No One But Us Review

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Here are some reviews of this very enjoyable book:
excerpt from KIRKUS REVIEWS (June 15, 1995):
An unobtrusive and extraordinarily controlled narrative voice . . . Spatz has no real surprises in store, but, instead, wisely concentrates on the niceties of description and characterization rather than plot. What we are left with finally is a marvelously quiet evocation (as opposed to narration) of a young man's awakening. Simple, precise, and rewarding work, nicely understated and free from contrivance.
excerpt from PUBLISHERS WEEKLY (June 19, 1995):
[Spatz's] story engages the reader with the compelling parallel voyages of self-discovery undertaken not just by the moody protagonist but also by Jolene, Angel and Mary, three fully drawn women on very different paths.
excerpt from PLAYBOY (review written by Digby Diehl):
A sharp, witty first novel about a boy with a troubled mother and his affair with her best friend.
I recommend this book enthusiastically.

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Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman Review

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(More customer reviews)This book is not a `war story'. It is a rendering of a man who was far more complex than the one-dimensional hero who was portrayed in the media and who, through no fault of his own, was basically used as propaganda by the US government. Interestingly, that was one of the threads woven throughout the book, along with the use of Jessica Lynch as a tool to boost support of the war.
Krakauer does a great job in the beginning of the book by contrasting the carefree life of an American boy growing up in the suburbs vs. groups of boys being groomed by the Taliban to become terrorists. His description of Pat Tillman's early life gives insight into how he came to make the decisions that ultimately resulted in his joining the Army.
Some of the detail in the middle of the book got a bit cumbersome. However, it was a useful primer on some of the things that went terribly wrong in Iraq in Afghanistan during Tillman's time there, and I'm not certain that Krakauer could have told the rest of the story without the level of detail provided.
Nonetheless, the author provides a refreshingly honest look at a man who at times I found rather unlikeable, frankly. Without question however, the picture of Tillman that emerges is one of a man who cannot be categorized easily. His complexity was well illuminated in the book, which was a far more honest and respectful portrayal of his life than if he were simply portrayed as the `good' character in a morality play.

This book does not paint a rosy, cozy picture of the US government's actions, of the wars in Iraq in Afghanistan, or, it must be said, of Pat Tillman himself. But that served to make both the book and the man more interesting.


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A Good Year (Mayle, Peter (Large Print)) Review

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(More customer reviews)After writing a couple of non-fiction books about being a foreigner in Provence, Peter Mayle deals with the fictional side of living in that region -- or so it seems. In an opening note, the write claims that his "A Good Year" is a work of fiction, however, `between the lines there were several real people involved'. Fact or fiction it doesn't matter -- what matter is that he wrote a charming little novel about the changes that life brings us and his character copes them.
Max Skinner loses his job in a financial firm in London, in the same day he inherits a vineyard in France, that belonged to an uncle. Since Max has spent much of his childhood there, he has a connection with that house, that land, and at this point, "A Good Year" becomes a book about going back to the place where you belong to.
It will take some time to Max realize that, but meanwhile he will meet a couple of people who will change his life. If Mayle's narrative is never profound, or his characters never rise above the stereotypical, his book is interesting exactly because of these factors. "A Good Year" doesn't aspire to be a great book about serious issues. It is a light, funny and charming novel to be read between two heavy, serious and demanding books.
Mayle's prose is painted in Provence's paints, with local color and charm. His characters are probably based on people he met, and although not very believable they are still pleasant. Evocative, the prose is direct and fast, what keep those pages turning very quickly.
If Mayle's objective was to bring his readers part of Provence and what is living there -- his mission was accomplished with charm. A better portray of the region one can only have visiting the real thing -- and it would be very nice to have Mayle as the guide.


