Because of the numerous unaccounted for recent graves at the nearby prison, Father Donovan, Sister Evangeline and Novitiate Hannah Benning go there to learn what is going on. Quinn uses Hannah to escape his detention, but quickly realizes that the nun is no shrinking violet. Instead she is a brave daughter of a con artist. As Hannah saves Quinn's life, they fall in love. However, she relishes the serenity of the convent not a life on the lam while he has demons ripping at his heart. Anything permanent between this couple seems quite unlikely unless a miracle occurs.

At first glance, HANNAH'S VOW uses the trite theme of a "hardened" criminal kidnapping and falling in love with and receiving the love of a novitiate. Even Elvis used that gimmick in one of his movies. What makes Pam Crooks' tale fresh is the capable heroine rescues her abductor several times. Hannah makes the story line work with her strength and independence. Though Quinn over indulges in the angst moaning, fans will still see him as a perfect mate for Hannah who owns this
action-packed western romance.

Harriet Klausner

O'Connor puts the plays and the life of Shakespeare in the context of their time, and Shakespeare emerges as an astute, talented, subtle, and versatile man in a vibrant and turbulent time. We see Shakespeare as a contemporary Elizabethan who had his finger on the pulse of society but who was smart enough to keep his fingers out of the pie. O'Connor shows how Shakespeare also used theater as an outlet to express personal struggles and discord. O'Connor's use of excerpts from the plays and sonnets illustrates this excellently.

One of the drawbacks of the book is that O'Connor's tone is of an insider not only of the theatrical world but also of Shakespeare's world. I got the sense that I am supposed to understand all of the obscure references and the oblique tongue-in-cheek quips. On a few occasions in the book when I got the reference, I could not tell if O'Connor was making a mistake or making a joke. He refers to a novelized interpretation of Shakespeare's love life by Anthony Burgess as "Brighter than the Sun," but the actual title is "Nothing Like the Sun." It was difficult to tell if O'Connor was in error or if he was poking fun at the brilliant, stylized, and occasionally pedantic writing of Burgess. O'Connor also suggests that in "King Lear," it was not Lear who confused his Fool with Cordelia at the end of the play ("And my poor fool is hanged"), but rather that the tired playwright mixed-up the two characters because they were played by the same actor.

Another drawback is the general style of writing. O'Connor's sentences are often very long and complex. I found myself rereading sentences more than twice in order to get his point. This drawback is minor and has much to do with the British style of punctuation, but it is also obvious.

O'Connor presents assumptions about Shakespeare's family relationships that I can accept, in particular the relationships with his mother, father, wife, and son. These assumptions are based on the scant historical records, commentary by writers and actors, and excerpts from the plays and sonnets. O'Connor also writes that despite the opinion that Shakespeare did not reveal his personal beliefs in his plays, we really can know Shakespeare through his writings. There are speeches and characters that exactly fit their places in the plays, and yet somehow they also transcend the context of the play and speak to us. Through these passages we know the personal musings of Shakespeare. Perhaps that is the most important thing of all, and that is a notion that definitely can be taken from O'Connor's book.

There have been a number of theories advanced as to why Allen fled Houston, but since neither one revealed the reason and the historical record is slim, the event will be forever shrouded in mystery. Crook's novel suggests a very plausible theory, and grows out of an academic research article Crook published in the Southwestern Historical Quarterly, reprinted in its entirety as an appendix to the novel. To Crook, the reason was not a simple one, and it cannot be fully appreciated without reading her book. To anyone interested in the mystery of their relationship, or in the character of Sam Houston, this is a very good read.

It is also the first book that has explained how to structure a play and juggle the writing of characters with sorting out a plot. I know there are other things around but this book explains it. Suddenly it all clicked.

There is a long section on improvisation in live radio and it kind of bravely suggests that hoaxers on the radio are live dramatists.

I found this book really good value because it does not insult the intelligence of the reader and also it is not full of that academic stuffy kind of writing which sends me to sleep.

Fully recommend it.

The text also modernises all the existing approaches to radio drama. The section on the role of improvised/live radio drama in phone-in programmes and hoaxes is brilliant and original. He also takes a well known BBC radio play 'Spoonface Steinberg' by Lee Hall which I happened to think was one of the best things I have heard in recent years. (It's also available on cassette via Amazon.com) In his writing Crook explains why artistically and from a producer/listener's point of view it was so good and merits attention. But then he subjects it to Cultural Studies analysis and raises the kind of questions which are going to enhance radio drama as an important cultural form of storytelling. This is really critical and thought-provoking.

You will not be disappointed reading this book if you are in to storytelling, radio, radio drama, writing etc.

I checked out the comments by reviewer 'Gwen- Yale University'. But none of the quotes she has in her review appear anywhere in the book.

They are taken from an on-line essay by Crook 'International Radio Drama.' Everybody's entitled to their point of view but I think it is good that mainstream scholars are now recognising African-American radio dramatists such as Richard Durham and centrally rooting their position.

In Radio Drama-Theory and Practice Crook adopts a McLuhanesque line on how audio drama has a future on the Internet and persists as a story-telling presence in commercial production on most radio formats.

There is also a very helpful bibliography which can take you to radio drama texts you may never knew existed.

