Final Appeal was the first Lisa Scottoline book that I read. I have to agree with some of the other reviewers here. At least half of this book was senseless chatter, and the novel did not seem to flow smoothly. But because the other half of the time, the novel did seem to flow smoothly, I plugged away and finished the book. I didn't like the first-person, present-tense type of writing found in this book, but this has not been encountered in any of Lisa's other books that I've read so far.

Since I had bought five other Scottoline paperbacks recently, I decided to keep reading. And I'm glad I did! I have really enjoyed reading her other books so far. They are 'unputdownable-type' of books, and I'll continue to buy her books. The stories flow smoothly in Legal Tender, Moment Of Truth, Mistaken Identity, and Running From The Law, without the needless chatter found in Final Appeal. I'll be starting The Vendatta Defense today and expect that I'll not want to put it down until I finish it later today.

I still need to buy Everywhere That Mary Went, Rough Justice, and Courting Trouble. I've read all of John Grisham's books and have to say that Lisa Scottoline is now one of my favorite top-five authors, along with John Grisham.

I've read three other Scottoline books and liked all better than this. Of course, this was written when she was a fledgling novelist, so she's learned much from good editors over the years. In this book, she writes in first person, which I found limiting. Supporting characters did not ring true at all. Also, her political views determine the course of the plot. This is a very bad mistake, I believe. All of the more conservative types are villians, all of the liberals are heroes. Identity of killer is predictable for that reason alone, and it's not a good enough reason. One wonders why this particular book won an Edgar Award.

In her later books, like Legal Tender and Mistaken Identity, I give Scottoline an A for plotting and an A+ for pacing. They're written in third person and her quirky characters are all interesting if not totally believable. But the books move so fast, you go with the flow anyway.

A much better attempt than her first book, but still no "female John Grisham." Amusing at times, but a rather thin plot.

"I was very disappointed with this book. It is promoted as an "indispensable working resource" when in reality it is a rehash of old information much of which is way behind the times (examples -- just passing mention of cause-related marketing, sponsorships, product giving which are all the growth aspects of corporate support for nonprofits). Better to design a strategy for getting money from businesses by reading a book(s) written by someone on the inside of a company giving program -- not a fund-raiser who is on the outside looking in. Books I have found much more helpful are Corporate Social Investing by Curt Weeden (very cutting edge) and The Corporate Contributions Handbook by James Shannon." Carrie Tyrrell

Like a movie trailer for a summer blockbuster, the inside flap of K. Scott Sheldon's little book "Successful Corporate Fund Raising: Effective Strategies for Today's Nonprofits" promises much. Corporate giving accounts for 10 percent of all charitable donations, it says. "Yet, many fund raisers are held back from tapping this gold mine by the fear that they don't know how to 'play the system' correctly."

But just as many movie trailers are more entertaining than their corresponding movies, the flap copy of "Successful" is better than the book.

"Successful" starts with a 35-page exposition on the history, scope and nature of corporate philanthropy. But Sheldon's case for why a nonprofit would want to go after corporate funding seems halfhearted. He sums it up by saying, "If the past is any predictor of the future it should be safe to say that corporate philanthropy will continue to be a significant source of support for America's nonprofit community for many years to come." It's a circular argument and a limp sentence.

Beginning with chapters six through ten comes the strategy promised by the subtitle. Sheldon outlines his 5-part process for seeking corporate funding: 1). Researching Corporate Giving Programs. 2). Cultivation. 3). Solicitation. 4). Evaluation. 5). Recognition and Stewardship. It's a quibble, but this self-evident approach struck me as being more of a program than a strategy, per se.

Nonetheless it's in these chapters that Sheldon really gets his feet under him. It's evident from these chapters that Sheldon is a careful and punctilious fund raiser. He certainly has the bona fides. Sheldon's been raising money for colleges and universities since 1977, most recently at Arizona State University. And yet even here some of the tactics in these chapters seemed off-putting if not hazardous to corporate fund raising efforts.

During the cultivation process, for instance, he recommends taking a "shopping list of funding priorities" to corporate funders. If they don't respond to one option he suggests moving down the list. While it's certainly smart to come prepared to pitch more than one idea, my experience is that kind of fishing expedition suggests that you haven't done your homework, and seldom pays off. He also advocates hand delivery of corporate proposals, and underscoring the words "Hand Delivery" on both the envelope and cover letter. My experience is that when nonprofits take extravagant measures it shouts to potential funders that you really don't need the money.

