This Higgins book has a female assassin who uses a motorcycle
as her means of helping with her killings. In real life our
master assassin is Grace Browning an actress. She is in the services of a group called September 30. Their goal is to use the assassinations to create chaos and install a Communist state.
Her superior is an old KGB agent who is on Prime Minister John Major's staff. Of course it falls on our hero Sean Dillon to stop this group. He comes through as usual.While this is an

interesting book it is no where close to the caliber of "Eye of
The Storm".

Sean Dillon was once the most feared soldier in the Irish
Republican Army, until one day he had enough of the destruction.
Now he works for the other side, the most successful agent in the
British government's fight against terrorism. But when he is
rescued from an ambush by a member of "January 30," the newest
and most dangerous terrorist organization, he has to wonder who
his friends and enemies really are.

This is the nucleus of Jack Higgins' Angel of Death. And this
novel is as well done as all of Higgins' other works. It has
interesting characters, plenty of action, and well-written
dialog.

Part of the fascination in this particular book is the inside
view we get of "January 30." Instead of the typical politically
motivated fanatics, this group is composed of four persons - a
Russian spy, a member of the British government, a college
professor, and a young actress - united by the excitement of the
hunt. For the spy, the purpose of their activities is a chaos
that will ultimately yield the collapse of the British system,
but the others are much more interested in the action than in the
results.

When the group saves Dillon, therefore, it was not out of any
hidden loyalty to the government. When he becomes involved in the
government's attempt to achieve a stable peace in Northern
Ireland, they know he will have to die. The struggle between the
two is a major part of this novel, and Higgins is quite skilled
in showing us both points of view and yet maintaining suspense.

But there are a number of other plots intertwined. At one point,
for example, Dillon goes to the Middle East to deal with the arms
dealer who had set up the ambush that opens the novel. He is
there for only a few hours when he is recognized and captured by
one of the many factions that are at war there. You know he is
going to escape - it's much too early to kill of your main
character - but I think the way it's done will surprise you.

Higgins also involves the United States in the story. In order to
maintain the cease fire that is in existence in Ireland, the
British Prime Minister requests President Clinton to send Senator
Patrick Keogh (a modern JFK) to mediate between the two factions.
But extremists on both sides are determined to prevent any real
peace, so Dillon is selected to act as his body guard. And now
"January 30" comes back into the picture.

This is a true page turner; I began it one Saturday morning and
finished it before I went to bed that night. I had to know how it
turned out before I could go to sleep!

This is a classic. A superb and unique story that shows the reader just how great a book can be.

The editor, Andrew Ross, describes this book as "an expanded edition" of a special issue of the journal "Social Text". Potential readers should be warned however that it is also an expurgated edition, from which Alan Sokal's celebrated parody of of recent socio-cultural jargon has been suppressed. One understands Professor Ross's chagrin at the cruel and unusual joke that Professor Sokal practised on him. However, the unadvertised deletion of Sokal's contribution is a hoax on the buyers of "Science Wars" who naturally expect to find in it the one item of the original publication that has received worldwide attention.

The subsequent reviewer found the current tome missing in scholarship, merely by not having reprinted Sokal's piece from the social text issue of the same name (science wars). If one cared to read through the book, however, one would notice a number of quite specific reasons for this: among these that the book is meant as a counter argument to Sokal, Levitt & Gross's readings of their fave foe: pomos and other dangerous 'leftists' (what does this mean?). It is no secret that these authors are fired by a profound hostility and unwillingness to engage with the material with which they are dealing. This has already been shown ad nauseam in the litterature (see for instance Callon's review in social studies of science). Nevertheless this book stands as a nice response to some of the worst nonsense that has come out of the sokal/gross tradition. Specifically one should not miss Hart's devastating analysis of Gross et al's 'scientific neutrality' and their analytical abilities in Higher Superstition. Other pieces such as Mike Lynch's are good too; some however, are merely perpetuating the current stand off in a nasty 'war' (among these both of Ross's pieces). So is this review, I presume. That said, I should stop. Read both sides before you judge, you might get to know a good bit about rhetorical wars from the putatively neutral and objective scientists (sokal, gross, koertge etc).

I was dissapointed with the quality of this book. It sits on my shelf only 3 chapters read. There is more loud-writing than persuasive argument in this book and unfortunately it reinforces the stereo-type of the militant hand-waving feminist (note this reader was not impressed with "Whose science" either). Not recommended for philosophers (incidentally, Harding edited and wrote a very good introduction for an excellent philosophical book on the Duhem-Quine Thesis, "Can Theories be Refuted?").

Harding digs up all matter of bizarre "evidence" to support her thesis that science is radically sexist. Unfortunately, none of the arguments she makes have anything remotely close to validity, never mind soundness. This book does a great disservice to people in general and women in specific by enthroning sloppy thinking, calling it "feminine".

In this ground-breaking work that has become a classic, respected philosopher of science Sandra Harding provided the first critical survey of three feminist critiques of science, mapping both their inadequacies and the essential discourse they provide in a quest for science that is informed by moral considerations. She shows how science that holds itself aloof from moral and political considerations, and claims to be objective, rational, and value-neutral, is actually none of the above, but is instead laden with hidden values and interests that select the problems, theories, methods and interpretations of research. Harding shows how the end result of such science is deficient, as it fails to make any sense of women's social experience--that is, it fails in its explanatory power for over half of the world.

This book was hastily churned out at the height of the Tonya/Nancy knee-whacking incident as a quick money maker for the author and publisher. The problem with this book is that it is not a well-rounded biography of Tonya; the emphasis is too much on the knee-whacking incident and shortly thereafter, stopping just before the '94 Winter Games. It is an interesting collectible for Tonya-philes, but does not give a full portrait of the talented, complex, troubled young woman. Hopefully a more comprehensive biography of Ms. Harding will be available in the future.

I have tracked down Richard Harding AKA Robert Tine and he told me that he never wrote this book and that The Outrider "will ride no more". The company promised a 6th book, had financial troubles and the author NEVER wrote it.

PLEASE NOTE: micheal puryear is NOT martin puryear the famous sculptor! lets start with the shipping from the seller. took 3 weeks to receive the book. it was sent in a re-used enveloped. the book is a first graders primer of pictures and i woke up... then i brushed my teeth. as an adult book it is not even worth your time. as a childs book it offers no educational value. rating -20

This book was not what I expected - but never having read anything by Joanna Trollope/Caroline Harvey before, that's probably an unfair criticism. I was expecting a light historical romance, but that's not what this book is. I was expecting Caroline and John to come together, as could be expected from the premise set up in the synopsis, but that's not how things turned out. Think of this book more as "virtue is its own reward" or "a saga of personal growth in the face of adversity" than a romance. There's no fun in this book, and all the characters, with the exception of one supporting character in India, are repellent or uninteresting. Period detail is rather lacking, too.
Perhaps if you know what to expect from this author, you will find more to enjoy here than I did.

THIN ICE is a hastily put together book about the Nancy Kerrigan/Tonya Harding fiasco that occurred in January of 1994. It was only an interesting book for that month because a previously unknown woman - Tonya Harding - was suddenly the center of the world. The demand for information was there, and this biography (along with about two others) filled the void. But the tone, the format, and the poor quality black-and-white pictures, are hardly above the standard tabloid endeavor. Therefore, I would not recommend THIN ICE to anyone other than a collector of Tonya Harding or ice skating memorabilia.