I would also recommend a book on Radio Acting by Alan Beck which was published 3 years ago. In the past 'British Radio Drama' by Drakakis (Cambridge University Press 1981) is magnificent. Let's hope there are more good books on radio drama coming out.

So my conclusion is read or buy this book and you will not be disappointed.

The novel starts with FBI agent Joe Lucas getting a new assignment from J. Edgar Hoover. The assignment is to go to Cuba and watch Ernest Hemingway and his thrown together group of counter-espionage "The Crook Factory". Lucas joins the group as an intelligence liaison for Hemingway and finds "The Crook Factory" is nothing but a bunch of local friends and athletes that Hemingway knows. Hemingway believes that there are German U-boats in the Caribbean and wants to destroy one of them. After some searching the factory starts receiving transmissions that indeed there are U-boats and their use is to land German spies. "The Crook Factory" and the Germans play little war games until slowly Simmons let you see all the underhand deals and double agent trickery that is truly being played out.

I really enjoyed this little jaunt into World War II espionage and the little peek into the life of Hemingway. Simmons paints a picture of Hemingway that is truly believable and convincing. By no means does he glorify the writer or embellish on his not so nice parts, which is the flaw of most historical fiction writers. The novel is a bit lengthy and the chapters that cover FBI files and history of all the characters may not be for everyone, however I find this only a minor flaw. A true gem for those who enjoy novels set in World War II.

Dr. Crook gives hundreds of references and case studies that can assist the patient when talking with their own physician. This was especially helpful for me and my husband when dealing with an HMO doctor that had little knowledge of the subject or its treatment.

This is a valuable book for ANYONE (man, woman and child) that has had various ailments or recurring infections and wants to get healthy!

Here's to understanding "the yeast connection" and a better life!

Thank you, Dr. Crook!!!!

Cheri'

As a mystery this book is a little slow. The first body doesn't show up for quite some time, and then it's the one guest we've forgotten about. Still, there is plenty of conflict to keep the reader going and I never felt the pace lagged. The guests are interesting characters, however the characters that are to be regulars seem like they could become annoying caricatures. Still, this is a fun, promising first novel and I plan to read more books by this author.

I've had a hard time liking Dick Morris in the past, partly because he was a pal of Clinton and one of his most trusted advisors, and I view Clinton with utter contempt. How any honest man could talk himself into working with Clinton, I cannot understand. Now he is a commentator on the Fox network, which is the least partisan of all the networks.

In this book, however, Morris makes some specific points about the elite media--pointing out for example that the New York Times has been acting as a propaganda arm of the Democrat party, often to the detriment of the country in general, with superb documentation, and naming many Hollywood leftists:

"These icons of stage and screen,song and dance, are no longer content with making us tap our feet. They want us to change our minds. But they bring to their advocacy their old habits--they follow scripts. They are not intellectuals. They are actors, actresses, singers, and stars who are impersonating deep thinkers. The same skills they use to persuade us that their stage characters are really in love, or really locked in mortal combat, they now employ to try to convince us our country is going in the wrong direction. Their skills are formidable. But let's not forget the reality: These are human parrots, mouthing lines fed to them by the fashionable, social, trendy elite. Their information is as shallow as their conclusions are vacuous."

Lord, how long I've waited to hear someone express that truth out loud!

How could anyone take an airhead like Barbra Streisand or Sean Penn seriously about, say, foreign policy? But some do, simply because they play a good part on the screen which someone else has written, still another directed and yet another choreographed.

Morris takes on the media types that think it is their job to form public opinion, rather than report it, and governors who use the tobacco "settlement" for everything but its intended purpose, which is to discourage smoking (from which, incidentally, government makes more per pack than do the tobacco companies, in taxes) and the crooked corporate CEO's.

I am enjoying this book much more than I thought I would.

Joseph (Joe) Pierre, USN (Ret.)

author of Handguns and Freedom...their care and maintenance
and other books

Always entertaining when on Hannity & Colmes, Morris candidly and expertly delineates, and subsequently roasts, the obstructionists, crooks, and traitors in politics, media, and business in Off With Their Heads. Morris astutely points out the unconscionable media bias of The Old Gray Lady in its liberally-weighted push polling, editorial, and front page articles. As Morris says, "All the news that fits, they print."

Morris spares no one from his wrath: including the Hollywood apologists, France("from great to ingrate"), Clinton, and many more. Having met Morris at a book signing for this book, I am pleased to note he is as personable in person as he is on TV. Off With Their Heads is well worth the effort to read for any true political enthusiast.

After reading this book, you'll understand why the New York Times was literally in-credible long before Jayson Blair. You see how entire strings of polls were weighted in favor of the liberal agenda plus being weighted against the Republican administration. The Times taught Blair how to write fiction, for Pete's sake.

Morris stumbled his way out of the Clinton administration, falling on his face, getting up, and re-earning his reputation as an astute political observer. If you think this book is merely another conservative tirade in the vein of Ann Coulter, forget it. This guy shoots straight.

And when the smoke clears, you're going to be skeptic about anything you hear on the network news and the NYT.

This book is a grad course in how to read between the lines in the press to get at the truth.

Off with their heads, Morris. Off with their heads.

Now. When are you going to write the book that debunks Hillary?