Well into the book Sheldon outlines an example of how to apply his five-part process to an employee matching gifts campaign. The money sought in the example is [$$$]. As outlined, Sheldon suggests the following steps; develop a campaign including the five-step process; discover companies in your area that match employee gifts, probably using a proprietary database, software or reference book; identify your constituency, including, hopefully, retirees; cultivate the constituency by mailing a brochure that you devise or a commercially available version; double check gift club eligibility; send one or more matching gift donor response forms and or reminders, perhaps including hand written Post-It Notes; meet to evaluate the program; thank matching donors; review the strategy; call eligible matching donors, offer gift incentives, and/or recruit matching gift captains at companies as needed; ensure that you've exploited companies that match gifts based on employee volunteerism. Whew!

It is here in the thirteenth of 14 chapters, the one in which the author dives into the nitty gritty of corporate fund raising, where the reader asks the Peggy Lee question, "Is That All There Is?" Is all that effort worth [$$$]? Sheldon, in devising the example, implies that it is. The reader, however, is left to wonder.

"Successful" has some errors of fact. WorldCom didn't buy Sprint. Neither Intel nor AT&T are really new companies or new to corporate philanthropy, as the book implies.

He also gives cause marketing sort shrift, devoting just 2-pages to the ever-burgeoning practice. IEG, the big sponsorship outfit in Chicago, projects that cause marketing will total [$$$] million in 2002, almost 10 percent of all corporate giving. Best of all, cause marketing money is frequently unrestricted and generally comes from marketing budgets, not corporate foundation budgets. That fact allows savvy nonprofits to double-dip from a company drawing on marketing dollars and corporate philanthropy dollars both. In giving cause marketing the high fly-by, Sheldon does his readers a disservice.

"Successful" isn't worth adding to your personal library. But if you're looking for the very most basic primer on corporate fund raising, check it out at your local public library.

Since I am new to fund raising I have been looking for a book that provides practical, hands-on advice on how to raise funds from the corporate sector. This book takes that approach and in a very positive way. It assumes that corporate giving is here to stay and takes the position that there are already enough books available that explore the theoretical reasons why corporations give. I particularly liked the fact that the author sprinkles the text with examples of on-line fund raising and using the Internet. There are good examples of how to submit on-line grant applications and ways to increase your success rate using this new technology. The author also advocates using email when contacting, cultivating and soliciting corporate donors, something that I feel comforatble doing. All in all a job well done!

The book, if read ironically, would be a weak satire, but I don't think this is what Sanders intended. Coming at it as a Christian potboiler (if that's even a genre), it starts pretty bad and proceeds to fall flat on its bottom. The (laughable) descriptions of the sex act were just plain creepy, and those inclined to religion will hate the way Brother Kristos fulfills every stereotype of the preacher who is a money-hungry, hypocritical zealot. I'm not a Christian, and even I found it to be uncalled for.

Basically, the book is a whole list of failures. Put every category out there- narrative, characterization, dialogue, language- and all are found to be lacking. This was my first and last venture into the world of Lawrence Sanders, and if you're smart you'll never pick up his fiction to begin with. Zero stars.

This book appears to me to be an almost exact copy of the story of Rasputin. He came from a religious background, faith healer, heavy drinker, seducer of women. Helped the Czar's son who had the same blood disease. Was poisoned, shot then drowned by a close associate of the Czar. This author took the Rasputin story and moved it from Russia to the United States and moved the time frame from the early 1900's to the late 1900's. My rating is low because it appears to me that the author did not give credit for his source of the plot.

Having read 18 of Sanders' books to date, I enjoyed "Capital Crimes" more than most of his works and as much as the "Deadly Sins" series. It moved quickly and was difficult to put down. "Caper" reads in a similar fashion to "Capital Crimes" and I would recommend either book.

Charles Duff was obviously an inteligent man, so why would he write such dribble. I felt the book could have been summed up in the first few pages, thank God there are few left in the world with beliefs like him.

Charles Duff's was obviously an inteligent man so why would he write such dribble. I felt the book could have been summed up in the first few pages, thank God there are few left in the world with beliefs like him.

I was delighted to find this obscure work of polemics on capital punishment throughout history and up to the (author's) present. Undertakes a diatribe on captial killing without the reactionary alarm on one hand and the sanctimonious philosphical, social, historical, and otherwise casuistic justifications of Foucault on the other. Actually quite useful when taken as an antidote for Foucault's overwrought "Discipline and Punish." Postmodernists who want to casuistically revel in the delights of capital punishment can go back to their Heavy Metal magazine and their coffee table Witkin.

