Ed Haslam has written a landmark book of investigative journalism. It is a well-written page turner that is a "must read" for anyone interested in what has really gone on in this country in the last 40 years. I have lived in New Orleans since Mary Sherman was murdered here, and personally know many of the people mentioned in this book. As far as I can tell this book is completely truthful. Mr. Haslam tells you when he is speculating and when he is giving you facts. This book has my highest recommendation.

As a producer for two national talk show hosts, I can honestly say this is one of the finest and most thought provoking books I've read. Ed Haslam's book is a major dot connector. Think about it. We already know thanks to A & E's Investigative Reports that Oswald did NOT kill Kennedy, but that's not the big jist of this book. What needs to be understood is that the polio virus vaccine all the baby boomers received via shots and sugar cubes in the 50s and 60s was contaminated with SV-40 Simian Monkey Virus...the results...an epidemic of soft tissue cancer. And SV-40 shows up in autopsies of cancer victims. However, even more horrific is that the SV-40 contamination does not end with those of us that received the polio vaccine. It is passed to our children and grandchilren even though they have not received the vaccine. Who is responsible? Ed Haslam's fabulous research was given to us in this book in 1995, and five years later, in the February, 2000 issue of Atlantic Monthly, it is finally discussed by the "regular" media. Stop and think about this...Plutonium experiments from 1936 through the cold war on unsuspecting Americans,radiation experiments on military men, the Tuskegee, Alabama syphillis experiments, the depleted uranium issues from Desert Storm, and countless others...this book exposes another form of deception and coverup. If this book doesn't make you think and do even more research, then you're in denial and have your head in the sand. There are countless other books that should be on the suggested reading list after reading Ed's fabulous work, but Amazon hasn't listed them. Please read Pulitzer Prize winner, Eileen Welsome's book, THE PLUTONIUM FILES, then read Martin A. Lee's THE BEAST REAWAKENS, and if you can find a used copy, get Borkin's THE CRIME AND PUNISHMENT OF I.G. FARBEN.

Ed's book is superb and written in a style that is easily assimilated. Buy it, buy two, give one to a friend, loan your copy, but get it out...and connect the dots!

Ed Haslam reveals that two -- maybe more--secret cancer research laboratories were connected with Tulane University, Dr. Alton Ochsner, and persons associated with the Kennedy assassination such as "Dr." David Ferrie and Lee Harvey Oswald. Logical, organized, and intriguing, this book contains hard-to-find photos and a good map. Haslam did his homework: he may have discovered the murderers of eminent cancer research scientist and orthopedic surgeon, Dr. Mary Sherman, who was found with a missing arm, on fire, and full of knife wounds, one to her heart. His book gives the reader a picture of sabotage, biological blunders and anti-Castro lab activity, and gives us hints about where the AIDS epidemic came from. Since this happened in New Orleans in 1963-1964, there may have been a lot of reasons for all the cover-ups concerning Oswald, who lived only about a mile from Dr. Sherman and the high tech research facility where she seems to have secretly worked. Bring your brains along, though: this book forces you to rethink what many people take for granted about the role of Lee Oswald, the alleged assassin of JFK.

You don't have to be from Louisiana to find this book completely compelling. Any fan of non-fiction, history or true crime will be unable to put it down. Arceneaux presents a fascinating story of murder and justice in a most captivating way. The author's attention to detail is amazing - scholarly but never intimidating. I was captivated by the twists and turns the story took along with Arceneaux's insightful positioning of the events and their import. This book will leave a lasting impression on you. Read it...

GREAT READING ON THE HISTORY OF THE ACADIANS AS WELL AS THE SCOTT-LAFAYETTE, LA AREA. THE MURDER HELPS KEEP A THREAD OF INTEREST GOING IN THE FAMILIES OF THIS AREA.

A well woven tapestry of the history and sociology of the Acadians of Louisiana, the South in post reconstruction years, and the genealogy of the authors family all neatly tied together in the telling of the tale of a murder which at the time was an international sensation even though it took place in the back waters of Louisiana. William Arceneaux is a smooth talker in person and has proved himself a skillful writer and clever story teller. There is one vignette on euthanasia that you may not want to read because it will haunt you when you wake up in a dark room at 3 o'clock in the morning. This an entertaining, even educational, well conceived and organized book.

I can only echo the previous reviews! This cookbook was given to me as a gift 30 years ago when I was living in New Orleans. It is tattered and torn and my most cherished cookbook. Everything is wonderful. I have just ordered two copies for friends.

Every single recipe in here is perfect. I have made about 95% of the dishes and if you follow the recipe exactly your dinner party will be a smash!

