we meet Jacob in his 90s as a resident of a nursing home. His reflections on his experiences with the circus consume his thoughts. The author jumps from past to present in her very successful attempt to draw us into the story.
The boss discovers Jacob's 'almost status' of veterinarian and gives him charge of caring for the animals. On one occasion he was feeding an orangutan when the animal signaled to him by shifting her eyes that she wanted an orange in another pan. "'Here,' I say, handing her the orange. 'You can have it.' She takes it . . . and reaches out again . . . . I hold out my hand. She wraps her long fingers around it, then lets go . . . . . She was thanking me." (p118) Rosie is the name of an elephant the circus acquires. It is thought that she is not smart enough to be a performer so they put her on display with the other animals for the people to see when they enter the bigtop. Among the delighted circus-goers she is a big hit. "One man is brave enough to lean forward and dump a box of Cracker Jack into her open mouth. She rewards him by removing his hat, placing it on her head, and then posing with her trunk curled in the air." (p163) Jacob understands that Rosie is not stupid and he is able to unlock the secret of how to use her as a performer.
The conflict between the owner and his performers and others in his employ rages back and forth and finally comes to a head. I enjoyed reading about young Jacob and his adventures and I loved the antics of 90 year old Jacob too. He was a bit cranky but smart and very insightful. Learning about how life was lived in a traveling circus was an eye-opener. With no unions and very few non-circus jobs available and with minimal skills the workers were very much at the mercy of the big boss. This is a very enjoyable and worthwhile read.
Rarity from the Hollow, A Lacy Dawn Adventure
Robert Eggleton
Fatcat Press
PO Box 130281, Ann Arbor, MI 48113
0977644839 $6.95, 411 pages, www.fatcatpress.com,
Barry Hunter
Reviewer
Lacy Dawn is the last person you would pick to be the savior of the universe. She's in the fifth grade in the backwoods of West Virginia. Her best friend - Faith, is the ghost of a school mate that was beaten to death and lives in a tree. During recess she gives advice to her schoolmates about their future. Her boyfriend - DotCom, is an android that has lived in a cave for thousands of years keeping watch over her lineage from the first days of humankind. Her dad - Dewayne is a disabled vet and her family is on welfare. Tom, the next door neighbor, grows "buds". Jenny, her mom does the best she can. Lacy and DotCom do some "reprogramming" on the parents to make them smarter and stronger and Lacy is up to college level in her studies with DotCom.
It turns out that in order for Lacy to save the universe; she must raise the prestige of Earth by becoming the greatest shopper of all time and negotiate the best deals for her services and those of her family on the planet Shptiludrp. Eggleton has crafted a novel that deals with social commentary mixed with some eerie science fiction and a strange problem that Lacy has to solve to save the universe with the help of her family and her dog, Brownie. I can almost hear a blue grass version of Metallica while reading this. I expect to see more from Eggleton and Lacy Dawn. Good satire is hard to find and science fiction satire is even harder to find.
Cracks
Mike Klaassen
Blue Works
Windstorm Creative
7419 Ebbert Drive, SE, Port Orchard, WA 98367
1590921712 $14.99 www.windstormcreative.com
Judith Nasse, Reviewer
www.judithnasse.com
When, while reading Cracks, it gets so intense that one wants to put the book down for a breather. One can't. It is too gripping a read. One natural disaster after another happens to a group of five boys who are deemed potentially rehabitable, but can they be redeemed? Will they survive the disasters as well as the vengeance they reap upon one another?
The boys are taken on a spelunking trip deep into the caves of the remote Arkansas Ozarks. The first earthquake hits while the boys and their leaders are still deep in the caves. They escape only to watch their adult leaders killed in another earthquake causing a landslide to fall on them. The boys are on their own, and the only boy who has some survival skills is Bodie McCann whose foster father had previously taken him camping and fishing. Bodie soon learns that the other four boys savagely sabotage his attempts to help them escape and incessantly fight with one another, though they begrudgingly accept the food he finds and hunts for them.
Matters only get worse as the boys face more earthquakes, forest fires, and then find a cache of marijuana in a hidden mountain cabin. When they ransack another house, Bodie sees his foster parents on the T.V., begging for him to come home. The other boys refuse to let him go, so he has to run for it with them chasing him with guns and knives. Will he escape, get home, and mend his ways? Mike Klaassen has written another adventurous, powerful book. Cracks is a book teen boys will relate to, knowing that there is always hope for their future in spite of the direst circumstances. This book is must read for young people and for counselors leading youth rehabilitation groups.
Nympholeptic in New York
Carol Kellogg
Llumina Press
8055 West McNab Road, Tamarac, FL 33321
1595264256 $12.95
Marian Loreti
Reviewer
"Nympholeptic in New York," a title that sent me rushing for my dictionary, is a delicious tale of love and suspense wrapped in a tantalizing historical mystery. It is also the story of a woman who is forced by circumstances to take uncharacteristically bold actions that, to her utter astonishment, lead to her own self-discovery. Delia, the narrator, is a thirty-something, never-married Manhattanite who spends her days in a dead-end job, building brilliant computer models which her boss passes off as his own, to accolades from company management. At night, before retiring to her lonely apartment, Delia checks up on her father, a charming but penniless painter of abstract oils.
As the novel opens, Delia's sister, Ariel, who is the free-as-the-wind polar opposite of Delia, has gone missing. At first, Delia is more concerned about their father – he is understandably disturbed by his daughter's disappearance, and Delia worries that the stress could push him into one of his chronic depressions. About Ariel, Delia has little concern: Ariel has a history of suddenly picking up and taking off on trips funded on a shoestring; the sisters are not close, and their estrangement undoubtedly contributes to Delia's lack of concern.
Still, Ariel must be located for their father's peace of mind, so Delia visits Ariel's apartment looking for clues to her sister's whereabouts. She finds only one: on Ariel's answering machine is a partially obliterated telephone message, a man's voice that says merely ". . .room where the most important event in the history of Western civilization occurred. Be there - " Assuming that if she can identify the room she can figure out where her sister is, Delia attempts her own intellectual detective work. When that fails, she decides to seek help on an Internet dating site for brainy singles and runs an ad that begins – you guessed it – "Nympholeptic in New York."
Among the studious, silly, and sexy responses she gets to her ad is one from a Londoner who happens to be flying to New York on business the next day; he says he knows the location of the historic room and offers to take her there. You will have to read the novel to see whether he keeps his promise, but it's not giving the plot away to say that Delia and the Englishman fall in love and conduct a love affair by e-mail from a distance of four thousand miles. Enhancing the romance that begins to change Delia's life are the beautiful sonnets the Englishman writes and sprinkles into his epistles.
Delia's attention suddenly shifts back to her sister when she visits the store where Ariel was last employed and learns that she was fired for offending one of the store's clients: unwittingly, her sister managed simultaneously to humiliate, break up the engagement of, and cause financial loss to a member of the mafia. Delia now realizes that her sister may indeed be in big trouble. I will leave it to the reader to discover how the disparate threads of the foremost room of Western civilization, a presumed pursuit by a Mafioso, and a long-distance love affair are all woven together – and I have not even touched upon the subplots.
The first person, day-by-day diary format of the book makes for compelling reading and enables us to experience first-hand the thoughts and feelings, reasoning and rationalization, resolve and vacillation that drive the main character. Secondary characters are also vividly portrayed. I particularly enjoyed Delia's father, who produces a quotation from Shakespeare to fit every occasion, as well as the mysterious woman he meets in Central Park, who joins forces with Delia to help solve the mystery. The scenes with Delia's boss, Larry ("his highly-polished desk, unsullied by any paper, matched his highly-polished mind, unencumbered by any ideas") struck a responsive nerve as I watched him strut in glory or sneer with scorn according to whether the work he had stolen from her was received well or ill by senior management.
At times poignant, at times funny, "Nympholeptic in New York" runs the gamut of many of life's emotions and skewers more than a few of its absurdities. Above all, this is a highly entertaining novel: the suspense kicks in early on, and the surprises never seemed to stop coming. "Nympholeptic in New York" is a wonderful novel in every way, and a delightful read.
My Dysfunctional Family Tree
Ariel Bouvier
John F. Blair Publisher
1406 Plaza Drive, Winston-Salem, NC 27103
0895873338 $14.95
Natasha Parker
Reviewer
Ariel Bouvier has created a family that transcends the meaning of the word eccentric. Dancing Aunt Dixie tapped dance so fast she gained the nickname "Machine Gun." Uncle Herbert, an evangelist, was booted from his congregation after insisting that his two dogs, Sampson and Delilah, would be joining him in heaven. Cousin Huey searched the Himalayas year after year for the Abominable Snowman until he disappeared on one of his summit attempts. Aunt Ida Rose lost her pet chickens to foxes and decided to move to England take up fox hunting.
From hippies to inventors to chicken farmers, this is a family that will make you laugh out loud. Ariel Bouvier has a very unique talent for developing some of the most interesting, eccentric characters you would ever want to meet. And the photographs are simply priceless. "My Dysfunctional Family Tree" contains 45 photos and profiles that will keep you entertained page after page.
The Middle East Conspiracy and the Fourth Dimension
George L. Darley
AuthorHouse
1663 Liberty Drive, Suite 200, Bloomington, IN 47403
1420831577 $20.00
Rocky Reichman, Reviewer
www.LiteraryMagic.com
Having a good plot is essential to the success of any book, and George L. Darley's debut novel has this and much more. I found the story enthralling, exciting and, at many points, captivating. The Middle East Conspiracy is a gripping mystery of complicated twists and turns that in the end all form together to make perfect sense. The book is about American and British Intelligence agencies working together to stop major terrorist attacks in both their countries, and in the end, they are successful. There were a few twists in the story--like a sudden death--that could keep no reader from wanting to turn the page. The book has too much description and history - too much information is thrown out at the reader at one time. Darley needs to tell about his characters bit by bit, so that as the story progresses, we learn more and more about his characters and get to know them better. The book also has too many run-on sentences. My suggestion to the author would be to write sentences that are short and more to the point.
Despite this, Darley has an uncanny ability at describing his characters, and is a master at creating strong characters with interesting backgrounds. The Middle East Conspiracy also touches on something magnificent, something no other book ever has: Darley reveals differing emotions in terrorists' minds as well as in the agents who fight them, giving us an inside look into what he thinks really goes on in the minds of terrorists and the American heroes who battle them. George L. Darley shows a vast knowledge of modern weaponry, apparel and cars. Also, Darley is to be applauded for the lesson he teaches us at the end of his story--about "fighting the good fight," which makes his book important, and therefore a "must-read" for all Americans. Darley looks like he will have a promising career as a writer, and The Middle East Conspiracy certainly proclaims that.