Not exactly art in any sense, this is nevertheless one case where diatribe serves as a welcome comic relief against what is a grotesque side of civilization. There is nothing so sacred about capital killing that we can't poke a little fun at its excesses and abuses too. And for the yo yo reviewer below, let us know when you actually read the book and get near a review.

They have the book translated to Spanish

The book is comprehensive in contents, well organized and logical. The contents regarding the commondities market are especially good. Strongly recommended for buying.

I have a lot of experience and I read a lot of books. Therefore, let me start by saying...I sent this book back. First of all the author (references) so often it not only takes away from the message, but it leaves the reader wondering..."who really wrote this book?" Second, the author writes "with respect to", "the underpinning of this book", and "notwithstanding" so often I started to laugh. Lastly, the overall message of this book is "IT investments are hard to measure", but again, one doesn't need to read it again and again. I actually don't find fault with the author...I blame the publisher. This is a great subject, but this book just doesn't make the grade. Just my opinion.

The author covers a broad array of very important infrastructure topics. The book is useful and valuable for anyone who has ever tried to justify the value of IT-based infrastructure projects. However, two of today's most powerful tools, real options analysis and simulation, are dismissed by the author as too complicated or abstract to be of any use for managers. While Renkema is correct to presume that most managers do ahve have a handle on these concepts, I was somewhat dissapointed to see that he did not encourage these avenues of methods to get at better numbers with which one can quantify the value of infrastructure. Nevertheless, the book is full of useful information regarding the decision-making process within bureaucratic environments as well as dealing with topics such as risk, argument structure, financial analysis, and qualitative analysis.

I was very much dissapointed by this book. She talks about "globalization", yet never shows exactly what she means by this, and most of her arguments rely on anecdotes.

Her argument goes like this; There's more overseas production, there are huge multi-nationals, and there's an international capital market, and then there are international issues that goes beyond the national boundaries. Therefore, the sovereign nation is losing power.

While these are all true, the most important question is; to what extent? She never adresses this, and so, the whole book amounts to not much than some trendy talk of "Oh the world is global now and everything's different". So, forget this book. There's nothing in this book that is not throughly and plainly explained by, say, Paul Krugman's "Pop Internationalism" or even his "Age of Diminished Expectations". These books provide much better value and information for our money.

Okay, so as a previous reviewer said, this is hardly the most dense and detailed study... but not every text needs to be. Sassen is one of the most brilliant thinkers working on the issues, contexts and problems of "globalization" today (no matter if you ultimately agree with her views or not, you cannot deny her grasp of the issues. She is a creative thinker not afraid to let her work show her growth as a scholar and practical worker on world issues.

This may not be her finest work, and it is not her most recent, but it is a great primer for those who want to understand the basics of the new "global" order(s) of things without resorting to "XYZ for Idiots/for Dummies" books. From here, you can go on to agree or disagree with her conclusions and predictions with a decent grasp of what is going on... so, in that sense, this is a fine book.

Skip this one. The author falls in love with the people who try to prevent the death penalty from ever being imposed and the book is extremely one-sided. He has no credentials, legal or other, to write on the subject and strangely, for an academic, never even bothers to try to acquire any. There are legitimate arguments for the death penalty--it is expressly mentioned in the Constitution, so it is obviously Constitutional -- as well as against it, but they are ignored, nor is any attempt made to explore the position of the victim's family, judges, prsecutors, etc.. The author spends pages describing how good looking the lawyers on his side of the issue are! No homework, no effort, no wisdom = a very trivial, tedious anecdotal meander that starts nowhere and ends up even more confused/

The chief virtue of this book is its brevity; its chief vice is that it is not clear what purpose it is intended to serve.

Although most readers of these reviews have not found 's review below to be helpful, I find myself largely in agreement with his conclusion. Unlike him, though, I am not bothered that the author has no legal credentials - journalists are perfectly capable of writing perceptive accounts of capital cases.

The problem with this book is that there is no clear need for it to be written. Like my fellow reviewer I agree that this account meanders along following no obvious line of argument. The best I can say in its defense is that it gives the reader some insight into the dedication of capital defense lawyers who worked in the former federally funded Death Penalty Resource Centers but did not throw in the towel when the funding dried up. Stephen Bright is perhaps the best known of these lawyers but others stayed the course too like Nick Trenticosta in Louisiana, Jim Marcus in Texas, and Bryan Stevenson in Alabama.