This cookbook has lived in my kitchen for over 12 years and has survived several moves and a flood. It provides excellent recipes for classic New Orleans and South Louisiana cuisine. The directions are easy to follow and the variety of recipes will never leave you without choices of what to have for dinner - be it a family affair or a formal occassion. Also, you can find the ingrediants for most of the recipes regardless of where you live. I've made my favorite dishes while living in four different states. (don't miss the recipe for banana-nut bread)

This cookbook provides the foundation for more recent cookbooks that feature New Orleans style cuisine. And as previously noted, it also gives you a wonderful description of many famous Louisiana plantations and New Orleans homes.

I am very delighted with the purchase of this cookbook. Due to health reasons within the last few years, I have been adding lowfat cooking to my menu. Holly provides some very lowfat and tasty recipes anyone will enjoy. The Heavenly Cheesecake was a sweet treat to my whole family. A good lowfat cookbook to add to anyone's cookbook collection! I recommend it.

This cookbook has been our favorite for the last couple of years. At first glance, the recipes appear to be too simple to be exciting, but somehow they pack a lot of complexity and flavor into a few ingredients. It is the PERFECT cookbook for everyday after work cooking, but there are also plenty of recipes that you will want to serve your guests too. Their grilled flank steak recipe is a standard at every summer party I throw, and it gets rave reviews every time.

I just wanted to thank you for your healthy recipes....my husband suffered 3 heart attacks a few weeks ago and is home recovering from open heart surgery....At 47 his future health is directly tied to a change in his life style...food has always been an improtant part of his idea of enjoying life... thanks to your cookbooks, I am able to give him heart healthy food with flavor that doesn't take all day to prepare... with your help, I know my chances of his sticking to a better diet are a whole lot greater....thank you thank you thank you.....

This story chronicles the survival of small Jewish girls who were hidden in an armoire by their desperate parents in the closing days of the Warsaw ghetto. It easily matches the personal resonance and innocent terror of the far more famous Anne Frank Story.

Even after their final liberation as perhaps the only intact nuclear family to survive that infamous ghetto, the Skorecki family was due one more date with history. Survival, it turns out, was the story within the story. Little Anne Skorecki Levi, the little girl who survived by staying silent inside that armoire struck a blow five decades later for Jewish survival by speaking out against Louisiana's Neo-Nazi gubernatorial candidate David Duke, and helping to engineer his electoral defeat.

This account of Anne's travel along the arc from victim to victor is an inspiration and a reminder that each of us can and must preserve our collective memory, however troubling.

I read books on the Holocaust to try to understand the times, the mileu, the horror, and the suffering. After more than 20 books, I realize that I can only scratch the surface. I will, however, never stop reading because of my fear that someday the deniers and the downgraders might get the upper hand.

Thank you to the the author and Anne Skorecki Levy for relating a story that is very, very moving as well as insightful and timely.

Lawrence Powell set out to write a book about the David Duke phenomenon, about how a KKK leader and Nazi could sit in the Louisiana legislature and run for the U.S. Senate as a Republican. But work on the book took him in another direction after he interviewed Anne Levy, a Holocaust survivor who confronted Duke in the state capital. Captivated by Levy's story, Powell has produced a terrifying, poignant and finally a triumphant book about the Holoaust as witnessed through the life of one of its survisors, Anne Levy.

Troubled Memory is a beautifully written and tender account of a personal story that stands as an intimate history of Hitler's final solution. Powell's prose will carry you into the Warsaw and Lodz ghettos and into the vegetable bin where 6-year-old Anne and her sister hid from the SS. This is a book that makes the Holocaust relevant to every reader. It will fill you with horror and wonder, and it will move you to tears.

We love this book!!!! I read this to my son who is 9 1/2 years old and has ADD. He has such a short attention span with any book I read to him. He actually looked at the photos and listened to me read this book without taking his eyes off of it. The rabbit is cunning and the wildcat part is histerically funny, we laughed and laughed. Thank you and You need to keep writing more funny books about this funny rabbit, wildcat.

I was enchanted by Br'er Rabbit when I was a small child. Now as an adult, I find myself emamoured with Compere Lapin! "Why Lapin's Ears Are Long" is a truly delightful story of a mischevious rabbit who knows what he wants, usually gets it and sometimes a little more than he bargained for. It's easy to find yourself laughing while reading this story aloud with a Cajun accent. The stories and illustrations are equally wonderful! Hope Madame Doucet plans to write more Lapin tales!

I participate in a program in California called Rolling Readers. I am currently reading to a class of third graders. The children were enthralled with the book both with the stories and with the illustrations. They begged me to find more stories of Compere Lapin's antics. I cannot imagine a more successful book from their point of view.

