No comments about Change of Circumstance.

4 comments about Train from Marietta.

1. In 1933 Katherine Tyler heads from her home in New York to work for her uncle as a nurse in a San Francisco hospital. However, her father's business partner William has his nephew Eddy Jacobs, boyfriend to Kate's sister Susan, abetted by two thugs (Hayden and Squirrelly) kidnap her in West Texas during a train stop. William plans to use her as a pawn to extort money and other valuables from her affluent dad John.
   
   Kate's desperate father ignores the warnings of bringing in the law; he contacts the Texas Rangers. In turn craggy rancher Tate Castle searches for and rescues Kate. Tate is shocked by his attraction to the seemingly frail city girl; she reciprocates his deep feelings. As they flee together she proves stronger than she looks, but his handicapped daughter Emily rejects her father finding a new love; even if Katherine is willing to give up everything for a ranch life in Texas.
   
   TRAIN FROM MARIETTA is a terrific Depression Era romantic suspense starring two likable protagonists, a realistic child with physical and emotional problems (though both are resolved too easily), and antagonists who range from insane to avaricious to desperate. The action-packed story line never slows down from the moment that William begins his plan until the final altercation with a crazed Squirrelly. A final twist will surprise the audience, but fits the key relationships between the cast and hopefully leads to another Dorothy Garlock 1930's thriller.
   
   Harriet Klausner



2. I am a big fan of Dorothy Garlock's novels. This one was slightly dissapointing to me. It carried less suspense and romantic confliction than in the past. We were told right away who and why people were committing the crime, unlike past novels that made you wonder. Also, the romance between Kate and Tate was slighly ho-hum, without the normal conflicts that have made Garlock's characters realistic. This one was still entertaining and I wanted to finish it, but it was more predictable than we may be expecting from this talented author.



3. TRAIN FROM MARIETTA by Dorothy Garlock
   March 3, 2006
   
   Amazon rating 3/5
   
   
   "Train from Marietta by Dorothy Garlock, 'the voice of America's Heartland', takes place in the 1930s. Katherine Tyler is on her way via train to San Francisco, where she will join her uncle to work as a nurse at a prestigious hospital. She leaves her father John Tyler, as well as her step-mother and half-sister in New York.
   
   Unfortunately, before she reaches her destination, Katherine is kidnapped by several men, one of whom is Eddy, the nephew of her father's business partner. John Tyler is a very wealthy man, and her kidnappers demand a ransom that will allow his partner, William Jacobs, to buy out the business and leave John out in the cold.
   
   Luckily for Katherine, Tate Castle is a fellow passenger on the train. Though their first encounter is a humiliating one that leaves a bad impression, Tate later comes to her rescue. Thus begins an adventure for wealthy Katherine Tyler. It's one dangerous experience after another as she and Tate run for their lives, pursued by the kidnappers. And of course along the way, the two fall in love." - Complete review at BookLoons - M. Lofton
   
   
   For those who enjoy historical romances with a cowboy-type setting, this is for you. I didn't care for the simplistic prose, but the story itself was enough to keep my attention.



4. After some sophomoric prose in the beginning chapters, this turned out to be a sweet little story. I like the hero, Tate and the heroine,Kate. Tate and Kate = just a little too cute. The bad guys were horrid and the other side characters did their job.
   
   Read it in one afternoon. Sensuality is a 1 but it got the job done.

5 comments about Lamb (Norton Paperback Fiction).

1. Lamb is a book about a priest (Brother Sebastian aka. Michael Lamb)who runs away from a cold, uncaring children's Home in Ireland with a young boy whom he feels sorry for. They then try to start a new life in England and try to forget their bleak past. Lamb is trying to come to terms with his fading belief in his religion and is at conflict within himself throughout the book. Lamb's teacher - pupil relationship with the boy changes to a father - son relationship and this strengthens his actions at the end of the novel.



2. I had to read Lamb by Bernard Mac Laverty as a school projet. At first I was really un-keen as it wasn't my kind of book , but by the second chapter I was totally hooked. the only thing better than this book is the film.



3. Bernard MacLavertyýs short novel LAMB is a great example of things going terribly wrong for someone who has the ýbest of intentionsý. The writing is flowing but intense, drawing the reader inexorably into the story ý it makes this a hard book to lay aside, even for the night. I was tempted to stay up ýtoo lateý to finish it.

