This is the perfect companion piece to the book THE CELEBRATED CASES OF DICK TRACY as well as Warren Beatty's DICK TRACY movie. The book collects the early 1930's exploits of the most famous comic strip detective of them all and one can see the evolution of writer Chester Gould's storytelling style. In his heyday Tracy, like Beatty, seemed lean and boyish (his sharped-cut nose and chinned developed slowly) as he matched fists and bullets with bloated mobsters like "Big Boy." The early stories, themselves, play like matinee melodrama as young Tracy's misadventures with his girlfriend Tess Trueheart and "son" Junior (the comic's first "boy-sidekick")border on being pure soap opera. Still, while the artwork and plotting seems childlike and crude, these 70 year old adventures hold up due to a breathless mix of danger and innocence.

Sallis has written a beautiful concentrated gem of a book, no doubt hard to get by now. Unique and insightful, and really essential for anyone who wants to understand how and why these noir masters were able to create and produce what they did. If you are intrigued by any of them, don't miss it; and if you are as mesmerized by Jim Thompson as I am, you can't live without this jewel. (And don't even think about asking for my 'signed edition'...its staying with the first edition Thompson paperbacks that surround it.)

This short book is a necessary resource for any new board member. I read it on first going on my local Habitat for Humanity board, and have recommended it to every nonprofit board member I know. To a one, they come back and thank me for the recommendation. "Doing Good Better!" covers all of the essential information one needs to perform the nonprofit board member fiduciary responsibilities and obligations. And it does so succinctly and understandably. It is also written with an uplifting and positive tone -- it makes you feel good about what you're doing as a nonprofit supporter. I regularly refer back to this book both for support and encouragement, and to refresh my knowledge of my duties as a board member.

Haunted for the rest of his life by the death and mutilation of his friends; "obsessed with telling what I remember of my fallen comrades" of Company F, Baker undertook, at the age of 86, to memorialize his buddies "before I, too, go West". Luckily for us, his memories are rearkably clear, with the names,hometowns, and fate of his friends faithfully recorded, and his combat narrative particularly vivid and compelling.
A printer by trade, and a careful researcher, Baker would have been chagrined to see his occasional faulty recollection go uncorrected in the process of publication of his work, but the minor flaws don't detract much from this interesting memoir and valuable record.

(The "score" rating is an unfortunately ineradicable feature of the page. This reviewer does not "score" books.)

This anthology consists of a novel (Drum Beat - Dominique) and several short stories all written in the 1960s. All the short stories are well written enhancing the image of Chet Drum as a no nonsense private investigator who cares for his clients.

Drum Beat - Dominique. Government "ghoul" Jack Morley looks like the pits when old friend Chet Drum meets with him in Paris. Jack explains that he no longer is a State Department VIP having fallen from grace following a divorce. He works for the Army Adjutant General determining whether World War II MIAs are dead though two decades have passed. However, his problem is that US Senator Clay Bundy accuses him of blackmail and threatens to have him killed if he fails to back off. Jack wants Chet to inform the senator he is not blackmailing him. Chet tells that to the Senator and persuades him to hire him to learn who is even while someone murders Jack. Great tale that fans of tough intelligent, but concerned sleuths will relish so much they will seek other works by Stephen Marlowe.

This is the reviewer's first taste of Mr. Marlowe (finally reprints besides Dickens in which I was too young to have read the first time around) and can say the author lives up to his surname. Drum sleuths to his own beat; he is a strong private investigator, who hooks the audience in each tale, short or long.

Harriet Klausner

Chester is a funny guy who learns a very important lesson in this wonderfully written and illustrated book. A must to give to your kids!

This book focuses on the domestic political scene in the United States during the period covered. Foreign affairs, and social affairs are discussed in context of how it affected the development of the Federalist party and the Democratic-Republican party. The book is well written and I found it enjoyable to read. It is well organized although there are a couple of times he discusses the same event in two widely separate parts of the book without a clear transition, so it makes it look like he's going off on to a tangent, then back to his original topic. Good academic history.

Seeing ourselves helps us to know ourselves. Seeing people in the context of their world community helps us to know that we are truly one people of the world. Chester Higgins, Jr. has celebrated the African journey and the extended and extensive African family in a way that no other photographer has. Visually this book is treasury. The essays are equally as wonderful. How can African Americans and all descendants of Africa teach our children to honor themselves? We should show them these photographs. All people interested in knowing and sharing the human story would enjoy FEELING THE SPIRIT - SEARCHING THE WORLD FOR PEOPLE OF AFRICA. Every library in every school and university in America should have a copy of this wonderful book.

This book has woderful information from an author who knows what he is talking about. I throughly enjoyed it.

This was one of my favorite books when I was a child. It is a tale of adversity, recovery, cooperation and ultimate triumph. The main character is a boy named Arvi who lives in a village where there are sharp divisions between the farmer and hunter groups. As soon as the grain is collected and stored, the village is attacked and destroyed by a tribe of bandits, who steal all the grain, leaving the villagers scattered and without food for the winter. Under orders from the wise man of the village, Arvi takes a small amount of grain and hides it away so that it can serve as the seed for future crops.
The divisions continue after the destruction of the village, but a small band builds a tiny dwelling on a lake, where the water serves as a protective barrier. Others from their former village see how cooperation leads to greater yields and begin joining the settlement on the lake, which continues to grow as they all work together. In the end, the two village factions unite to utterly defeat their enemies.
Although this is an adventure story set in a primitive society, it is also an excellent social commentary on how divisions in society lead to weakness and how enlightened leadership and cooperation can create more for all. My children will read it and then afterward, we will discuss the timeless messages about the structure of societies.