Lady Molly of Scotland Yard is an enjoyable collection of stories in the Sherlock Holmes manner, although the accounts aren't quite as detailed. Is this where Carole Nelson Douglas got her inspiration for Irene Adler's expanded character, in addition to "A Scandal in Bohemia"? Both Lady Molly and Irene bear remarkable similarities.

I do not profess to know much about Sherlock Holmes, but the style is much the same as the Sherlock Holmes tales I have read, but with a feminist...and feminine...spin. The Baroness Orczy lays the stories out quickly and the stories don't drag on, as some mystery stories and novels do (although you may lament the shortness at times).

While some may find Lady Molly's feminine intuition somewhat unbelieveable, the stories are nonetheless delightful. Just as I was eager to find out whodunit in each story, so was I eager to learn of my lady's interesting history.

Highly entertaining!

The Lady Molly stories are fun, semi-feminist, Sherlock-Holmes-like tales. The attention to servants, clothing, and the ambiance of the era is delightful. The heroine is out to save her man and is both "ladylike" and a little feminist--although she gives up her job for love at the end of the book.

Having noticed many Joan Lowery Nixon books on Amazon.com,I was eager to try one of her books.She seemed very good.In fact she probably is.Perhaps I chose the wrong book.It is boring,dull,non-eventful.The entire book insists of Kristen arguing with various different people on hte matter of women's rights with nothing ever happening!

I thought this was one of J.Nixons best books. I think it is very good and keeps you on your toes! I especially liked Tim!! And I wish I could of learned what happened after that book! Enjoy!

In this great book Kristin Swensen has to immigrate to the United States O f America. Kristen is a nonproper girl. At first she hates it, but then she meets a young man named Johan. I really recomend this book and all other books writen by Joan Lowery Nixon!!!!

This book should only be read by flyfishers who live in the south because it is to narrowly focused on that part of the country.Flyfishers who live farther north should buy a book with a broader scope.

This is an excellent book if you are interested in fly fishing for bluegill, shell crackers, and other sunfish. Ellis gives a lot of pertinent info. on behavior and location. The one drawback of this 2nd edition is a lack of adequate illustrations and photos which could boost this book to 5 stars. It is a book worth underlining as you read and re-read.

This is an excellent book! Jack puts sunfish in the same category as spooky trout or bonefish. He doesn't take the usual approach of how easy it is to catch them but, rather how to stalk the BIG sunfish using flies resembling what they actually eat-wasps, pupa, etc. Jack's writing always challenges the usual, well-worn approaches and gives serious,interesting alternatives. The information here can be applied to anywhere there are sunfish and big ones! Read it several times, it's worth it.

I was intrigued by some of the stories in this book; many had some either very twisted endings or did not really end. Many of the stories, however, flew right over my head, and were not very clear to me as far as the plot of the story. I would possibly recommend this book to anyone who likes stories that don't have traditional endings or usual plots. I would also say that if you frequently have trouble understanding plots, this book may not be for you. I don't think this book was really for me.

I think that this book is simply one of the best books that I've ever read. When I first started reading it I thought the stories were totally "weird". But when I got to the story about "Mr. Potato Head" my thought changed into "unusual". Which is good. I mean, I think reading normal plots and stories and just really boring. This book really got me thinking. For readers who likes unusual surprises, here's a perfect book!

"Pleasant" is a good way to describe the Cadfael mysteries by Ellis Peters. These romanticised renderings of life in twelfth century England, however unreal, make the era seem pleasant enough that you almost want to live there. The countryside is lovely, there is usually a hint of romance in the air, and life moves at a measured, unrushed pace. No pavement, no pollution, no hustle and bustle. Seldom mentioned are the poverty, hunger, disease, and general stench (people rarely bathed). Life, especially in the cloister, is a bucolic idyll.

In "A Raven In The Foregate", Abbot Radulfus returns from a church council with a new priest for the Foregate. Father Adam having recently died, Radulfus brings back Father Ailnoth at the recommendation of Bishop Henry. Ailnoth, however, turns out to be a harsh and stiff-necked young priest and manages to alienate his flock before turning up dead on Christmas morning. There are plenty of suspects, not the least of whom is young Benet, nephew of Ailnoth's housekeeper.

