i started reading the old books when i was in 4th grade, i loved them, now my daughters reading these. she says they are just as good as the old ones!

I was alerted to Mr Keene by an article in The Fine Art of Murder by Ed Gorman ,on vintage pulp writers of the 40's and 50's which extolled his merits.I partly see why this came about for there is a slickness to plot and briskness of pace to this book that makes it readable.The book wastes little time in getting going and the pace is commendable in an era like now when books often strike me as too long.The propensity towards moral homilies is a little aggravating and the prose might politely be described as functional but otherwise this is a diverting Florida set mystery.
Its protagonist is Jim Charters,a lowly lawyer's messenger from Sun City whos is employed by ruthless hot shot lawyer Matthew Kendall and the action is condensed into a 24 hour period,around his birthday.It begins when he visits a condemned murderess in her death cell,one Pearl Matinover whose appeal against conviction and sentence has been refused by the governor.She has ,in his and others opinion,been convicted less on the evidence than on her disregard of sexual convention and a life style that is disapproved of in conservative circles.The evidence against her was not particularly strong.
Later that day he is summarily fired by Kendall and this brings to the surface his latent feelings of inadequacy and failure.He fights with his wife and storms out to a local bar where he gets drunk ,awakening in a motel room with Kendall's mistress and $10,000 in his pocket.
The money is from Pearl's brother who is a hitman for a local mobster.In his inebriated state Jim had boasted he could clear Pearl's name and the brother takes him at his word
In mounting desperation he seeks to do just that and sets out to try and clear Pearl's name -a quest that sees him embroiled with local mobsters ,his wife kidnapped and more bodies turning up.
It is quite risque for its period and ,as intimated earlier,briskly and proficiently despatched.There are traces of haste in the writing -a persistent problem with writers paid to keep churning it out.
One for devotees of paperback originals from the post war era and a good read for an hour or so

There has been a trend in the past few years to write books that cover a particular season, and 1960 would be a good year to include in a book. However, I didn't find anything new here. I feel it would be a book more suitable for high school students who are totally unfamiliar with that year in baseball. I was immediately suspicious with repeated misspellings of "Ebbetts Field". This would be an easy thing to check. Also on Page 129 I shuddered when I came across the name of "Johnny DeMaestri". Joe Demaestri, of course, along with first baseman Kent Hadley (neither mentioned) were acquired by the Yankees along with Roger Maris following the 1959 season. The book is filled out with appendices A-E with statistics, team rosters, trades, etc. I'm sorry, but I was disappointed.

A disappointment. I was distracted by the references to "Ebbetts Field" at least three times. Too much space is given to, for example, lists of all the Hall of Famers connected to 1960 baseball. The book tries to give mention to many, many topics, rather than tell the entire year in the context of, say, the Pirates-Yanks World Series or the trade of Roger Maris. (By the way, "World Series" should always be capitalized, as should "Series" when referring to the WS.)

Much of the material is apparently drawn from newspaper and Sporting News accounts of the day, with little apparent content from interviews of surviving players from the day.

Many 1960 Topps cards, a nice touch.

In 1960, Ted Williams played his last year and Stan Musial was getting close to retirement. This book tells about 51 great players in the league, a couple of lines about each, and an attempt to start another league in 1960. The story of Mazeroski's ninth inning home run to win the World Series of 1960 is great!

There is not even a tiny speck of genuine emotion in this novel. It's all about a bunch of rich and beautiful spoiled teenaged girls competing for the affections of some guy they couldn't really care less about. It is vapid in the extreme and promotes extremely shallow values. Other people with less than supermodel bodies and millionaire bank accounts exist, too, and have much more interesting stories to be told. I find it creepy how the voice of regular people is supressed in favor of idealized cut-outs. I'm not surprised this comes from the creator of the Nancy Drew series, but at least Nancy Drew was doing something useful and interesting with that whole mystery-solving thing.

I read this book when it first came out. (We are talking 10 years ago, despite the pre-set age thing on this review). Young adult fiction then was a lot different than it is now. Sure it's more than a little shallow but that's what made it so great! It was cheesy and a little ditzy. These girls were all about what they wore, who they wanted to date, and how they were going to make it through the school year. I loved the characters of this book. They were easy, stereotypical and one-dimensional. I know I sound sick but that what was I liked, but it is what I liked BACK THEN. It reminds me of early SVH books and all the fun silliness it used to be. Sure there are probably a hell of lot more interesting and intelligent stories out there to tell, but once upon a time, all this shallowness was at one point the most important stuff in the world. Plus the scheming that Britany did was a trip!

