This is a good introduction if you have some background in philosophy. Otherwise, it is likely to be over your head. Jaspers' look at Nietzsche is philosophically creative and sometimes complex. It is not just a guide to Nietzsche's thinking but a rather detailed reading of his philosophy. If you are looking for a guidebook of sorts, a good one is Kaufmann's 'Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist'.

Consider Karl Jaspers a master of multiplicity, whose understanding of Nietzsche's thought is like the complexity of a physiologist's understanding of the peristaltic activity involved in swallowing anything. For Jaspers, an interest in Nietzsche is mainly meaningful if it is accompanied by a wish for intellectual growth (this may be a valid career goal for those who are lucky enough to pursue this kind of thing professionally). At least, such a view of Jaspers could be supported by what he wrote on the topic, "Ways of Criticizing Nietzsche" in this book. Anyone who does not accept and assume the full multiplicity of the topic being considered falls into the error described on page 420. "He is bound to consider as fixed and final formulae what to Nietzsche were only steps and to pervert these formulae by turning them into jargon, demogogic means of persuasion, or sensationalistic journalese." The world which offered Nietzsche such foolish models for demonstrating the recklessness of typical thinking does not receive due consideration here, this being a book on a lonely thinker. The self of Nietzsche can only emerge for readers who are able "to keep this depth in sight" while overcoming "the rationally onesided formulations of the understanding which he himself recognized in his own thinking but failed to check." Such a view of Nietzsche springs from the desire of those who need to consider themselves fully educated, but sensible. The kind of thought-check which is being suggested by Jaspers is supposed to thwart the kind of racing thoughts which are not productive. Don't forget that Karl Jaspers was also a doctor, an expert on General Psychopathology, a field in which facts are not as important as the emotional experiences of the kind of person who becomes the subject of such studies. In the field of philosophy, where Nietzsche's desire to learn the truth about the limitations which always prevent the full realization of this desire for truth, thereby setting a new standard for intellectual integrity, Jaspers felt that Nietzsche's sense of "knowing full well where to find exactly what I have to learn" (p. 421) when it came to matters fully covered by books "was of little consequence for his truly philosophical thinking." (p. 421) I must be over-simplifying this ~ this is only a review, and Jaspers's sympathy with Nietzsche's awareness of the limitations placed on his knowledge by the fact that "he was forced to content himself with the reading of books" (p. 421) must be true as well for people who are only reading reviews.

This wonderful introduction to Nietsche by Karl Jaspers was written in 1936 after Jaspers had been disgraced by the Nazis and forced out of his professorship. He had taken refuge in Bern. This work is his offering to help us see that Nietsche was critically important to 20th centruy philosophy, and was not the pop-philosopher the Nazis tried to make him out to be. Jasper's work is the first real undertaking to show Nietsche as he was, and to appreciate him for what he was and is.

I fell off my couch, laughing, when reading this one. The only reason I gave it four stars is that I've had a Wodehouse overdose. As with any Wodehouse book, you'll smile when you read this one. If you're never read a book by him before, Wodehouse looks at life from a different perpespective. He has a light, almost playful, way of looking at problems his characters face, exaggerating the problems ever so slightly to bring out the humor.

For anyone who likes the Jeeves stories, I recommend continuing with the Wodehouse oeuvre with this short novel. It's an embarrassing thing to laugh out loud in public, but I enjoyed every page of this quick-paced story.

The story involves Jimmy Crocker, who is a bit of a troublemaker. Always getting into scuffles in his home country of England (the papers call him "Piccadilly Jim" to his chagrin), he decides to go to New York. On the way, he meets a beautiful young woman, but later hears her talking to her family about what an awful person "that James Crocker" is. He decides in order to meet her, he will have to pretend to be someone else, one Algernon Bayliss (a name made up on the spur of the moment).

However, due to his uncanny resemblance to James Crocker (he is continually running into people who recognize him as Crocker), the girl plans to pass "Algernon" off as Crocker to their shared aunt. So Jimmy has to pretend to be Algernon pretending to be Jimmy, all the while trying to get this girl to fall in love with him. (They're really only step-cousins through a second marriage.)

This is a terrific story of mistaken identity (there are several other events involved including James' father masquerading as a butler and a rich couple's child who wants to be kidnapped in order to split the proceeds) but Wodehouse carries all the confusion perfectly, making sure we are able to follow the action, yet without insulting our intelligence, a great feat in itself.