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Dark Voyage: A Novel Review

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(More customer reviews)Dark Voyage represents something of a departure from Alan Furst's previous series of historical spy novels set in Europe just before and during the Second World War. Typically, Furst's novels are land-based and are set in cafes, bars, and furtive meeting places in Bucharest, Prague, Berlin, and Paris. His protagonists are typically Polish, Rumanian, Russian, and French émigrés or refugees caught in a tangled web of espionage, and counter-espionage as the NKVD and other underground groups do battle with the Nazis. Deceit is the rule, not the exception. It is a world of night and dark shadows.
Dark Voyage, at least on the surface, is a bit different. Dark Voyage is not set amongst the smoky bistros of occupied Paris, Bucharest, or Warsaw. The action is set at sea, on board the M/V Noordendam, a Dutch cargo ship captained by Eric deHaan. The Noordendam, an aging tramp steamer nearing the end of its useful life at sea, is pressed into service by the Royal Navy. DeHaan and his crew and and passengers, including a Polish engineer, a Jewish medical orderly fleeing the Nazis, a beautiful Russian `journalist' fleeing in fear from her Soviet bosses, and others are asked to undertake three missions, each one more dangerous than the last. The Noordendam, repainted and sailing under the colors of a sunken, neutral Spanish merchant ship, the M/V Santa Rosa delivers munitions and supplies to the British Expeditionary Forces in Crete; transports British commandos to conduct a raid on the North African Coast in Tunisia; and then up through the Baltic Sea on a secret mission that could save Britain from annihilation during the blitz.
Despite this difference in setting the essential elements that render Furst's novels so downright enjoyable remain in place. First, Furst has never painted his characters in a superficial black-and-white way. His `heroes' are flawed and their motivation is often as self-interested as those of the `villains'. Furst's evocation of his characters is both subtle and nuanced. The Nazis were, in fact, true villains but the battles waged against them were not always undertaken by knights in shining armor but by incredibly flawed, if well-intentioned human beings. Second, Furst's prose is not at all tendentious or overly self-important. He paints extraordinarily vivid word pictures that capture not just the light but, more importantly, the shadows of a world engulfed in a horrible war. Third, life is not full of happy-endings. Not every story has the type of closure one might hope for. Furst does not go for cheap endings. The story may end, not always happily, but it is clear that the life of his characters will go on. The reader may hunger for more as he or she hits the last page, but for Furst at least, our endings are ahead of us. The war goes on and so must the lives of his characters.
Some have expressed disappointment in this novel or indicated that it does not quite live up to the high standards one has come to expect from Furst. I respectfully disagree. Heightened expectations often lead to disappointment. I think the high expectations one sets for a writer of Furst's caliber often leads to disappointment when each novel is not markedly better than the last. I, for one, enjoyed this book as much as his previous work. The setting and cast of characters was different to be sure but the quality of Furst's writing and his ability to tell a compelling story remains unchanged. I enjoyed this work.


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After Big Game in Central Africa (Peter Capstick's Library) Review

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(More customer reviews)An account of his hunting exploits while leading an expedition sponsored by the French Ministry of Public Instruction, Edouard Foa's "After Big Game in Central Africa" is gem of a book. Foa resists the temptation to give a tedious day-by-day recounting of his travels or to pen a dry chronological sequence of events, noting himself that the moments of interest were interspersed among days and sometimes weeks of boredom and monotony. Rather, Mssr. Foa draws upon his keen skills as an observer and his evident scientific curiosity to create a literary survey of the land -- and time, no less -- in which he traveled. The result is a work that can, admittedly, be confusing for a reader who doesn't have a memory for dates and places as Foa occasionally jumps around in time and space, but which nonetheless excels as a descriptive portrait of Central Africa at the twilight of the 19th century.
Obviously well educated, Foa was not just another hunter but a true explorer who was literally studying his surroundings on his journey as part of his governmental charge. The resulting notes that he kept enabled him to accurately recreate his experiences and observations and sometimes the deep feelings they inspired.
From the opening chapters dealing with guns, equipment, and personnel to the actual recounting of the hunts, Foa establishes an objective to convey to his readers what his methods were and how effective they proved in practice. But more importantly, he imparts his passion for a life in the wilds and for hunting in particular, even with the inconveniences. Always candid and gifted with a sardonic sense of humor (kept wonderfully intact by Frederic Lees's superlative translation), Foa gives a fascinating and captivating account that is at least as entertaining and even more informative than his near-contemporary Col. John Patterson's "The Man-eaters of Tsavo." The great regret is that his other five books -- including "Mes Grands Chasses Dans L'Afrique Centrale", to which he makes frequent reference in this volume -- have apparently never found their way into print in the English language.

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In less than four years Edouard Foa covered 7200 miles, mostly on foot--from the Zambezi delta on Africa's east coast to the mouth of the Congo on the west. He risked every form of tropical disease and death from dangerous game and the unreliability of early guns. Foa succeeded in his efforts to create for the Paris Museum one of the finest collections of African animals and plants in the world. his account is full of hard, almost fatally earned bush knowledge. Frederick lee's able translation boosted this entertaining book to U.S. prominence (and two printings) in 1899.

