I really enjoyed the earlier books in this series. But "Bloody Secrets" did not live up to that standard -- the mystery was thin, the writing repetitive and tedious, and at the end a few areas remained unclear or contradictory.

As a 35 year resident of Miami and a Private Investigator, I found Bloody Secrets to be both great fun and very accurate. The author captures the essence of a truly magic city and its inhabitants. It is a excellent entertainment value. I have read the two previous Lupe Solano books and have particularily enjoyed the maturing that Ms. Garcia-Aguilera has demonstrated as a writer. I look forward to reading her latest works.

This is my first time reading 1/a contemporary, first-person P.I. story and 2/a Lupe Solano story.

While I appreciated what the author was trying to convey with the history in Part I, it was basically reportage rather than engaging fiction that makes you want to stay up late and keep reading.

However,once Lupe appears, the story really starts to take shape. It's a fun, quick read, and I was surprised how wrapped up I got in trying to figure out how things would turn out in the end. I recommend it and will read her other stories to see how she has grown as a writer.

I appreciate the minimal use of profanity and sex. I liked the insight into the Cuban community and history and culture.

Perhaps it's standard structure for this genre, but I didn't like the action being stopped in order to spoon-feed the reader a multi-paragraph biography each time a new character appeared.

Britt Montero, a seasoned 30-something crime reporter, works the seamy side of Miami for a major daily. If only half her tales are true of criminals and street people targeting tourists, I wouldn't want to go there, even for a day on the beach. According to Britt and her friends, the producers of the TV series Miami Vice (not actually named) spent millions upgrading dilapidated neighborhoods to make their level of degradation believable for TV audiences. In this stew of crime, heat, poverty, and traffic congestion, Britt uncovers evidence of racially-based police brutality. Pursuing such a story not only would sour her crucial relationship with the police, it potentially could divide the city. It's a trendy story, briskly written to pull the reader along. I couldn't say, however, that it stands out from the crowd of books featuring feisty single women, whose lives are full of people under 40. I listened to the recorded book, ably read by Donada Peters.

Edna does a fantastic job with the details and actions in this book. The main character is portrayed as a strong individual. This is refreshing because too often female characters always need a man to make them, or they are airheads, etc. Edna created a great storyline which will have you sitting on the edge of your seat until the end.

Edna Buchanan is an insightful and intelligent writer. The strength of her Britt character and the other women was nice to read. I get tired of the hapless naives that are usually swooning for attention and support in other novels. It's good to see a woman with confidence, intellect, and scruples measure up to the job at hand.

In "If They Don't Win It's A Shame: The Year the Marlins Bought the World Series," Dave Rosenbaum provides us with the proverbial view of the 'fly on the wall.' The 1997 Florida Marlins, winners of the World Series, are the protype of the 'buy now-win now' baseball teams for the next century. Rosenbaum had the distinct good fortune of following a play-off contender for a year, and made the most of it.

The cast of characters are as motley as any you might find in a baseball clubhouse. Rosebaum, in the tradition of John Feinstein's, "Play Ball: The Life and Troubled Times of Major League Baseball," points outs the dichotomy between the game boys play and the business men participate in. Although the World Series ring is the prize, money is the focus. Which player can command what salary, and for how long.

Rosenbaum treats us to the behind-the-scenes look at the Marlins, for better or worse...as players and as men. Though, we see Marlin manager Jim Leyland as the benevolent baseball man, Rosenbaum portrays him as a kind of manic-depressant personality. Trying to reconcile the personas may prove challenging, but perhaps we know as fans of baseball, that winning the big games requires many emotions from the manager.

Following teams around and writing about the experiences is nothing new to baseball bibliography, but Rosenbaum provides an enlightening look at a team destined to win, and destined to be torn apart at the baseball seams.

Very entertaining sports book. I did not realize what jerks the Marlin players were. It is a great behind the scenes look at the 1997 when the Marlins essentially bought the World Series. Now that the team has been virtually dismantled it is interesting to read about the team that was...

This is a book that will be hard to put down. Dave Rosenbaum did an out-standing job when he wrote this book. The year he spent with the Marlins reveals the problems they went through. I recommend this book to any baseball fan. I know that I will re-read this book again, and add it to my collection.