Three Weeks Last Spring
Victoria Howard
Publish America
www.amazon.com www.victoriahoward.co.uk
1424129907 $24.95
Shirley Roe, Reviewer
www.allbookreviews.com
Skye Dunbar is a lovely, auburn haired young woman with a broken heart. In order to avoid being hurt by another man, she has thrown herself into her career. With partner, John Ridge, the two have perfected computer software that will bring them world- wide recognition and great wealth. After months of hard work, Skye takes a vacation to Seattle, Washington but will it put the ghosts of the past to rest, or cause a new more intense set of problems for our heroine?
Mystery, intrigue, environmental disaster and love, await Skye as she settles in the secluded cabin in the San Juan Islands. Meanwhile, marine biologist, Jedediah Walker has problems of his own. Victoria Howard brings her characters and their emotional baggage to life in Three Weeks Last Spring. Her vivid descriptions of the landscape enable readers to experience the beauty of the north- west United States. Readers are drawn to Skye and Walker as their relationship goes from bad to good and back again. Is it true love or simply sexual attraction?
Author Victoria Howard lives in South Yorkshire, where she enjoys writing, travel and gardening. This is her first novel. An excellent read for a quiet afternoon. Just enough suspense to keep readers interested, as well as a tantalizing romance. Recommended by Shirley Roe, Allbooks Reviews.
The God Delusion
Richard Dawkins
Houghton Mifflin Company
215 Park Avenue South, New York, New York 10003
www.houghtonmifflinbooks.com.
0618680004 $27.00
David Roemer, Reviewer
http://www.dkroemer.com
Like all atheists, Richard Dawkins does not understand the concept of God and why God exists. He has been told this before: This is as good a moment as any to forestall an inevitable retort to the book, one that would otherwise--as sure as night follows day--turn up in a review: 'The God that Dawkins doesn't believe in is a God that I don't believe in either. I don't believe in an old man in the sky with a long white beard.'... I am attacking God, all gods, anything and everything supernatural, wherever and whenever they have been or will be invented. (p. 36)
In this review, I will try to succeed where others have failed so that we can say of Dawkins, "And immediately there fell from his eyes as it had been scales: and he received sight forthwith..." Dawkins is an atheist because he places too much confidence in the methods and ideas of science. Working scientists are just people living their lives in a practical and reasonable manner. If something unusual occurs in the lab, scientists assumes there is a reason and try to replicate what happened. This is the same kind of common sense and reason mothers use when they assume there has been no change in the number of children they have when they are out shopping. Since we are human beings, we are capable of more than just making a living and getting through the day. We are capable of asking questions that can't be answered. We are capable of philosophizing, in other words, and are perfectly justified in criticizing people whose philosophizing is irrational. In America, we treat people who believe in ghosts much worse than we treat atheists. An example of an unanswerable philosophical question is the mind-body problem: What is the relationship between myself and my body? Dawkins, ever the scientist, does not agree that the question has no answer. This is what he says:
A dualist acknowledges a fundamental distinction between matter and mind. A monist, by contrast, believes that mind is a manifestation of matter--material in a brain or perhaps a computer--and cannot exist apart from matter. A dualist believes the mind is some kind of disembodied spirit that inhabits the body and therefore conceivably could leave the body and exist somewhere else. (p. 180)
This form of monism is called materialism or physicalism. Another form of monism is idealism, which is the philosophy that the material world doesn't exist. To understand this, imagine that you are sitting on a big rock and feeling gratitude to God for your existence. It occurs to you that God created the rock so you could sit on it and that God could just as easily have created in your mind the illusion of the rock. If you conclude that there is no reason to think the rock really exists, you are an idealist. Bishop George Berkeley was alone when he thought this up and was relating in a very static and passive way to the rock. Our relations with other people, however, are not passive and static but active and dynamic. There is no question that other people exist because they throw rocks at us, one way or another, and the rocks are real.
This refutation of idealism leads to the concept of God and God's existence. While the mind-body problem makes it impossible to define man, the fact that we are different from other people means we can say: Man is a finite being. God is a being which is not like this. God is not finite, but infinite or totally other. We know God exists because a finite being can't be the reason or for its own existence. This is the metaphysical view of man and God that I learned as an undergraduate at a Catholic college from 1960-1964. A reason for the appeal of Dawkins's philosophy of man is in Webster's Third International Dictionary. Definition 4.c of substance is the one used by chemists, a sect in the religion of science. The definition of metaphysics, however, has nothing to do with physics. I suggest that Dawkins is willing to consider dualism and monism because the concept substance is implied, and is not willing to consider metaphysics because the concept of being is not scientific. Strangely, he seems to be aware that his monist/dualist analysis is not based on personal experience. Continuing from the above quote:
F. Amstey's 1882 novel Vice Versa makes sense to a dualist, but strictly should be incomprehensible to a dyed-in-the-wool monist like me...Like most scientists, I am not a dualist, but I am nevertheless easily capable of enjoying Vice Versa and Laughing Gas. Paul Bloom would say this is because, even though I have learned to be an intellectual monist, I am a human animal and therefore evolved as an instinctive dualist. The idea that there is a me perched somewhere behind my eyes and capable, at least in fiction, of migrating into somebody else's head, is deeply ingrained in me and in every other human being, whatever our intellectual pretensions to monism. (p. 180, emphasis added) Why pretend? Why not be honest and accept reality as you find it? Why say that free will is an illusion and the self is an epiphenomena? This is what fellow atheist Lee M. Silver says (See my previous review of Challenging Nature: The Clash of Science and Spirituality). Dawkins's friend Daniel Dennett likewise considers dualism and materialism to be the only philosophical choices (See my previous review of Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomena). Why believe and say something is true when you can't see the truth of it? Professor Dawkins is willing to discuss the philosophy of being (metaphysics) when he thinks he can refute the proof of God's existence. He restates Aquinas's arguments and says: All involve an infinite regress--the answer to a question raises a prior question, and so on ad infinitum...All three of these arguments rely upon the idea of a regress and invoke God to terminate it. They make the entirely unwarranted assumption that God himself is immune to the regress. (p. 77) The last sentence is a reference to David Hume's refutation: Who made God? Hume misconstrued the principle of causality which is that every contingent being needs a cause. Hume thought Aquinas was saying every being needs a cause.
Dawkins continues the previous quote as follows: Even if we allow the dubious luxury of arbitrarily conjuring up a terminator to an infinite regress and giving it a name, simply because we need one, there is absolutely no reason to endow that terminator with any of the properties normally ascribed to God: omnipotence, omniscience, goodness, creativity of design, to say nothing of such human attributes as listening to prayers, forgiving sins and reading innermost thoughts. (p. 77) The regress Dawkins is referring to is a hypothetical chain of contingent beings in the metaphysical proof of God's existence. In this proof, a contingent being needs a cause and a self-sufficient or necessary being does not. Dawkins is mistakenly assuming that a self-sufficient being must terminate a contingent chain, so he is calling the self-sufficient being a "terminator." It can also exist outside of the chain and give the entire chain existence.
In his list of divine properties, Dawkins leaves out the key property of God which is the infinity of God. This is the basis of the proof of God's existence: a finite being needs a cause, but an infinite being does not. Saying there is no reason to say God is infinite is nonsense. Continuing with this long quote: Incidentally, it has not escaped the notice of logicians that omniscience and omnipotence are mutually incompatible. If God is omniscient, he must already know how he is going to intervene to change the course of history using his omnipotence. But that means he can't change his mind about his intervention, which means he is not omnipotent. (p. 78) This is a new one on me. The three arguments against God I know about are
Why does God let innocent people suffer? What motivated an infinite being to create finite beings? How can we have free will if God knows what our actions will be?
In the chapters titled 'Arguments for God's Existence' and 'Why There Is Most Certainly No God' there is no reference to finite beings and infinite beings. Dawkins is not the one to go to for an answer to these questions. That he hit upon a good question is no more remarkable than the fact that a stopped clock is right twice a day. In his chapter on morality, following a discussion of the conditions that favor the evolution of altruism and good morals, there is a subsection titled 'If there is no God, why be good?' The beginning of the chapter Dawkins gives examples of how angry people get at the idea of morality without religion. I'm angry too because he doesn't answer the question. The title of the section is a scam. Dawkins answers two similar questions: Does belief in God cause people to be good? Can you decide what is good without God?
He also criticizes people who do good out of fear of God without, however, recommending the virtue of loving God: When a religious person puts it to me in this way [title of the section] (and many of them do), my immediate temptation is to issue the following challenge: 'Do you really mean to tell me the only reason you try to be good is to gain God's approval and reward, or to avoid his disapproval and punishment? That's not morality, that's sucking up, apple-polishing, looking over your shoulder at the great surveillance camera in the sky, or the still small wiretap inside your head, monitoring your every move, even your every base thought.'" (p. 226)
If you ask a religious person whey they are kind and honorable, you get an answer. If you ask the likes of Sigmund Freud and Richard Dawkins, there is no answer. To Freud's credit and Dawkins's shame, Freud admits he has no answer. Ernest Jones quotes Freud as follows:
When I ask myself why I have always behaved honorably, ready to spare others and to be kind whenever possible, and when I did not give up being so when I observed that in that way one harms oneself and becomes an anvil because other people are brutal and untrustworthy, then it is true, I have no answer. (Sigmund Freud, 2:465) The God in the title of the book is not the God of metaphysics and reason. It is a personal God, one who satisfies our need to have a meaningful life, that is, the God of revelation. Dawkins says: ...I shall define the God Hypothesis more defensibly: there exists a super human, supernatural intelligence who deliberately designed and created the universe and everything in it including us...Not surprisingly, since it is founded on local traditions of private revelation rather than evidence, The God Hypothesis comes in many versions." (p. 32) I believe in God and have faith in God because of the "local traditions of private revelations." I don't know if it is right to call it evidence since we are considering beliefs whose truth cannot be seen. Nor do I criticize anyone for not believing in revelation. Saying it is wrong not to believe would be an unfair criticism. But I do criticize Dawkins and say he is wrong because it is apparent from this book that he has simply assumed religion isn't true. There are many who make this assumption, unaware that it is just an assumption, but who keep their lack of faith to themselves and give faith to their children. Not only doesn't Dawkins believe, he believes those who believe are wrong and that mankind would be better off without religion.