It is a book I like very much. For one reason, the auther tells a story about love between the young males and young females. The characters in the book are so vivid and familiar. It brought my memory to the years when I was a teenage. For the other, the language used in the book is so ggod, especially the teenage English. I like the book.

I really tried to see this book through,but there was no way!Omigosh,have I ever been so bored??!!I will NOT be buying another Nancy Drew on Campus.

I don't know if people consider this Keene's best book, but I wouldn't. I like Ned better than Jake, and thought it was sad what happened to Bess. I broke down in tears the exact time she did. I wouldn't be able to come back to college after that. As for Stephanie, I thought she acted pretty much like a loser. Why take it out on your friends? The plot was pretty easy to follow and I ended up solving it without trouble. (Of course, I wasn't there)

Doesn't Nancy know that she's being stupid about the whole going home event. Jake can't help it if he doesn't see her side because he's never been in that kind of situation before. And Bess needs to get over Paul, even though the accident just happend. She just can't hide away inside of herself forever because she's upset. And stephanie is stupid for playing around when she has such a great guy. But i think it's because she's afraid to get hurt. Overall it was a good book- read it.

This book was a BIG disappointment. I was seduced by a TV show that featured the author demonstrating her technique, but when I got the book in hand, I realized it's all bark and no bite.

First of all, EVERY OTHER PAGE is an illustration. (Low-quality, I might add.) So, you aren't buying a book with a lot of information, because all that space is wasted on cartoons. Second, Ms. Butler doesn't bring anything new to the table. She reiterates the standard of dog training: be kind and consistent. I agree with that, but in order to work, the actual training CANNOT be done in one hour. (If you believe that, I have some diet pills that will help you lose about 50 pounds in one weekend.)

Maybe some people will find this book useful, but I don't think it covers anything thoroughly. There are a lot of other dog-training manuals out there that leave this title in the dust.

Being a dog-lover, I looked forward to a solid training program to bond with my pet. Although the book contains some good information, it could easily fit in a 1 page magazine article. Please save your money.

My wife has had an affection for animals her whole life. After we got married, I learned that we were going to have a permanent resident which required a tremendous amount of care and attention. This was not something that I had expected or ever dreamed of. This so called beautiful, one-of-a-kind Irish Setter named Casey was not what I had expected during my courtship. Casey always required attention. So much attention that whenever anyone came to visit, she would jump on them immediately when they walked in the door, try to sit on their lap and if that didn't work, constantly nuzzle our guest's hand or leg til she was petted (just to mention one irritation of many). We were forever pulling her away when company came and locking her up afraid that her enthusiasm would turn into a scratch or bite on some unsuspecting relative! I knew something was wrong, but I couldn't make my wife realize this was excessive and had to stop. She began to see the light soon after the dog ate up our expensive furniture throughout our new condominium. This book has made a significant difference in my life and probably saved my marriage. Not only does the dog no longer chew up our possesions, but her behavior is totally socially acceptable in all environments including with children and even with different types of animals. Oh yes, I've saved a fortune on shoes and socks too! I have never reviewed a book before but can endorse this book without reservation, Ms Butler should receive a commendation from our condiminium association for helping us to keep Casey from destroying our whole building! This book works!!

This review concerns the original 1936 edition and the revised 1974 edition which is slightly different from the original but basically tells the same story. Nancy meets a young Indian boy (named Coya in the original, Rishi in the revised) who lives with a circus. The boy is being mistreated by a man named Rai who claims to be the boy's father, but Nancy doubts this claim. Nancy saves Rai from an elephant and to show his thanks he gives Nancy an ivory, elephant charm which he says can protect the wearer from harm. Coya/Rishi runs away from the circus and Rai and the Drews take him in. Later, Rai changes his mind and wants the charm back and he will do anything to get both the charm and Coya/Rishi. Also figuring into this "mystery" are a strange woman and a bizarre house out in the middle of the woods. The house, apparently, has no floor, but it does have a secret passage and a bunch of swings and trapezes hanging from the ceiling. This book was just plain awful!! The mystery, what there is of one, is stupid and boring. The house serves absolutely no purpose other than to use up pages and it makes no sense. Who would build a house like that out in the middle of nowhere? The strange woman in the book is more annoying than anything and comes off as too scatterbrained and weak-minded to be the great criminal mastermind that the plot requires her to be. The book has little in the way of action or suspence. This book is just bad, bad, bad! Take my advice and don't read it.

In this book, Nancy Drew goes to see a circus and feels sorry for a little boy who appears to be abused by his master. Nancy is surprised when he shows up at her home. He wears a mysterious ivory charm in the shape of an elephant that is supposed to protect the wearer from harm. He gives it to Nancy. She will surely need protection soon after, because she must investigate a mysterious hideout and missing jewels. Could it be that the mystery of the room in the cave and the shady circus are related? read to find out! I would also recommed buying the applewood books fascimle edition of this story. It is priced higher but it is the original story from the 30's. Buy both versions for some flavor and to see how the story was changed.