I very highly recommend this book. It has a great storyline and is very funny and entertaining. I'd give it more stars if I could. If you like the novel I also recommend the 1936 movie version staring Robert Montgomery.

Although it may seem simple, so far computers did not actually do work for us, the did the work instead of other tools. Word ist just an electronic typewriter, but did it write the text for me? No! The next generation of computers will be different. They will actually do work for us, they will make their own decisions and execute predefined work tasks in an intelligent way. Sounds spooky? Maybe, but if you trust your secretary, you should also trust your computer. Hayes-Roth and Amor show us how this brave, new world may look like. Very interesting read, indeed!

Roth and Amor provide a great book on how to simplify technology. If we do not try to simplify it, it will become unmanageable in the future. The book shows what the problems are and how to solve them. Unfortunately, production was weak and there are some figures are not very well readable. Please change this in the reprint.

This book talks about a radical change in IT. It shows how computers should be programmed. Not in a tool-centric way, but in a user-centric way, meaning that not the functionality is the main focus, but the usefulness of the system towards the user. In many cases, you can see systems that are full of features everyone and nobody needs. If these systems would only provide the functionality that I need at a given time, it would reduce the complexity of that system and would enable me to do my work faster. By connecting all sorts of devices and services, it is possible to create new me-centric service chains that can give better value to me.

The book provides a lot of good ideas how this can look like in the future, but also shows what is necessary from a development point of view to make this happen. Technical, social and business aspects are introduced and enable the solution architect for a new product/service to make it me-centric.

A must for product development!

Famous novels, which, over time have been elevated to classic status, written by well known novelists Solzhenitsyn, George Orwell, Norman Mailer, Arnold Bennett, Jack London, Boris Pasternak, Ignazio Silone and others get the once over by Marxist Shakespearean scholar and critic Paul N. Siegal.

Siegal concerns himself with how these novels shape up as works of art and dissects the political ideas in them. War, reaction and revolution has marked the 20th century and is the starting point for this book. Siegal meticulously looks at these novels through the eyes of those interested in the fight for social change. The book gives the reader a broader understanding of these novels as expressions of radical intellectual middle class thought .

I'm one of those who avoided English and literature classes like the plague when I was in school, but I found this work engaging and stimulating. I had already read half of the novels Siegel discusses, (1984, Man's fate, The Naked and the Dead, The Iron Heel, Darkness at noon) and I found I gained a deeper understanding and appreciation of the authors' intentions and their literary technique as I read this book. And I now want to track down and read a few more of the works Siegel covers (Fontamara, Native Son, Cancer Ward, The Old Wives Tale, Doctor Zhivago.)

Siegel, a noted Shakespearean scholar and literary critic, starts with discussion of the big political and social developments of the 20th century and how intellectuals responded to them: World Wars I and II, the Russian Revolution, Fascism, and Stalinism. He examines the political ideas the authors seek to portray through their novels, some more overtly than others. And he gives a reasoned assessment of the results, both as an expression of political ideas and as a literary work. It should get you thinking more about the complex relations between the economic underpinnings of human society and the evolution of ideas, art, and literature.

Two related book I'd also recommend: Art and Revolution, by Leon Trotsky and works by George Novack, especially Pragmatism vs. Marxism and Understanding History.

This is a skillful discussion of novels by London, Malraux, Silone, Koestler, Solzhenitsyn, Orwell and others from a revolutionary Marxist point of view. His chief concern is how the social and political ideas in these books reflect ideas about revolution in the 20tjh Century. What is dissected is not only these novels but also the various alternatives and expressions of revolutionary politics in the US and Europe throughout the 20th Century. Siegel ranges from late Victorian Fabians to the upsurges of the thirties, to the postwar petit bourgeois fall from anti-Stalinism to anticommunism. As such he contributes to the political education of revolutionists about these currents of middle class thought.
What is outstanding in these essays is that Siegel never confuses political evaluation of the ideas of these texts with evaluation of these texts as novels. His introduction is an interesting example of how as Terry Eagleton has stressed, a real Marxist critic of literature does not discard the tools and ideas that "bourgeois" literary studies have offered us, but uses them to advance our understanding of both literature and politics.