By way of refutation, I'd like to quote from a letter Saint Ambrose wrote to Emperor Theodosius in 390 AD after Roman troops massacred a big crowd of people, who happened to be in a stadium in Thessalonia, to retaliate against a protest of a tax increase that was already severely punished by the local authorities: When it was first heard of, a synod had met because of the arrival of the Gallican Bishops. There was not one who did not lament it, not one who thought lightly of it; your being in fellowship with Ambrose was no excuse for your deed. Blame for what had been done would have been heaped more and more on me, had no one said that your reconciliation to our God was necessary. Are you ashamed, O Emperor, to do that which the royal prophet David, the forefather of Christ, according to the flesh, did? To him it was told how the rich man who had many flocks seized and killed the poor man's one lamb, because of the arrival of his guest, and recognizing that he himself was being condemned in the tale, for that he himself had done it, he said: 'l have sinned against the Lord.' Bear it, then, without impatience, O Emperor, if it be said to you: You have done that which was spoken of to King David by the prophet. For if you listen obediently to this, and say: 'I have sinned against the Lord,' if you repeat those words of the royal prophet: 'O come let us worship and fall down before Him, and mourn before the Lord our God. Who made us,' it shall be said to you also: 'Since thou repentest, the Lord putteth away thy sin, and thou shalt not die. (Internet Medieval Sourcebook: Ambrose to Theodosius I 390 [Letter 51]).
The Xmas Factor
Annie Saunders
Orion
Orion House, 5 Upper Martin's Lane, London WC2H 9EA, UK
0752873407 GBP 9.99
Rowena Brew
Reviewer
The Xmas Factor is a hilarious story of two women's very different approach to the Christmas season. Carol is a high powered business woman and single mum, who can barely find time to squeeze Christmas present shopping between meetings, but dreams of her ideal Christmas, spent with her son, Tim, in a quaint village far away from the hustle and bustle of city life. Beth, new wife and stepmum, has some pretty big shoes to fill in the form of her husband, Jacob's deceased first wife, Becca. She is determined for this Christmas to be the best ever, and starts her preparations in August. With two hyperactive dogs, the stepdaughter from hell, and the constant reminder from the women of the village to how perfect Becca was, this is easier said than done. Although worlds apart, the two women's lives become more entangled than either one knows as Christmas draws near. This book had me laughing out loud throughout, and most definitely had put me in the festive mood by the end, while also managing to deal with several important issues including the pressures of single parent families, child abandonment and dealing with bereavement.
Monique and the Mango Rains
Kris Holloway
Waveland Press, Inc.
4180 IL Route 83, Suite 101, Long Grove, IL 60047
1577664353 $17.95 www.waveland.com www.moniquemangorains.com
Shari Maser
Reviewer
Women, especially mothers and maternity-care or child-care workers: pick up this intriguing book only when you have time to savor each page like a bite of ripe mango, because you will not be able to put it down again until you have! In this true story of an idealistic American college girl in the Peace Corps and a hardworking teenage mother from an impoverished village in Mali, Kris Holloway serves as midwife Monique Dembele's volunteer assistant for two years. Monique is a true feminist, determined to bring better health, higher education, and true happiness to the women and children in her village and beyond. Lots of hard work, inspired by Monique's determination and Kris' ingenuity, makes an enormous and lasting impact on women's childbearing and childrearing experiences in this region of Mali. The special friendship these two women develop leads to a deeper understanding of their cultural differences and their human commonalities.
We readers are lucky to have the opportunity to see through Kris' and Monique's eyes as they learn from one another. We can experience Kris' revelation as she realizes that diapers are a modern convenience that millions of mothers must function without. We can feel Monique's awe as she discovers that travelers ride in airplanes, not on them. We can share their outrage at the needless circumcision of Malian girls; their despair as they watch babies waste away from malnutrition and disease; and their joy when the first babyfood garden is planted in Nampossela. Reading this memoir is the closest most of us will come to traveling the world, reaching across the ocean in friendship, and making a difference firsthand. For some of us, it will be the first step toward doing just that!
If only I could...
Greg M. Sarva
Ampol Publishing, Inc
1211 C Street, Sacramento, CA , 95814-0911 , USA
0976620235, $16.95, 256 pages
Tami Brady
Reviewer
John Kadel lives a very simple life. He reads a lot- mostly to keep from thinking about the past. In fact, John spends quite much of his time trying to forget his memories. For the most part, John has even succeeded in this task. None of his friends really know anything substantial about his life and sometimes John even convinces himself that nothing of consequence happened in
the past. Then, a series of life changing events begins. John finds out he is dying. At
first, he is almost relieved that his life is over. However, this attitude soon changes when John bumps into his past- or rather she bumps into him. If only I could... reminds us that life is short and regrets have a life of their own but at any time we can choose to really live and to choose love once again. What would you do if you were dying? What would be your biggest regret?
Shadow Man: A Charlie Moon Mystery
James D. Doss
St. Martin's Press
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010
0312936648, $6.99
Victoria Kennedy
Reviewer
If you're into mysteries with funny likable characters, then this book might be right up your alley. James Doss's Charlie Moon Mysteries are both entertaining and a hoot. Tony Hillerman's books first got me started in this genre and if I remember correctly someone once compared Doss's books to Hillerman's. I needed no further encouragement and read one of his books. Mr. Doss put me under a spell and charmed me with his characters, his stories and his wonderful sense of humor.
The story Shadow Man starts out with a murder in the small town of Granite Creek, Colorado. There's a man and a woman sitting in a restaurant that evening, but each is dining alone. Without any warning a night of simple pleasure turns to horror as the woman, a former district attorney, falls over dead. She's been shot by a sniper. Her fellow diner, an eccentric orthodontist by the name of Dr. Manfred Blinkoe, has been involved in several shady enterprises over the years and he's convinced the bullet was meant for him.
Granite, Colorado chief of police, Scott Parris thinks the guy is a nutcase and takes little stock in what he says, but when pressed to recommend a private investigator he gives Blinkoe the name of his long time friend Charlie Moon. Charlie is the tribal investigator for the Ute Indian tribe in southern Colorado, as well as being a cattle rancher. Charlie reluctantly accepts a retainer for future services from the strange Dr. Blinkoe. Shortly afterwards, Dr. Blinkoe leaves his sexy young wife and goes on a boating trip. There's a mishap at the boat and some local fishermen find nothing but a few grisly remains. Next Dr. Blinkoe's young wife gets nervous and disappears after calling her lawyer. Meanwhile Charlie's ancient and cantankerous Aunt Daisy, who is a Ute shaman, and her elderly Anglo friend decide to go looking for Mrs. Blinkoe. The trouble they get themselves in will have you laughing out loud.
Charlie's love interest, FBI agent Lila Mae McTeague is in on the investigation and it's fun to watch Charlie and her spar as they seek to uncover the truth. The Charlie Moon Mysteries are a wonderful mix of mystery, Native American beliefs and humor that will keep you coming back for more. This book is no exception and I think it's Doss's best to date. Other books by James Doss are: The Shaman Sings, The Shaman Laughs, The Shaman's Bones, The Shaman's Game, The Night Visitor, Grandmother Spider, White Shell Woman, Dead Soul, and The Witch's Tongue.
Arlene's Bookshelf
True Colours
Karen Surtees & Nann Dunne
Yellow Rose Books
4700 Highway 365, Suite A, PMB 210, Port Arthur, TX 77642-8025
193230052X $16.95
True Colours, 3rd edition by Karen Surtees and Nann Dunne tells the story of TJ Meridian's return to her old home town, Meridianville, Texas. Having left after her father closed down his ranch and meat-packing business, she now returns to a community consumed with hate and distrust. Her father's actions brought economic disaster to the town, and people are still holding a grudge of monumental proportions toward the Meridian family. In an effort to re-focus her life and make amends, TJ opens the ranch and modernizes the plant. When her horse needs medical attention, Dr. Mare Gillespie arrives to treat the creature. Mare knows the past relationship of the Meridians and the townspeople and has little sympathy for the return of the prodigal daughter. Slowly over time, TJ and Mare develop a friendship as each woman is drawn to the other. A life-threatening accident, some long lost relatives, and a few new friends all add to the mix which makes for a most entertaining and absorbing reading experience.
This third edition of True Colours shows a deeper clarity of writing, a substantiality of style, and a rhythmic, yet leisurely, approach to storytelling. The narration flows naturally; it never becomes intrusive. Richly resonant dialogue which realistically and credibly reflects the characters suffuses the storyline. Too often this reviewer has become distracted by stilted mundane speech which makes a chore of reading rather than the joy it should be. True Colours steers clear of the vapid, the counterfeit, and the gratingly pedestrian. These women verbally interact; they communicate with each other in a manner that genuine people use.
Surtees and Dunne have created conflicts both external and internal, and for this reviewer, the latter was most compelling, irresistible, and significant. The action scenes are well written and tense. However, the inner conflicts that both TJ and Mare, have to overcome, accept, or refute make this novel so much more than the typical or usual novel found in the romance genre. Its depth of personal discovery, realization, and fulfillment transcends the ordinary and stereotypical depictions too often accepted as good writing.
True Colours is the type of book that completely involves and immerses the reader. It isn't very often one finds a novel that honestly and realistically deals with women and disabilities. TJ is most definitely a three-dimensional character. Her flaws, as well as her virtues, are on display. Sometimes endearing and other times infuriating, TJ envelops the reader in her world while creating a genuine empathy within the reader. This is the hallmark of a memorable and fascinating character, one who remains with you long after the cover is closed. Surtees and Dunne have constructed the story so that a sequel (Many Roads to Travel) will be the natural and obvious path to take to follow TJ's and Mare's life experiences. However, whether you read the sequel or not, no one should miss the opportunity to read True Colours, 3rd edition. A genuinely consummate work of fiction comes along all too rarely.
Many Roads to Travel
Karen Surtees & Nann Dunne
Yellow Rose Books
4700 Highway 365, Suite A, PMB 210, Port Arthur, TX 77642-8025
1932300554 $16.95
The sequel to True Colours advances the story of TJ Meridian and Dr. Mare Gillespie. TJ has had another back surgery to correct an injury previously incurred in a car accident. Her painful recovery presents both physical and emotional turmoil and increased tensions for TJ and Mare as well as their close friends, Paula and Erin. As if this weren't enough with which to contend, TJ's cherished horse, Faithful Flag, develops its own health problems, and further aggravating the situation, is the appearance of TJ's father's second family. TJ's unrelenting struggle with her tenebrous childhood memories further exacerbates her already tenuous emotional state. As the story progresses, the truth of the title, Many Roads to Travel, becomes not only more apparent and striking but also more challenging and extraordinary to navigate. Surtees and Dunne have written a novel which clearly and deftly segues from their earlier work, but it also has definitive stand-alone qualities, such as a skillfully constructed plotline, credible internal and external conflicts, and noteworthy thematic concepts.
Many Roads to Travel delves further into the psyches of the lead protagonists, and the reader won't always like or agree with their actions/words but that serves to prove how involved the reader becomes with each chapter. Whereas TJ and Mare are equally tenacious and assertive, it is completely believable that each woman would grapple with coming to terms with the unequivocal realities of their situations. Although as the plot advanced, at times TJ demanded more effort from this reviewer to feel empathetic, yet it is to Surtees' and Dunne's credit that the character of TJ is so expertly and comprehensively actualized that I was able to identify with her point of view. In addition to creating another first-rate story, the authors have confronted several thematic issues which this reviewer found refreshing and intriguing. One salient point, that disabilities do not make one less of a person, provided TJ with more than one opportunity to assess her life, her relationships, and her future. Whether she chooses to act upon her realizations presents a whole other trove of internal conflicts.
