Every recipe in this book is very good. Most (almost all) recipes are very easy to make and looks like you worked a long time on them. The Pesto Mold on page 20 is easy to make and everyone will ask for the recipe. The sausage snacks on page 30 are a nice change to meatballs. Pesto tortilla snacks are very easy and great tasting also. The pumpkin chocolate chip muffins and fruity muffins make great gifts around the holidays. The Parmesan Caesar salad is a salad a I make all the time. All the potato dishes are great tasting; the squash casserole is the best I have every had. The sweet potatoes are great (even if you don't like sweet potatoes. I could go on. This cookbook has a nice feature with the children's section. I have used this book so much and bought so many as gifts.

This is a wonderful book. It is full of great recipes that are not only good, but easy to prepare. I highly recommend it!

I have tried many of the recipes in this book and like 99% of them, so do my family and my friends. My favorites include; Frogmore Pickled Shrimp, Swamp Chili, Okra and Tomatoes, Pasta with Shrimp, Lemon and tomoatoes and many more than I should probably list. The book is well laid out (easy to follow), ingredients are easy to find and the serving suggestion are on target. Try this book. You'll like it.

This book is without a doubt the only accurate account of the horrible murders in Gainesville, FL. Be in the mind of the killer; be in the mind of the detective tracking him. And know the truth, not the self-serving stories told by the killer and his paramour, not the summaries of newspaper accounts. This was a horrible event. The authors give us a driving, accurate narative. Couldn't put it down.

When I was a young boy growing up in Oklahoma, I was told of my great-great grandfather being hung in Texas during the Civil War. I never knew much about the circumstances surrounding the event other than that, except that his name was Nathaniel Miles Clark, and that I was named for one of his sons, James Lemuel.

While looking up ancestors, I came across Mr. McCaslin's historical account about a mass hanging in Gainesville Texas in 1862. Believing that this could be an account of the event about which I had been told, I ordered the book, and read it through in one day. It was a most enlightening account.

Since then I have read accounts from other sources of the same events, but Mr. McCaslin's well documented study is the most complete and impartial account that I have read of the entire episode. Mr. McCaslin does much to reduce the historical obscurity of the circumstances surrounding the Great Gainesville Hangings, especially to the descendants of the victims of that episode, which by now must be a great number of people.

I would like to see a movie made based on this event.

Having read another book about the same subject, this book was a massive disappointment. I'm not sure if I expected to get a feeling for who the victims were, as this was co-authored by Danny Rolling himself, but I certainly hoped Sondra London would delve into this much more than was done, although she can't really be called objective.

Having lived in Gainesville in the 90's, this book in no way captures the essence of the town which was shocked out of its innocence and changed forever by these horrific crimes. It's sad to say, but the most engrossing aspect of these books is not the endless exploration of Rolling's life (of which there is a LOT), but the few short (and I do mean SHORT) mentions of the murders themselves. I found myself skipping to these parts of the book, only because the rest was so unenlightening.

The murders and mutilations, although heinous, are somehow diminished in their atrocity by the total lack of insight into the lives that were being ended, the city and campus that were being changed forever, or the emotional disasters being wreaked on the families and friends of the victims. Rolling is just not that interesting. His ramblings about the alter-ego "Gemini" mask the true reason for all this tragedy -- his social impotence, lack of success with work or women, and his rage at all others that he perceived to have easier lives than he had.

For a great account of these crimes, read The Gainesville Ripper, by Mary S. Ryzuk instead.

I only gave this four stars so I could look in the mirror without feeling guilty. But its probably a five if your a sicko. To hear the killer tell in his own words the killings and events that led up to them is almost to much for a sane person to bare. They read like a penthouse letter. I took out my throbbing member and put it in her wet, ok you get the picture. But then there is something alot different than penthouse letters, I grabbed the knife and ........ This book has to be read to be believed. Instead of reading the accounts by some dry author, take a chance and read the story by the killer himself. But I will warn people with tender hearts and weak stomachs to stay away.

I have to say this is the best book I read about this case so far,and it has all the juicy details!It starts out with a little background info and then works up into one of the most amazing,incredible true-life stories I've ever read.All the most fascinating things you wonder about with regard to Rolling and his murky past are revealed here.I think they did a good job here and they should make a movie out of this book!On a scale of one to ten I give it a Perfect Ten.Amazing details that had me on the edge of my seat-once you pick it up you won't be able to put it down until you're through!

