The overview and locator maps proved very useful. Posting the elevation gain and loss (as well as a plot showing where these occured) was very helpful in negotiating the trails. Precautions and general hiking information in the front sections of the book were very thorough.

To me, this is the Grand Canyon book to get if you are planning on hiking the trails. It has great illustrations of the trails and elevations. You can easily follow the trail illustrations from one trail to another because they tell you the page number of the connecting trail. The textual descriptions are excellent and very easy to follow. The trails are broken up logically and are easy to piece together for extended trips into the canyon. If you are looking for a book with telephone numbers of who to call for reservations and all that, this is not the book. Fine with me because that information is always changing and isn't that what they made the internet for? The size is a bit large to be considered a pocket book but is easily packable. The size actually helps with the illustrated maps as it makes them what I consider to be perfect for trail use. I prefer to make copies (which I did not do if it is a violation of some copyright) of the trails I am going to hike and leave the book behind. The copies are handy for the inevitable rain that always comes. Put them in a zip lock bag with the one you need on top...this book does not stress much about people being physically prepared to hike the canyon. If they don't physically prepare, what makes you think they bother to read before they hit the trail? I have yet to see a sick person on the trail with a book about the canyon in their hand. The book does rate each of the trails with regard to difficulty. I have several books on the Grand Canyon and for planning and hiking the trails, this is the one I would recommend over all the others.

For those folks that want to stay on the main Grand Canyon trails and not onto the seldom visited routes this is an excellent guide. For each of the 28 South and North rim trails the author gives detailed, thorough descriptions, useful maps, trail mileage, level of difficulty, a profile of the elevation changes on the trail, detailed directions to the trailhead and more. Adkison's clear writing style is to be commended. I found the guide has only a few drawbacks: readers should use his suggested hiking times with caution; in at least one case (Tanner trail) his mileage figure is very likely too short; and the whole rather than part of the Tonto trail ought to have been covered in the book. These minor shortcomings aside I highly recommend this trail guide.

This book is entertaining enough if you have to find something to read on a bus ride or in a waiting room. The story is ok, the characters are likable enough. It's easy to empathize with Joanna. "Dead to Rights" is not a page turner, but it's not boring. It's all pretty shallow; there's no meat to the story and nothing particularly impressive about the writing. Not memorable.

For comparison's sake, I'd say that the Joanna Brady mysteries are about as sophisticated & engaging as Lilian Jackson Braun's "The Cat Who..." series (although there is a bit more violence in the J.A. Jance books). It's fine for someone looking for a quick & easy little story. A more serious-minded reader will think this is a waste of time & paper.

By the way, another reviewer calls the "The First Book in this Series," but that means that it's the first book that that reviewer read, not that it's the first in the series. If you're going to read the series, you may as well start in the beginning: "Desert Heat" is the first book I believe, and this is the fourth or fifth.

JA Jance keeps you on your toes with this novel, a great murder mystery set in AZ featuring heroine joanna Brady, the newly elected sheriff in Cochise county. When she enlists in police officer's school for newly hired officers, she is once again involved in a homicide, with an unlikely suspect. in following leads that lead her deeper into this murder, she is herself in danger. She meets a gentleman she first distrusts, and then finds to be a strong, supportive friend, her future husband Butch Dixon.
This audio book is well narrated, if you can grab a used version, do so, its worth it. They are hard to find.
If you listen to audiobooks, this is an easy book to follow, it won't let you fall asleep, and you'll be tempted to listen to it from the first to last tape.

I enjoyed every aspect of this book but the "budding" romance for Joanna. Many a good mystery heroine has been ruined by adding sappy romantic aspects to the book. I hope that doesn't happen to Joanna.

I read mysteries for the simple enjoyment of it all. I don't expect great literature - but I struggled to get through this one. Maybe I've been spoiled by J.A. Jance. I've come to expect interesting plots and subplots, compelling dialog, and likeable characters. None of these are evident in Desert Noir. I'll continue my search for new mystery/suspense writers.

This was a very unique book. As a native New Yorker who has never met an Indian or been to the Southwest, it provided a fascinating introduction to Scottsdale, AZ. And I was fascinated with the main character, Lena, as she searched for her own identity along with proving her client innocent, etc.
There were also many gut-wrenching glimpses into Lena's childhood in foster care; the book made me thankful for my own loving family, and helped me become more empathetic to those les fortunate. Although parts of the book seemed unbelievably far-fetched, it nonetheless held my interest to the very last page, and makes me hope that it will become a series, and eager to read
subsequent books.