As for Mare, with circumstances far beyond her command, it is the basic tenet of offering compassion and support that she must embrace. As she discovers, the simplest is often the hardest to accept; some things just can't be fixed. Many Roads to Travel is one of those rare instances in genre writing wherein the reader has the opportunity for analysis and synthesis. It is a rather somewhat revelatory novel whose characters represent varied layers of discernment, thus affording the reader the satisfaction of thinking and responding, whether internally or with others. Instead of being a quick yet forgettable read, Many Roads to Travel has substance, it ignites awareness and reaction, and it provides the reader with a genuinely transcendent reading experience.
Turn Back Time
Radclyffe
Bold Strokes Books
430 Herrington Road, Johnsonville, NY 12094
1933110341 $15.95
One of the most prolific authors in the romance genre, Radclyffe, has written her twenty-fourth romance novel which is entitled Turn Back Time. She has also returned to familiar ground, both in writing and in life, the hospital setting. Pearce Rifkin, Acting Chief Surgical Resident, and Wynter Thompson, surgical resident, are practicing at the same hospital, University Hospital, in Philadelphia. Pearce has a life plan which does not include any serious entanglements to impede her success. She is determined to follow in her father's footsteps in the medical field. Wynter is filling a last-minute vacancy created by the early departure of another resident. She is also coping with a failed relationship and the responsibilities of being a parent to her three year-old daughter, Ronnie. However, it isn't until the two women meet that they recognize each other from a brief interlude they had four years earlier. Both of them have changed considerably in a variety of ways, and it is this circumstance that will propel both doctors down a similar yet unexpected path.
Radclyffe is in the forefront of authors who consistently create memorable characters. Despite the human frailties and flaws each woman possesses, the reader has no difficulty in conjuring up empathy both for their situations and their choices. The interaction between Pearce and Wynter gradually escalates thus revealing the many facets of each personality. This unfolding of layers is what keeps the reader engaged. The author eschews the obvious and demonstrates a keen insight into logical, coherent, and realistic character development. The secondary characters are equally crafted in their credibility.
One interesting aspect of this story is the relationship between Pearce and Ronnie, Wynter's young daughter. The façade of the cool and detached Dr. Rifkin becomes less formidable when she is in the child's company. Pearce begins to consider the possibility of parenting being within the realm of possibility. She re-evaluates the prospect of combining a career, a relationship, and a family. It is also captivating to witness Wynter's reactions to Pearce's efforts to forge a relationship with the three year-old.
The romance genre is rife with authors who spin a decent story, yet lack the expertise to instill definitive verisimilitude in both their characters and their actions. The many novels Radclyffe has written attest to her skill at crafting a superlative story populated with characters one would want to meet, spend time with, or have over for a meal. Romance novels are about the people above all else. After all, one wants that happy ending. However, if one or both of the protagonists do not gain entree to the mind and heart of the reader, then a true romance has not been achieved. It is always a given that when reading a Radclyffe romance, the reader is assured that the story will eventually creatively distill the essence of each character, whether it be through superlative dialogue or exceptional narrative. Turn Back Time continues this attribute.
Whitewater Rendezvous
Kim Baldwin
Bold Strokes Books
430 Herrington Road, Johnsonville, NY 12094
1933110384 $15.95
Whitewater Rendezvous, set in the remote Odakonya River area of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, is the adventurous love story of two disparate and intensely dynamic women, Megan Maxwell and Chaz Herrick. Megan, the driven vice-president of World News Central television news, is known as the Royal Ice Bitch. It is a moniker not totally undeserving for the workaholic. Chaz, the attractive easygoing Alaskan tour guide, on the other hand, is content and treasures living apart from the raucous tumult of the general population. After these two intelligent, resolute, and witty women meet, Megan begins to think that perhaps losing that bet with her Chicago Broads in Boadcasting pals to join them for an Alaskan kayaking adventure may not be as disconcerting as she had thought. Matters are further complicated by harrowing Arctic storms, seemingly incompatible priorities, and the entertaining clash between two very tenacious and assertive women.
Setting plays a key role in a well-crafted story of this type. Baldwin obviously knows her material, and with great care and skill, has transcribed the aura of an Arctic night sky and the grandeur of Alaskan isolation to the written page. The reader's senses are vividly awakened which allows that reader to become one with the environment - not always an easy task for an author to create.
A hallmark of great writing is consummate characterization, and Whitewater Rendezvous does not disappoint. This novel is populated with round, not flat, characters. Each is delineated and developed with expertise and style. From the imagery to the diction to the syntax used, the personalities of the major characters are constructed in a credible, lucid, and realistic manner. Megan's workaholic focus is clearly articulated, making it simple for the reader to empathize. Chaz's free spirit is infectious thus making it equally simple for the reader to identify with that desire to throw caution to the wind and escape. One aspect of Baldwin's writing is the absence of the stereotypical, and her characters in this story display that yet again.
Whitewater Rendezvous captures the reader from the very first page. It totally immerses and envelopes the reader in the Arctic experience. The novel deals with basic truths. What is important in life? Is there a soul mate somewhere out there for me? Can opposites truly attract? Superior chapter endings, stylishly and tightly written sentences, precise pacing, and exquisite narrative all coalesce to produce a novel of first-rate quality, both in concept and expression. Whitewater Rendezvous is Kim Baldwin's third novel. (Hunter's Pursuit and Force of Nature) The author's technique, range, and originality of composition continue to expand and flourish with each effort. This reviewer highly recommends Whitewater Rendezvous and eagerly looks forward to Baldwin's next novel, Flight Risk, to be published in February 2007.
Arlene Germain
Reviewer
Bethany's Bookshelf
The Demise of Luleta Jones
Mark Allen Boone
Blacksmith Books
PO Box 4228, Lisle, IL 60532-9228
0977251500 $15.95 www.blacksmithbks.com 630-969-5145
African-American author and publishing industry expert Mark Allen Boone presents The Demise of Luleta Jones, a whodunit novel set in Chicago, Illinois and Nashville Tennessee about the mysterious death of a public school teacher from a recently gentrified neighborhood. Lurking beneath the seemingly docile and tranquil surface of surrounding environment is a ruthlessness directed toward gifted African-Americans who resist the strict demands of the hostile community. A tautly written investigative thriller from first page to last.
By the Skin of His Teeth
Ann Walsh
Dundurn Press
3 Church Street, Suite 500, Toronto, Ontario M5E 1M2, Canada
1550026348 $10.99 www.durdurn.com 416-214-5544
Written by Ann Walsh, By the Skin of His Teeth: A Barkerville Mystery is a historical novel set in Barkerville, British Columbia, during the year 1870. When a Chinese man is found stabbed to death outside his restaurant, only a young Chinese boy can testify against the prideful and cruel accused perpetrator. Seventeen-year-old Ted MacIntosh befriends the boy, helping him stand up for justice while the Chinese community is scared into silence. Ted and the boy fight to bring the truth to trial, with lives and the future of the community hanging in the balance. A gripping, suspenseful drama; also recommended are the previous novels about Ted MacIntosh, "Moses, Me and Murder" and "The Doctor's Apprentice."
Deadly Dreams and Desires
J. Henning
AuthorHouse
1663 Liberty Drive, Bloomington, IN 47403 (publisher)
961 Iris Lane, Fernley, NV 89408 (author)
1420868683 $31.00 www.authorhouse.com
Written by J. Henning, Deadly Dreams and Desires is a chilling novel of murder for revenge. When two detectives arrest Alex Jordan for the alleged killing of their friend and co-worker, her horrific, explicit, and brutal confessions reveal that the murder case is far more complex than it would appear at first glance. A dark story of manipulation, a woman taken to the breaking point, and threatening human darkness so profound it makes two detectives strive to protect a cop-killer from the gas chamber, Deadly Dreams and Desires simultaneously chills and fascinates the reader.
The Mask of Oya
Flor Fernandez Barrios
Liaison Press
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
189495338X $14.95 www.liaisonpress.com www.creativeguypublishing.com
Written by Flor Fernandez Barrios, a psychotherapist and spiritual workshop leader of Cuban heritage, The Mask of Oya is testimony introducing the reader to the spirit world she has experienced since childhood. Afro-Cuban dieties such as Yemaya, lord of oceans and giver of life, and Oya, lord of the winds and gatekeeper between life and death, are among the spiritual figures portrayed for the lay reader; testimonies of men and women in physical or emotional pain and the guideposts to their healing illustrate the power and wisdom of ancient practices. A profoundly uplifting revelation of the process of inner awakening.
Circle Dancing
June Watts
Green Magic
The Long Barn, Sutton Mallet, Bridgwater, Somerset, TA7 9AR, England
0954723082 $16.95 www.greenmagic.com www.amazon.com
Written by Sacred/Circle dancer and choreographer June Watts, Circle Dancing: Celebrating the Sacred in Dance is a spiritual exploration of the connection between the modern sacred dance movement as practiced by women today, and its ancient heritage. Chapter discuss how the dance affects mother earth, expressing oneself in consciousness and form, symbols and shapes incorporated into the dance rhythm, birthing dances, white magic incorporated into dances, and much more. As much as a metaphysical evaluation of circle dancing as it is a how-to guide, Circle Dancing is highly recommended for anyone intrigued by the practice and its implications for promoting wellness, connective bonds, and deeper spiritual awareness.
Susan Bethany
Reviewer
Buhle's Bookshelf
Kabbalah, Science And The Meaning of Life
Rav Michael Laitman
Kabbalah Publishers
c/o Shira Dicker Media International
438 West 116 Street, Studio 43, New York, NY 10027
0973826894 $9.95 1-800-462-6420
"Kabbalah, Science And The Meaning of Life" by kabbalist and scientist Rav Michael Laitman deftly shares with his readers the hidden aspects of reality long known to students of the Judaic mysticism known as 'kabbalah' and only now beginning to emerge from western scientific inquiries. "Kabbalah, Science And The Meaning of Life" demonstrates how by understanding the underpinnings of life, we can influence and affect the realities of life around us. Informed, informative, and highly recommended reading for anyone with an interest in Judaic mysticism, metaphysics, and personal spiritual development, "Kabbalah, Science And The Meaning of Life" is particularly accessible and appropriate for the non-specialist general reader, while holding immense interest and value for dedicated and experienced students of the kaballah as well.
