This is a what if legal thriller that demands you pay attention!

This is the nightmare "what-if" scenario for the radical left. Suppose a liberal Supreme Court justice had a religous experience (or to put it blunter, she becomes a born-again, Bible-reading believer).

Go further and explore the impact her conversion has on her pro-abortion, establishment clause and "living constitution" vs. original intent beliefs.

Add one last goodie. While she is examining her positions, a liberal president (Al Gore, perhaps) nominates her as Chief Justice.

Now you've got the pot boiling.

The pro-abortion lobby has built an entire industry atop a fragile, and increasingly frail legal latticework. Should that ever truly be threatened, then are there any limits to politcal attacks or has the division between left and right gone too far?

I finished this one around 2:00 AM. You might want to start this on a Friday night so you can sleep in on Saturday.

This was the first book that I have read from Mr. Bell. It is a riveting yarn about the power of politics over the duty of the Supreme Court.

What happens when a liberal Justice is made Chief Justice and gives their life to Christ? This is the key question addressed in this book.

Mr. Bell does an awesome job of writing about how the heart can be changed by a saving knowledge of Christ and how this change is often received by others.

I plan on reading other books by this author. If you are looking for a good suspense read, with a realistic glimpse into the politic of the pro-abortion crowd, this will be an excellent read.

I discovered Jim Bell a few years ago when a friend suggested Blind Justice. Having enjoyed that one, I recently bought Deadlock. I found Deadlock to be very enjoyable as its highly possible storyline is quite engaging. There's an interesting twist, too. A good read!

Deadlock also ignited my real-life concerns about upcoming Supreme Court nominees.

God has given Lisa a great gift of writing. Her wisdom and insight into God's love, grace and mercy to hurting humanity is SPECIAL. I have many of her books, which I have enjoyed and will continue to enjoy (because they are keepers) but as a widow, I've been truly blessed by the Northern Lights Series and Until the Shadows Flee. The people in her stories are SO real.....they become your friends. I wait with anticipation for all her new books. Guess you can tell I'm hooked. Thank you Lisa for sharing your gift with us. God bless you and keep you prolific (for my benefit) Vondia Caruso

I really enjoyed this book, and I highly recommend it.

This isn't some happy-go-lucky book that gives you the warm fuzzies. That's what makes it so great. You don't know what's going to happen next, and when it happens you're saying "This can't be happening! She can't do that!" Yet with all the plot, Lisa Bergren still is able to weave in a powerful message about Jesus Christ.

This is a fun book that should help your youngster develop an interest in American History. It is easy to read an has great illustratiions. You will not be disappointed with this purchase. Look for others by the same author.

Guns For General Washington is a great book because of the action and advenerture. Henry Knox, a patroit who goes to Fort Ticonderoga, a fort in New York that has at least 183 cannons, lead for bullets, flint for flintlock muskets. There were also mortars, a type of gun, howitzers, a another type of gun,and a cohorns, another type of gun. They, Henry and his brother and some others who help out, have to go 300 miles to Fort Ticonderoga from Boston and 300 miles back to Boston from Fort Ticonderoga.This takes place in Massachusetts and New York in 1775 and 1776. The conflict is that General Washington is fighting a british general ,General Howe, with no aritillery like cannons and gunpowder.This book has very good action and advenerture

THIS BOOK WAS A VERY DETAILED AND CURIOUS BOOK. IT GAVE YOU ALL OF THE DETAILS NEEDED TO FIGURE OUT HOW THE STORY GOES. USUALLY WHEN I READ A BOOK I STOP IN THE MIDDLE BECAUSE IT IS TOO BOARING, BUT I READ THROUGH TIS ENTIRE BOOK. IT ALWAYS FINDS SOMETHING TO FOCUS ON SO IT DOESN NOT LOOSE YOUR INTREST.IT MAKES YOU REALIZE JUST HOW MANY PEOPLE RISK THEIR LIFES TO MAKE SURE THAT YOU ARE SAFE.

Ignore the CD - if you want it you can buy it anywhere (e.g. REI), or buy proper paper maps!

However the rides are described really well - the profile matches the simple route maps really well and demonstrates just how many NW rides are HILLY.

The step descriptions on the routes are good, and the distances accurate (so far!).

Things to watch out for: 1) Tiger is the closest ride to Seattle in the book, a couple of more 'after workers' would be good. 2) The directions to some of the rides are not too good, although this is mostly due to lack of road numbering etc in Forestry and out of the way areas.

This book is loaded with GPS topo maps, meticulously made maps of each trail, trail profiles, great descriptions, detailed directions, and great graphics. Not to mention all the other information it's packed with, such as other stuff to do in the area where each ride is located. If you can only buy one guide, I think this one is perfect. The CD at the back is an added bonus, which adds no cost to the book, but it's maps aren't necessary b/c there's so many high quality maps packed into the pages of the book.