   Brother Sebastian (née Michael Lamb) is a member of the Christian Brothers, assigned to a bleak reformatory where parents bring boys they can no longer control ý it is a way station on the road to troubled adult lives, although it is seen by the parents and the administration as a place of rehabilitation. Unfortunately for the boys, the ýrehabilitationý practiced by the headmaster and his staff in mostly made up of beatings and other forms of cruelty. The headmaster ý Brother Benedict ý at one point refers to the institution as ýa finishing school for the Idle Poorý, a telling remark that shows his contempt for those to which he supposedly ministers. Sometimes beatings are administered to boys the headmaster knows in innocent of the transgression at hand, simply as an example to the population in general. Itýs a depressing atmosphere, and it weighs heavily upon the already fragile character and emotions of Brother Sebastian.

   There is one boy for whom Brother Sebastian feels a special, deep affinity ý young Owen Kane, small for his age, quiet, and, as we learn, an epileptic. The boy is plagued by episodes of bedwetting, and his stubborn demeanor singles him out for especially violent ýlessonsý from the headmaster. Sebastian determines that the only way to save Owen is to take him away. He plots this action only skeletally, acting as he is on his emotions, with his intellectual abilities taking the back seat ý and this comes back to haunt the two of them as they steal away from the school and take off on the road to London. Sebastian honestly loves and cares for the boy ý this is not a story of sexual abuse by a church figure ý but his increased depression, which he doesnýt recognize as such causes them to be in increased danger of discovery, leading to the inevitable and very disturbing conclusion.

   The lighter scenes, in which Brother Sebastian manages to bring some rare joy into the childhood of his young charge ý and as a result into his own dark life as well ý are very moving. They give the reader hope that somehow, in some way, the Brother is successful in starting a new life with the boy, living in peace somewhere with him, as father and son. His intentions, as I mentioned, are completely loving and honorable ý the darkness in the book is not in those intentions. There is darkness in the system that allows such a place as the school depicted here to exist in the first place, and to be ýmanagedý in the manner of a prison for incorrigible criminals rather than an institution that would truly give troubled boys a ýsecond chanceý.




4. Lamb, by Bernard Mac Laverty, is, at 150 pages, a short read, but its brevity serves only to provide a perfectly told story without padding or exposition. It follows the story of a young priest, Michael Lamb (or Brother Sebastian), who runs away from the Irish Borstal that he works in, takes a deprived boy named Owen Kane with him. But, as his money dwindles, news of the kidnapping closes in on them, and Lamb finds himself running out of ideas on how to save the boy's life, leading to a dark climax borne of both necessity and love.
   
   Beginning in the Borstal, aptly referred as "a finishing school for the sons of the Idle Poor" by its head, Brother Benedict, Lamb observes this to be an accurate statement as he believes it finishes their lives, providing them with little hope for the future. Upon inheriting money from his father's death Lamb resolves to rescue Owen, a misunderstood - and epileptic - boy, often made an example of due his stubborn nature, and give him the life he deserves. They break for London, and spend their time exploring the city and discovering each other, until the time comes when they have so few options that Lamb is required to make the decision that will affect their lives, but he believes to be right.
   
   The characters, throughout, are developed sufficiently to create your own impression of them; although Owen's character could have done with further expansion with regards to his life before Borstal. Lamb, especially, as you would expect a title character, is well conceived and his decisions, at all times, appear believable. Brother Benedict, a sadist at heart, claims that he "was belted black and blue myself what harm did it do me?" without realising that it turned him into the one now administering beatings. Even the fringe characters: conmen, housekeepers, and perverts have enough splashes of colour to make them plausible.
   
   The writing, while not being flowery, is engaging enough to spin the narrative on, making it a book you are not likely to put down until completion. It's a thrill to read as the escapes bond with each other, but watching as their world of opportunity caves in around them. The underlying meanings and symbols that make the book special, the many inferences of the book's title, for example, raise the scope of the novel, adding further richness to it.
   
   Lamb, for its length, covers a number of topics, but the theme that stands out, for me, is love; that, and the things you would do for it. Sometimes, you don't even know you are doing it, Lamb discovers while trying to understand the fugues of Owen's epilepsy. But it's the grim denouement of the novel that questions how far one would really go, and it's this that adds the pièce de résistance to a wonderful and haunting tale.