Lizard Lizard is Lucius Sims, a boy that is sent to the Leesville School for Retarded Boys probably because of what he looks like. Lizard has no idea who his mother is, the only person he can relate to is Miss Cooley who tells him that his father died the same year that he was born. Soon a man by the name of Callahan but in disguise as Simonetti comes to Lizard claiming that he is his father. When Lizard finally manages to escape the school he meets the rest of Callahan's actors. They head for the north and camp out in the woods at night. This is were Lizard meets two black kids that live in a pump house. Sammy is not a very good host but his sister seems to understand Lizard, so much that she trusts Lizard to sell their most valuable possession, a mysterious silver bowl that is very precious to both Sammy and Rain. Lizard then heads farther north with the actors to perform The Tempest by William Shakespeare. Lizard must somehow get back to Sammy and Rain and try to continue his endless search for his mother... This book, had strong emotions hidden beneath the words of the main characters like Lizard, Callahan or Sally. Even though there might not seem to be anything interesting in a boy trying to get to the woods, the author fills the book with little "goodies" that keep you interested all the way. The work that this author has given to the development of the characters is extraordinary, especially Lizard. If you haven't read this book then read it. It might change the way you think about retarded boys and maybe lizards also.

Dennis Covington is a genius. I have read this novel almost three times now and with each new reading I find more layers to the story. Covington weaves a fantasticly strange story with bizzare characters that is very difficult to criticize.

Although the story itself is one we've all read before-- the coming of age of Lucius "Lizard" Sims is so fascinating that it will keep many wanting more to read. There are not enough good things I can say about this novel. It should be required reading in all schools.

When I read this book I was in 6th grade (I'm in 8th now), And this is the only book I can truely look back on and say I could visualize the colorful, inventive characters, And that I truely enjoyed the story and was amazed that such good books truely existed. This is an amazing book, And I highly recommend it to anyone going through a remotely tough time, Because no matter what Lucius Sims always had hope for the better.

I can't believe this is the same book that the editorial reviewers so rudely panned! The story was riveting and very well written. I can't remember the last time a book affected me so deeply. I picked it up off the new book shelf at the library on Saturday morning and finished it in tears Saturday night. The characters are still with me as I write this on Monday morning. I highly recommend it.

After reading some of the critics' comments (as opposed to customer reviews), I have to wonder if the same book was released to the public as was sent to the press. I found Carole Lawrence's novel far from 'stilted' and 'hackneyed' - I thought it a well-written story, one that is both entertaining on the surface and potentially eye-opening for those who have not had the experience of dealing with people affected by mental illnesses. Reading this book is an experience that could very well lead the reader to a greater understanding and empathy for those of us among us who are touched by mental disease and disability - and allow them to be treated more like human beings and less like freaks.

The cruelty perpetrated on Mary Gabriel in this novel - not only by the neighborhood children and her classmates, but by well-meaning but ignorant and prejudiced adults as well - is hard to watch, but it's unfortunately not too far-fetched. 'Kids can be cruel' is the excuse too often mouthed by those who would just as soon ignore the problem when it arises - but there is a lot of guilt bubbling under the surface of the Gabriel family, and it causes a lot of harm when it's ignored, or when it's dealt with in an inappropriate manner.

Dr. Gabriel is like many physicians of his day - suspicious of psychiatrists, seeing them as out to steal the patients of general practitioners and place the blame for the mental illness of children on the shoulders of the parents. Dr. Landry, the psychiatrist who lives across the street from the Gabriels, is firmly ensconced in the professional beliefs of the day (the 1950s), and holds firm that Mary's mental illness is a direct result of a lack of proper attention by her mother. Medical professionals today believe that schizophrenia and other mental disorders are caused by chemical imbalances in the brain, some of which might be hereditary. Ironically, Dr. Landry's pronouncement that Mary's mother is to blame for her daughter's disease is - somewhat obliquely - pointing in the right direction. However, suggesting that Mrs. Gabriel's mothering skills - or lack thereof - are to blame for her daughter's condition placed an unbearable amount of guilt on the shoulders of the mother.

Dr. Gabriel himself is not much more help. Eager to keep Mary's problems 'within the family', he lays far too much of the burden of her care on the shoulders of Bonita, her older sister. The effect of this on Bonita is shattering - when something bad happens to Mary, she feels like it's her fault, that she's let both Mary and her family down. This guilt piles higher and higher within her until it wreaks its havoc on her own psyche - it's a sad but inevitable result of placing too much inappropriate responsibility on a child.