Miami Beach bookie Harry Arno is used to playing the odds, skimming money from gangster Jimmy "Cap" Capotorto, and socking away a cool million in a Swiss bank account. The game turns sour, however, when the FBI tips off the mob about Arno's skimming in an attempt to scare and 'flip' Harry into becoming a federal witness against Cap. After Cap orders the hit, Harry shoots one of Cap's trigger men and flees to Italy, where he dreams of living an idyllic existence with his girlfriend Joyce in a villa by the sea. Following Harry to Italy is mob enforcer Tommy Bucks and U.S. Marshall Raylan Givens.

Elmore Leonard is the best-selling author of more than three dozen novels. His work is often pipelined straight to Hollywood, where his novels have been adapted for several blockbuster films such as Get Shorty, Out of Sight, and Jackie Brown (Rum Punch).

'Pronto' is a strange pot-boiler, the plot driven by three characters: Harry, Tommy, and Raylan. Harry is constantly reminiscing about World War II; Tommy carries a picture of the old crime boss Frank Costello in his wallet; Raylan is a cowboy. All three men are anachronisms, stuck in a world without honor, while pining for a nobler past.

Unfortunately, 'Pronto' is primarily the story of Harry Arno, one of the most unlikable protagonists in contemporary fiction. Harry is a self-centered jerk and liar, so lacking in human grace that he seems almost autistic, unable to relate to anyone. Note the following line, after the fortyish, childless Joyce admits to Harry a yearning to be a mother:

"You're not the mommy type, kiddo."

After Joyce's hotel room is trashed by Mafia killers, she mentions Raylan's kindness after he brings her luggage to the villa. Harry replies:

"He's used to picking up suitcases, doing the heavy work. It's the kind of law enforcement he's in."

There's an emotional deadness in Harry that makes the flesh crawl. Leonard has purposely cast Harry this way, perhaps as a literary stunt, yet it ultimately cripples what could have been an excellent thriller. When a reader becomes alienated from the novel's main character, any emotional investment in the story is lost. Readers will also wonder why Raylan and Joyce care so much about Harry, who treats both with condescending disdain. After one hundred pages into 'Pronto', most will be rooting for Tommy Bucks, vainly hoping that he will blow Harry's head off.

Nevertheless, Leonard has an uncanny gift for staging dramatic action sequences that keeps the reader turning pages until the final bloody climax. When depicting the dark side of human nature, Leonard is masterful; yet he flounders when depicting noble men and women. Raylan is the sheriff in this spaghetti western, and Joyce is the long-suffering hooker with the heart of gold. Yet neither seems as real as Tommy Bucks, the most compelling character in 'Pronto', whose motive and ambition is clear and focused.

'Pronto' is a clever and entertaining novel, yet one senses that a piece is missing, a center to hold everything together. That missing piece is Harry Arno, who is as lifeless and vapid at the end of this novel as he was at the beginning.

Harry Arno, a bookie in Miami, quietly lives the good life with a sometime girlfriend, Joyce Patton. He's skimmed money from the top of his operation without the knowledge of his boss, Jimmy "Cap" Capotorto, for years and has managed to salt away nearly a cool million toward his retirement. If everything had gone the way Harry had wanted, he would have retired and moved to Rapallo, Italy, where he once saw and briefly talked to the poet, Ezra Pound. Harry was in the army at the time, and Pound was incarcerated. That was also the first time Harry killed a man. Things go sour for Harry when the Justice Department sets him up by having a snitch tell Jimmy Cap that Harry has been skimming. Everybody knows bookies skim, but nobody's supposed to be able to prove it. The Justice Department figures that Jimmy Cap will try to have Harry killed, which will force Harry to ask for witness protection and turn evidence against Jimmy Cap. Harry remains optimistic about working things out-until he has to kill a gunman sent by Jimmy Cap. United States Marshal Raylan Givens is sent to protect Harry and try to get him to come in. Raylan has a past with Harry: six years ago Raylan was escorting Harry to a court date in Chicago when Harry gave him the slip in the Atlanta airport. Raylan is an old West kind of marshal, the kind who always gets his man, so bringing Harry in this time is kind of a point of honor thing and an attempt to clean his blemished record. So when Harry gives Raylan the slip again and disappears off to Rapallo, Italy, the marshal feels compelled to go after him-even if it means stepping into the line of fire of Tommy Bitonti, Jimmy Cap's main enforcer. Tommy Bitonti-also called Tommy Bucks and the Zip-has his own axe to grind. If Harry ends up dead, the Zip gets to take over the bookie operation, which is going to mean a lot more money. Harry's on the run in Italy, and Raylan and the Zip are on a collision course.