5. Brother Sebastian, alias Michael Lamb, works at a finishing school for the sons of the Idle Poor in Ireland. There the Brothers teach boys to conform, make their beds, how to hold a knife and fork in order to shoehorn them back into society at an age when, if they commit another offence, they go to the grown-up prison. If they do not conform, the school thrashes them. The Brothers thus teach them a little of God and a lot of fear.
   It is to comply with his father's wish that Michael has stayed so long in the Brothers and besides he always wanted to help in whatever way he could the suffering of the world. Like the Lamb of God, he wanted to take away the sins of the world.
   There are three reasons which push Michael to leave the Brothers: the death of his father and the money he left him, the values for which the school stands which he can no longer tolerate and his attachment to a boy called Owen Kane (Owen is the Gaelic word for lamb) whom he doesn't see fit for such an institution.
   He therefore decides to leave secretly the school and take Owen with him to London with the hope to be the boy's saviour. They pose as father and son but soon the world closes in around them and when time, money and opportunity run out, Michael has no other option than to move towards a solution that is as uncompromising as it is inspired by his love for Owen.
   A powerful and deeply humane novel with a breathtaking ending, both dramatic and inevitable.

1 comments about Dirty Work.

1. Hope never thinks anything interesting will happen in her life. She seems to be on the fast track to nowhere, and her parents despair of ever understanding her.
   
   She is jolted out of her quiet and idyllic life when she encounters Oksana, a Russian girl who has been sold as a sex slave. Hope's tentative friendship with Oksana leads to her own kidnapping by the owner Oksana is running from. These girls have only each other, and they will have to overcome their bitterness and prejudice and work together to escape from their captors.
   
   But will it be too late?
   
   DIRTY WORK is a riveting and captivating read. The pages go by quickly, and Ms. Bell keenly builds suspense throughout the entire book by interspersing flashbacks of Oksana's past in between telling the two girls' predicament. Without being inappropriate or too mature for teens, DIRTY WORK easily conveys the horrors of human trafficking and how very easy it is to get caught up in it.
   
   This terrifying, entrancing novel will certainly grab your attention, and won't let go until long after the book is finished.
   
   Reviewed by: The Compulsive Reader

5 comments about X-Men: Codename Wolverine (Marvel Comics).

1. After reading Codename Wolverine, Ithought this made great movie material.The idea of Wolverine and Mystique teaming up to save Sabretooth makes forsome high stakes action. But there's more to this story than saving Sabre's skin. Once they find out the strange circumstances behind Victor's kid-napping, things start to get really wild. The "now" segments have Loganand Mystique trying to uncover the truth behind Victor's kidnapping, along with finding out that Black Widow, Maverick, and Banshee have also been taken .They find a lot of trouble in the process. The "then" segments take you back to Logan's days with Team X.The action is definitely fast paced,and the alternation from now to then and back will keep you guessing and wandering what's going on. The ending revelation and action bring things to a cooling end, letting you relax to know that Wolverine has won again,and yes, he's pulled Sabretooth's fat outta the fire. This really does sound like a good movie. A great read, too.



2. This is a great story of Wolverine and the rest of the project X team. It was very well written, but I'm a comic lover and I love to see the beautiful artwork that most illustrators come out with. I think this story would be great if it were in a comic form, what can I say I love pictures!!



3. I got half way threw the book and I was falling asleep. There is no action or adventure in this book and I suggest not buying it. It is a waist of time and money. Go by the old saying and "DON'T JUDGE THE BOOK BY IT'S COVER!"



4. After reading Golden's great 'Predator's Smile' Daredevil novel, I was excited to see what he would do with Wolverine. While not
   a bad book, the pacing is slow and the action is kind of far
   between for a Wolverine tale. All the characters seemed a little
   too two dimensional unlike 'Predator' which brought out the best
   in all the cast. While I hate to do this, as I am a Golden fan,
   you should pass on this one and read 'Predator'. (If you like
   DD anyway)



5. Wolverine has always been and will likely be one of Marvel's most popular characters. But, Golden adds a new depth to the background and persona of the lovable hairy mutant. A great deal of the book is flashback to Wolverine's espionage days and those flashbacks lend an insight that has been lacking in the character's development.