The Washington edition of the Mountain Bike America series provides valuable technical information within an entertaining writing style. After reading this guidebook, one wants to head out and experience the beauty and challenging terrain of Washington State.

Margaret Truman has entertained us for years with her homicidal tour of Washington landmarks. The current stop at Ford's Theater is no exception. Nadia, a young, sexy, female intern to powerful Senator Lerner is found dead in the alley outside of Ford's Theater, where she sometimes volunteered. The media had previously alleged sexual activity between her and the senator. Clarise, the director of the operating arm of the theater is the senator's ex-wife, currently preparing for confirmation hearings on her appointment to head the National Endowment for the Arts. Their son may be the last person to have seen the intern alive. While there are other suspects, the police narrow in on the son, and Clarise calls on friend Mackensie Smith to help out. Smith, and his wife Annabel, are the usual principles in Truman's Washington tours, but this time we have new characters in the leading roles. D.C. police Rick Klayman, the young white detective and his veteran partner Mo Johnson carry the investigation and much of the story line to its not unexpected but still satisfying conclusion. Along the way we learn quite a bit about Lincoln, the theater, the assasination, Booth, and others. There is even a has-been British Shakespearean actor, and admirer of Booth, who attempts to recreate that worthy's most famous role. All in all, Truman has given us another enjoyable and educational stop on her continuing tour.

In her latest novel, Margaret Truman stages "Murder at Ford's Theatre" with a cast drawn from recent headlines and past novels in her Capital Crime Series. The murder of Senate intern Nadia Zarinski, romantically linked to her boss, outside the historic theatre now run by the senator's ex-wife and Hollywood producer, Clarisse Emerson, who is preparing for her confirmation hearing as the next chairperson of the National Endowment for the Arts sets off a media frenzy all too familar in the nation's capital. The case is so sensational that Truman's favorite Washington couple, George Washington University law professor Mackensie Smith and his wife Annabelle, are compelled to play leading roles once again. Supporting cast members and Lincoln buffs, detectives Klayman and Johnson, representing the Metropolitan Police Department, and Sydney Bancroft, aging British thespian and Ford Theatre artistic director, add colorful moments to this fast paced drama.

It is impossible for me to criticise Truman's work. Her attention to detail especially about local landmarks and legends in Washington, DC provides the reader with a sense of place that locals recognize and visitors remember. I don't doubt that Truman strolled the cafes and galleries of Dupont Circle sipping latte at Kramerbooks & Afterwoods researching the details about historic Ford's Theatre that she got correct right down to the spelling.

Above all, "Murder at Ford's Theatre" is first rate suspense. Whether you live inside the infamous beltway or not, add this book to your list right away.

Nadia Zarinski, intern to Senator Lerner, is found dead in the alley out back of Ford's Theatre in DC. She volunteered time at the Theatre now and then. She was found by Johnny Wales, a stage hand at the theatre. The only eyewitness to her murder is John Partridge. He is an alcoholic and thinks he is a CIA agent. He was sleeping it off in the alley.

Detectives Rick Klayman and Mo Johnson are investigating this death. There are rumors that Nadia and Senator Lerner were involved. The Senator's ex-wife, Clarise, is the head of Ford's Theatre and was unaware that Nadia was volunteering time at the theatre. Clarise is also to be confirmed as the head of the National Endowment of Arts within the week.

The Senator and Clarise's son Jeremiah becomes a suspect in the murder when a previous boyfriend of hers mentions that Jeremiah dated Nadia. That information is confirmed by another source.

Mac Smith is now a professor of law. He is teaching a special class on Lincoln the lawyer. He was a criminal lawyer until a drunk driver hit and killed his first wife and only son. He is remarried to Annabel who was a divorce lawyer and now owns and operates a Columbia art gallery. Mac is asked by Clarise to assist Jeremiah when he is arrested. Mac and his former law partner Yale Becker represent Jeremiah.

Detective Klayman wonders if they haven't been hasty in arresting Jeremiah. He's not convinced that all the other suspects were sufficiently interrogated.

Mac and Annabel are surprised by the Senator's and Clarise's detachment from Jeremiah through this ordeal.

Detective Klayman is very interested in President Lincoln and attends Mac's class. They are careful to not discuss this case, just Lincoln.

I am very happy that Margaret Truman has returned to her Capital Crimes series. I like Mac and Annabel and always enjoy seeing Mac get involved in a murder investigation. They feel like very down-to-earth people to me. Like your neighbor next door.

The Senator in this book was very well written. He was very detached and always too busy to deal with the daily problems.