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The Mystery of the Lake Monster (The Boxcar Children Mysteries #62) Review

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(More customer reviews)It all begins the day the Aldens arive at Lake Lucielle when their new friend,Nicole, tells them that a person who lives at Lucielle Lodge,Carl, has seen a monster in the lake. Then mysterious things start to happen like Monster tracks, low wailing sounds, even a monster-bitten canoe paddle! Is someone trying to scare visitors away or is their really a monster in Lake Luicelle? Read the book to find out!

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King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table (Little Golden Book) Review

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(More customer reviews)Superbly illustrated by Gustaff Tenggren, and collaboratively retold by Emma Gelders Stern and Barbara Lindsay, King Arthur And The Knights Of The Round Table is an informative and thoroughly entertaining retelling of the classic legends of King Arthur and Camelot for young adult readers. Filled with museum quality, stylized full-color artwork, King Arthur And The Knights Of The Round Table presents the whole course of King Arthur's life, and those of his allies and enemies, in skillfully narrated, straightforward prose immediately accessible to young people of intermediate reading skill and above. King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table is enthusiastically recommended for personal, school, and community library Mythology & Folklore collections.

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Wizards and knights! Queens and quests! The tales of King Arthur and his knights of the Round Table are legendary favorites whose appeal transcends time. This gorgeously illustrated collection–unavailable for decades–combines the work of renowned illustrator Gustaf Tenggren with captivating storytelling, and reignites the magic of an age long ago and far away.

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Gagged & Bound: A Trish Maguire Mystery (Trish Maguire Mysteries) Review

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(More customer reviews)Natasha Cooper's "Gagged & Bound" brings back Trish Maguire, a driven woman who has a difficult time juggling her personal life with her boyfriend, George, and her demanding job as a barrister. One day, a colleague asks Trish to mollify Beatrice Bowman, a hysterical author who is being sued for libel by an ambitious peer named Lord Simon Tick. Bowman has written a book about a nineteen-year-old radical student activist named Jeremy Marton who went to jail for setting off a bomb that killed and maimed a busload of schoolchildren back in the seventies. Tick is suing Bowman because the author quotes passages from Marton's diary in which he refers to a fellow protester with the code name "Baiborn." This happens to be the name by which Tick is known to his close friends and family. Had Tick been a terrorist himself back in his youth, or is it possible that two separate people both go by this unusual nickname?
Meanwhile, Caro Lyalt, an inspector in the Metropolitan Police force and Trish's close friend, is interviewing for a job as a liaison in the newly formed Serious Organized Crime Agency. Caro is shocked when her friend, Stephanie Taft, a constable known as a whistle blower, is shot shortly after imparting a shocking piece of information to Caro. Stephanie believed that a prominent member of the police force might be on the payroll of the Slabbs, a vicious organized crime family. The Slabbs are famous for their ruthlessness and for the sadistic way in which they punish informers. Caro soon involves Trish in this case, even though she knows that anyone who asks questions about the Slabbs may end up "gagged and bagged," with a stick forced between his teeth and a bag placed over his head until he runs out of oxygen.
"Gagged and Bound" is a dramatic tale of secrets, lies, crime, and corruption, as well as a compelling psychological mystery with a large cast of characters. Trish is a compassionate and tenacious person who acts first and thinks later, much to her boyfriend's consternation. Cooper beautifully depicts Trish's delicate relationship with her sensitive and loving partner, George, as well as with her vulnerable eleven-year-old brother, David, whom she is raising. Although the three have had some rough times, they are slowly beginning to gel as a family. Lord Tick is a slimy social climber who would do anything to preserve his reputation, and the Slabbs are as thuggish and ruthless as their name implies. As the story proceeds, Trish interviews a number of people who are able to shed light on the Baiborn and Slabb cases, and she eventually makes some startling discoveries. Unfortunately, Trish's inquiries draw the unwelcome attention of some unsavory individuals who attempt to frighten her into backing off.
Natasha Cooper has an understated yet powerful writing style. This is a thriller with depth, and reading it is like unpeeling the layers of an onion. As the layers comes off, we learn more about each character's motivations and inner demons, and along with Trish, we discover that the two cases preoccupying her are much more complex than she could ever have imagined when she first began her investigations. Although the conclusion has a few unnecessarily melodramatic elements, "Gagged & Bound" is an involving novel that should find a ready and appreciative audience.

