It reminded me a little of Shane, the story of a killer trying to leave behind his past. The reasons for his being hunted after so many years were never made clear. The main character's abilities were highly exagerated - a 50 year old man spends days on strenuous hike, than runs 40 miles (!) in 6 hours and has enough left to take on all the bad guys single handed.

While agreeing in the main with the previous reviewer, I have struggled with his/her last statement: of which of William Faulkner's eternal verities is this book 'built' (and why, for that matter, was Faulkner brought into it in the first place?)? After considering it for some time, it occurred to me that perhaps it was 'truth' that was being to referred to, truth in the sense of applied and deeply committed attention, of profound and unflinching gaze, of burning away and boiling down. The book, and my god we need more like it, is a kind of breviary of tough questions, questions asked and answered. Mr. Faulkner and his commendable ideas on the way it must be done aside, I highly, highly recommend it.

I fully support and subscribe to the views eloquently expressed by John Haynes in the first review in this section. However, there are a couple aspects of this terrific novel I'd like to emphasize. One of which is the extraordinarily achieved prose with which the book is chiseled. Clearly we are dealing here with a craftsman in possesion of considerable powers -- the complex, and William Gasper is one complex character, is rendered with heartstopping clarity and compression, and structurally this book, constructed as efficiently as the rifle Gasper carries, is a dream. For those out there still interested in quality bookmaking, it is worth signalling that The Man Who Walked to the Moon is also, in addition to being a fine and rare work of art, a handsome object. In conclusion, I disagree with the reader who said Mr. McCord's book is devoid of W.F.'s eternal verities -- it seems to me almost entirely built of them.

I enjoyed the size (non-huge) & pace of this book, as well as the setting (the Nevada desert & ranch land, largely). But in a brief book, I suppose it's tough to have characters that don't seem one-dimensional. In this book, many of them do; after you've met them the first time, little else about them will come as a surprise. Still, the dialogue and descriptions are generally well done, and the progression of the main character from Grey Flannel Suit to His Own Man is interesting to watch. How WOULD somebody go about throwing their old life away for a new one, and what would bring that about? Fun questions, and this book explores them in an intriguing way.

For those who can relate to middle-aged-male angst and like to read mysteries, Peter Robinson's Inspector Banks books will probably be at least as enjoyable as Blue Lonesome.

Okay. Here's the set-up:
You are a lonely middle-aged CPA and you eat at the same places almost every day. You notice a sad looking woman, not a pretty one, mind you, just sad, and you identify with her because she is so obviously lonesome, just like our CPA.
You get the nerve up to try and speak with her, and it doesn't work. She doesn't tell you her name or anything about her. You follow her home one night and find out her name is Janet Mitchell. You are obsessed with why she's so lonely. Soon she stops coming to the restaurant and you're worried. You go visit her apartment complex and speak to the oriental landlady. She tells you that the lady is dead, committing suicide in her bathtub. Now, would you even imagine pursuing this any further? Well, James Messenger, our hero does.
Although I found the setup for this novel quite unbelievable, Pronzini manages to make it work with his wonderful prose and sense of characterizations. Needless to say, Messenger ends up in the lady's hometown of Beulah, Nevada, and finds out her real name, and learns that she had been accused of murdering her philandering husband AND her eight year old daughter. Messenger knows she didn't do it (how, you got me!). Soon, Messenger faces the expected town bullies and even the dead woman's sister. He takes a job on her ranch, and gets more and more involved with the lady and the townspeople.
The book is short, moves along well, and the ending is quite a surprise, at least to me.
It's not what I consider a great book, but if you can get past the ludicrous setup, you should enjoy it.
RECOMMENDED.

One of the things I really like about the internet is that I'm in touch with other avid readers who are on a quest for new authors. One of my "net buddies" suggested I try Blue Lonesome, a book published in 1995 by a new author named Bill Pronzini. I looked it up at amazon.com. The reviews were favorable, so I ordered it. The book is not long, only 207 pages, but the author manages to tell a compelling story that pulled me right in and didn't let me go until I'd finished the last page. The main character in Blue Lonesome is Jim Messenger. Messenger describes himself:

Name: James Warren Messenger Age: 37 Height: 6 feet Weight: 172 pounds Eyes: Brown Hair: Brown Distinguishing features: None Distinguishing physical characteristics: None Employment: Certified public accountant Length of employment: 14 years Annual salary: $42,500 Possibility for advancement: Nil Interests: Jazz . . . Special skills: None Future prospects: None Mr. Average. Mr. Below Average. Mr. Blue Lonesome