3 comments about Darkness Falls.

1. This is the first Margaret Murphy book that I've read but it certainly won't be the last.
   Defence barrister, Clara Pascal, is kidnapped and held captive in a dark, cold cellar for 6 days, expecting that every next minute would be her last. Can't go into detail as it would give away the plot but suffice to say that there is suspense, tension and the expectation of iminent violence. M/s Murphy describes her scenes in the police Special Operation room in as much detail as if she were writing a script for a tv cop show which is a very effective way of writing in this genre. I gave it 5 stars (unusual for me) for good plotting, tight writing and her ability to hold the readers attention to the end without missing a beat.



2. Nine year old Pippa Pascal persuades her ultra-busy mom Clara to take her to school today since it is her birthday. Though the barrister is working on a major case with early appointments, still Clara is conned into dropping her daughter off to the amusement of her spouse Hugo. However, at the school following the mandatory cautionary motherly pitch to stay safe, Clara turns towards her vehicle only to have a red ski masked male abduct her.

   While Clara is chained to a wall in a clammy cellar with no food, water, or a toilet, the culprit remains silent behind his mask. Clara ponders who and why, but comes up empty. Meanwhile Detective Inspector Steve Lawson investigates the kidnapping with two prime suspects in mind: the spouse and a mobster she is prosecuting. Though held prisoner with Bastille-like conditions, Clara refuses to break or beg. Instead she fascinates her host when with élan she psychological assaults him though that track fails to move the culprit. As time moves on, Clara's chance of survival geometrically diminishes.

   DARKNESS FALLS is an exhilarating thriller due to the prime two characters. Clara will fascinate readers as she has her "host" with her courage. The abductee is also intriguing as ironically the audience learns his plans for his victim before he applies them to Clara. This enables the audience to feel for the barrister yet also sees what went right and what failed. Though a final turn of the screw seems too easy, fans will value this dark psychological thriller that does not let go until the final ante is raised.

   Harriet Klausner




3. Fast paced and chilling, "Darkness Falls" is a thriller that will definitely please even the most fastidious of readers. I certainly was hooked by the time I had finished the first chapter. And even though I (again) suffered from a lack of a proper night's sleep, it was well worth it.
   
   It's Pippa Pascal's birthday, and the nine year old wants her mother, high-flying lawyer, Clara, to take her to school. And so, even though she shouldn't, Clara makes the time in order to take Pippa to school on this important day. But outside the school gates, things go terribly wrong, when a masked man jumps out of a nondescript van and grabs Clara, bundling her into the van and driving away. Within minutes the police are on the scene; unfortunately, even though Pippa was a witness to her mother's kidnapping, the traumatized little girl is of little help. As the police try to figure out if Clara was kidnapped for ransom, or if she was snatched because of her involvement in the very high profile prosecution of a crime boss, the once totally in control Clara Pascal, imprisoned in a cellar and chained to a wall, battles for her life and sanity as she tries to figure out who kidnapped and her and why. But the more she learns, the more she realizes just how precarious her position is and how much she has to fear from this very determined man who seems to have some very firm ideas about what Clara should experience...
   
   "Darkness Falls in a very superbly crafted thriller that centers wholly on the character of Clara Pascal -- who she was, what she did, and her reactions to being imprisoned and controlled by her masked jailer. Slowly we get to know Clara -- to admire her tenacity and courage, even as we dislike her (past) single-minded dedication to her profession. And even though the book focuses equally on the police investigation and the killer's sick fantasies (there is a subplot involving the serial killer), reading of Clara's attempts to connect with her kidnapper is what made "Darkness Falls" riveting. Swiftly and tautly paced and with mounting levels of tension, "watching" how Margaret Murphy brings both these subplots together is a stunning and unexpected twist, made reading "Darkness Falls" a pleasure and well worth not having slept enough the previous night.

5 comments about The Honorary Consul: A Novel (Simon & Schuster Classics).

1. This is what happens when great authors go to seed. It seems like a cruel mockery of a Greene novel, parading the same old themes around, corrupted more than ever by an unjustified excess liberalism. There isn't a single living character here, and even though the prose is generally competent, I think it has to be buried in consideration of the man's memory.