Burnaby, a classic hero/adventurer type, was the 19th Century's Indiana Jones. His book, a popular sensation when first published in the mid 1800s, chronicles his exciting, dangerous, and sometimes humorous horseback and sleigh/carriage ride from southern Russia to Khiva, in what was then an independant khanate in Central Asia, in the middle of winter. If you like exciting, true adventure travel tales, you owe it to yourself to see this book. A standard by which all subsequent narratives should be measured

South central Asia, the focus of the world's attention in 2003, received an earlier share of it in the 1870s. For centuries travelers' tales and the mention of such exotic names as Samarcand, Tashkent and Bokhara had aroused interest and fired imaginations. To all this was added rumor in 1875 that British interests in India were threatened by Russian expansionism. In particular, it was believed that Russian forces were massing in the recently occupied city of Khiva, nowadays in Uzbekistan, in preparation for an invasion of India.

A situation like this fitted perfectly the kind of 'investigative reporting' adventures that Frederick Burnaby craved. In 1876, this 33-year-old captain in the British army took leave of absence, and set out for Khiva. The journey involved a ride of over one thousand miles in well below freezing conditions across steppes and wastelands.

On his return, Burnaby wrote 'A Ride to Khiva' and it instantly became a best seller. A well-educated man, proficient in many languages, and a keen observer of all he encountered, his account still ranks as one of the great adventure classics of literature.

I am grateful to the neighbor who lent me this book, and can report that reading it has provided many hours of fascination. Burnaby died ten years after writing this book, supposedly during a massacre in the Sudan. Keen Internet browsers might find reference to a recent revelation that throws doubt upon the truth of the official account of his death.

This is an exciting adventure book, writen in 1876 about the travels of a British Army Captain through Western Siberia into Khiva, a city in Central Asia recently taken by the Russian Empire. It purports to be just travel by an army man at liesure, and wanting to see parts of the world. Since we are in the "Great Game" era, when Britain and Russia were contending for the countries around India, I have the feeling that it was more than that, and that the author's mission was somewhat akin to "checking out the land" in the case of an impending conflict. Anyway, it's extremely well-written, and the descriptions of both the places and the people are first rate! The author obviously had a keen eye, and I would really love to read the report he actually submitted to his superiors in London when he returned. I'm sure it's still buried deeply in their secret files.

As another reviewer remarks, English prose style is not the colonel's strong suit. If ever a book called for the firm hand of a skilled editor, this is such a book. It abounds with inconsequential asides ("I met him years later in Korea"), terse sentences and a wealth of exclamation marks. Nevertheless, this does give the reader an idea of the author's authentic voice and persona - that of an end of empire action man.

The exploits of Colonel Bailey show that the kind of military man that we read of in Rider Haggard and John Buchan's novels really did exist. He would not have been out of place joining an Indiana Jones expedition. He really was an Edwardian action man writ large - bold, resourceful, uncomplaining and considerate of those endangered by his presence.

He is almost a caricature of the quintessentially British officer muddling through to triumph. He comes across as a talented amateur jack-of-all-trades - no James Bond he! He was a fair linguist but, as luck would have it, only had a smattering or no knowledge of the languages of the nationals he pretended to be: Serbs, Austrians, Romanians etc.

He certainly comes across as fearless. On one occasion he nonchalently reads a copy of The Times that he has "borrowed" from a Bolshevik officer in the room next door who had been sent to hunt for him. English sang froid is much in evidence as he casually mentions the executions of numerous people with whom he had been in close association. This guy had more lives than a dozen cats.

The book very much brings alive the chaos and casual brutality of the early days of the Bolshevik revolution in Turkestan. Somehow Bailey slips through it all, constantly striving to get intelligence out to Britain. Miraculously he never seems to want for money - we never do learn where it came from or where he kept it.

Bailey was a first class eccentric officer - as evidence of this I offer the fact that, whilst detailing his adventures in a world gone mad, he thinks it sufficiently important and interesting to his readers to catalog the various species of butterfly that he captured and preserved on his travels. He even presents us with a complete list of those taken between the Pamirs, Kashgar and on the road to Russian Turkestan complete with Latin names, and the place, altitude and date they were collected.

Mad dogs and Englishmen indeed!

Let's get the bad bit out the way first, F.M. Bailey was not a great writer. This is reflected in Mission to Tashkent, where the style of the writer does not follow what you would normally consider a gripping read. For example, there are one or two occasions where a character in the book is not mentioned for long enough, for you to have to go back several pages to find out who they are. I would have given it five stars had it not been for this.

What Mission to Tashkent is, is a factual account of the Russian Revolution, as played out in Central Asia, where the Bolshevik Russian minority based mainly in Tashkent (now in the independant sate of Uzbekistan) had to overcome White Russian, Moslem and British forces to establish the revolution on Central Asia (the British eventually withdrew, not wanting to become too involved).