It's really not a bad book, but it's not good either. Like the guy who gave it no stars, he had pretty much the exact complaints I do. The author makes the book seem like the life of a few kids leading up to the murders. She seems to know what they were all saying at certain points in the 80's and early 90's. Like the past reviewer said-- she must have had a tape recorder on them all before the murders. Learning about the killer was fun, I will admit. Spending pages learning about the killer was good, but I'll admit halfway through the book, I was tired of learning about the characters and wanted to skip pages so I could learn about what the hell exactly happened as a whole during the time of the Gainesville murders. I thought I would be reading about the crime and punishment of Danny Rolling, what he did, how he did it, and what he's done afterwards. Maybe learn a little about him, too, which I did at the least. It just became tedious-- it dragged on and on, and you want to skip pages, but I didn't. I now wish I did so I could have gotten onto one of the other books I recently got. Over all, it's really not a terrible book, it just has some useless things that fill up the book rather than interest you. Learning about the killer and his life and why he could have done these terrible things was good. But reading little clips of what the future victims were doing at that moment that Danny Rolling was maybe robbing a grocery-- who cares? They were playing tennis, they were sleeping, etc. Yeah? Okay...
A lot of things are also repeated. The first thing you get into in the book, is the killings. That pulled me in right away. The beginning was good, then when it got into the life of the killer, that was also good. Then after about 200 pages of that, you want to put it down. I'll give this 3 stars because it wasn't trash but it wasn't a good read either.

Having read Rolling's book co-authored with Sondra London, there is no comparison. This book far outstrips the former in exploring the personalities of not only Rolling, but of the victims and those close to them. I lived in Gainesville and went to the University of Florida not long after the murders, and the shockwaves of these crimes still perpetuate through the town to this day. Ryzuk captures the environment of fear that enveloped the campus and surrounding area with razor-sharp accuracy.

Ryzuk also does a superb job of painting a complete picture of events from several different angles, having interviewed many of the victim's friends and relatives, as well as others involved in the investigation. Some of the events are repeated in the book, but it's for this purpose that I believe this approach was worthwhile. Her use of a timeline during the events leading up to the crimes builds suspense and takes the reader along on a fateful ride with doom.

I have driven by the 34th Street wall memorializing the victims hundreds of times, but only after reading this book do I feel like I have a sense of who the victims all were. They are no longer five semi-anonymous names painted on a wall, but clearly distinguishable lives with different goals that, sadly, will never be achieved. My only complaint is that the personalities of Sonja Larson and Christina Powell do not come off as vividly as did those of Christa Hoyt, Manny Taboada, and Tracy Paules, which may have to do with the willingness of those left behind to talk, but that's only my speculation. By walking us through the victims' relationships and daily events leading up to the killings, Ryzuk almost breathes life into the victims again. Friends and families of the victims are also explored, and their anguish is palpable.

The author does not neglect the killer, though. I came away with an even better sense of his motivations and the life events that led up to the events of August 1990 than I did after reading his own account, co-authored by Sondra London. This is saying something, as this book does a far more insightful job of exploring Rolling than does the killer's own account, which seems like a alter-ego-explaining manifesto scattered with a few short mentions of the killings in detailed, almost mechanical fashion. For those interested, the accounts in this book of the murders themselves are clearly and more fully explored, from Rolling's initial selection and stalking of the victims, to the commission of the heinous acts, to the discovery of the bodies, his subsequent events and beyond, including the arrest of a "red herring" suspect that left the city breathing a premature sigh of relief. I am left disgusted by Rolling's need to murderously dominate, then eliminate, to make up for his own inadequacies as a human being.

There are facts in the book regarding the killings and the investigation I have read elsewhere that were nowhere mentioned in London's account. Also, Ryzuk captures the essence of Gainesville and the University of Florida campus so clearly that it feels as if I were back there again myself. It is by comparing this lovely, generally serene southern town, once again filled with all the excitement of a new fall semester, to a living nightmare of horror at the events and fear of the unknown that even greater impact of the events are realized.

There are only a few small inconsistencies as far as references and places, but most would only be picked up by a native (e.g. the victims were not "five University of Florida students" but four UF students and one SFCC student, "Union Reitz" vs. the correct "Reitz Union," a lake that is not really in front of Marston Science Library, and things of this nature). Other than that - a full, multi-angled, incredible account. I couldn't put it down, and am filled with an even more profound sadness about the murders than I was when I actually lived across the street from where Manny and Tracy met their fates.

Truly tragic, and I hope that, if nothing else, readers get to know and remember the victims as extinguished bright young lights on the verge of their creating their own futures. For many in Florida, the healing will not begin until Rolling meets his fate.

While I can't say reading a book about the deaths of 5 young people with bright futures was enjoyable, I can say that the author did her best to allow the reader to get to know the victims. What I mean by that is, she didn't just write about the killer and his pathetic life. She crisscrossed between the victims and the killer to show just how promising their lives were, and what they were doing before this sick and vicious killer ended it for them. I was in Florida when this was happening and I can remember being scared and wanting to go home. The Author doesn't sympathize with the killer but she does allow us to see how his upbringing could have contributed to his diseased mind. I don't like true crime for its blood and gore, I like true crime for showing people that the world has alot of evil in it, and we should not always take people at face value. I think true crime books (especially those against women) should be mandatory reading in high schools and colleges. It really changes the way you think about situations that you might not ever have given thought to.