All of the peripheral characters were well constructed as well. In the end of the book, I found myself flip-flopping from thinking one person did it to another. I wasn't able to easily pick out the killer. A sign of a good mystery!

I highly recommend this book and all the books in this series. The fact that I know the DC/VA area that was discussed always makes it more interesting.

This is a beautiful book with lots of interesting information on the gem collection.

If you have visited the National Collection and want a souvenir to remind you of the stunning array of unique World Class Gems then this is the book for you. Both the format of the book and the superlative quality of the photography make this book the next best thing to being in the exhibition hall. There is a fairly light weight coverage of the gemmology in the text, but it mostly focusses on the history and ownership of these fabulous gems. The National Collection is unique, no where else in the world is there such a concentration of fabulous jewels with such an interesting history, with the possible exception of the British Crown Jewels in the Tower of London. This book is a fitting celebration of such a marvellous collection.

This book is more suited to enjoying the pictures than the text, but both are fine in every way. Almost all the stones in the book have exceptional color - or colors as the case may be. The front cover, going roughly from top to bottom counter clockwise, features a 99.82 carat fluorite, sitting on top of the 858 carat uncut Gachala Emerald (and the original cover looks way better), the lower left features a 34.07 carat red spinel from Mogok, next is a 52.26 carat calcite, and to the right a 17.85 carat diamond crystal from Murfreesboro, Arkansas. The back cover has a spectacular 181.9 carat Cooper Pedy white opal, that I initially mistook for a black opal. This book is published by Harry N Abrams, Inc. of New York, and is well up to this company's superior standards - and that also helps to explain the rather high price. The book is divided into six sections: an introduction, some gems of signficant historical interest, a chapter on diamond, corundum and beryl, a chapter on other important stones, one devoted to stones with special properties (eg opals, cat's eyes and star sapphires) and finally ornamental gems. The appendix is also very useful and informative.

It is very helpful to use this as a reference for benchmark color. There is little or no commentary on evaluation, appraisal or strategic purchasing.

This book is expensive but there are few others like it. Recommended.

Having finished my previous book and waiting for Amazon's free shipping promo to buy more, I picked up this book collecting dust in my book closet. I was pleasantly surprised.

It is smart and funny and so down-to-earth that you have to instantly like Betty as your best friend. Althouhg I am not a big fan of women titles (those seems to dominate the New York Times bestsellers list these days), I laughed out loud on a plane from Washington DC to Houston on a business trip. Who knew that everyday domestic issues can be so light and funny?

Anyway, just try it. You will find it more enjoyable than you want to admit.

Betty's greatest talent was for describing situations that are quite banal, even rather troublesome, in a totally hilarious fashion. The situations are all the funnier for the reader's realisation that, in other hands, they could have been described as a tale of woe - where, in Betty's hands, they are delightful.

Financial crunches, months of futile searching for a residence, the adjustment of Betty and her children to a life with a new husband and stepfather (whose attitudes are quite different from those of a carefree Bard), living on an island where there are too many visitors and far too little accessibility for daily work and school, a beautiful neighbour's having her eyes on one's husband - these could have been the stuff of whining or dreary "self-help" attitudes. Betty is far from sentimental, totally honest, yet approaches all from a highly positive attitude that nearly makes one envious. This book is also a fine reminder to today's concerned parents that having adolescent children was no joy ride, even 60 years ago.

My only criticism of Betty's writing is that, in her descriptions, she did not know when to stop. For example, her description of Vashon Island is engaging for the first two paragraphs, but rather excessive when it runs to several pages.

This is easily one of the funniest, and most honest, books I have ever read - and read I do, again and again, always finding it a refreshing treat.

I'm so glad this book is back in print, because I give a copy to every set of parents I know who have children entering adolescence. Like Betty, they go home "looking years and years younger."

Nick Stefanos returns in the third book of the series. If Nick had a small drinking problem in "Nick's Trip", it's developed nicely into full-blown alcoholism by this book. It was while on a bender one night that Nick passes out in a public park, only to be wakened in the early hours by a man being shot to death and dumped in the water. Due to some strange feeling of guilt or responsibility over the murder, Nick feels he should investigate what went on.

Once again George Pelecanos has produced a typically hard-bitten look at the seedier parts of Washington D.C. and paints the picture of a lonely man who can't seem to quite get his act together. The big development in this book is that Nick picks up a partner, a fellow private investigator who doesn't smoke and doesn't drink. He is probably the perfect foil for Nick's excesses, but he is a bit of an enigma with some closely guarded secrets about his personal life.

Just a word of warning while you are reading this book. Don't get too close to the pages or you'll run the risk of waking up the next morning with a doozy of a hangover, the Old Grand Dad and Bud does get a bit of a workout.