Elmore Leonard is America's premiere crime novelist. With dozens of novels written and more movie and television deals coming every day, Leonard has become a household name. Quentin Tarantino acknowledged Leonard's influence when the young director scripted and directed PULP FICTION, and made Leonard's novel RUM PUNCH into the movie, JACKY BROWN. Early in his long career, Leonard wrote pulp western stories, then moved into the paperback market after the pulps died in the 1950s. His early western novels and pulp novellas, HOMBRE, 3:10 TO YUMA, THE LAW AT RANDADO, LAST STAND AT SABRE RIVER, and VALDEZ IS COMING were all made into movies. He wrote original western scripts for JOE KIDD, HIGH NOON PART II, and DESPERADO. Several of his crime novels, including STICK, 52 PICKUP, GLITZ, CAT CHASER, SPLIT IMAGES, GET SHORTY, PRONTO, GOLD COAST, RUM PUNCH, and OUT OF SIGHT, were made into movies. MAXIMUM BOB was made into a television series. He began his journalism career as a crime reporter in Detroit, where he worked the graveyard shift and got to know both the police officers and the criminals in the city. When his writing career took off, he started writing novels and screenplays full-time, eventually moving down to Florida where he currently lives and works.

PRONTO is a greatly simple and simply great novel. Leonard introduces his three main characters and gets them moving against each other. In the beginning, there are no clear rules or definitions between them. Harry, Raylan, and the Zip will use anyone or anything to achieve the ends each desires. Of them all, Raylan seems to be the more altruistic, but even he is not without his flaws. Joyce Patton, Harry's girlfriend, is well-drawn and carries her own depth even though she is primarily there to move the plot and action along, as well as to bring out different facets of Harry and Raylan. No Elmore Leonard novel would be complete without the cast of extras that make up the team that brings his world to life. Even these extras take on real dimensions, and the reader knows those people well, knows what they will and won't do. The dialogue is amazing, a blend of realistic street and egocentric comments and declarations that bring the characters, the scenes, and the plot to rich, crisp life. Harry, at best, is a gruff, barely likeable guy, but he rings true. Readers have known guys like him, and the fascination of what's going to happen next to a guy like Harry keeps the reader turning pages. Raylan Givens, carrying the hero's task of being the cavalry and straight-shooter, stumbles and falls a little by not stepping fully into the role, but his no-nonsense rawhide cowboy manners are a tip of the hat to the American West that spawned such men. The Zip, although he is the bad guy, carries a lot of the humor by heckling Nicky Testa, Jimmy Cap's right-hand guy, and comes across as a real person because he's only reaching for what he desires that can be his.

The pacing seemed a little off at times in this novel when compared to past Leonard books. Jimmy Cap never quite came across as the awe-inspiring menace he perhaps should have been. And the ending came a little too quickly. Also, seeing more of what happened to Raylan after the final confrontation would have been welcome.

Fans of James Lee Burke, Robert B. Parker, Robert Crais, Donald Westlake, and Carl Hiaasen will find a new treasure in Elmore Leonard if they haven't already discovered this author.

Spaghetti with a twist Just he kind of Leonard novel that reminds us why he's earnt a reputation for being the best crime fiction writer in the business. Pronto is a beautifully crafted modern day western which pits the laconic US Marshall Raylan Givens into a to the death struggle with imported Italian Mafiosi hitman 'The Zip'. The story focuses on Raylan's efforts to stop 'The Zip' taking fatal revenge on veteran Miami sports bookmaker Harry Arno. Harry has quietly been on the skim from 300lb Godfather, Jimmy 'The Cap' Capotorto to the tune of $1000 a week for the last 20 years. Made wise to Harry's scamming by the Feds, Jimmy sends Harry a message in the form of low-life hit man Earl Crowe. Harry gets his gun off first and despite the efforts of the Feds to get him to trade what he knows, doesn't wait around for another visit from the murderous 'Zip' . Harry skips his bond and the baby sitting Marshall Givens and makes a nostalgic dash for Rapallo, Italy. Holed up in a picarequse Italian resort Harry is soon pursued by his ex-stripper girlfriend Joyce, 'The Zip', gangster sidekick Nicky Testa and Givens looking to redeem himself for letting Harry skip, knowing that if he doesn't do something, Harry's ass is grass. 'The Zip' who struts his macho stuff back in his homeland and endlessly humiliates Stronzo Nicky demonstrates his penchant for violence with a cold bloodied murder. The inevitable show down back in Miami between Givens and 'The Zip' reeks of spaghetti western; ' you've got 24 hours to leave the County, or I will come after you with a gun'. Givens - the cowboy in the city - charms us with his laconic humour, gritty moral sentiments and his steely sense of justice. Pronto is an exhibition of superb narrative delivery, crackling dialogue; believable characters and curious inside information about the criminal world. The inevitability of the endgame matters little, as Leornard weaves another masterly crooked tale. Don't miss it. Copyright©1997POR

If a reader wants to know a few "syllables" of Spanish it's fine.
Otherwise, a tree was wasted!