In this book, F.M. Bailey, whose previous adventures had involved accompanying Francis E. Younghusband to Tibet in 1904 (on account of the fact he could speak Tibetan), details his journey from India via Kashgar to Tashkent. Once in Tashkent, the book covers the writer's life there, under constant fear of arrest or execution at the hands of the local Bolshevik Provisional Government. His official purpose was as a diplomatic representative for the British in Central Asia, which created much danger for himself, due to the presence of British forces at Ashgabad in Turkmenistan. He also gathered information for the British as to what exactly was happening there, due to concerns that the large number of German and Austrian prisoners of war held in Central Asia could be used to attack British India, if organised into a fighting force by German agents known to operate in Iran and Afghanistan - it was 1917/1918 and Britian was still fighting Germany. He also acted on the British behalf, believing that the British were about to advance on Tashkent and unseat the Bolsheviks in Central Asia, but in the end, this never happened with the aforementioned British withdrawal. The book finishes with his eventual flight to Iran, ending in his escape after a skirmish with Bolshevik troops on the Iranian border.

I found the book to be a thoroughly engrossing read, bar the aforementioned problems with the book's style and would thoroughly recommend it to anyone interested in Turkestan / Uzbekistan and Central Asian history. With it being a factual account, it also makes for a useful insight into what was happening in outlying Tashkent at a time, when everyone else's eyes were focused on what was happening in revolutionary Moscow and St. Petersburg and how the Germans were going to react after the withdrawal of the Russians from the Great War. Highly recommended.

So much of what has happened in Persia, Afghanistan, and Pakistan in the last 150 years is due to what has been called "The Great Game." Russia has always been a superpower that lacked a salt-water seaport free of ice all year round. (The Black Sea doesn't count because Turkey controls access to it through the easily defensible Bosphorus and Dardanelles.) Consequently, it has always sought to destabilize South Asia in the hopes of being able to get a port on the Indian Ocean.

One of the highest ranking pieces in the Great Game was the British intelligent agent Lieut-Col Frederick M. Bailey, who wrote this fascinating book. So if you're a great intelligence agent, why is it so difficult to write a good book? Simple: A good intelligence agent keeps too much unsaid. Information is his stock in trade, so he is very sparing of all the interesting details.

Picture present-day Uzbekistan in the first year of the Bolshevik takeover (1918). No one in Europe had any idea of what to expect from the Bolsheviks. Would they become more moderate in time? Would the Muslim population accept them? Would the White Russians defeat them in battle and restore the Czar?

In the midst of all these swirling theories strode the skinny and extremely canny Colonel Bailey. He set himself up in Tashkent as the official representative of His Majesty's Government but immediately ran into roadblocks. Without informing Bailey, Britain had in the meantime engaged the Bolsheviks in battle near Murmansk and near the Caucasus. That quickly made Bailey persona non grata (which meant ripe for execution in those times).

But how does one arrest a wizard? Bailey immediately went underground and assumed the identity of a Romanian, Czech, Austrian, Albanian, or other POW, of which Tashkent had many from those WW 1 days. He rarely stayed in one place for more than a day or two, though he did manage to develop some loyal contacts, including the US consul Tredwell. For over a year, Bailey eluded capture. During the whole of that time, there was no effective contact with his government; and during most of that time, he was actively sought by the Cheka, or secret police.

The escape from Tashkent was ingenious and dramatic. Bailey got himself hired as a Bolshevik agent under an assumed identity and assigned to Bokhara, which was not yet under Bolshevik control at that time. There, he reached into his inexhaustible supply of money and bought horses, men and influence to allow him to escape south to Meshed in Persia, where there was a British presence.

I wish I knew at every point how the magician pulled a particular rabbit out of his hat, but I'll just have to take that as a given. Today, Bailey is regarded by the British as one of their greatest spies. In Central Asia, he is regarded as an arch-villain who threatened the development of Communism in Central Asia.

MISSION TO TASHKENT is not an easy read, but it is absolutely vital in understanding the forces, many of which still operate in this pivotal area of the globe.

After thirty years I returned to Ciociaria and my little town of Fontechiari. With Tullio's book under my arm I was able to fill in the years and heighten the anticipation. My companion and I stopped by to say hello; too bad Tullio was in Japan this year but Mario offered us a glass of Compari at his bar and Maurizio told us he would be open on Thursday for pizza. With my mother's Italian we talked a little of life, Tullio and food, just two strangers having a drink in little town called Gallinaro in Ciociaria.

