5 comments about Dead Bang: An Art Hardin Mystery (Art Hardin Mysteries).

1. When you start reading Dead Bang, you won't stop until the smoke clears on the final page. Robert Bailey's talent for blending non-stop action with interesting plot twists and intriguing characters places him at the top of his craft. Art Hardin is a mystery lover's detective. He's no superman, but he always gets the job done. Bailey's career as a PI guarantees accuracy and detail that other authors just can't deliver. If you like a dose of reality with your thrillers then this is the book for you!



2. Retired private detective and Shamus-nominated author Robert E. Bailey presents Dead Bang: An Art Hardin Mystery, featuring the return of hard-boiled gumshoe Art Hardin. When an Islamic terrorist group manipulates and unsuspecting friend of the family to smuggle money into the country - and the money vanishes - Art becomes involved in a murderous, terrorist plot of violence and revenge. An nonstop rush of excitement from cover to cover, Dead Bang is especially recommended for fans of two-fisted intrigue.



3. Reviewed by R. J. Brown for RebeccasReads (3/08)
   
   From a Mob hit thirty years ago on the outskirts of Detroit to a fight over a piece of luggage at an airport carousel, "Dead Bang" lopes around the Wolverine State, leaving a trail of bullets, fires, loose cash, kidnappings and bodies.
   
   This is the third Art Hardin Mystery, so there's some catching-up to do, although "Dead Bang" ably stands alone, like the proverbial last man.
   
   I really enjoyed meeting Art and Wendy, longtime married PIs, with their own separate companies and an amusing and familiar repartee. Both being of a certain age, they have history, and in Art's case, something he was working on as a young man, suddenly comes back to bite him.
   
   Art is at a meet with Mark Behler, a local news anchor who's outspokenly anti-gun on his shows and says he has a lead into that long ago Mob hit. When a middle-aged woman comes in and starts shooting, Art, being a concealed weapons carrier and a firm believer in the Second Amendment, shoots back, accurately. Mark rushes to the woman's side with his tape recorder still going. Just as she expires, she says something which makes him very uneasy, and leads him to convince Art to help him legally get a gun, under the guise of showing his TV audience just how easy it is. Turns out it isn't easy, which frustrates the newsman to no end.
   
   Later, when Wendy is driving Art to the airport to pick up Karen Smith, someone Art had been hired to protect a few years back, and whom they had kind of adopted (and whom we might have met in either "Private Heat" or "Dying Embers") returns from a Caribbean vacation towing her latest lover, a comedian of Middle Eastern extract, and a suitcase of lovely new undies. Then Art and lover Manny fight over the bag and it rips open. It's packed with used American money -- the chase is on.
   
   Sometimes it's Art and Wendy doing the chasing, and sometimes it's the bad guys with their arsenal and cell of back-up thugs. All the time "Dead Bang" is fast, lively and surprisingly informative and ingenious. I especially enjoyed the insights into Detroit's past and present, the married with older children focus, and the different perspective that one FBI agent, raised in Egypt and America, brings to the mix.
   
   "Dead Bang" has some things to say about good guys and bad and terrorism, about the sorry state of a once-great industrial region, about gun ownership and misuse, and living long enough to gain some maturity. It also has some great punch-lines.
   
   If you like your mysteries peppered with the bizarre and hilarious, with side dishes of history, then "Dead Bang" is a dead-on read for you!



4. Reviewed by D. H. Brown for Reader Views (3/08)
   
   When a copy of Robert Bailey's new Art Hardin book "Dead Bang" came into my hands, I knew I was in for a thrill-ride. Not many authors since the great Chandler and John D. MacDonald of Travis McGee fame have the ability to write a book I know beforehand will not disappoint.
   
   In the third book in his Art Hardin series, Robert Bailey does not disappoint. "Dead Bang" is filled with the usual thrills and spills that Art and his family get into, seemingly on a routine basis. From a street shooting, to terrorist charging around shooting up the lower-half of Michigan, this tale keeps the reader racing along with howls of laughter and seat of your pants excitement.
   