Messenger's life is bland, boring and going nowhere. He's been married once, but that was 17 years prior to the story and the union lasted a mere seven months. It ended when his ex-wife announced, "It just isn't working, Jimmy, . . . I think we'd better end it right now, before things get any worse between us." Messenger's activities are pretty much limited to work, running (sporadically), listening to his vast jazz collection, and eating his evening meal at a near-by neighborhood diner, the Harmony Café. It's at the Harmony Café that Messenger first notices a fellow diner. She's always alone and seems so sad that . . . "(I)f this were the thirties and he had the talent of Jelly Roll Morton or Duke Ellington... he would write a ballad about her. And he would call it 'Blue Lonesome.'" This was the name he gave her, how he thought of her from the beginning. But it was more than just a name because she was more than just a woman alone. She was the saddest, loneliest person he'd ever encountered: pure blue, pure lonesome. . . . The naked loneliness shocked him at first. He could not take his eyes off her. She didn't notice; she saw nothing of her surroundings. . . She came, she ate, she went. But she was never really there, in a café filled with other people. She was somewhere else -- a bleak place all her own. It takes Messenger three weeks to "screw up enough courage" to speak to Ms. Blue Lonesome. She makes it perfectly clear she wants nothing to do with Messenger...or any other human, for that matter. She never even looks at him as she rebuffs his advance. The rebuff does nothing to quench Messenger's interest in the lonely woman. In fact, he becomes obsessed with her and conjures up reasons for her isolation. He even follows her home one night after dinner. "So now he knew her name and where she lived. Janet Mitchell, 2391 48th Avenue, Apartment 2-B, San Francisco. And what good was this information? What could he do with it? It was irrelevant, really. The questions that mattered to him were inaccessible, closely guarded inside her glass shell." Messenger begins to worry about his interest in Ms. Blue Lonesome: "His was not an obsessive-compulsive personality; nothing like this had ever happened to him before. It was even more frustrating because he couldn't understand what it was inside him that made him react to a stranger in this fashion. Their only common bond was loneliness, and yet hers, so acute and evidently self-destructive, repelled him as much as it fascinated him." When Janet Mitchell quits coming to the café, Messenger begins to worry. He goes to her apartment house and finds out from Mrs. Fong, the very agitated landlady that Ms. Blue Lonesome is dead. "Sunday night. Sit in bathtub, cut her wrists with a razor blade. . . My building -- killed herself in my building. Terrible. You know how terrible it is to clean up so much blood?" It is at this point that dull, boring and predictable Jim Messenger becomes unhinged. He talks to the police about Ms. Mitchell and finds that she's very possible a "Jane Doe," as there is no record of a Janet Mitchell anywhere to be found, except a safe deposit box at the local Wells Fargo bank. ". . . (s)tuffed full of cash -- better than fourteen thousand in hundred-dollar bills." Messenger re-visits the landlady, slips her forty dollars, and rummages through Ms. Blue Lonesome's meager belongings. He finds nothing to lead him to her true identity, save a pocket watch engraved with "To Davey from Pop" and a long overdue book from the Beulah Public Library. It's at this point that the book becomes a mystery, complete with a double murder, small town politics and a cast of characters that do not want Messenger poking around in their business. How Messenger gets to the truth about Ms. Blue Lonesome's past makes up the remainder of the novel, and his devotion to this woman and her memory is commendable. The only negative thing I have to say about this -- and most modern murder mysteries -- is that I wish childhood sexual abuse was not at the core of the story. I hope I'm not giving too much away, but I'm weary of being confronted with this kind of evil. I'm not putting my head in the sand like an ostrich. I just wish authors could find something else to motivate their characters to commit murder. Blue Lonesome is a compelling story, well-told and peopled with a vast array of wonderful characters. I especially liked Jim Messenger and admired his dogged determination to "get to the truth" of Ms. Blue Lonesome's story. Like Messenger, I cared about her and wanted her to rest in peace. Enjoy!

Terry H. Mathews Reviewer

I've read a fair amount of true crime, and this one strikes me as pretty mediocre. The main premise is unusual enough to keep you involved, though for a sociopathic team neither their m.o. nor their individual personalities are especially interesting. Gerald is a low-class career criminal and comes off as pretty unimaginative, obviously coarse, and basically a lug-head; I got no sense of the supposedly irresistable charisma that the author attributes to him, and because I saw no redeeming feature he lacked the dimension to make him really interesting. Charlene supposedly comes from a cultured background and has a genius-level I.Q., yet you're hard-pressed to find it given her trashy language and her complete lack of insight or even ambivalence regarding Gerald and their twisted mission. There is no persuasive accounting, either directly or indirectly, for their peculiar attraction.