Not your typical tourist destination without the family connection but this part of Italy is full of hidden treasures like the Cyclopean walls above ancient Arpino, Vicalvi Norman ruins, and beautiful comunes like San Donato Val di Comino. Tullio's gives the reader insight into the local Italian character, history and politics combined with the how-to of regional cuisine. This book gave me the interest and desire to explore an area of Italy few tourists (except expatriates)rarely see.

Tullio writes a frank look at life not only through the ages in the camino valley but of the roman catholic church, of politics and of the differences in north of italy and the kingdom of naples, one of the two sicilys. He talks about food and even gives recipes on how to make sausage, tomato sauce and liquers;the importance of food, noise and celebration, especially in the provincial towns, which seem no longer to be so provincial. The book extols the joue de vivre of the italian temperment and what's best he doesn't mince words. The book is entertaining while informative, a look at yesterday and a look at today with perhaps a tiny glimpse of the tomorrow one only hopes is kept at bay long enough to climb those mountains and get to the marketplace on Monday in many of the hill towns.

Grazie, signore!

Like Tullio, my husband is an expatriate from the Valle di Comino. This was a great book about the valley - full of history and insight. It helped me, as an American outsider, to understand and appreciate the culture and traditions of La Ciociaria. Plus, it was a kick to read about some of the places we visited while there!

I would like to begin by telling you that this was a great action packed book. It was very exciting. What I enjoyed most about this book is how Billy is always getting into truble. When he isn't robbing a bank he is getting chased by indians. The only critism I have about the book is it makes Billy seem like a hero. Billy wasn't really a hero he was an outlaw.

Frederick Nolan's annonations to Pat Garrett's famous book do an excellent job of debunking many of the oft-repeated myths about Billy the Kid. I especially like the fact that Nolan occasionally ranges beyond Garrett's book itself to discuss how these Billy the Kid myths have been portrayed by later books and films. His commentary also helps fill in some of the background details about the Lincoln County war. You should note that I said "details," however; if you've never read about the Lincoln County war, this work probably isn't the ideal introduction to that messy, complicated affair. Nolan mostly seems to assume his readers are already at least mildly acquainted with the major events, places and people involved in the Lincoln County war. I also sometimes found myself wishing Nolan had annonated a bit more extensively (there are some entire chapters -- albeit very short ones -- through which he offers no commentary). The book's layout, while reasonably clear and clean, sometimes leaves a bit to be desired, with Nolan's notes often falling on different pages than the original text he's commenting upon.

Frederick Nolan is one of the most prolific living writers on the economic strife in Lincon County, New Mexico commonly known as "the War".

The Pat Garrett version of the War was almost entirely written by Roswell postmaster, Ash Upson, and was designed to improve Garrett's lot in the eyes of history as well as to further his political fortune. Consequently, Garrett's version has always been suspect amoung serious historical scholars although it is one of the most frequently quoted sources of "facts" related to the Kid. Garrett's seemingly singlehanded resolution of the problem by killing the Kid after the two primary proponents of the Regulator faction, John Henery Tunstall and Alexander McSween, were killed by members of the Murphy, Fritz and Dolan faction, is placed into historical prespective by Dolan's meticulous research and readable language..

Nolan's writing and research tracking the actual chronology of the War based on the Garrett version not only is designed to set the record straight historically; but also demonstrates the true facts giving rise to the War are at least as fascinating as the legends.

The Lincoln County War has been referred to as the largest civil insurrection in the history of the United States, reaching right into the halls of Congress and the White House.

Readers of Dolan's annotated responses to the Garrett version will appeal to serious history buffs and the casual reader of western history about one of the true legends of the old west.

Robert Beauvais

Reading the introduction, one is promised that the McKinsey team has hit upon a totally different type of leader: a real change leader (RCL). In reality, this book does not break any new ground. To be frank, much of the book concerns the difference between regular middle managers and RCLs. This can easily be rephrased as the difference between leaders and managers, a territory pioneered and well worn by Warren Bennis. Katzenbach does not add much to Bennis's past work. I agree that courage, clarity of vision, and risking failure are the heart of good leadership, but it is also nothing new. What is good about this book is two things: 1) It concerns middle managers and it is nice to read about people other than top managemers 2) The examples are good and should be helpful to any mid-level change leader. Otherwise, this one is skippable.