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Be Careful What You Pray For Review

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(More customer reviews)Alicia Black is the daughter of the highly controversial Reverend Curtis Black. Recently divorced, she meets and falls in love with the slimy Reverend JT Valentine after hearing him speak at Reverend Black's church. Alicia sets her sights on JT from day one and eventually, she gets what she wants. But not all that she bargained for . . .
Everyone (except the lovely Alicia) seems to know that JT Valentine is a criminal, a pathological liar and a man-whore. Trying to keep his collection of women straight isn't an easy task. As he's bilking a wealthy church member for hundreds of thousands of dollars to help him reach mega-mega church status, he's in a conniving sexual relationship with another woman named Carmen--who just happens to be an old grade school friend of Alicia.
JT's--and Alicia's--world comes crashing down after a former lover emails Alicia from prison, finally giving her the proof she needed about JT's exploits. But Alicia *is* the Reverend Curtis Black's daughter: she won't be played, and she's got a trick of her own to play.
As per usual, Lawson Roby doesn't disappoint. I really liked this story--definitely a page-turner throughout! JT was really a snake, and Alicia was a little oblivious at first, which is a well-crafted fictional representation of real relationships that move fast, and then someone finds out that the person they thought they "loved" isn't who he/she is. I think the ending was a little abrupt, but it was fitting--flowed well with the story. Recommended.

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New York Times bestselling author Kimberla Lawson Roby returns with this delightful sequel to The Best of Everything, in which the infamous Reverend Curtis Black's beautiful daughter, Alicia, is all grown up-and headed for trouble of her own

Her first marriage didn't work out, but that isn't going to stop Alicia Black, the privileged daughter of the charismatic Reverend Curtis Black, from getting what she wants. One month after her wedding to her second husband, she can't believe her good fortune. God has heeded her prayers, blessing her with Pastor JT Valentine, a handsome, dynamic man of the cloth with his own large congregation, just like her father.

Unfortunately, Alicia doesn't understand just how much like Curtis her new husband truly is. She doesn't know that JT has been sneaking around town with other women-or that he only married her to get close to her father's money and fame. But while Alicia is blinded by love, her dad certainly isn't. He warned his little girl that JT simply can't be trusted. After all, it takes one to know one, and who better to see into the darkness of a sinner's heart than Curtis?

It will take a miracle to save the day. But God acts in mysterious ways, and soon a host of lies, longtime secrets, and acts of betrayal comes to light, and Alicia must face some very crucial and life-changing decisions. This time, she's got to be careful what she prays for. . . .

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Labor Day Review

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(More customer reviews)Sitting at my local bookstore on Labor Day, I was looking for anything to read. Sure enough, this book grabbed my attention, maily because of the title.
If there is one thing that I can say about LABOR DAY, it reads extremely fast, as I finished it in one sitting. Having never heard of Floyd Kemske, I was surprised to find out that this is actually the fourth novel in a series.
LABOR DAY is about a union president who has to oppose an organized stand by his very own office staff. There are many plot twists, and a few tangled love interests to keep your interest throughout the quick read.
The writing is fairly crisp, and well-planned. Kemske's use of irony is seditious to say the least, but it helps the storyline move along reasonably well. Overall, LABOR DAY was good, light reading.

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Making It Big: The Diary of a Broadway Musical Review

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(More customer reviews)The cost of Broadway musicals in the 1990s was so astronomical that when shows succeeded, they succeeded big. And when they flopped, they flopped even harder. Big was one of the latter. And, though this book often feels like it wants to paint the opposite picture, from the trials and tribulations it covers, when you've finished it, you know why it's failed. Most of the book is wonderfully informative and well-written, but the show's lingering death is glossed over in a very ineffective epilogue, and its post-Broadway life is not even discussed at all. If you are at all interested in how Broadway musicals are conceived of and produced, you shouldn't miss this book.