Ice Age Civilizations
James I. Nienhuis
Genesis Veracity
PO Box 850, 5773 Woodway Drive, Houston, TX 77057
0972620621 $15.00 www.genesisveracity.com
Written by James I. Nienhuis, Ice Age Civilizations explores evidence of ancient, technologically advanced prehistoric civilizations and city-states, some of which are suggested to have submerged when the Ice Age ended. Hypotheses range from Sea Kings that navigated the Pacific and settled in Ice Age Europe to evidence that ancient peoples measured and mapped the globe to possible astral extensions of mankind. Drawing upon both conventional and metaphysical science, Ice Age Civilizations reminds the reader of myriad mysteries that contemporary classroom education cannot begin to fully explain. The appendices clarify insights into a variety of topics, from the possible use of the Celtic Cross as a navigational tool to a thorough chastisement of the Darwinian theory of macroevolution (while acknowledging that microevolution, as seen through small species changes due to simple natural selection, does exist). An exciting addition to new age and metaphysical studies shelves.
Backyard Bigfoot
Lisa A. Shiel
Slipdown Mountain Publication
28151 Quarry Lake Road, Lake Linden, MI 49945
0974655368 $15.00 www.SlipdownMountain.com 1-866-341-3705
Lisa Shiel founded the Michigan Upper Peninsula Bigfoot Organization in 2005 because of continuing interest in one of America's most indigenous and fascinating legends. A skillful and accomplished writer, Lisa' "Backyard Bigfoot: The True Story Of Stick Signs, UFOs, & The Sasquatch" introduces the reader into the complex and sometimes contradictory realm of theories, coutner-theories, and assumptions about Bigfoot. Whether novice or experienced researcher into the metaphysical subjects of stick signs (purposeful symbols), mane braiding (intricate braids appearing in horses' manes overnight), the predominant Bigfoot theories and why they don't fit the known facts, and the distortions of human history as they have affected our perceptions of Bigfoot, "Backyard Bigfoot" is as informative as it is entertaining, and most especially recommended to the attention of those with an interest in human evolution, lost civilizations, UFOs, ancient artwork, metaphysical studies, and the legendary Sasquatch known in the Himalayan mountains as the Yeti, and in our own North American forests as Bigfoot.
Astrology & Pain: The Keys To Freedom
Beverly A. Flynn
TLH Publishing Company
1845 Cambria Avenue, Landers, CA 92285
0975858343 $14.95
Written by practicing astrologer Beverly A. Flynn, Astrology & Pain: The Keys To Freedom addresses primarily mental and emotional pain - grief over loss, loneliness, hurtful memories, regret and humiliation - rather than physical pain. Exploring the relationship between such pain and astrology, Astrology & Pain offers tools to work through painful situations, through the use of one's astrological chart. Each chapter addresses a different facet of emotional pain, from anger, hate and ear to recognizing one's own negative traits, and the strengths and vulnerabilities each sign has with regard to such issues, as well as the influence of different planets. Tips for dealing with harmful energies within and without regardless of one's current astrological sign or the immediate planet alignment are also liberally sprinkled through this serious-minded guide written expressly for serious astrology followers and practitioners.
Moon Tides, Soul Passages, second edition
Maria Kay Simms
Starcrafts Publishing
PO Box 446, Exeter, NH 03833-0446
0976242214 $22.95 www.starcraftspublishing.com
Written by artist and astrologist Maria Kay Simms, Moon Tides, Soul Passages: Your Astrological Cycles for Personal and Spiritual Development is a guide to understanding the lunar aspects of astrology, and how one's moon sign relates to insights of the soul and spirit. Chapters discuss the houses of one's birth moon, the significance of the phases of the moon, ways to experience the moon in spiritual rituals, and much more. An accompanying software CD allows for quick access to the in-depth material and guidelines for applying it accessible even to novice astrologers. A valuable astrological reference, written especially for women due to their gender's spiritual connection to the moon but of value to all in search of spiritual growth and development through astrology.
Willis M. Buhle
Reviewer
Burroughs' Bookshelf
Starting a Collection Agency
Michelle A. Dunn
Privately Published
PO Box 40, Plymouth, NH 03264
0970664508 $29.99 www.michelledunn.com
Michelle A. Dunn presents her fifteen years of experience running a collections agency in distilled form in Starting a Collection Agency, a no-nonsense, step-by-step guide to getting a collections business off the ground. Starting a Collection Agency does not waste effort on extraneous prose; each chapter is only a few pages long, yet each chapter condenses need-to-know information into key, easily memorized points. From the precise legal requirements, to recommended sample marketing plans, to a layman's language breakdown of exactly what the Fair Credit Reporting Act says, Starting a Collection Agency gives the reader the invaluable basics at a glance, along with lists of resources easily accessible from libraries or online for additional reference. Enthusiastically recommended for anyone seriously interested in starting their own collection agency.
The 90 Minute MBA
Arnold S. Grundvig, Jr.
A-Systems Corporation
4141 Highland Drive, Suite 210, Salt Lake City, UT 84124-2656
0978596811 $24.95 1-800-365-6790
MBA holder and successful business owner Arnold S. Grundvig, Jr. distills his thirty years of wisdom and experience in The 90 Minute MBA, a no-nonsense self-teaching tool written for especially for fledgling entrepreneurs. Anecdotes and personal stories embellish his practical, no-nonsense advice on everything from embezzlement, cost control, employee satisfaction, and banking to marketing versus advertising, management versus leadership, and what to watch out for the most when hiring personnel. A key guide to doing the right things to keep a business fully solvent, The 90 Minute MBA is enthusiastically recommended as either a preparatory or a refresher course for current and future small business owners everywhere.
John Burroughs
Reviewer
Carson's Bookshelf
The Killing Sun
Thomas Sanfilip
Ara Pacis Publishers
PO Box 1202, Des Plaines, IL 60016-1202
0962530646 $24.95 www.arapacispublishers.com
Author and poet Thomas Sanfilip presents The Killing Sun, an anthology that follows different characters in their quest to fill the emptiness in their lives. Each individual seeks an imagined prize that will be the answer to their doubts and lack of self-fulfillment; yet each will also confront a terrible price for the delusions they place upon themselves and their perceptions. A grim compilation of the dark side of the human experience, leveling close scrutiny upon the illusions and lies that people scramble for to give a hint of meaning to their lives.
Jungle Rules
Gaz Crittenden
Dan River Press
PO Box 298, Thomaston, ME 04861
0897542193 $16.95
Written by Viet Nam veteran Gaz Crittenden (served with 1st Cavalry Division Airmobile in the Viet Nam central highlands from 1966-67), Jungle Rules: A Novel of Viet Nam is a gripping debut novel about the brutality of war in a land where life is cheap. A vivid experience of daily life in the field and the ruthlessness of combat, as well as longing for the pleasures of civilian life while stationed far from its comforts, Jungle Rules pulls no punches in its description. A singularly powerful reading experience, dedicated to the memory of two soldiers who did not make it back from the jungle.
The 100th Human
Chris Fenwick
Sunbury Press
PO Box 178, New Kingstown, PA 17072-0178
0976092557 $14.95 www.sunberrypress.com 717-422-1494
Set in December 2012, the final day of a 5000 year old Mayan calendar, The 100th Human is a novel about the discovery of a riddle about the "End of Days". A team of scientists seeking answers becomes embroiled in a journey that will bring them amid a war between good and evil; metaphysical and spiritual forces beyond human ken flourish with repercussions that no mortal can hope to guess. An overwhelming adventure of catastrophic yet also potentially enlightening transformations sweeping the human world.
A Family Gathering
Gene Cartwright
Falcon Creek Publishing Company
13504 Francisquito Avenue, Suite E, Baldwin Park, CA 91706
0964975629 $27.95 www.falconcreekbooks.com www.namewiz.com
Written by Gene Cartwright, A Family Gathering is an extensive novel of tragedy, triumph, extreme hardship, bitter secrets, and one woman's long struggle to survive and overcome since a pivotal day in her girlhood. Set in the American South, across years in which racial equality was a dream to hope for but all too often dispelled by hate and violence, A Family Gathering explores such diverse subjects as black-on-black hatred, prostitution, family strife, and the mysterious comings and goings of enigmatic figures. A large cast interweaves their complicated tangle of conflicting desires, though the main focus is upon Deborah Yvonne Davis, the girl and later grown woman caught amid a shocking world filled with lies and betrayal, but also hope and love. Highly recommended.
In the Arms of Elders
William H. Thomas M.D
Vander YK & Burnham
PO Box 2789, Acton MA 01720-6789
1889242101 $14.95 www.vandb.com
Written by medical doctor and internationally recognized authority on longevity William H. Thomas, In The Arms of Elders: A Parable of Wise Leadership and Community Building is part memoir, part parable, and part fictional novel about a marooned young couple who become part of a new society organized through elders, then who must apply the wisdom they have gleaned to find their own place in life when they go home once more. A contemplative narrative about the ups and downs of life, and the leadership that comes tempered from experience, In the Arms of Elders is absorbing from cover to cover. Enthusiastically recommended.
The Vatican Knights
Richard L. Jones
iUniverse
2021 Pine Lake Road, Suite 100, Lincoln, NE 68512
0595386687 $14.95 www.iuniverse.com
Written by law enforcement worker Richard L. Jones, The Vatican Knights is a suspenseful novel about the kidnapping of a pope by a terrorist cell calling itself the Soldiers of Islam. The terrorists threaten the Pope's execution if their demands are not met; an elite op group of commandos known as the Vatican Knights is dispatched to bring him back alive. Caught in the middle is FBI Specialist Shari Cohen, who begins her duty seeking to track down the terrorist cell but quickly becomes embroiled in a greater conspiracy. A fast-paced, exciting read.
Michael J. Carson
Reviewer
Debra's Bookshelf
The Geographer's Library
Jon Fasman
Penguin
375 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014
0143036629 $14.00
When the story told in Jon Fasman's The Geographer's Library begins, Paul Tomm, a recent graduate of Wickenden University in Rhode Island, is working as a reporter at a weekly paper. Lincoln, Connecticut is a sleepy, two-policeman town, and Paul's job is consequently routine--until he is assigned to write up the obituary of a certain Jaan Puhapaev, a reclusive Lincoln resident who was also a history professor at Paul's alma mater. The more Paul investigates the obsessively private Puhapaev's life, the more unusual his subject appears to have been: Puhapaev was wont, for example, to carry a loaded gun to campus, and the University responded with unexpected leniency on the two occasions when he fired it from his office window. No one in Lincoln or at Wickenden seem to have known much about Puhapaev, the single exception being Puhapaev's neighbor Hannah Rowe, the pretty, young teacher with whom Paul becomes romantically involved. Paul's other hangers-on in the story include courtly Professor Abe Jadid, also of Wickenden University; Jadid's nephew Joe, a policeman; and Paul's supportive boss Art Rolen, who is eager to see Paul use the Puhapaev case as a stepping stone in his career.