The author utilizes two time planes in relating the story. One of them is told in the first person by Bonita, and is set in the present day. The other is told in the third person, set in the 1950s, when Bonita and Mary were children. Even though the 1950s portion of the story is told in the third person, the author skillfully - and wisely - gives these chapters the voice and innocent outlook of a child. The time frames alternate from chapter to chapter very effectively, allowing the reader to follow events in the present day and understand what has happened in the past that shapes them. The characters are fully developed - and the author has treated the character of Mary Gabriel with incredible respect and love. She is believably depicted as a schizophrenic patient, and the scenes involving her as a child are heartbreaking - but she is never treated as a caricature, never ridiculed by the story (although she suffers several indignities from other characters). She comes across as her own 'whole' person - and it's easy for the reader to understand how much people like her deserve more dignity than they receive in this world.

The tension in the story - both parts of it - builds nicely. I thought I could see where the 1950s story was headed, but some clever (and completely plausible) twists by the author surprised me nicely. The part of the present-day story wherein Bonita comes to terms with her sister's condition at last, and recognizes the place they have in each other's lives, is particularly moving.

This is a book that could be valuable to mental health caregivers - maybe not the doctors themselves, but those who meet the day-to-day needs of mental patients. It's also a very entertaining read for the general consumer.

I LOVED this book!! I thought the author captured life as it really was in Baton Rouge, La. in the mid '50's!! And,yes, as your reveiwer said, it sounds like "Pleasantville", and it was, except for those who were trapped in mental illness!! Her contrasts of those who were allowed to "run free" and those who had "special needs" is really the heart of this compelling and heartwarming story!! She portrayed this loving, once happy family who was torn apart through ignorance and fear, and the GOD-AWFUL SOCIAL OUTCAST horror,in a loving and yet painful way!! And, yeh, folks, that's the WAY IT WAS in So. LA in the 1950's!!! NO ONE was mentally ill!! NO ONE committed suicide!! At least in "nice" families!! Thanks to Ms. Lawrence for helping us remember that maybe some of our "old thoughts" and values aren't quite so CORRECT anymore, and that those of us from this Faulkner-esque mentality from the South should re-think it. I have to give her many thanks for her portrayal of the mental institution and long-time care facility in Livingston Parish that I THINK she is speaking of in this book!! If not, then many thanks to her anyway for bringing a long-time problem to light!! A 60yr old reader from CT who grew up in Hammond, LA.

Octavia's Fried Chicken is the best, most foolproof fried chicken in the world. Octavia: whereever you are out there, thanks for making me EXTREMELY popular!

This is the stuff. These recipes, favourites of the ladies who submitted tham, have often been handed down from mother to daughter for generations.

These are the Good Recipes.

It's all here -- recipes developed from every part of the melange of cultures that makes Louisiana so thoroughly unique. And all of them excellent.

I wore out one copy, and lost my second in a move years ago -- i've been searching for a new one, and just thought tio look on Amazon.

In my opinion, this cook book belongs in every kitchen -- right next to a copy of the (real) Joy of Cooking.

In Terry Pratchett's wonderful fantasy novel, "Witches Abroad", Nanny Ogg, one of three witches who have travelled to their world's equivalent of New Orleans, tastes a jambalaya a voodoo woman has cooked up. Up till then, we are told, she had believed herself an excellent cook. But, tasting this, she realises that all she's been doing is "...not starving as pleasantly as possible."

Well, and i'll say it here in the Real World -- until you discover the delights of the Louisiana cuisine, all you're doing is not starving as pleasantly as possible.

And this book is an excellent place to start.

Have you ever wanted to know how TRUE cajuns made their creations. Well THIS IS IT! Everything I have every made is absolutely out of this world!

About a year ago, I became interested in true crime novels after reading "Righteous Carnage - the John List Murders". You can't help but to appreciate the painstaking research that is done to reconstruct these horrible acts of the past. "A terrible thunder" does a good job in getting the reader literally consumed in the action as it unfolds. There is rarely a dull moment in the book. The inset photos, however, are a blurred quality since the event occurred in the early 1970's and could use a little more detail, but overall the book gives you an exciting view into the magnitude of what ultimately materialized at that time in New Orlean's past.

It used to be if you went to any used book store in New Orleans
you couldn't get this book. Owners willing to talk said that they were told to keep the books from the public and the New Orleans police would come by and pick them up. Others would
just say "No can't get that book" and refused to even talk about it. What were they afraid of? Was the sniper on his own or did the black panthers have a hand in it? It took a long time to get one guy and most swore there was more than 1 gun man. No grassy knoll. Just a rooftop. I think Peter Hernon did an outstanding job on this book and for anyone with a craze for black history, conspiracys and a little recent New Orleans history, this book is worth a read. The Rault Center was another tragedy and we will never know if the two are linked.

The New York Times wrote, "A Terrible Thunder is more than just another fashionable journalistic rehashing of a crime. In its depiction of Essex's abrupt transmogrification it raises questions about the accumulated effect of petty but persistent injustices and about the individual's capacity to endure aggrievement."

This very rare book has just been reprinted by Garrett County Press. You can visit their website.