My one and only quibble is with the vulgarity of the language. I don't expect violent criminals to say "Golly, gee, he shot me!" -- but, to put it mildly, every character doesn't have to use vulgarity/profanity on every page. However, I'm admittedly a prude. The book was unusual as well as outstanding, and I grealy enjoyed it.

With a compelling story and a wonderfully sympathetic female heroine, this book has all of the components of a wonderful mystery. The main character is well-developed and offers hints at an intriguing backstory yet to be developed in future books. I am looking forward to the sequel, "Desert Wives."

The gaping holes in the prosecution's theory of this case are conspicuous in this book by the fact that they are totally ignored. The book has no legitimacy because the author uses no critical judgment whatsoever in analyzing the evidence. He just gets on the prosecutor's bandwagon and leads the cheers.

The author also turns a blind eye to prosecutorial misconduct and outright criminal activity by the district attorney, preferring instead to ladle in more and more embarrassing information about the defendant. Instead of an analysis of a murder case, what we wind up with is a modified version of the Kenneth Starr report: 300 pages of smut and no evidence.

If you want to read hero worshipping of the cops and the DA, this is the book for you. If you want a real analysis of the crime, get another book about this case.

I don't think the man did the crime.

I thought this book was very good. Dan Willoughby is an arrogant hypocrite. He sheds his skin like a snake. I hope he goes down in flames with his new trial along with his playmate. I stand totally behind Thera Huish and her family!

This is a well written, true crime book. It tells the story of a self absorbed, sociopathic personality. It is the story of a married man, Dan Willoughby, who, during a mid-life crisis, decided he wanted to marry the sexy, wanton, and amoral Yesenia Patino with whom he had been cheating on his wife. Instead of simply divorcing his wife, Trish, the mother of his children, he decides to kill her, motivated soley by greed.

Masquerading as a hard working, devout mormon, family man for many years, Dan Willoughby was nothing more than a con man, gulling all those whom he knew. The ensuing investigation of the murder revealed Willoughby to be a real bottom feeder. A liar, a cheat, a thief, and, ultimately, a murderer, Willoughby would not escape the long arm of the law, as his dead wife's family would not let the matter rest in their pursuit for justice.

Dan arranged to commit the brutal murder in Mexico and planned an elaborate charade that included using his children in his murder scenario. He ensured that they would be the ones to find their dead, blood soaked mother. He went to all this trouble so that he could get some insurance money, his wife's share of a thriving business, and the freedom to marry the person with whom he had become obsessed, Yesenio Patino. Little did he know that his wife would have the last laugh from the grave, as the police investigation revealed that Ms. Patino was a transexual who had once been a man and had had a sex change operation! It was a fact that Ms. Patino had conveniently neglected to tell Willoughby.

The author paints a compelling portrait of the personalities involved in this matter. It persuasively lays out the details of the events that propelled Willoughby to the consummate finale. The police investigation and courtroom drama is succintly summarized. The book is neither a police nor courtroom procedural. What the author attempts to do is provide a portrait of those who were in some way involved in this matter. In that, it certainly succeeds. Persuasively written, the book leaves the reader with little doubt as to the guilt of Dan Willoughby and his accomplice, Yesenio Patino.

The book provides sixteen pages of photographs of the parties involved in this tragedy. It is a compelling and absorbing read that will keep the reader turning the pages. Those who enjoy reading well written books in the true crime genre will enjoy this one. It will certainly appeal to fans of Ann Rule and Jack Olsen.

I enjoyed this book mostly for how easy it was to read. It flowed very well, and wasn't difficult to understand. It was not only educational, but also interesting. There were some dry spots, but that's history for you. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in the topic.

This book did a good job of describing the typical Arizona town. I found particularly interesting the way that the book showed an informative amount of backgroung on the progression of this small town without boring the reader. The pictures were a particularly nice touch, especially for me, and other visually-oriented readers like me. This is a must-read for anyone interested in Wickenburg's history, and even for those interested in Arizona history, or the history of the West in general for that matter.

This book is designed to be a textbook as well as a general information book. Each chapter addresses a different issue that is important to Arizona such as water, mining, railroads, ranching and others. I like the way the book is laid out for that purpose. It covers the growth and development for Wickenburg, but will mirror many other towns in Arizona. I especially like the way Mark Pry personalizes the town. He has a good way of presenting history not only as fact, but as living history. A good example is the way he writes of the town's spirit after it had been devastated by the Walnut Grove Dam flood. I would recommend this book to anyone that is interested in the history of Arizona.