The text of The Geographer's Library purports to be Paul's first-person account of his investigation of the Puhapaev matter, written at the behest of a mysterious "H." Interspersed throughout his account are sixteen historical chapters. Each details some episode in the usually blood-soaked history of an artefact of significance to alchemists (a playing card, a carved wooden triptych, etc.), and ends with a more formal valuation of the object. The artefacts so detailed do not figure directly in the story Paul tells, but they are connected with the secret of Puhapaev's death. The alternation between Paul's account and these intervening historical chapters makes for a schizophrenic novel. Unfortunately, the two different types of chapters differ from one another in more than subject matter. The historical chapters, perhaps surprisingly, are by far the more interesting in the book. They are well-written, vividly imagined self-standing pieces that quickly grab the reader's interest and very often end with a surprise buried in the formal description of the artefact under discussion. Paul's account, on the other hand--the meat of the book--is comparatively poorly written. The dialogue is often stilted and unnatural.
"I won't pry too much by asking you about this music teacher, but if you're fond enough to blush over her, it must be something indeed. Good luck."
"Thank you."
Certain details in the story don't ring true. (After knowing Jadid for years, for example, Paul has never asked him about, or heard about from other students, the origin of the Professor's unusual accent? History departments employ their own night watchmen?) Some passages in the book don't seem to have any point to them (Paul's stop at a Portuguese bar at which he's refused service; his four-page conversation with an old girlfriend). None of Fasman's characters is developed enough to inspire emotional attachment. And Paul is never placed in any jeopardy worthy of the name: he may be frightened at various points in the story, that is, but the reader is never frightened for him. Finally, Fasman's story is just not very interesting. This is a shame, because as the historical chapters of the book make clear, he can write well, and he's clearly done his research for the book. There is a kernel of a very good story here which I wish additional rounds of editing had brought further to light.
Prisoner of Trebekistan
Bob Harris
Crown Publishers
0307339564 $23.95
Bob Harris, a one-time "B-minus-list comedian" turned five-time Jeopardy champion, has written a memoir centered around his experiences as a contestant on the show. His Prisoner of Trebekistan--a title hearing which Alex Trebek is said to have "smiled inscrutably"--is everything you'd hope for in a comedian's Jeopardy memoir. Harris proves to be an affable, goofily amusing escort through the various stages of Jeopardy playerdom, from the tests administered to would-be contestants through the mind games played backstage in the green room to chats with Alex mid-game. Having lived it, Harris is able to describe the life of a Jeopardy contestant in training. The regimen of study he adopted makes for fascinating reading: notebooks filled with information to be absorbed (lists of presidents and Shakespearian plays and European rivers), innumerable cartoons, very often buttock-related, drawn as mnemonic aids; Harris's lifestyle and living room rearranged to facilitate his "state-dependent retrieval" of information once on stage. (Which means that he ate green-room-style food for months and moved his furniture around so it resembled the Jeopardy set.)
Harris is fascinating too when he analyzes Jeopardy play. He explains, for example, that the typeface the show uses determines a question's maximum length--just over 100 characters into which "they have to squeeze enough data to limit all possible responses to one, usually include a clear hint of some kind, and if possible even cram in a small dollop of humor." Elsewhere he writes about the speed of game play: "[T]he total time of an actual sixty-clue Jeopardy game (leaving aside the thirty-second fever dream of--p-TING!--Final Jeopardy): just under thirteen minutes. Sixty twelve-second cycles slowed only slightly by three Daily Doubles. As the game flies along, your total time-to-think period, as Alex reads each clue aloud: usually between two and seven seconds, followed by the wait-wait-now spasm of thumby buzzer-whacking. Twelve seconds, again. Twelve seconds, again."
Harris walks readers through his own Jeopardy appearances, explaining his thought processes and the difficulties posed by the game: knowing the right answer, it turns out, is often the least of one's worries. Harris also teaches readers something of what he knows about memory techniques. Suffice it to say that by the end of chapter nine, with virtually no work on your part, you'll be able to reel off the titles of E.M. Forster's six novels and the names of all seven U.N. Secretaries-General. But perhaps a humorous romp through mnemonic techniques is also to be expected from a Jeopardy champion's Jeopardy-centric book. What you probably won't have expected to stumble on in Prisoner of Trebekistan is a compelling, even wise account of the author's life, moving portraits of his family, failed relationships, chronic disease and cancer wrapped around Jeopardy tournaments and memory games, the manifold strands of Harris's account deftly woven together.
Harris is surprisingly insightful, introspective and likeable and sweet. In the end he finds, to his surprise, great joy inherent in small, familiar things, his Jeopardy-wrought education having changed his perspective in unanticipated ways: "Squirrels were cavorting with glee back and forth, their tails flicking and curling as if just for show. The word squirrel comes from the Greek for "shadowtail," skia oura, which descends to our very own word.Wait, I thought. Hold on. I'd seen Mom's backyard before, once or twice. Was the connection to classical Greece always here? This seemed new." I came to Harris's book at perhaps a disadvantage, not having seen his Jeopardy run on TV. Other readers may already be familiar with him and the great many players he mentions by name in his story.
It would have been a big plus if the book had been packaged with a DVD of Harris's appearances on the show. This would not only get people like me up to speed on Harris's play, but would be interesting even for readers who never miss an episode to watch given the author's play-by-play discussion of the games. The only substantial complaint I have about Prisoner of Trebekistan is that it goes on too long. Near the end of the book Harris details his post-Jeopardy wanderings, informed as they were by his new-found appreciation of things historical. I'm happy for his happiness, but I don't want to read about it: I would in fact omit the whole of chapter twenty-three and tighten up the last several chapters for a crisper ending that would leave readers wanting more. That said, make sure you do read Harris's index, as he clearly had fun drawing it up. Here's a sample entry: Mosquitoes, size of lawn darts, 18; bird-eating, 61; fighting with bare hands, 62; unlike any I remembered, 208 And don't miss the Merv Griffin and Alex Trebek entries while you're back there.
The Interview
King Hurley
Paandaa Entertainment
0977418804 $24.95
Forty-five-year-old Michael King is the sort of guy Harrison Ford would play in a movie: a loving husband and father, Michael is the intelligent, deeply ethical, physically fit CEO of a pharmaceuticals company. The company is thriving, but after five years of trying to please its stockholders, who are more concerned with their portfolios than the company's long-term health, Michael is ready for a change. When an offer comes, it seems too good to be true: privately-owned Panda Pharmaceuticals wants Michael as their next CEO and president, a job that would bring a five-million-dollar paycheck and a private jet, as well as numerous other perks. All Michael needs to do to land the job is charm Panda's Board of Directors, a task which includes flying to Thailand to meet with the company's reclusive founder. The pacing of King Hurley's debut novel is unusual. For more than 200 pages not very much happens. Michael is wooed by Panda Pharmaceuticals, he responds to crises in his current job, he jogs, he decodes the diplomatic remarks of Panda's Board members. We get to know him by his behavior toward subordinates and his direct statements about his philosophy of leadership. Still, there is an undercurrent of menace in the book, which may explain why it continues to engage the reader despite that little of significance seems to be happening.
Suffice it to say that the book's plot does pick up eventually, and that in those first 200 pages Hurley is preparing his characters for the ordeal to follow. (Unfortunately the hardcover lacks jacket copy, so one enters into the book without any sense of what kind of a book it is: 200 pages in and I was worried the story would end without incident, with Michael landing the job and relocating his family to Virginia. Happily, that's not quite what happens.) I had some problems with the book. Michael is the only character who becomes more than two-dimensional, and Hurley can be overly sentimental. The book, too, sometimes reads like a novelized manual for the enlightened CEO: "'Diplomacy is not my strong suit, I'm afraid.' 'Diplomacy is nothing more than nudging people toward your own way of thinking and making them believe it's their idea,' I told her. 'Giving ownership is the best motivator I know of.'"
The level of callousness displayed by Hurley's bad guys near the book's end is nearly impossible to swallow. But the biggest problem is with the book's first chapter. Hurley packs a lot of background information into its nine pages, and he is not very subtle about it: "I got up and trudged into the bathroom. I switched on the light, and my mind automatically began the mental gymnastics of a Chief Executive Officer in charge of a precariously successful pharmaceutical company with yearly sales of 500 million dollars and a pack of demanding stockholders growling for more." This is unfortunate, because it's the reader's first impression of the book. Happily, the problem is confined to the first chapter. The rest of the book reads almost as if written by another hand. But despite its flaws, I liked The Interview. The story is entertaining, and I was impressed with the author's ability to keep us interested during the long stretch before the bullets start flying. Besides, I really do think it would make a good Harrison Ford flick.
The Dream Sequence
Kate Hunter
Impetus Press
0977669319 $14.95
The protagonist of Kate Hunter's novella The Dream Sequence wakes up without her memory in a reality readers won't find familiar, a world in which seeking medical attention for one's amnesia apparently isn't the done thing. Instead, Hunter's character attempts to piece together her past through her dreams and through consultation with a witch doctor. The diagnosis: she's lost her memory because she's been cursed--a fate which seems to be fairly common in Hunter's world. Hunter's amnesiac tells her story in the first person, describing a reality that is not quite in focus and a series of dreams that are mostly incomprehensible. Other stories are nested within hers, primarily the witch doctor's account of a former patient's reported experiences. The book's prologue removes readers one step further from the events described in the book. Hunter thus explores the nature and limitations of memory while playing with the narrative form, her protagonist forced to navigate a world that doesn't quite make sense. The effect is something like Memento meets Alice in Wonderland.
There are things I liked about the book. Hunter has a talent for description: "I got up from the bed and walked over to the window and pulled it upwards and all of a sudden it wasn't quiet anymore--the sounds of the night had collected outside the window, pressing against the glass, and opening it made them fall inwards, into the room in a rush; the sirens and the rumble of traffic were taking shape and dispersing while pieces of conversation floated through the air into the room like falling leaves." And she has interesting things to say about the nature of memory. Toward the book's end her protagonist dreams of a man Borges might have concocted, whose memory runs in the wrong direction: he "remembers" the future, but once his memories are lived they are lost to him. Hunter's book contains a number of such worthy kernels, but I found the story as a whole too disjointed and hard to follow to be enjoyable. But then I don't like Alice in Wonderland much either. I'm sure Hunter will find more cerebral readers who will appreciate what she's doing in her novel better than I can.