2. Graham Greene presents the story of a half-English medical doctor, Eduardo Plarr, living in a backwater town in Argentina. The title derives from Plarr's relationship with the Honorary Consul, Charley Fortnum, and his adulterous relationship with Fortnum's former-prostitute wife. This work of literature is very well written and has the taste of art.

   Greene's writing expresses the subtlety of his characters - apathetic men who go through life not having been impressed with much. Greene's theme is love and how or whether it is expressed between men and women, and also how it is expressed (if expressed at all) between man and God. Graham puts into the thoughts of Dr. Plarr:

   "`Love' was a claim which he wouldn't meet, a responsibility he would refuse to accept, a demand ... So many times his mother had used the word when he was a child; it was like the threat of an armed robber. `Put up your hands or else ...' Something was always asked in return: obedience, an apology, a kiss which one had no desire to give." And again:

   "That stupid banal word love. It's never meant anything to me. Like the word God."

   Thus, Greene puts these "larger than ourselves" themes on the backs of his self-absorbed characters. The result is masterful. If you are looking to read classic literature - the kind of literature that actually requires the reader to think and ponder the implications of the print - then this book is for you. Highly recommended.




3. At their best, Greene's novels put ordinary men in difficult moral situations. Then, his characters make heroic, but often self-defeating, moral choices. These great novels include THE POWER AND THE GLORY, THE HEART OF THE MATTER, THE QUIET AMERICAN, and THE COMEDIANS. Read them.
   
   In THE HONORARY COUNSUL, Greene also creates difficult moral situations for his primary characters. But, in this novel, the dilemmas of Father Rivas and Dr. Plarr are without Greene's usual deft balance between choice and disaster.
   
   Instead, Greene creates moral situations that appear doomed almost from the book's beginning. As a result, the choices that Rivas and Plarr make don't seem especially heroic. Instead, these characters seem to be caught in a death machine, which is indifferent to their personal dilemmas.
   
   To a large extent, they are like Charley Fortnum, the novel's honorary counsel, who is kidnapped mistakenly by political revolutionaries. Here, Fortnum, despite lots of misery and recrimination, is basically waiting for the denouement, as the death machine grinds forward.
   
   In Greene's great books, there is also the pleasure of seeing characters move through time and place. In contrast, much of this novel is conversation, with Greene making his points. Many of these are about moral responsibility. But others just seem "writerly", with Greene developing endless ironic connections between apparently dissimilar characters.
   
   Nonetheless, this is a good read and a rewarding book, with the best scene the querulous formation of the Anglo-Argentinean Club.



4. "The Honorary Consul" is the first Graham Greene novel I've read, and it is easy to see why Greene has earned so many devoted fans and seemingly over-the-top superlatives over his long career.
   
   Based on this novel, Greene's strength seems to be creating a rich cast of characters, full of different tics, scars, dreams, virtues, and flaws, and dropping them into a plot of balanced tragedy and farce. By stirring great ingredients into a delicious recipe, Greene created a novel to savour and one, I would bet, improves with each reading.
   
   Set in an anonymous border town just on the Argentine side of Paraguay, "The Honorary Consul" focuses on the hapless, accidental kidnapping of Charley Fortnum, the titular honorary consul. A band of revolutionaries, lethally inept, swipe the British Fortnum instead of their target, the American ambassador, whom they wanted to exchange for political prisoners in the Paraguayan dictatorship nearby. Unfortunately for the kidnappers, Fortnum's title is more impressive than his station, and nobody is all that eager to save Fortnum, much less give in to the kidnappers' demands.
   
   Further adding to the travesty of the situation, Fortnum's only connection to the outside world is Dr. Plarr, a half-British, half Argentinian physician who is also having an affair with Fortnum's wife, a former prostitute. Plarr, whose father vanished into the Paraguayan prison system years ago, is a man incapable of emotion -- when it comes to relationships, he's good at the physics but not the chemistry.
   
   Plarr struggles to help the innocent Fortnum escape his looming fate -- if ten political prisoners are not released from Paraguay, the kidnappers will shoot Fortnum. Through his efforts both with the kidnappers and with several possible saviors, Plarr meets and interacts with a host of characters whose range of quirks and passions would be at home in a Casablanca cafe.
   