Gordon's "The Sacrifice of Isaac" is one of my favorite books. I really, really wanted to like this book, but I found it to be too convoluted and the motives of the character to be questionable. I hope his next book will be an improvement.

This book was a major disappointment but,fortunately, I got it from the library so I only lost a little time. The characters were without dimension, shallow and not the sort one could identify with. I finally got to the point where I could not put up with these people at the snail's pace of the plot. Maybe I gave up too soon; maybe not.

A good book overall but it helped that I had read his other novel "Sacrifice of Isaac" previously. Some characters and plot lines do sort of carry over. This is not a sequel but it doesn't hurt to be familiar with his previous work. Neil Gordon is definitely on his way to greatness!

Gordon divides her book into parts: the "facts" and the narrative. The narrative reads much like a novel (at least partially because Gordon doesn't have a lot of concrete research to draw upon so she can fill in the blanks in an... entertaining manner) while the rest of the book is filled with (often dry) research. It seems as if Gordon is torn between writing an academic work or a popular work and ends up not quite hitting the mark with either. If I hadn't been reading the book for class, I would probably just skim through the book for the story (there's a section of each chapter devoted just to the orphans' story) and then check with the rest of the book is I was very curious about a specific detail.

Ms. Gordon has told in a compelling, exciting manner the tragic story of how 40 orphans became a pawn, first in New York's reform movement, and then in the southwest labor struggles.

However, her book goes far beyond this simple story, by using it as a springboard for an examination of the evolving concept of "race" in american history, and how the concept of race was used in different ways, at different times--tied to economic, religious and gender issuses which prevailed at diiferent times in different places.

The central "action" in Ms. Gordon's narrative is not, as several reviewers seemed to think, the abduction of the orphans. It is the transformation of the orphans from "Irish"--a despised minority in New York--into "White"--a powerful minority in Arizona, as they took their 2,000 mile train ride to their new adopted homes.

The only reason that I did not rate this book five stars is because Ms. Gordon first does a very good job explaining the paucity of evidence for the actual abduction--poor people tend not to leave historical records. However, she periodically leaps beyond this limited records into wild speculation (which may well be correct, but certainly is not supported by her evidence), all without acknowledging the contradiction.

All in all, well worth the read for anyone who is interested in the role race has played in american history--which ought to be all of us.

Linda Gordon has done a fabulous job using a small incident to illustrate many aspects of US (& Mexican) social history at the turn of the (1900) century. It isn't the orphan abduction that this book is about, something that one of the previous reviewers showed that she had the wrong expectations about. This is straight slice-of-history work. I felt Gordon did a nice, if sometimes mechanical-feeling job, moving from the framework of social history in one chapter to the details of the orphan abduction in the next. And her chapters about the orphan thing in particular were interspersed with some of the most interesting observations about life 100-125 years ago. I thought the book was a very good read, not boring at all. I felt a drive to finish it more to see what new gems of historical trivia would appear than to hear the sorry ending to the orphan tale itself. After all, the sorry ending was known from the start, not the gems of history that Gordon teased out of the story.

Jay-sus! Could there be a more accurate account of my life??! This bloke couldn't make me laugh harder. Jaime Clarke is a veritable master of witticisms, quirky/loveable characters and unexpected but spot-on observations of the human condition. Love his characters, detest his characters, pity his characters, and then love them all over again. Nearly missed my train last Thursday trying to get through the final pages of this brilliant read.
Jamie, if you're out there, thank you. Thank you.. Write another. You have a fan in Bristol.

The cover of this book intrigued me, as did the blurb by Ellis. And I wasn't disappointed. This book is really, really funny and Clarke has an inventive mind. The details will get you, and the story as a whole holds together pretty well. Sure, it's all pretty familiar stuff, but this is the first book that I know of that weaves together our collective celebrity conscience to show us how over-the-top we are when it comes to celebrities. I read it in one sitting and would recommend it to anyone who needs a laugh.

This is a truly enjoyable book but it also presents an interesting look at how we perceive fame. A compelling satire -- Clarke's writing makes it impossible not to root for the three dynamic heroines. After all, who hasn't wanted to be famous at some point in their life? The writing itself builds momentum while playing with the form of the novel by giving each each protagonist her own section to narrate. Don't make the mistake of taking this book too literally -- all the 80's references and name dropping are meant to build the satire (and you can't take a band with a name like Bananarama *too* seriously).

I ordered this before summer and tried to use it. It's 4 years old and most accommodations are wrong. A lot of the other info was still valid, but without a place to stay it didn't go very well.