The Last Secret
Lynn Sholes and Joe Moore
Midnight Ink
073870931X $14.95
Journalist Cotten Stone is back in The Last Secret, the second installment in Lynn Sholes and Joe Moore's series of religious thrillers. (Read my review of The Grail Conspiracy.) The book starts with a deliciously suspenseful chapter: the pilot of a Virgin Atlantic Airbus announces his suicidal intentions mid-flight, prompting scrambling on the ground as a criminal psychologist tries to talk the pilot out of it, and scrambling in the air as two F-18 Hornets prepare to shoot the aircraft down. But the pilot's death is just the first we hear about in a world-wide rash of suicides, a phenomenon connected with an age-old battle between good and evil: the Nephilim, the fallen angels who signed on with Lucifer back in the day, are preparing for the Final Conflict and attempting to bolster their ranks with the souls of suicides while they can. While the death toll mounts, Cotten Stone finds herself at an archaeological dig near Machu Picchu in Peru. An unusual artifact is unearthed, an elaborately incised crystal tablet which, evidence suggests, may have been inscribed by the hand of God.
Readers coming to the series for the first time will be curious as to what makes Cotten Stone so special, a woman who has destroyed her career and her credibility with a stunt on a par with Geraldo Riviera's opening of Al Capone's vault. The authors do fill in Cotten's back story eventually--let's just say she's unusually suited to the task of fighting evil--but they take their time doing so. Readers will have to wait some 150 pages to find out why Cotten is the Chose One. But that's one of the things I liked about the book, that information revealed in The Grail Conspiracy is dribbled into the new story rather than dumped on readers in chunks of explanatory prose.
The Last Secret is told from multiple perspectives, among them that of the intriguing Lester Ripple, a nerdy, obsessive compulsive scientific genius, whose story is woven through the book until it intersects with Cotten's. I'm hoping Lester figures somehow in the next book in the series, Indigo Ruby, which is due out in September 2007. Needless to say, I enjoyed The Last Secret. Like its predecessor in the series, it's a skillfully crafted page-turner with likeable characters. I hope that Cotten Stone and her demon-fighting cronies are in for a long run.
Reading Like a Writer
Francine Prose
HarperCollins
0060777044 $23.95
In her book Reading Like a Writer Francine Prose, herself the author of some 14 novels as well as other works of nonfiction, advocates "close reading"--reading fiction "word by word, sentence by sentence, pondering each deceptively minor decision that the writer has made"--both as a means of appreciating literature and as a practical aid in writing one's own prose. After introducing her method in chapter one, Prose spends the next eight chapters showing us how it's done, focusing initially on individual words, then sentences, and broadening her focus eventually to consider characters and dialogue and narration.
Prose quotes extensively from a great many authors--Austen and Carver and Hemingway and Le Carre and a host of writers I'd not heard of before--and after each passage takes it apart for us, pointing out how the author establishes the nature of a relationship via dialogue, for example, or makes a story credible through the use of a well-chosen detail. There is much here to think on. Prose explains, for example, that dialogue in real life is rarely a simple matter of two or more speakers exchanging information, and so it is nearly always a mistake to make fictional dialogue merely expository: "...most conversations involve a sort of sophisticated multitasking. When we humans speak, we are not merely communicating information but attempting to make an impression and achieve a goal. And sometimes we are hoping to prevent the listener from noticing what we are not saying, which is often not merely distracting but, we fear, as audible as what we are saying. As a result, dialogue usually contains as much or even more subtext than it does text. More is going on under the surface than on it. One mark of bad written dialogue is that it is only doing one thing, at most, at once.
"She illustrates multi-layered dialogue with excerpts from Henry Green's novel Loving and David Gates's story "The Wonders of the Invisible World," among others. In the same chapter Prose criticizes the sort of writing one finds too often in historical novels: "This notion of dialogue as a pure expression of character that (like character itself) transcends the specifics of time and place may be partly why the conversations in the works of writers such as Austen and Bronte often sound fresh and astonishingly contemporary, and quite unlike the stiff, mannered, archaic speech we find in bad historical novels and in those medieval fantasies in which young men always seem to be saying things like, 'Have I passed the solemn and sacred initiation test, o venerable hunt master?'" Elsewhere Prose reminds us that characters don't have to be likeable, just interesting. In fact it is a greater achievement to make a character engaging if he is not someone the average person can identify with: Patricia Highsmith's sociopath Tom Ripley is a great example of the type.
In the book's final two chapters Prose writes, respectively, about Anton Chekhov--whose stories serve to remind us that there are no hard and fast rules when it comes to literature--and about the benefits to writers of reading: reading allows one to see examples of prose done well, and it shows us that there are innumerable ways of going about writing well: "Reading can show you how capacious and stretchy fiction is, how much it can accommodate, and how far it has expanded beyond the straight and narrow path from point A to point B."Writers, that is, should have the courage to experiment with their own particular talents. Reading Like a Writer is not, strictly speaking, a "guide" for writers, as its subtitle asserts, at least not in the traditional sense. Readers--writers--should not expect to find in Prose's pages specific directions for creating characters and writing dialogue and so on. But what Prose has to say can certainly be a help to writers. Reading her book is probably very similar to sitting in on one of the author's reading seminars: we're invited to sample a bunch of great stories, and part of what makes them great is pointed out to us, and we can go on from this experience, presumably, to apply what we've learned to appreciating literature more fully on our own. Prose teaches well. And along the way she introduces us to a great many authors we may not otherwise have heard of. Readers will likely leave her book with an author or two whose work they'll want to read more of. Another service Prose performs in her book.
The End
Lemony Snicket
HarperCollins
0064410161 $12.99
Lemony Snicket is back with the 13th and final installment (released, naturally, on Friday the 13th) of his Series of Unfortunate Events, simply entitled The End. When the book begins the orphans who are Snicket's unfortunate protagonists--Violet, Klaus, and Sunny Baudelaire--are adrift in a small boat with their nemesis, the unibrowed Count Olaf, who's been trying to get his hands on the Baudelaire fortune since the series began. Since he and the orphans are in the same boat, Olaf is certain the money is as good as his, and he imagines what he will do with it in a passage that demonstrates his wickedness and egocentrism as well as his creator's authorial playfulness: "'I think the first thing I'll buy for myself is a shiny new car!' Count Olaf said. 'Something with a powerful engine, so I can drive faster than the legal limit, and an extra-thick bumper, so I can ram into people without getting all scratched up! I'll name the car Count Olaf, after myself, and whenever people hear the squeal of breaks, they'll say, "Here comes Count Olaf! Orphans, head for the nearest luxury car dealership!"
Olaf and the orphans finally come to land on a coastal shelf and soon meet the nearby islanders, castaways themselves, mostly, who have come to embrace the simple lifestyle urged upon them by the island's enigmatic facilitator, a certain Ishmael ("Call me Ish"). Everything washes up on the shores of this island eventually--documents and kitchen whisks and batteries, people and serpents who've been lost at sea--so it is not surprising that the Baudelaires are reunited there with a couple of old friends. They are also able to find amidst the island's collected detritus some information pertinent to their own history. Considering the book apart from its role as the final installment in the series, The End is as good as many and better than some of Snicket's earlier books--better, certainly, than the tiresome, repetitious Penultimate Peril (read my review). Snicket continues to amuse with his verbal play: "As I'm sure you know, there are many words in our mysterious and confusing language that can mean two completely different things. The word 'bear,' for instance, can refer to a rather husky mammal found in the woods, as in the sentence, 'The bear moved quietly toward the camp counselor, who was too busy putting on lipstick to notice,' but it can also refer to how much someone can handle, as in the sentence 'The loss of my camp counselor is more than I can bear.'" And, delightfully, Snicket allows Olaf to become a more nuanced character.
It is interesting, too, to see the pattern of the Baudelaires' lives altered: for once they encounter adults who are not taken in by one of Olaf's disguises. Intriguing questions are raised in the book--about Olaf's role in their lives, about Lemony Snicket's relationship with Beatrice, about Mr. Poe. One reads on, eager for answers. The End being the end, however, one must consider how well the book functions as a conclusion. And here, alas, readers are apt to be very disappointed indeed. Granted, Snicket repeatedly makes the point in the book that all stories are interconnected and that no story ever really begins or ends: its threads reach infinitely into the past as well as the future. That is true in life, but we do expect authors to impose a neater structure on their stories. Fiction isn't real life, after all; it's life polished into something finite and graspable, with, usually, the boring parts removed.
Snicket has, unfortunately, failed to answer a great many questions in his final book, and has at the same time raised several more. What, for example, became of the elusive sugar bowl that motivated so much action earlier in the series, and why was it important? What was the giant question mark that appeared so menacingly on the radar screen of the Queequeg back in book eleven? What familial relationship is implied by the fact that, as we are told, Violet was going to be called Lemony if she were a boy? It may be that some of the answers to these and other questions can be found in The Beatrice Letters, which was released a month before The End and which I have not read. But even if so, readers shouldn't have to look outside of the series itself to find simple resolution. Mr. Snicket, I fear, has failed us. The End is another clever book from his drawing board, to be sure, but it is not enough for us to be told twelve books into the series that the author doesn't have all the answers.
Getting Stoned with Savages
J. Maarten Troost
Broadway Books
0767921992 $12.95
In his best-selling travel memoir The Sex Lives of Cannibals, J. Maarten Troost chronicled the two years he spent living in Kiribati in the equatorial Pacific with his girlfriend Sylvia. After the period covered by the book Troost spent another two years in Washington D.C. working as, of all things, a "hoity-toity consultant to the World Bank," a change in lifestyle akin to, say, giving up a job on Gilligan's Island to work for Donald Trump. Fortunately the suit and tie and dependable paycheck of buttoned-down life didn't capture Troost, and he and Sylvia left civilization behind again, lured by warmer climes and the laid-back tropical mentality: "Stuff happens, but tomorrow the sun will rise again."
This time the couple moved to Vanuatu--formerly the New Hebrides--a country about the size of Connecticut that's composed of some 80 islands and lies directly on the Pacific Ring of Fire, which is to say that it's geologically interesting: Vanuatu has nine active volcanoes and experiences frequent, even daily, earthquakes. But more alarming than the tremors and the lava and the frequent cyclones, more alarming even than the shark-infested waters that put a damper on life in paradise, are the foot-long, poisonous, carnivorous, child-killing centipedes that live in Vanuatu. That's right, killer centipedes. And if you should get up the nerve to take an axe to one of them and, say, chop it into five pieces, it doesn't mean you've done away with it: it means you've now got five killer centipedes running around loose. Paradise has its price.
In addition to recounting his harrowing adventures with the island wildlife, Troost writes about Vanuatu's history and culture and living conditions. He spends a good deal of time describing the experience of drinking kava, a muddy liquid--"to the uninitiated...the most wretchedly foul-tasting beverage ever concocted by Man"--that became Troost's drug of choice on the island. And, happily, Troost put considerable effort into researching the country's long--and relatively recent--history of cannibalism:
"The last officially recorded incident of cannibalism in Vanuatu was in 1969 on the island of Malekula. I was born in 1969, and while I am willing to concede that 1969 is rapidly receding into the dim mists of time, it wasn't that long ago. Humor me. It seemed to me that if people were still officially gnawing at human limbs in 1969, it was more than possible that, since then, there had been some off-the-books cannibalism going on in Vanuatu."