Thus at the level of character/ psychological depiction the writing seems weak, and the same lack of texture and imagination also characterizes the narrative structure. The book pretty much describes things in straight chronological order, and there's little in the way of surprises or accumulating tension/horror/insight.

If you're interested in reading about a mad marriage, I recommend the books about Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka (e.g., Deadly Innocence, Invisible Darkness). Not only are these books vastly better written, but the players are more complex and interesting as well.

Gerald Armond Gallego and his young wife Charlene shocked the world with the sexual serial murders of many young women. This book captured the grizzly details of the murders and makes you wish they would've gotten more of a punishment than they did. Truly a well thought out book.

What I can say is that the author did alot better job than Lt. Ray Biondi. I introduced Charlene to her second husband, and I know her well. Eric Hoffman captured Charlene so well, it's eerie. This book is the best portrayal of Charlene and Gerald that I have found. This is the first time I have even admitted in public that I know her, and it's not easy for me. She continues to live near my family home and I want nothing to do with her. But as a reader, this book is very factual. Eric Hoffman did a great job.

THIS BOOK NEEDS UPDATING!!
Very disappointed; this book is NOT what it claims. Full of OLD INFORMATION and has not been updated. Prices are wrong, casinos not listed, attractions not listed, tours listed that are no longer available. Bought this book knowing nothing about Las Vegas; had a short time to spend, and wanted to make the most of the experience.

This book is huge, almost telephone-book size. It contains valuable demographic information. Its disadvantage is that it is now out-of-date. The two very newest and finest casino-hotels are only listed as pictures of "things to come". This guide is out-of-date in other areas also. The public transportation prices are incorrect (too low), and trips to outlying tourist attractions like Hoover Dam or Bryce Canyon, or the Grand Canyon have been changed considerably from those listed. We left our copy in the hotel room, rather than carry it home.

I am from Ohio and and frequent Las Vegas often. When I first picked up this book, I thought that It would be like all of the others. I also thought that I knew all there was to know about LV because I have gone so much. There is so much information in this book in terms of dining, night life and entertainment, hotels, etc. It is totally amazing to me that I missed so much in Las Vegas. This book really lets you "experience" Las Vegas for what it really is. Whether you are a first timer or a frequent visitor, Experience Las Vegas is an invaluable guide to use for every trip.

Don't buy this book before flipping through it. If you're looking for a climbing guide along the lines of the typical area book, you'll be disappointed -- nothing in the way of route topos, and minimal route descriptions in many cases.

If, however, you're looking to get into the wilderness and do some adventure climbing/heavy hiking, this book is perfect. Secor must assume his readers are intelligent and have the necessary skills for backcountry travel, navigation and route finding.

The book is best as a general trip planning guide that one may supplement with other sources of information where more detail is wanted. Wouldn't take it on the trail with me, due to weight.

If you want to climb as many peaks as possible in the High Sierra, this is your book. Secor describes an enormous number of different hiking/climbing opportunities. He does not bother with the most obvious stuff, such as well-known trails that are easy to find, but instead tells you about places you might not have thought about. There is information on cross-country routes (such as George Creek, Tuttle Creek, and the Enchanted Gorge), which is important because these rough and difficult routes are not discussed in trail guides, and are also overlooked in climbing guides. This book might not be enough information for doing a technical climb on a big wall like Lone Pine Mountain or Tehipite Dome, but will tell you about the approach routes. This is useful if you want to get a good look at these mountains from some neighboring ridge, but don't necessarily want to scale the actual cliffs. It is better for wilderness trekking, off-trail hiking, and mountaineering than it is for pure wall climbing. It is therefore an ideal guide for people who want to cover a lot of ground and see some extremely remote and beautiful scenery rather than stay at one site and go up and down a wall.

I bought this book before heading out to the SF bay area for a summer project last year. I mainly used descriptions of off-trail routes to do some 1-day scrambles on various peaks in the Sierra as well as for an excursion off the John Muir trail on a backpacking trip through King's Canyon NP.
This book is meant for off-trail travel and technical climbing (and mostly the latter). If you really only want to stick to the trail it's the wrong guide, but the nice thing about the Sierra is that it's easy to leave the trail. I'm not a technical climber, but because the book is very comprehensive there's still lots of interesting stuff for me. It has shown me a side of the Sierrra that, being not familiar with this part of the US at all, I probably would not have seen otherwise.

I have recently become addicted to Linda Lael Miller's books. She has a style all her own. I read The Last Chance Cafe and they constantly reference the past ancestors who settled PrimRose Creek, so I decided this book would be a good book to read. Bridget's story is very romantic and it is an easy heartwarming read. It only took a day I was so wrapped up in her story. I plan on reading "Christy" next and will also leave a review for that Novel. Since I had read The Last Chance Cafe what happened w/ Bridget's story was no shock to me because they constantly refer back to it in The Last Chance, however, it was still a very nice read.