   Greene writes with an economic, spare prose that is nevertheless powerful, often using dialogue and soliloquies to advance the story rather than long-winded descriptions of setting. Clocking in at under 300 pages, "The Honorary Consul" is a riveting read that probably goes too fast on the first read. I plan on putting it aside for a few months before taking it up again . . . I'm sure I'll catch a bit more meaning the second time around, but there was plenty for the first trip through.
   
   A dark, occasionally depressing novel of lost opportunities, false passions, and the ultimate quest for truth, "The Honorary Consul" is a heck of a read. Check it out.



5. In a provincial town 800 km north of Buenos Aires a group of revolutionaries kidnap by mistake Charly Fortnum, the Honorary Consul, instead of the American Ambassador. They request the liberation of 10 prisoners from Paraguay.
   The characters are brilliantly drawn and the prose is sparse and taught. Fortnum, sixty-one year old, living on whisky and his disputed status as an "Honorary" British Consul marries a young ex-prostitute from Senora Sanchez's brothel. Dr Eduardo Plarr whose deficient emotions form the heart of the novel. Although Plarr is Clara's lover and the father of the child she's expecting, he still envies Fortnum's love for her because it is a feeling he has never been capable of experiencing himself. Even the minor characters of the kidnappers, Aquino, Father Rivas and Marta are sardonically drawn and during the bungled kidnap, plenty is said among them about justice, faith, love and God during the 3-day confine in a dirty mud and tin hut.

2 comments about Bed Of Lies.

1. This was a wonderful book. For a big book it took all four days to read. i was on edge from beginning to end. I can't wait to read her other book.



2. This book was really good. It held my attention so much that I didn't want to put it down. There were a few errors but nothing major that would prevent me from understanding or even ejoying the story. As far as the other reviews I didnt find them helpful. I would have missed out on a great book if I would have listened to them.

4 comments about Flying Too High: A Phryne Fisher Mystery.

1. I am just getting started on Phryne Fisher mysteries, and they are proving quite addictive. Much of the charm comes from the setting- Australia in the 1920's, but the plots are well thought out. The heroine is charming, witty and surrounded by a large cast of helpers. Try them, bet you can't read just one!



2. I want to be Phryne when I grow up. She's smart, resourceful, talented and independent. She is wealthy, but remembers what it was like to be poor. She cares about people and can distinguish between the criminal and the misguided. This is a quick short, quick read that is well plotted, has wonderful supporting characters that kept me involved from the first page. Although this entry isn't quite as strong as others in the series, it is still a delight to read. I'm delighted Poisoned Pen Press is publishing this series for the U.S. audience.



3. this is the second title of one of the best series around. the other reviewers are absolutely right. and i, too, want to be phyrne.
   
   greenwood writes wonderfully well. there is humor, suspense, excitement in all her books, and tricky plots. the only complaint i could ever possibly make is that there are no references to footy (australian rules football)--and phyrne lives in st. kilda. this is probably not going to be a drawback for most american readers!
   
   this title harks back to many of the mysteries of the early 20th century, which is appropriate for the 1928 setting. there's great excitement in the descriptions of early flying--i wanted even more to go up in a bi-plane after reading this.
   
   none of this series could be described as 'cozy,' since there is a clear-eyed view of reality under the mystery. neither is there violence for the sake of titillation. the motives are believable, the characters--good and bad--are well drawn, the dialogue is wonderful, the australian background fascinating.
   
   this is a book and a series that any reader could enjoy.



4. i have been reading mysteries for decades. i have favorite authors whose books i reread with pleasure. but my absolute favorite for the last ten years is kerry greenwood and her phryne fisher series.
   
   the novels are incredibly well-written and well researched, have wonderfully twisty plots, great dialogue, clothes, food and drink. phryne fisher is a complex and fascinating character with, thankfully, no angst or moral quandries. she has ethics and morals and acts on them fearlessly.
   
   there is humor of all kinds as well as suspense. the twisty plots also pay homage to the plots of the golden age of mystery, the period between the wars when mystery writing became culturally acceptable.
   
   even non-mystery lovers would enjoy the series for the fascinating facts from australian history. the only thing ms. greenwood doesn't include is footy, probably because our phyrne lives in st. kilda. it's not a noticeble lack.

No comments about Mrs. Flannagan's Trumpet.