With plenty of potential suspects, this would seem to be an intricate and challenging mystery, but ultimately the plot is not as involved as one might wish. The outcome is a happy one, if a bit too neat and satisfactory for everyone involved, but not too hard to see coming.

Like most of the books in this series, "A Raven In The Foregate" is only an average mystery. What makes this and the other Cadfael tales enjoyable is the pleasant world Peters creates and the idyllic, unhurried way in which she tells the tale. These are nice books to read and, on the strength of that I recommend them, especially to those who like a bit of history and romance along with their whodunits.

The mystery is a bit trite and too neatly wrapped up at the end, but this remains a good read because of Peter's strong characters and setting and great metaphysical questioning.

Peter Berresford Ellis' work on the "Celtic Empire" is an interesting, well-researched, and compelling read. His deep knowledge contemporary archaeological lore, modern Celtic scholarship, and the original Greek and Roman sources, makes this work a reliable and trustworthy account of a nation often clouded by the mist of Mythology and obscured by the stigma barbarity. Ellis begins his study of the Celtic peoples during the Bronze Age at approximately 1000 BC and concludes it at the conquest of Britain under the regiments of the emperor Claudius in AD 51. Also, the epilogue covers some fascinating theories propounded concerning Celtic relations with the American Indians around 800 BC, and also about possible ties of kinship with the Etruscans - Ellis discounts these theories, but they are worth checking out nevertheless. In general, the history focuses on the Celts struggle for freedom and identity against the pressure of an expanding Roman Empire. So, what will be found here is a very good, in-depth overview of Roman and Celtic military history. Little will be found here on Celtic law, philosophy, religion, and art, although it does contain much useful information on the Celt's language, achievements and contributions to Greco-Roman civilization and culture from Asia Minor to Ireland. The only flaw to this history is Ellis' obvious contempt for anything Roman, branding them as ambitious, greedy, and cruel; this estimate of the Roman's may to a certain extent be justified, however, Ellis' over-emphasis grows a bit bothersome early in the work. Apparently, to Ellis, anything that was good in Roman culture was inherited from the Celts. Overall, an eager reader will find a peaceful medium between the impressions left from the original Greco-Roman sources and Ellis' Celtic bias. This work should not be overlooked.

Having first read this book in 1991 I may have forgotten parts of the story but what I haven't forgotten was that it was an excellent story. The author has presented a rich account of the first millennium of Celtic history (1000BC - 51AD). This may not be a highly detailed history but its a good story and covers all the major points of history that you would want to know about the people we call the Celts.

It covers all aspects of their life and their role in the ancient world. Its a good book, well presented and researched and it's a joy to read. The text just flows along taking you on a journey back in time to when the Celts were the most feared and respected people in the land. Read it and enjoy!

Concise overview of regional anatomy with emphasis on key relationships and clinical relevance. Not a comprehensive or detailed oriented anatomy but useful for quick review in the clinical setting.

This is not going to teach you all the anatomy you want to know in a small book. It is concise, as it assumes you have some idea about anatomy, and just want pointers to keep up to date and also what is relevant clinically.

All the situations for developing an effective Fast Break are explained. Cliff ELLIS illustrated these situations with Fast Break continuities he had already used. All the choice made inside the Fast Break continuities are explained. It means that you will have to read very carefully all the explanation if you don't want to miss relevant informations. However, we expect to find other types of drills. All the drills are known and well known. This part of the book is really poor.

This book is great for any coach. Todays basketball calls on the use of the fast break to score points. Everybody now is more athletic than ever before and the fastbreak is the only way to put their athletisim to use. A great book that teaches everything about a fast break and how it works.after getting a rebound, this book tells you what to do to get into a fast break. Definitly worth buying. thank you

The best essay in the book is Beatrice Hibou's, on the nature of the African state. She terms the 1980s as Africa's "lost decade," and views development strategies of economic growth that ignore social and consequences as being politically destabilizing. But her conception of the triggering mechanism for this destabilization is much different from that of most traditional political scientists (like Samuel Huntington's, for instance) perhaps owing to the different historical contexts in which they write (the institution-building of the 1960s versus the institutional decay of the 1990s).