"Bridget" is the beginning of another frontier series by Linda Lael Miller. I enjoyed the previous frontier series "Springwater."

Bridget McQuarry is a young widow, who has lost her husband, Mitch, during the Civil War. Bridget, her son, Noah, and her sister, Skye, have moved to Primrose Creek to begin their new life. Bridget owns one fourth of the land they now live on. The other portions belong to Skye, and their cousins, Christy and Megan, who are living in England with their mother.

Trace Qualtrough, a friend of the McQuarry family and who was with Mitch McQuarry when Mitch died, comes to Primrose Creek in search of Bridget. Trace has always been attracted to Bridget and he lets Bridget know that his feelings are still alive and he plans to marry her.

Bridget, feeling guilty because Mitch has died and because of the feelings she had for Trace before she married Mitch, tries to deny her feelings for Trace. At first, Bridget refuses to marry Trace, but both realize that the West is not suitable for a woman alone, especially in a town with a lack of women.

Ms. Miller has not only touched on frontier life and its dangers, but she also showed the strength of pioneer women, who had the stamina to be strong and overcome the hardships of frontier life. Bridget McQuarry is one of those women.

"Bridget" is a compelling and romantic novel.

Once again, beloved romance author Linda Lael Miller brings to life an exciting series of stories about a group of women who overcome incredible odds to find lives filled with happiness and love.

Readers who loved Miller's Springwater series should also enjoy this new line of tales featuring The Women of Primrose Creek. Set in the Frontier West, the four women all share strengths and passion that will make these characters unforgettable.

This first novel, which features Bridget McQuarry, sets the stage for the upcoming stories due to be released this summer. Miller defines the characters and situations, and all the reader has to do is just sit back and enjoy.

Sharon Galligar Chance

Las Vegas is the most exciting city in the world, but Hayden's book is a bore. This is recommended reading for anyone having trouble falling asleep. Hayden tells us little about Las Vegas taht we haven't heard many times before.

I like to gamble and I plan to continue to gamble but I wanted to understand how I was being manipulated by the casinos and these shorts stories were wonderfully entertaining and more importantly - original!

Las Vegas Stories is an eye-opening collection of vignettes about the merciless grip gambling can have on anyone at any age, from school children to seventy-year-old grandmas. Each character in the book could be someone you know, or love. My teen couldn't put it down and now she has her friends reading it. You should to. I will never look at gambling the same again after meeting the desperate victims the author so aptly brings to life. The book is a quick read, but the message and its impact will stay with you long after the last page. How much did I like the book? I bought ten copies to share with friends and family.

Mr. Basten is not known for his photographic expertise. Just look at one of his earlier books, Bruin Country, where the photographs are the worst I have ever seen in a book of pictures.

I'm sorry to be negative--I'm a big fan of some of Mr. Basten's other books--but this was a disappointment. I expected more (or at least some) text. Hardcover, but only 127 pages, and many of the photos are blown up so that their pixels or scanner artifacts show. The book's graphic style is "Annoying Fifties," which is appropriate, but the caption text is rendered in brush script. Another reviewer said that the first half was all about the early history of the first casinos--would that this were true.

There are lots of "mood" photos, and Charles Phoenix' collection of matchbooks and swizzle sticks are amply presented, but the text is filled with "mid-fifties" and "late 1940s." Call me obsessive, but I like a bit more precision in my history. The book starts with a mention of "Helldorado Day," a tradition that evolved into a four-day annual celebration. Wonder what time of year it occured or whether or not it is still occurring? Me, too.

So, if you'd like to see several dozen historical photos with reasonably good captions, here's your book. Keely Smith's introduction is entertaining. But as another reviewer mentioned, Alan Hess' Viva Las Vegas is better for a real history with actual, um, facts.

I've been to Vegas a dozen times, but the stores are always sold out of this fabulous book. So I was glad to get it here. It's a great, visual tour of old Las Vegas--the place my mom and dad used to go and bring me souvenirs. I like the pictures very much, as well as the artwork from the period, and the brief captions were enough to whet my appetite for more. I want to collect poker chips now! The fabulous shot of Elvis and Liberace, as well as the shots of Sinatra and Mae West are all unbelievable treasures. I don't know how these guys found all this stuff, but my hat is off to them. And actually reading Keely Smith's words after listening to her music for years was a great honor. I recommend this book whole heartedly

Let's face it, when they start making coffee table books about a really cool, artsy, ostensibly underground, non-commercial event, you know the writing's on the wall for said event's hip quotient. So needless to say, I had a real negative feeling about this book before I even looked at it. I was opposed to its existance purely on principal. "Wired is trying to make money off of Burning Man," I thought, incredulous. And the Burning Man people actually approved! Travesty!

