While these fifteen stories representing "the cream of Britain's new wave of crime writers" comprise a stronger collection than the standard mixed-bag anthology, they are decidedly more mainstream and less edgy than the stories in the first "Fresh Blood" collection. The only ones worth totally skipping are John Tilsley's San Francisco-set tale and the throwaway coda contrivance by RD Wingfield. The cream of the crop (somewhat surprisingly given the mainstreamedness of his novel Not the End of the World) is probably Christopher Brookmyre's "Bampot Central," a hilarious tale of two idiotic Scottish bank robbers. Phil Lovesy's "Stranglehold" is a tight little story, done in real-time. Both the editors turn in strong stories, although it would be nice if Jakubowski could weed out the Anglicisms from his U.S.-set stories. For some reason I quite liked John Baker's "Defence," even though it's not apparently a crime story until the last two paragraphs. John Williams provides another quality story in his ongoing series on the Cardiff underworld (the story was later reprinted in his collection, Five Pubs, Two Bars, and a Night Club). Mary Scott and Lauren Henderson's stories fine, though nothing special, and Ken Bruen (Rilke on Black, The Hackman Blues) once again doesn't do anything for me. Two homages, (Charles Higson's to "The Tell-Tale Heart" and Christine Green's to "Psycho"), are quite effective, as is Carol Anne Davis's (Shrouded) typically creepy "The Ghosts of Bees." Iain Sinclair's "No More Yoga at the Night Club" is an East End number whose appeal will largely lie in the reader's own affinity for that particular place (cf. Jake Arnott's The Long Firm).

I think that this was a very intersesting book for anyone who loves mystery thing. The fact of this book is it is like a buried treasure; the island it self is a treasure. This book is very strange in its way of telling the past, yet it is the same as the present. The sland is a beautiful place and the book mkes it more realistic.

Kingsport's population peak during WWII has never returned again, despite a half century of growth by annexation. Professor Wolfe has done a very fine job of archival research and interviews to enlighten the reader. Though her survey is more critical, obviously, than a publication each decade of the 90's by the local Rotary Club, Wolfe ads the human element and anecdotal illustrations to complement the Rotary's advertising bent.

City builder J. Fred Johnson has become a legendary and almost apocrypha figure for this town in the foothills of Southern Appalachia. Middle class factory workers and country club executives dominated this city during the 20th century. But the 21 century has arrived as industrial downsizing is taking a toll.

Wolfe tells the true story as it really happened, 'warts and all.' Hopefully either Professor Wolfe or someone else will fill in more details and produce a future volume that fills in the gaps of the history of this city whose most prominent claim to fame is the hometown and idyllic setting of Lisa Alther's veiled trashy novel, "Kinflicks."

"The People Who Discovered Columbus" is a well-researched account of those first peoples who actually discovered The Bahamas, where they came from, how they lived and why they came.

Keegan paints a vivid picture of the Bahama Island chain in those years prior to the arrival of the first human inhabitants, describing the lush, untouched landscape like a tropical Eden into which comes man, probably migrating from the south of the Bahamian archipelago. His theory about the motivation for this migration still holds true for tourists today: The Bahamas is just too attractive a location to pass up.

This book is also a treasure for anyone interested in Caribbean archaeology. Although, since the book's publication, many more aboriginal sites have been discovered, this book lists, island by island, the number and types of sites that provide evidence of intense Lucayan habitation. From open air sites to caves, Keegan leads the reader through The Bahamas, walking in the footsteps of those ancient people.

Reading this book, you begin to question, as Keegan does, whether Columbus' motivation for his 1492 voyage was to actually get to the Indies or the much more personal goal of territorial conquest.

This book is a must read if you want to really experience the Bahama Islands of those centuries long before Columbus. I would recommend it unreservedly as a well written, well documented book that, in spite of its scholarly value, is quite easy and enjoyable to read. It certainly puts to shame the theory that Columbus could have discovered a whole nation of people - complete with customs, traditions and history - who were never lost in the first place!

Muggy and moist Washington DC is home to Louise Eldridge, hostess of the PBS show "Gardening with Nature." Her director sends Louise to the Boulder area as part of a series of location shows on "The Open Spaces." Louise finds the dry mountain climate of Colorado as quite a shock and she has a hard time adjusting. Though a TV personality, Louise has gained quite a national reputation for her work on homicide investigations. However, she hopes that her western stay remains trouble free.