Coffey tried to write a pretty good novel here; he almost succeeded. The narrator, Garrett, is a nasty s.o.b. who thinks he's better than all the hard-working people around him who remain faithful to their spouses. The accusations of CIA involvement in coke-peddling are old, tired and hackneyed. Coffey hasn't spent much time in Florida, and except for one flying cockroach and some stereotyped Cubans, the story might have been set in Alaska. Next?

I respectfully disagree with another's review of Mr. Coffey's Miami Twilight which appears here. If indeed a tree was wasted, it was a well wasted tree. I say this for two reasons. For anyone who has spent some time in and around the Miami area, as I have, Mr. Coffey does an admirable job of conveying the sights, sound and pulse of this truly international, intriguing region. I enjoyed his transporting me back for a visit. More importantly though was the result of seeing Mr. Coffey's tale through the first person point of view of his lead character. I don't believe in writing a review of a book and end up giving away the entire storyline in the process. Suffice it to say that this suspenseful, mysterious thriller does reach a conclusion, BUT it's a conclusion through the eyes, mind and heart of the first person main character with all his emotional biases coming into play. It's days later now since I've finished this book, but I'm still wondering whether the character reached the right conclusion or whether instead it was the only one his mind and heart could accept. When you think about it, that's a marvelous ending for a book. Read it and see what your conclusion is. God knows there are choices.

I liked PULSE, but I didn't love it. The novel moved at a quick enough pace, and the plot was both original and engaging. Frank Douglas is a main character who intrigues the reader with his various emotions - paranoia, suspicion, lust, anger, concern, and more. The more minor characters in PULSE, however, are a different story.

Frank's wife, Kathleen (who Buchanan intends to portray as the suffering wife), is in reality manipulative, annoying, and whiny. Rory, Frank's heart donor's widow, comes off as being nothing more than a fliratious, helpless ditz who is constantly is need of a male provider. Even Detective Lucca, who shows so much promise in the beginning of PULSE, is nothing more than a shallow character who has a minute role in the story itself. He seems more a character of convenience than anything else.

Don't get me wrong - PULSE was a compelling, satisfying read. But there is much to be desired, and Buchanan definitely leaves room for improvement.

Slow starting and kind of depressing. However, as the plot unfolds, Buchanan traps you into not wanting to put it down. Although a little bizarre and unbelievable, the reader does manage to get caught up in the plot and this well written novel adds stars as it progresses.

Miami CPA Frank Douglas is the classic yuppie, always trying to make a buck at the opportunity cost of spending no time with his family. However, Frank's business world crashes when he becomes desperately in need of a heart transplant. He is fortunate that a donor is found and he vows to change his lifestyle by spending quality time with his wife and children with this second chance.

When Frank learns that his donor was a suicide victim, he decides to help the surviving family members (wife and son) by insuring their financial well-being. However, the widow Rory tells Frank that her husband did not kill himself. Frank does some preliminary investigation and realizes that some strange occurrences, including a missing fortune, do not add up to suicide. Frank and Rory begin to look deeply into the death of her spouse.

Edna Buchannan is a highly regarded mystery writer due to her brilliant Montero who-done-its. However, PULSE may be her best novel to date. Besides an intriguing amateur sleuth story, Ms. Buchannan digs deep into the heart (no pun intended) of what makes a person tick. A frustrated and obsessive Frank, in spite of his efforts to radically change, remains the same work till you drop individual, though he toils in a different and more dangerous arena. It is Frank's inner war that makes PULSE beat at a level of excellence that few amateur sleuth tales obtain.

Harriet Klausner

This book is a true curio of the times, of interest mostly to historians of the period. Mailer fails to describe the details of what went on at the conventions, although he does give the reader 'a feel' for events, and some of the snapshots he provides are good, especially those of the violence and terror of Chicago. In the end, the reader will be disappointed, both because of the failure to completely describe what is happening and because of the writer's verbose style and intrusive narrative devices. The writing style definitely is distracting and confusing, Mailers tendency to use bizarre metaphors and long wordy descriptions provides confusion rather than clarity. Recommended only as a companion piece to books like 'The Making Of The President 1968'by White and McGinnnis' 'Selling Of The President 1968'.