About two-thirds of the way into the book, Sylvia having become pregnant, the couple decided to move to Fiji, where delivery promised to be less nightmarish. Fiji, it turned out, was full of prostitutes, both male and female, and Troost recounts his adventures on that front with his usual good humor.
The Sex Lives of Cannibals, Troost's first book, was a laugh-out-loud funny, you-must-go-buy-it-now kind of read. (Really, go buy it now.) Getting Stoned with Savages is not quite as good a book. It drags a bit when Troost is talking about Vanuatu's government, for example. But it suffers in comparison only because the author set the bar so very, very high with his first book. Getting Stoned with Savages is a funny book, and Troost's a likeable, self-deprecating, witty guide through the cultures and countries of Vanuatu and Fiji. Since I'll never be going to either country, I'm glad Troost is around to write about them for us. And I hope he winds up writing a great many more books.
The True Stella Awards
Randy Cassingham
A Plume Book
375 Hudson Street , New York, NY 10014
0452287715 $13.00 www.penguin.com
The case is the lady who sued McDonalds and won after spilling hot coffee on herself. Everyone remembers it. Few recall the name of the person who profited from it. Her name was Stella. The award the author made up is to show the frivolous court cases that go through the system. There are many of them and they really show how stupid people can be. For instance, a guy was netting his pool and found a tree limb on the power line. Instead of getting the power company to take care of the situation he did it himself with his net and was electrocuted. His family sued, among others, the power company and a pool supply company because the net pole had no warning label on it. How about the underage male who drank beer at a party, took his girlfriends car, and was killed when he hit a phone pole. His mother sued Coors Brewing Company, the girlfriend, and the person holding the party. Forget the fact her son was underage, did not have a license to drive, took the car without permission, and drove drunk. There are so many cases here that are just plain stupid. They are real and show how much the system has wasted in dealing with them. The author also tried to give ways to change the procedure so that many of them never come to pass. I had to laugh at how dumb these are. One that was missing is the Sea World case in which a guy was killed because he swam around in the "Killer Whale" tank after the park had closed. What the author shows is that many of these people have no common sense and just how greedy they really are. We hear everyday people are getting dumber and dumber; this book is a true reflection of that.
Sofie Metropolis
Tori Carington
Tor
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010
0765350998 $6.99 www.tor.com
Tori Carrington has a hit with this oddball mystery that is in the same class as Stephanie Plum. Sophie, like Plum, has had many different jobs until now where she is a private investigator. Beginning with Sophie finding her fiance with another woman in bed it races along with many interesting characters that I hope will show up in other titles. The novel is a delightful first installment that will have readers laughing out loud.
Fingers
William Sleator
Tor
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010
0765353490 $6.99 www.tor.com
I really enjoyed this novel about two brothers who it seems try to put one over on the musical world. Humphrey is at a young age a master of the piano. At age 15 though he appears to be washed up. His mother and older brother have a plan to show the world he still has it. They give the appearance that he has written new pieces of music. They have a source from a dead composer's work. But very strange things begin to happen as they continue this elaborate con. I like the storyline and the characters with many twists and turns that kept me turning the pages.
Secrets at Pine Haven
Anne Bonner
Blue Note Books
400 Cocoa Beach Cswy, Cocoa Beach, Fl 32931
187839875X $12.95 www.bluenotebooks.com
Bonner does a very good job of showing that during the Civil War life continued to go on as best as it could in Jacksonville, Florida. The characters are very interesting and I really liked the description of the rural Florida. The novel is easy to read with a very quick pace.
The Bitter Woman's Guide to Dating
Antone Christopher
The Bitter Man Publications
Orlando, Florida
0978532309 $14.95 www.thebitterman.us
This second book of the series about dating is funnier than "The Bitter Man's Guide to Dating". It also has more color illustrations and true stories by women about weird dates they've had with men. The most memorable is the man who asked his date to take him to "Wendy's." I just loved his reason to have her take him there. Another remarkable one is the movie date when the guy showed his lack of concern for her when he told her "to stay in a lighted area," on her way to her car. The author has many interesting names for all types of different men women should watch out for. I'm sure females can relate to the numerous types of men. Christopher does a very good job of warning women on what to look for. I like this series and wonder what the author is going to come up with next. He has a very insightful eye on the world of dating.
The King
Rich Koslowski
Top Shelf Publications
1891830651 $19.95 www.illusarts.com
What would the world do if the king of rock and roll came back? That is what the author reveals in his illustrated novel. The question everyone has is, "Is this really Elvis or a very good impersonator?" The book is a lot of fun that no Elvis fan should miss.
The Osha Answer Book
Mark Moran
Safetycertified.com Inc
1536 Kingsley Ave Suite 126, Orange Park, Fl 32073
1890966657 $44.95 1-800-597-2040
Before I read this book I had no idea what OSHA does. I even thought it had something to do with oceans. Now I am aware that it is a federal agency that monitors business. It sets rules for construction and other companies. From the title I thought it would help me understand more. Instead I have less knowledge not because of the author. I could not grasp it because the federal agency is like any other one very complex in its language and it send out mixed messages. You really have to be a rocket scientist to really understand this book. Again, I find no fault with the author. He tried to explain it but it is just too complex for the average person.
Econation
John C. Krieg
Ivy House
5122 Bur Oak Circle , Raleigh NC 27612
1571974512 $15.95 www.ivyhousebooks.com 919-782-0281
The author does a fine job of showing how our present society is destroying the planet with our wasteful practices. He also compares earlier times with now and shows how people were really conscious of the environment. The book is interesting and has a lot to say about human beings.
The Doorstep of Depravity
Noah Bond
Mission Investments Inc.
P.O. Box 7358, Fort Lauderdale, Florida 33338-7358
0967355117 $16.95
A woman named Kay has a chance to inherit millions from a trust fund from a late uncle. There is one catch, she has to be married in a month. She has no prospects and there are other family members who don't want to see her get the money. They go out of their way to make sure she doesn't. She hires attorney Grace O'Higgins to help her. There are many conflicts here with writing that makes this a very good read. The story moves along with great imagery and well fleshed out characters.
Gunsmoke the Last Dog Solider
Joseph A. West
375 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014
0451214919 $5.99 www.penguin.com
The classic TV show is now a series of novels that capture that same feel. This one has all of the main characters and like the show, is very fast paced. For those of us who are fans this is a perfect way to continue the legacy of the old west. The author has written a very good novel that would have made a great episode.
Phase II
Robert Shuster
Sevenacide
PMB #325, 244 Shopping Avenue, Sarasota, Fl 34237-7125
097069898 $12.00 www.sevancide.com
Shuster has once again told a really tense suspenseful tale of an alien attack of planet earth. The characters are believable with a pace that is very fast reading. Shuster is one of the new authors of horror and science fiction that I will read because he writes like the older authors who never forgot to tell a story with a beginning middle and an end. I highly recommend this author, for anyone who is looking for someone new to add their list.
Behavioral First Aid
Virginia J. Duffy PhD, RN
Blue Note Books
400 Cocoa Beach Cswy. Cocoa Beach, Fl 32931
1878398547 $24.99 www.bluenotebooks.com
This book is not really for a mainstream audience, but it has a lot of good information that writers and people going into the field of health care can find useful.
Gary Roen
Reviewer
Gloria's Bookshelf
Bloody Harvests
Richard Kunzmann
Thomas Dunne Books,
c/o St. Martin's Minotaur
175 Fifth Ave., NY, NY 10010
0312360339 $23.95 www.stmartins.com 212-674-5151/646-307-5560
For the most part, the first several chapters of Bloody Harvests depict seemingly unrelated scenes, scenes of violence and terror taking place in and around Johannesburg, South Africa. It is shown as a world where superstition plays a big role in the lives of the Zulu, Zhosa, Yoruba and other tribesmen who live there. But the horrors which are committed are rooted firmly in the 'real' world.
The body of a young black child, a girl of perhaps 5 years of age, has been found, mutilated, with organs removed and her throat slit. Assigned to the investigation are D.I. Harry Mason and his partner, Jacob Tshabalah, both men haunted by their past histories dating back to their respective childhoods with which they are unable to come to terms. The murder is thought to be a muti ritual, and the deeply superstitious Africans are terrified of omens and witchcraft seemingly at play. One asks, rhetorically, "How long does a curse endure?" [Muti killings, more commonly known as medicine murder, involve the murder of someone in order to excise body parts for incorporation as ingredients into medicine.] These are dangerous times in the city – eleven fatal shootings in the space of just a few days, kidnapping of young children, a huge drug bust made by the police perhaps triggering reactions among the criminal underworld. And Harry, a white man, must try to understand the occultism and belief in witches that play such a large role. As he is told: "Occultism is about the irrational. What you haven't taken into account is that no witch doctor would risk exposing himself like this. They prefer working in the dark, manipulating people from the shadows."
Of the man the police seek, the author says "He brought them hope just as much as he brought them fear, two strong emotions that can inspire people when he needs them most." Jacob tells Harry, "My people have witnessed things that you whites don't understand – or don't want to understand. You still think our culture is primitive, that our beliefs are stupid, but you know…maybe Africa is just different." This is a dense and dark novel, filled with intensity, complex characterizations, and rich in sense of place of this fascinating culture and country. It is a very good read, and is recommended.
Still Life
Louise Penny
St. Martin's Minotaur
175 Fifth Ave., NY, NY 10010
0312352557 $22.95 www.stmartins.com 212-674-5151/646-307-5560
The murder in Still Life is related in the very first sentence of this nonetheless gentle debut novel by Louise Penny. The body of Jane Neal is discovered in the woods outside the village of Three Pines, just south of Montreal, and the case is assigned to Chief Inspector Armand Gamache of the Surete du Quebec. Assisting him is young Yvette Nichol, working her first case since achieving her dream of working at the Surete.
'Gentle' is also an apt description of the victim, and Inspector Gamache has a serious challenge in attempting to discover 'whodunit.' Jane was a local artist, albeit one whose work she had never permitted anyone to see, with the exception of one called Fair Day, depicting the closing parade of the local county fair which she has, for the first time, entered into the competition for the village Art show. Her entry provokes strong reactions, many of them negative, but the piece had been accepted. Two days later she is murdered, in what at first appears to have been a hunting accident, as hunting season had just begun, but no weapon is found and no one comes forward to claim responsibility. If it is indeed murder the culprit, it would appear, must be one of the residents of the small village where Jane had lived for nearly all of her 76 years. Interestingly, the weapon appears to have been an old-fashioned wooden bow and arrow. The Inspector muses: 'Looking around he realized how much he liked this place and these people. Too bad one of them was a murderer," an