There are several reasons why I think this is one of the most important business books I have read in recent years. Here are three. First, it is the best single-source I have as yet encountered which prescribes and explains a cohesive program by which create growth and high performance in an organization. Also, this program allows for all manner of adjustments and modifications to accommodate the specific, sometimes unique needs and interests of any organization. Finally, it is extraordinarily well-written. In fact, this edition combines two books in one volume because the original version has since been expanded to include "The RCL's Handbook for Action."

To gather the information they needed, Katzenbach and his associates at McKinsey & Company (the "RCL Team") examined more than 30 different change situations and interviewed more than 150 change leaders. In the Introduction, they discuss seven common characteristics among the RCLs and then cite three shared beliefs:

1. "Tough standards of performance, but not just financial performance; customer value and workforce rewards are important as well.

2. "A set of democratic principles that tap the creative power inherent in every person; but they also enforce consequence management, believing they can truly empower people only by requiring results in return.

3. "The essence of self-governance is joint accountability (among leaders and constituents alike) for creating new opportunity; the basic approach is open dialogue and interaction to resolve conflicts by working to obtain the best contributions from multiple points of view."

The material is organized within three Parts: People-Intensive Change, Engaging the Organization, and Leadership Capacity and Growth. Throughout the book, the reader is provided with immensely informative as well as convenient charts (eg "Differences Between 'Good Managers' and RCLs) which feature key points. I have already noted "The Real Change Leader's Handbook for Action" (pages 341-391 in the softbound edition) which, in effect, gives each reader a template as well as a frame-of-reference to implement whichever combination of concepts, strategics, and tactics is most appropriate. The "Handbook" offers comments, suggestions, checklists and frameworks "for getting started in areas where change leadership help is needed."

For me, one of the book's greatest values is derived from its response to the question, "What distinguishes a real change leader from traditional managers?" The answer may in some ways surprise you, as it did me. For example, "Real change leaders do not care if the change effort is fast or slow, empowered or controlled, one-time or recurring, cultural or engineered -- or all of the above. They only care that it is people-intensive, and performance oriented....Simply put, real change leaders learn how to survive and win in the delta state, while traditional managers can only survive in the current state or the future state." The real change leader is committed to delivering results beyond the bottom line and instilling a working vision in the hearts and minds of associates while doing whatever is the right thing to do. They help others to perform above expectations (especially their own), constantly nourishing relations with customers while developing and applying the skills needed to remain flexible. Over time, they achieve results with a no-excuses mindset.

If you share my high regard for this book, I urge you to check out O'Toole's Leading Change and Hamel's Leading the Revolution as well as Buckingham and Coffman's First, Break All the Rules.

This is a very good book about the practical issues of Change Management. You should read it together with Smith's "Taking Charge of Change". These two books will give you advise about the "how to" side of Change Management. Highly recommended.

When a fire leaves a town rather unsettled, a few friends start talking about the car explosion. If you are used to chatting online, this book will even be more interesting to you although you have to keep track of a lot of characters all hiding behind their screen names.

Marty Shepherd is the principal character in this story and unwittingly becomes involved in the adventures of a variety of characters, moving in and out of their lives and exposing their secrets.

As PrettyLie says: "careful 297 - we all have secrets and I know some of yours.

Let's just say that during this novel, the police force is kept very busy. There are a lot of newspaper articles, letters, video tapes, internet messaging and chatting going on.

I can see this type of book becoming quite common in this age of internet life. Will appeal to those who enjoy lurking online.

For those who enjoy multiple plots, puzzles, internet chat rooms and mystery.

For readers who like mysteries this is a book you won't want to miss. The story is cleverly crafted, the cast of characters bizarre, the plot fast moving. The one thing you must do is pay attention. So many pieces of this complex puzzle fly around simultaneously that the casual reader can easily become confused.

A comic mystery that weaves together upscale suburban housewives,Columbian drug lords, an Episcopalian Minister, high school kids, local reporters, and others? I would have said it can't be done, but Fred Cullen has done it. Somebody in the marketing department at Durban Publishing needs to get behind this book and promote it. The book is funny, articulate,and intriguing. I have never read anything quite like it. Fred Cullen leads the reader on a frantic Keystone Cops chase through a sedate neighborhood in Middle America. The characters are wonderfully depicted, and the plot takes the reader into a new genre, where the internet, Corporate America, and classic human foibles plunge quiet little Bexley, Ohio into chaos. We all wind up reading mediocre books by well-known authors. Here's a chance to read a superior book by a first-time author. I came across the book by accident and certainly haven't regretted purchasing it. You won't either.