There's something really disconcerting about reading the nonfiction of Tom Wolfe and John McPhee wherein they describe events at which they are clearly in attendance but write in the third person. Someone must be overhearing the conversation that Wolfe so brilliantly reproduces and when folks describe their jobs in a McPhee essay, one assumes they are describing them to McPhee. Their absence from the text then becomes more intrusive than their presence would be, but, what the hey, they're two of the best writers of non-fiction ever to come down the pike, so we cut them some slack. Infinitely more annoying is the way that every hack writer on Earth who is assigned to write a profile of someone for a magazine, begins the piece by describing his own first meeting with the subject of the story, as if we freakin' care that the author ordered the shitaki on melba toast and Demi was ten minutes late for the interview. But topping them all for the most aggravating technique ever created is Norman Mailer who decided to include himself in his nonfiction but to write about himself in the third person, as "the reporter." This is not only a distraction when you are reading, it also just smacks of egotism run amok. Of course, this is Norman Mailer, the biggest publicity whore this side of Madonna, so that's exactly what it is, the attention grabbing stunt of a completely self-absorbed horse's rump.

That said, he does make for an irreverent, even ribald, chronicler of the 1968 conventions. His celebrity opened doors for him and gave him access to the placid doings of the GOP conclave in Miami and to the Democratic melee in Chicago. He uses his own distinctive patois of street tough language, acerbic commentary and apocalyptic hyperbole to recreate the mood, if not the actual events of the two conventions. But his analysis of events is completely laughable, teetering between the merely absurd and the genuinely deluded. Naturally, he revels in both the counter culture demonstrations in Chicago and in the somewhat heavy-handed response of Mayor Daley's police and the National Guard. Like Charlie Manson believing that Helter Skelter would bring about the revolution, Mailer thought that this kind of confrontation and the reaction it provoked revealed something about the strength of the youth movement on the one hand and weakness of American institutions on the other. In fact, these were pretty much the death throes of '60s radicalism. Just a few months later the American people would go to the polls and elect Richard Nixon, largely on the understanding that he would restore law and order to American society. And though his margin of victory was quite thin, it must be recalled that George Wallace received 13.5% of the vote; and I think it's safe to say that his voters disagreed with the kids who tried shutting down Chicago. Even as Mailer was predicting a new and glorious phase in some kind of class struggle, the electorate, the "silent majority" of Nixon's acceptance speech, was preparing to repudiate the radical movement by a truly staggering margin.

Interestingly, Mailer accidentally offers intimations of what was going on in the rest of the country when he is too revealing about what was going on within himself. The two most honest moments in the book are when he expresses how sick he is of listening to the demands of Black leaders:

[T]he reporter became aware after a while of a curious emotion in himself, for he had not ever felt it consciously before--it was a simple emotion and very unpleasant to him--he was getting tired of Negroes and their rights. It was a miserable recognition, and on many a count, for if even he felt this way, then what immeasurable tides of rage must be loose in America itself?

Note both the utter condescension to the unwashed masses and the visceral sense that things had gone far enough. Add in the fact that most Americans were also sick of listening to limousine liberals like Norman Mailer tell them what to do, when they knew perfectly well that he felt like this in his heart of hearts, and the rage is only compounded. Mailer's slip peeks out again during the violence in Chicago when he acknowledges an illicit thrill at watching the police hammer protesters into submission. These instances offer him a chance to understand what is truly going on in the country, but his knees jerk and he goes right back to singing a Dionysian song of praise to the scum in the streets.

A journalist who gets so involved in a story that he misjudges it by as much as Mailer did is hardly worthy of the title. Instead, the author was a partisan observer whose analytical skills appear to be nonexistent and whose judgment appears to have been clouded by emotion, but whose hands on approach to the story makes for a whiff of the atmospherics of the time and some mildly interesting moments.

GRADE: C

What is striking about 1968 in that political sense is that Daley of Chicago, a Democrat, is the recipient of more wrath from liberal writers than Richard Nixon. You remember him: The guy who went on to win it all that year, expanded the war, and broke a myriad of laws in the scandals that come under one word, Watergate. Mailer, who writes with the talented journalist's eye, beats up on Daley more than Nixon. I guess you couldn't do anything about Nixon. It's like going to a football game and heckling the head coach of your favorite team: The guy who is giving the game away.