I share my home in Northern Arizona with two dogs and travel all over the state to hike with them. I found this book helpful for Southeastern Arizona and especially for the Phoenix area, but have found numerous inaccuracies for hikes with dogs in Northern Arizona. Basically, the author lists hikes "near" a town and I've found them to be as far as two HOURS away from the town listed. Her directions are often way off, too. I question whether she's ever been to many of the places she lists in her book. The book is probably still worth getting, however, if all you care about is hiking/staying in and around Phoenix.

As a veteran 30-year traveler with dogs (including week-long ten-hour-day extended hikes and exploring where the dog had to be roped in with ice-axe-wielding humans), I'd say this is a cut above any other dog-travelling book I've ever seen. Even Steinbeck comes in a distant second! Many items found here had to be learned the hard way. We are in the midst of a year-long trek across the States in an RV and 4x4, and this book is coming along even when we leave Arizona way behind. The descriptions of the trails are reasonably accurate and succinct, the writing and illustrations are joys to read, and the information sources are excellent. Ms Barish even has sections on general hiking and sight-seeing that would be welcome additions to specialized backpacking or travel journals, and I would highly recommend it to anyone who is leaving beyond the back yard with their pup(s). A wag of the tail to the author!

If you expect anything even approaching an objective and truthful retelling or analysis of the Phelps Dodge strike, you'll be sadly disappointed. Kingsolver picks a series of unsubstantiated and self-interested stories of the strikers and completely ignores the horrible violence committed by the unions.

...

Barbara Kingsolver was a young reporter in Arizona when she was assigned to write a story about this strike. Little did she know then that the strike would last for eighteen months, and that this book would be a natural outgrowth of her interest. The book is filled with facts and figures as well as the stories of people who bravely "held the line" each day, picketing against the "scab" workers that were brought in by the Phelps Dodge Copper Corporation. It's also the story of a town, where the only work was in the mine. And it's also about the generations of Mexican American citizens of that town who had to fight prejudice as well as the everyday dangers inherent in mining.

Most of all though, it is the story of the women and how this strike broadened their understanding of the world beyond their families, and let them develop new strengths. For it was mostly the women who stood on that picket line - the wives, sisters and mothers of the men who would have been arrested. Families were threatened with eviction. There was even a catastrophic flood during this time, which brought its own kind of devastation. And some of the women were arrested too. But despite intimidation, tear gas and harassment, the community stood firm.

I was particularly interested in the stories of the handful of women who actually worked in the mine. One of them had 11 children but needed the work to be able to help her husband support the family. Eight dollars an hour doesn't seem like much, but it was considered a good wage compared with $3.00 an hour for being a secretary. Several of them described the actual work, including the heavy lifting all day long and sometimes working as many as 28 days in a row. Their male co-workers verbally harassed them. And there was no special restroom for women. Eventually though, they won respect.

But when the corporation wanted to cut wages and eliminate even a cost-of-living increase, the strike started. It went on and on. Ms. Kingsolver goes into all the details. It was fascinating. It was if I was just picked up from my New York City apartment and plunked down on the picket line of a little town that had less people than one apartment building on my block.

The eventual result wasn't very good for anybody though. Not in the usual sense. But by the time the author gives her own spin on the situation, including her feminist politics, I was left with a positive feeling, as was her intention. I learned things from this book. I learned about a copper mine in Arizona, the actual jobs and the people who worked there. I learned about the large and imperfect system of unions in this country. And, most of all, I learned about the strength and courage of a few special women.

Barbara Kingsolver is one of the, if not the, greatest writers ever produced by America, maybe, the world. With care and compassion, she writes a thorough account of the mine strike of 1983 in Southern Arizona. During the height of the Cold War, while Reagan was calling the Soviet Union and Communism, the "evil empire," things which Americans thought went on "only over there" were happening in Southern Arizona. Hard-working people who did no more than stand up for there rights, were denied their right to assemble, to speak, to pursue life, liberty and happiness. Judges, Governor Bruce Babbitt, Department of Public Safety, the National Guard, and the local authorities, all in the pocket and payroll of Phelps Dodge Copper Corporation who was trying to break up the Unions, so they could re-institute racist, sexist, classist, policies.

They all failed. The Morenci Mine Women's Auxiliary led the way to community solidarity against all odds. More than any strike victory, they gained, life, confidence, and a purpose in life. Read this book, it's told in the form of interviews and narrative. You'll get to know and have affection for Anna O'Leary, Flossie Navarro, Berta Chavez, and many other women of Clifton, Arizona. You'll root for them, be inspired by them, and, be moved by them. What a wake up call! Working people of the world, UNITE!