The spyship of the title is the mysterious "Mary Castor" a trawler built and launched with no minor fanfare from an working class British port town, and then mysteriously lost. The story has less to do with the ship than the investigative reporter who will do nothing uncover the secret of her loss. There are some clues - pictures of the ship's antennae and its not-quite-regulation electronics - and some interesting background info (the North Sea area in which Castor trawls is also rife with Soviet Submarine activity). While the mystery takes the book to solve, it's obvious from the start that something bad is going on, something so serious that the government (British at least) will do anything to cover up the secret.

So why is this book so bad? It may have to do with why this book is so unbelievable. The charachters aren't quite paper thin, but they're all losers - weak and timid on the inside where it counts. The writer goes to great pains to show how just about everyone here has some mixture within them of bitterness and timidity - whether it's an amatuer detective who's on the verge of uncovering the secret, or the chairman of a commission looking into the official cause of the Castor - each seems to think that the world has cheated them out of something, yet nobody has the slightest idea to get it back. This is a big mistake because the governmet goes to extreme ends to silence these people, even though few of them are intuitive enough to get through with their own lives, let alone uncover as big a mystery as the Mary Catsor. The next problem is the conspiracy - with British intel hiring a one-man murder crew to eliminate anybody who continues looking into the Mary Castor. Why such extreme measures are needed (even if the other charachters weren't losers) seems hard to accept. None of the other charachters seem suited to discover the Mary Castor, so why bother killing them? The hit-man aspect of the story seems strikingly less plausible than anything else in the book - only there for the action, and that only makes things worse. (The hero is a reporter, yet he manages to succeed where others fail in neutralizing the seasoned killer). And let's not forget the mystery. Ofcourse, the author had - and the story never progresses to the final discolsure. Instead, the charachters meander around until they discover somebody who can answer the questions for them. So much for investigative journalism. If you want to read about true tails of nautical intrigue, pick up a copy of "Blind Man's Bluff" or "Project Jenniffer".

Spyship could have been from Le Carré, Ludlum, or Forsythe: a well-written, well-documented, fast-paced novel. Its plot, about the investigation of a reporter into the mysterious sinking of a British fishing ship in the North Sea, takes the reader into a nightmarish world of political cover-ups of international consequences in the last decade of the Cold War. Pick up Spyship (if you can find this out-of-print jewel) and hold on to your life-jacket!

A sheep farmer seeks Nancy's help in deciphering some pictures painted on a parchment. This is without a doubt the worst book I have ever read. No mystery, no action, no suspence. This book is just boring, boring, boring. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone, not even the most diehard Nancy Drew fan.

Without a doubt this was THE worst book in the series. Downright boring. No mystery, no action, no nothing. This book does not even deserve a point 1 rating let alone a 1.

This is a thrilling Nancy Drew book. That keeps readers in suspense from the begining to the end. This is a classic Nancy Drew tale that brings in all of her fantasic friends. As always the mysteries that Nancy gets involed in a challenging and trick. This is another great one to read.

Anthropology entails 3 perspectives: (1) cross-cultural, or looking at other cultures than our own, (2) holistic, or looking at all parts of culture in relation to each other, and (3) relativistic, or looking at each culture as its own standard of values and meaning. Notice there is no "Christian perspective." Anthropology is not about judging other cultures, and it is certainly not about changing them. This book should not be called "Cultural Anthropology." What it suggests is nothing like anthropology. It should be called something like "Destroying Other Cultures with Your Culture" or "Destroying Anthropology by Misusing It." No real anthropologist would read this book, other than to learn about the mind of the true believer.

This book is a horrible, almost criminal, misuse of anthropology. If the author understood anything about the discipline, he would know that it is about relativism and respect for differences, not about trying to use cultural concepts to invade and indoctrinate other societies. There is no way we can control how our tools are used, but to employ anthropological knowledge and methods to overthrow another culture's religion is a betrayal of anthropology and cultural genocide against that culture. This book disgusts me, like all missionization.

It's a good introductory book to who wants to know something about anthropology, or cross-culture communication. The book provides each aspect of anthropology study, very easy to understand. It may also help Christian to understand the human behavior. Open your mind to a new vision about the world. The book emphasizes the importance of anthropology for missionaries, is a very correct vision. Evangelism is also communication. It exposes whom the culture may influence faith and bible interpretation. There books indication at the end of each chapter should be very helpful, but major of the book are very difficult to find because they are too old. A basic book, but can help.