KEVIN FARRELL

I have read and enjoyed the previous books in this series, and this one is a big disappointment. Although Lupe remains an appealing character, the plotting is sloppy and there are too many unresolved questions.

The book was interesting from beginning to end, it was a real good mystery to solve and at the same time make you laugh while been intrigued on what will happen next in the case of the Miracle. I loved how Cuba, politics, religion and US came together in this one book since the story is not just well written but also well developed. I advise everyone to read it and if you are confuse at the end, go back and read the prologue, it might shed some light of why it ended that way.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book for its mystery and background. I am an Anglo, Catholic originally from Tampa. I'm old enough to have had childhood playmates whom we then called Cuban refugees, so it's interesting to see that some turned into Cuban-American princesses, like protagonist Lupe. (Not surprising, I guess, because most of the pre-Marielitos (spelling?), were professionals and business people, even if they came to the U.S. with nothing and had to start over.) However, none of this background is necessary for a reader to like Garcia-Aguilera's books. As a matter of fact, G-A explains it all in an engrossing way.

Regarding an earlier reviewer's criticism that Lupe never goes on her retreat ... Lupe does mention (on page 204) that the case may not necessitate her actual attendance.

I thought using triplets was contrived. It could just have easily been twin sisters and an older or younger brother. My own picayune comment is over use (twice on page 229) of the word "monogram" instead of "monograph" for the learned paper/booklet written by character Sister Mary about the Cuban Virgin. This was probably the publisher's error. Overall, a wonderful series of mysteries. I look forward to the next.

I have enjoyed previous Barbara Parker books as well her characters Gail and Anthony. I am also a major fan of the great collection of Florida mystery writers. This book misses for me for the same reasons other Sunshine State writers have. When they get into the Cuban exile politics my interest wanders. If I want political intrigue, I'll read a political intrigue novel. But, when I pick up a mystery novel by a familiar writer I have no patience for the exile story. Miami has more than enough murder, mystery and crime to draw upon (log on the Miami Herald)and keep readers turning pages without politicizing the Cuban migration. On the plus side, Ms.Parker draws wonderfully clear characters and paints outstanding word pictures of Dade County. When she keeps it to the courtroom procedure and amateur sleuthing I find her books far more compelling.

Another wonderful story by Barbara Parker. Extremely good writing and difficult to put down! Although the author's newer book, Suspicion of Betrayal was a bit better and more varied with more emotion between Anthony and Gail, this book truly deserves a thumbs up! Keep up the great story line Barbara!

Just when I thought Barbara Parker couldn't get any better, she writes this book! ALthough I loved Suspicion of Innocence and Suspicion of Guilt, this book has kept me hooked since page one! I read this book in three days (and yes, I do work and have a life!) I just looked forward to sitting down at night to read this book! It focuses more on the relationship of Anthony and Gail, but that's what makes it so good! Not too much romance and there's a good mix of mystery and suspense as well. Parker gets better every time! It is a fantastic read! Treat yourself and buy this book!

I bought this book for a light read, and was surprised by how well the author has developed the heroine's character. She gets you into a really twisted mind. I caught myself a couple of times nodding along with the woman's thoughts, then coming quickly to the realization that these thoughts were only normal to this perversely sweet woman/girl. I liked the book very much.

I read Miami Purity when it first came out and have been waiting patiently for Hendricks' next book. I'm waiting for Iguana Love to arrive in my mailbox now.

Writers tell us lies about life because publishers pay them to do so. If you run a search on my name here, you'll see why I think that. Every once in a while, quite possibly by mistake, the filter fails and somebody honest slips through. We've got Vicki Hendricks among us now, and I hope she lasts a good long while and writes many more books like this one.

This is a book that lets you see into a woman's head the way some rare male writers occasionally let you see into the heads of men, without wallpapering the set with fairy tales. The woman in the story will scare you, and she should.

Ms. Hendricks, if you read this: Well done!

While you might find fault with this zippy and startling book, you cannot afford to miss it if you're the least bit interested in this genre. Tough guys doing the same thing become famous and beloved characters, but it seems this sexy, ballsy female heroine upsets people. Why? Read it and see. No one writes tough-girl dialogue as well as Hendricks. Perversion? Sure...the main character certainly is--she uses people...she uses men as sex objects. I found her unforgettable and the writing equal to any author in this genre. The fact that she repulses so many readers only shows how powerful and unnnerving this anti-heroine is....