There is no doubt but that McFeely was dazzled by Steve Bright - but then who would not be? I have sent three students to Steve Bright's office but have never met the man other than on the phone. McFeely's book gave me a fuller picture of him and his colleagues and for that I am grateful. I would certainly recommend this book to any law student considering an internship at the Southern Center for Human Rights.

When I put down this book my first thought was that my review would have to say something about McFeely's highly judgmental comments on the "cast". I can see why wrote, with only a little exaggeration, that "The author spends pages describing how good looking the lawyers on his side of the issue are! " Scarcely anyone mentioned escapes comment about their appearance. The reader might be forgiven for thinking that McFeely had walked among gods...

The press reviewers have treated McFeely kindly on this one. I wouldn't go so far as describe the book as "trivial" but anecdotal is about the mark. The reader looking for a deeper insight into capital penalty litigation should look elsewhere, e.g. Pete Earley's Circumstantial Evidence or John Tucker's May God Have Mercy.

The format of the book is less than ideal. I think the author adopted a format that centered on character sketches of a group of death-penalty lawyers because he wanted to emphasize that the whole business is about people, not about abstract ideas.

The whole issue of the humanity of the death-row inmate is dealt with 100 times more effectively in George Orwell's essay "A Hanging", but that is another story altogether.

The book gives the reader a lot of useful history and information about the death "penalty" in Georgia, both then and now, and shows how the modern death penalty has, in a sense, taken over where lynching left off.

There are well researched notes and references for each chapter for those who want to go deeper. The USA stands proudly alongside jurisdictions like Yemen and Saudi Arabia in retaining the death penalty and this book provides a good discussion of why. The author includes a great deal of information in support of his opinion that the primary purpose of the continuation of the death "penalty" is to feed the desire for revenge. One may disagree with this thesis, but it is there. He also presents ample data suggesting that the death penalty lacks value as a deterrent. If you are looking for a book that provides support and justification for retention of the death "penalty", this is not it.

If you are a Washingtonian who hangs around galleries, etc. then you'll recognize a lot of names in this book, and that may make it fun. But most of the time the story really drags and it takes some prodigious leaps to actually swallow some of the scenes described. The worst is the ending, which is a very deflating experience. Definately not one of her best.

I'm a fan of Margaret Truman, but I found it laborious to get through this one. I found most of the characters shallow and totally unlikeable. The ending was absurd. Even Annabelle and Mac can't make this one worthwhile!

Luther Mason, respected senior curator at the National Gallery, hatches a complicated plan to "discover" a long lost Caravaggio painting in Italy, brings it to Washington to be a part of a Caravaggio exhibit and has 2 forgeries made, one of which will be sold and passed off as the original to a San Francisco mobster thug/art connoisseur who happens to be bankrolling Luther's activities to get the painting in the first place. Whew. . . It's an interesting story at times, but there are a lot of characters to keep track of. The last third of the book is where most of the mystery and action occurs. I would not recommend this book if you want something fast-paced and suspenseful.

This CD-ROM is not produced by the Federal Government. Hence, the by-line should not be U.S. Federal Government. This book simply borrows -- 'rips-off'is a better word - FREE materials of the Federal Government and compiled them into a CD-ROM. In fact, what you will see in the CD-ROM are EXACT pages of various federal-owned web sites, such as the Small Business Administration.

Instead of buying the CD-ROM, simply go to the various government sites such as SBA.gov and CFDA.gov.

This disc contains pdf files downloaded from government web pages. Save yourself the money and go to the SBA, GSA, SEC web pages yourself and look up the information that is relevant to you.

Not only is all of this info available online, but the CD gives you a collection of non-indexed, gigantically HUGE Acrobat PDF files, some about 100MB in size. Navigating a 5MB text PDF is painfully slow - try 100 MB. Finding what you're seeking is practically impossible, and navigating PDFs of that size takes an eternity. Even a fast machine takes a couple minutes just to load the files into Acrobat, never mind doing searches, etc.

If they had broken up the files and named them logically (instead of titles like A1, B1, etc.), and provided some kind of indexing application or document that would point you to specifically what you wanted, then, yes, it might be handy to have. Otherwise, go online, and find answers 100 times more quickly. This is a ridiculously poorly done CD-ROM in this day and age. Big waste of $, in my opinion. If you have a slower/older computer without much memory, you'd REALLY want to avoid this thing like the plague.