I've now read all of George Pelecanos' novels and I loved them all, including this one. If there's a better crime thriller author out there, I haven't found them. Gritty seems to be the operative word in describing his work and this story is no exception. His stories are all set in Washington D.C., with lots of great word pictures of places there and lots of music references. It's an outstanding formula and Pelecanos works it very, very well.

Having said all the preceding, I will say that I'd rate this as clearly one of his lesser works. If you haven't read the other books with Stefanos et al, I don't believe this book really gives you all the character development you'd like from a stand alone novel. This book is fairly short and maybe that's why I felt that the characters and the story were a little short changed relative to other books by the author.

To sum it up, definitely read Pelecanos and you'll almost surely want to read this book and all his work, but don't select this as the first of his books - go with The Big Blowdown, A Firing Offense or Nick's Trip.

This is the last and most cynical novel in the Nick Stefanos trilogy. Nick has now travelled far down the dark road, and his struggle to get some peace of mind is more then ever tangled up in his love for a drink, some good music, and the warmth of a womans body. It's also in one of his more delerious nights that the story gets started. Nick happens to witness a murder when he's lying half unconscious in a pile of himself and his vomits; which is going to be the start of a dangerous ride that leads right into the drug and porn industry of Washington DC.

Down by the river where the dead men go is an excelent hard-boiled novel in all its ways. But what makes Pelecanos unique toward other writers, in this genre, is all his references to pop music, and film. This he uses in a very subtle way to describe his chracters and where in the subcultures of Washington DC's street life they belong. It is this total awareness of popular culture combined with his perfect feeling for street dialogue that makes Pelecanos not just a great crime writer, but a great writer in all terms of judgements. And it is in this third novel that he best manages to combine his feeling for pop music, and dialogue with a good and intriguing story.

Excellent faced paced mystery/thriller. State Supreme Court judge is married to the President of the US. She is blackmailed by the attorney for a mafia "businessman" on trial in her courtroom for murder of another judge. A real page turner! Highly recommend.

This is a great book, well-written, with a well-developed plot, and compelling characters.
Just two minor bloopers -- the bed in the White House Lincoln Bedroom does not date back to Lincoln's presidency, and it's unlikely that a federal trial judge would rotate courtroom observers every 15 or 30 minutes during a trial. Courtroom attendance is usually first-come, first-served, with space reserved for press (which would probably be on a pool basis).

From the author of "The Acolyte" (aka: Executive Sanction), this well-researched thriller set in Washington D.C. is a great read! Fast-paced, interesting characters with some great plot twists.

Nick Stefanos is a private eye who helps make ends meet by working behind the bar at a place called the Spot. An old buddy from school tracks him down and asks him to find his wife. While working the case we are continually taken back to Nick's youth as he remembers old friends and family. The storyline lurches from chapter to chapter. One minute he's working on the case in search of a missing woman, the next he's running down leads about a murdered friend leaving us to make the necessary mental adjustments.

Nick's a hard-drinking, hard-smoking bloke who's marching to the beat of his own drummer. This is not a light hearted romp, rather, we trudge through the seedier parts of town with a character who tends to fit right in. The method of chasing up leads seems to be an endless series of visits to bars throughout the D.C. area with a necessary shot and a beer at each. You've got to be prepared to accept that Nick Stefanos has many faults and weaknesses and is not your average private investigator. Oh, by the way, even with all his faults, I still found the story quite enjoyable.

Another fine effort by Pelecanos. I had run across Nick in some of the author's other work, but I didn't really appreciate him until I read Nick's Trip. Nick Stefanos is a strong character in his own right - witty, versatile and resourceful. He handles a pretty tough situation in this well crafted story.

Better than any other crime mystery writer I'm familiar with, Pelecanos knows how to develop characters, paint interesting word pictures of what's going on and produce a fine story. If he writes it, I'm reading it and I'd recommend you check him out. This book is as good a place as any to start.

The three Nick Stefanos mysteries (of which this is the second) follow the linear descent of their hero from rebellious career stiff to hard drinking private eye to hopeless alcoholic. Along the way, Nick bares his soul more completely than do most first person narrative P.I.'s. His stories are also among the most darkly violent and gritty that I've come across in the genre. "Nick's Trip" is better than "A Firing Offense," the first Stefanos book, if only because it is more plausible and more focussed. Along the way, Nick reunites with an old friend who has become an obnoxious yuppie and whose wife has disappered. He also manages to lose his girlfriend and become a surrogate father. The whole book has an overwhelming feeling of lonliness to it, like a late night country song. It is definately NOT for readers of light mainstream fiction.

Overall, a must read for fans of authors such as James Crumley and Andrew Vachss and anyone else who likes their P.I. fiction truly hard boiled.