   Art Hardin is no faint-of-heart PI. When lead comes flying his way, he answers full throttle with fire downrange. Dead-eyed and with the full intention of stopping said lead, he says an emphatic YES to keeping his "Right to Keep and Bear Arms." You shoot at Art and you die.
   
   I hope this author has a long and storied life of writing ahead of him as I want those years to help satisfy my need for speed and good reads!



5. Dead Bang is the third book in the Art Hardin series by Robert Bailey, and is clearly his best effort to date. Bailey has hit his stride with Dead Bang. This fast-paced book and will keep you on the edge of your seat while you keep turning the pages. The well-developed plot revolves around a friend of the Hardins duped into transporting money for terrorists, with an interesting sub-plot about a 30-year-old mob hit. Art and Wendy Hardin get involved and the bullets, as well as the one-liners, fly.
   
   Robert Bailey has created a cast of characters that are believable, and have become old friends after having read the first two books. For Art Hardin, picture a mixture of Philip Marlowe and Archie Goodwin, married with teenaged children. Throw in a bit of the Continental OP by Dashiell Hammet and you'll find he's a mix of the hard-boiled private eye and the guy next door. In fact, the Hardins are the kind of people you might want to have living next door. Well, you will until the bad guys start shooting up the neighborhood anyway. In this story, Wendy comes into her own and the married couple becomes a team. The dialogue and the way they interact is believable and fun.
   
   I highly recommend this book to anyone who likes a fast-paced mystery/suspense/thriller and I eagerly await the next in the series.

No comments about Scandinavian Painted Furniture: A Step-by-Step Workbook.

No comments about New Furniture Design.

No comments about Tables and Desks (Art of Woodworking).

No comments about Country Furniture For The Home: The Living Room: Timeless Traditional Woodworking Projects.

2 comments about Just Chairs: Over 600 Designs from Around the World.

1. I suppose it all depends on what you expect this book to be. I was expecting a history of chairs, with 600 pictures of the chairs. What the book consists of is pictures of 600 mostly modern chairs, essentially all factory made, and almost all made from metal and plastic.
   If you're looking for pictures of chairs through time and how they developed over the centuries, look elsewhere.
   Extremely disappointing book.



2. Bernie is totally right in his description of this book, and I find it great! The first half of it is devoted to pieces from XX century and the rest to ones from century XXI. The vast majority of them are production models but there is a closing chapter about the chair as a piece of art. As a designer I find all of them very inspiring.

No comments about The Story of Western Furniture.

2 comments about The World of Biedermeier.

1. This is a bautifully done presentation of the Art of Biederrmeier. The book is fine quality and the printing work is beyond compare. You'll not be disappointed with this.



2. This book was filled with wonderful photos of the period but is essentially a pretty to look at coffee table book. It is not comprehensive in it's exploration of the style and does not have many examples of furniture to study. For the price l paid it is a disappointing resource to me as a furniture designer.

1 comments about Making Swedish Country Furniture and Household Things.

1. The talent behind this book -- Hans Keijer is a specialist in traditional environments, Lars Sjoberg is curator at Sweden's National Museum, and Ron Willick is a skilled cabinet maker -- is a winning team. There are 35 woodworking projects of varying difficulty presented with step-by-step instructions and measured drawings, in addition to a photo, usually in place in a museum room setting. Even for those who do not plan to use it as a workbook, it is a good guide for Swedish vernacular furnishings.

2 comments about Country Pine Furniture Projects: 32 Classic Pieces to Build for Your Home (American Woodworker).

1. The projects featured aren't very interesting. Good instructions but nothing appeals enough to me to make it.



2. This is an outstanding book on making authentic early American country furniture. His instructions are some of the best I've ever seen published. The drawn illustrated plans are superior. The projects are real good and are based closely on originals. But please note: this is the same book by the author published by Rodale in 1999 with a slightly different subtitle.