Unfortunately on her first day in Boulder, Louise finds a dead body. Local rancher Jimmy Porter, whose spread was going to be used by Louise, has a bullet in his chest. The chauvinistic sheriff declares a poacher killed Jimmy. Almost everyone else thinks otherwise. Reluctantly, Louise is dragged into the investigation. She soon learns that almost everyone close to Jimmy had a motive to kill him and that the real culprit may soon have a reason to murder Louise.

Anyone who enjoys gardening will be happy for the insight provided throughout the novel. Those who have little interest in gardening can easily skip through those passages without losing the theme of the main story line. Although the plot requires a big leap of faith at certain points, amateur sleuth fans will enjoy THE PERENNIAL KILLER because of the likable heroine. Readers will sympathize with her problems even as they applaud her inner strength, which carries the tale. Ann Ripley elasticized the credibility of her subplots beyond the reach of Mr. Fantastic, but those readers who enjoy an entertaining gardening cozy will still feel a Rocky Mountain High after reading this novel.

Harriet Klausner

Ripley's Believe It or Not is a great bok. It contains many interesting facts, which will leave you in shock and disbelief. I thought Ripley's Believe It or Not was awesome. I had a lot of fun reading the book and I learned many amazing facts. Based on the T.V hit show, Ripley's Believe It or Not is mind-boggeling. Many people think that it is the same as Guiness Book of Records, but it is not. Ripley's Believe It or Not tells you amazing facts and you decide whether it is true or not. None of the facts in Ripley's are in the Guiness Book of Records.

Check Your Review of Shepherd in the Wilderness by Edward Franklin Ripley

Here is your review the way it will appear:

A Closer Look: Puritans in the Wilderness Reviewer: Thomas P.Hughes from Philadelphia, PA USA

Edward Ripley, a full-time Philadelphia investment adviser and part- time historian, has written an engaging life of Peter Hobart (1604-1679), a Puritan minister who emigrated to Massachusetts seeking to practice his faith free of constraint. Ripley uses his biography of Hobart, a founder of Hingham Plantation, now Hingham, Massachusetts, as a window on the political, social, and economic life of 17th century settlers. Only a few original sources about Hobart exist, but Ripley deploys them imaginatively to leave readers with a feeling that they know Hobart and his times. A Hobart sermon is particularly moving: "the forest around us, the sea at our shores, the expanse of cleared fields warmed by the sun and clothed with a bountiful verdure--all of these will yield us manifold by the toil of our bodies.... Friendly intercourse with the red people...will work only for good...." Learned and, according to Cotton Mather, displaying hearty love towards pious men, Hobart, nevertheless, engaged in a fractious dispute with John Winthrop, the renown governor of Massachusetts. Taking a stance counter to some admirers of Winthrop, Ripley argues that Hobart courageously opposed an arbitrary decision of a sometimes autocratic governor. Readers who treasure the early history of Massachusetts should find this carefully crafted book an edifying account of an admirable man who shaped the community of Hingham Plantation and its countless descendents.

Eliza Chinn was born in Kentucky in 1832 and moved to New Orleans with her family in 1835. In 1852, she married James McHatton and lived at Arlington Plantation until Union gunboats arrived at their levee in 1862. They spent the rest of the War convoying cotton from Louisiana across Texas to the markets in Mexico. McHatton took his wife to Cuba in 1865, where they operated a large sugar plantation until his death, when Eliza returned to the States and married Dwight Ripley. The remainder of her life, she says succinctly, "was passed in the North." In 1887, she began publishing a series of reminiscences of her adventurous life which were first collected in book form shortly after her death in 1912. The chapters in this volume begin with Eliza's experiences as a boarding school girl in 1840s and stroll reflectively through social events and weddings, the music and songs of the mid-century, the celebrities her father (a judge) entertained, the astonishment of visiting Northerners on first encountering plantation hospitality, and what it was like being raised by a black "mammy." The author's style is relaxed and friendly, and you'll think you were being entertained in her parlor. The narrative is accompanied by some two dozen illustrations, many of them pen-and-ink sketches of high quality.

This book is worth reading, especially if you have or know someone who is getting older. Like many of Walker's books, her descriptions are so vivid you are right there with her characters on a moutain in Vermont.

It is exciting and keeps your attention. This is one of those books that you just can't put down. Very witty dialogue and two very tough heroes