Huntington and other past scholars posit that under conditions of economic stimulus in a modernizing society, social mobilization is the trigger for destabilization. Hibou, however, points to the nature of the African state itself as being responsible for political instability under conditions of economic stimulus. In other words, neoliberal market stimulus fails in Africa not because of mobilized citizens whose demands cannot be met, but because of the complex nature of the African state.

What is Hibou's conception of the African state, and how does it differ from Huntington's? Huntington tends to see the state in terms of how "institutionalized" it is, with a well-institutionalized state presumably having well-functioning formal political institutions that are adaptable, complex, autonomous and coherent. Hibou, however, goes far beyond a conventional political science view of institutions, by conceptualizing the African state as a "shadow" state:

"the relationships, institutions and people most prominently in public view are not necessarily the most powerful. Elements which at first sight appear to be obstacles to the functioning of the state may turn out, on closer inspection, actually to belong to the state . . . via a web of informal concessions, carefully negotiated privileges - notably including impunity for economic offences - and personal and political relationships" (88-89).

Accordingly, Hibou argues that neoliberalism has failed in Africa because it fails to take account of the state's informal shadow as an economic actor. In seeking to tie the hands of formal state actors to prevent conventional "rent-seeking" behavior, neoliberals have given more power to the informal sector, which tends to engage in economic activity that may not only be "rent-seeking," but also "criminal" by many standards. Neoliberalism thus destroys formal institutions in Africa, and encourages "the development of personal networks, of informal or even illegal practices" (93).

Thus, unlike Huntington's theory that social mobilization coupled with economic inequality destabilizes developing polities, Hibou posits instead that the nature of African states should be given prime explanatory weight in showing why economic stimulus might produce results opposite to those intended.

Drawing extensively on first-hand fieldwork in several African states (namely Cameroon, Liberia, Sierra-Leone) and on a truely impressive array of high-level academic works, this book offers a deeply stimulating analysis of contemporary state-formation processes in Africa. It shows that war itself can become the vehicle of a far-reaching reorganization of political allegiances and life-styles, which at last consolidates the state apparatus by helping it to reach out to new sources of wealth. Army-backed criminal business ventures in border-zones and the use of private militias to help secure ressource-rich territories are seen as a defining feature of contemporary African power-systems. The authors, who all are leading european political scientists already well known in the field of African Studies, aptly show how these current transformations of war and state-sponsored criminality lead to the risk of region-wide violences. The relationship between petty thugs, professional mercenaries and state officials is highly unstable, but also extremely efficient as far as the reaping out of natural resources (such as diamonds) is at stake. The authors also demonstrate that the International Monetary Fund so-called "structural adjustment programs" didn't manage in getting rid of corruption practices, but that, on the contrary, they helped local and overseas financial crooks devise new schemes of underground economic transactions. The whole book is full of gloomy details about state-terror and financial mismanagement practices in Sub-saharian Africa. It is also very well-written and therefore remains accessible to a wide readers' audience. It is a necessary reading for those who are interested both in African politics and in the analysis of Third-World post-colonial states.

The book was okay nothing special, it was very informative but the information could have been delivered in a better format. If you are looking for information on the theory of criminal behavior and don't mind a boring read this book is for you!

Lee Ellis and Anthony Walsh have accomplished what no one else in the field of criminology have done -- they have written an informative and comprehensive text that has global appeal. Most texts in this field are discipline-specific and do not include a thorough review of various other perspectives. In fact, many books that attempt to cover materials that are not in the authors disciplines often include inaccurate, incomplete, or misleading information. This book is not biased in its approach and integrates various behavioral sciences in an attempt to present a broad range of theories, findings, methods and interpretations. As a result, the reader can come to his or her own conclusions which are well informed and critical. In addition, the authors provide a wealth of resources in the form of tables, figures and references from a vast literature for the student or scholar to further investigate various substantive areas that are covered. In sum, the depth with which criminological topics are addressed is impressive, and should prove to be an invaluable resource for all interested in this field.