I must admit it though -- it's gorgeous. Stunning really. Beautifully designed, with huge, full-bleed photos-both color and black-and-white-on every page. Flipping through the book, there seems to be a good representative sampling of Black Rock City culture circa 1990-1996: Clichéd images of naked, painted bodies dancing. That goddamned Java Cow. Art cars. Colorfully-costumed participants. Moody black-and-whites of the Man. The usual pics of naked people caked with mud. It's even presented in somewhat of an order, with all the daytime images slowly leading into photos taken at dusk. Then there's the requisite sixteen pages of editorial pontificating, before heading off into the book's "climax," which mirrors the climax of the event itself with its final eighteen photos all taken during Burn night.

The images, for the most part, are stunning--although anyone can tell you that it seems damn near impossible to take a bad photo out on the playa. I especially liked Barbara Traub's very artful, often-posed, black-and-whites. Instead of merely documenting the event, she seems to use the playa as her own photography studio, producing incredibly unique images.

As for the editorial content, it makes for a good, hour-long read. Naturally, everyone tries to explain what Burning Man is, without ever really nailing it down. Such is the nature of the event. Larry Harvey spells it all out in his oral history of Burning Man. Bruce Sterling describes his family's vacation at Burning Man, in his hysterical, and ultimately heartwarming piece, "Variation On a Theme Park (Taking the Kids to Burning Man)" Erik Davis' "Here is Post-Modern Space" is alternately intellectual jabbering and snarky commentary. But far and away my favorite piece was "Me, I Didn't Burn A Thing," a refreshingly different perspective of Burning Man from Janelle Brown. She tells it like it is, writing: "I'm stuck in a limbo-land of exhaustion: I can't sleep because I've hardly moved all day, and I can't move because I've hardly slept. I lie in the eerie blue shade of our plastic tarpualin in a semi-lucid state, spray bottle in one hand, gin and tonic in the other." That is so it.

While certainly it's a great conversation piece for suckering in friends to go out with you to Burning Man next year, the biggest reason I like the book is because it functions as sort of a high school yearbook for all the freaks who went to Burning Man in the early to mid '90s.

I've been to the event-- first as a citizen and later as part of the volunteer labor force, and I own this book. It's true (as other reviewers have stated) it is not "complete"-- in the sense that its focus is primarily visual. (There is so much more to Burning Man!) But it does a marvelous job with those visuals! Each page turned elicits one of the following thoughts: "Gad! I didn't see that! How could I possibly have missed that?" or something like "Ahhhh, I remember that evening on the Promenade-- and how mysterious the light was..."

The reader who found the images too "extreme," "surreal," and "fringe" has not been there-- or he/she forgot to look around, because this is what you will see if you venture out of your tent... It's easy to come up with remarkable images in this remarkable temporary city, and this book does a fine job of hinting at the world that is Black Rock City. Go ahead, whet your appetite...

When I saw this book in my school library, I thought wow--gotta go! This looks like my idea of summer camp. The photos of people covered in mud are so cool and so is the biker in a tutu. The mushroom cloud looks so real and the truck with fins really rocks. Is this another planet? I will have to find out...

I thought this would be useful in planning my trip through Nevada and northern California, and I read the book thinking, "Wow, this is a really in-depth guide!"; but when I actually got to my destinations, I found it to be essentially worthless. It tells you what cities are in California and Nevada (may as well just buy a map), and the names of some restaurants and accomodations (which you find out anyway, once you're there.) And since the book gives you no idea about how good or bad the accomodations are, what's really the point? I could find the same information (or better) online, for free. One thing I do like about the guide: the boxed asides often give entertaining and interesting information about a certain place or activity. But for the most part, I don't find Lonely Planet guides to be useful for the way I travel.

A side note about accomodations: for Caliente, NV, they name "Caliente Hot Springs Motel" as being one of the few places to stay. What they don't mention is that it's totally disgusting. Trust me, I once worked there. What kind of useful guide book is this if they don't tell you what motels have cigarette burns in the sheets and 20-year-old grunge on the walls?

A few wrong turns here and there but generally essential Lonely Planet quality throughout. A good overview. Well written.

Lonely Planet shows the little Calirfornia towns in detail. Towns like Arcata, Chico, Merced to name a few. Others like Fodors dont do this. Great and in depth.