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Publish or Perish Review

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(More customer reviews)While not one of the most complicated mysteries I've ever read, I enjoyed Publish or Perish and am glad that Margot Kinberg contacted me. The book is an easy read, moves pretty quickly, and is definitely laid out in the manner of an Agatha Christie. Kinberg sets the scene with many pages devoted to the story before Nick's murder actually takes place, so you get a feel for all the possible suspects, and naturally there is more than one. Is it Nick's advisor who is accused of stealing Nick's software? Or is it Angel, the girlfriend who caught Nick with another advisor at Tilton University? What about Rose, who would do anything to win the fellowship that had been awarded to Nick?
Those questions lead me to my biggest issue with this book. It was too easy to figure out who the murderer was, in my opinion. In the end, it was almost too obvious who stood to benefit the most by Nick's death. Of course, that's mostly because of another *major* event that takes place, but I don't want to spoil anything for those of you who want to read this :-) I really liked the basis for the plot of this book--while I'm not sure if anyone would truly commit murder in these circumstances, it made for an interesting story. You really wanted to see certain people "get theirs" in the end. All-in-all I thought it was a good debut for Kinberg--minus one star for being too easy to figure out.

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James Bond: The Secret World of 007 Review

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(More customer reviews)DK books has made the great even better with their revised edition of "James Bond: The Secret World of 007". Previously released in 2000, this latest edition expands to include the two most recent Bond Thrillers "Die Another Day" and the upcoming "Casino Royale". As with all of DK's books, it is highlighted by fantastic photography from beginning to end and presented in an over-sized hardcover format with dust jacket, perfectly suited for the coffee table.
The book start out with the perfunctory introduction to the character and his rich history including that distinctive "Bond look" , a section on "Q" the master gadget maker, as well as a look at the various bond women such as May Day, Elektra King, and Domino.
Next the book gets into each of the Bond missions, i.e, the films, beginning with Dr. No. You'll go inside the plot of each film and the lair of each villain to meet the evil masterminds as well as their various henchman and attractive women. You'll relive the most harrowing moments of each film and see the tools that Bond applied to save the day. These sections feature numerous photos from each film as well as artistic renderings of things such as Dr. No's Crab Key lair which takes the reader through a step-by-step replay of Bond's ingenious escape.
The Goldfinger section gets you up close and personal inside Bond's ride, the Aston Martin DB5 with it's pop-out machine guns, smoke emitting exhaust pipes, and ejector seat. Diamonds are Forever introduces us to the deadly assassins Wint & Kidd as well as a pair of gorgeous ladies Plenty O'Toole and Tiffany Case as the arch-villain Blofeld returns. The Spy Who Loved Me introduces us to one of the most popular Bond villains the giant, steel-toothed Jaws who gets a sizeable section in the book.
While Bond enthusiasts will know all the details already, casual fans will really eat up this book and it's a simply gorgeous collectible. There are a couple of problems, though. One, is that you barely see Sean Connery, Roger Moore, or even Timothy Dalton anywhere in the book. The only Bond you really see is Pierce Brosnan up until the back section that lists each films credits. The other slight is that there isn't much coverage on Casino Royale but DK has that solved with their new book "Bond on Set" devoted to the latest Bond Film. Two minor things and not enough for me not to highly recommend this book.
Reviewed by Tim Janson


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Qi (Richard Ireton Series, Book 1) Review

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(More customer reviews)"David Aikman's QI (which apparently is pronounced "chee") is a
suspenseful tour through the violent secret society underworld of
contemporary south China as a fictional coup is about to break in
Guangzhou out that will bring war with Taiwan. The hero fills a
rather unlikely professional role -- he's a journalist -- but as he
gets drawn inexorably into the coils of a complicated political plot,
he's every bit as interesting as your average thriller protagonist.
Of course, there IS a CIA character in the book, who's not the
derring-do type and more of a frustrated bureaucrat. There's also a
luscious Filipina girlfriend, who annoyingly for our hero Richard
Ireton, is infected with a dose of religion by a nosy African-American
missionary in Hong Kong and won't share her favors with him. That
produces some sparks, of course.
I read this book in two nights and couldn't put it down. In
addition to the fascinating story, I found author Aikman had packed in
a lot of really interesting stuff about China. On the whole, though,
the thought kept coming to me: Hollywood has gotta turn this into a
movie."

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Richard Ireton is a Hong Kong-based foreign correspondent for an American weekly news magazine. When he is sent to Guangdong, the Chinese province adjacent to Hong Kong, to investigate the disappearance of Chuck McHale, a missing American, he discovers there are dangerous new political currents flowing through South China. In the middle of these developments are practitioners of Qigong, a Taoist meditation and martial arts movement, who are rallying around their Great Master Wu. These fiercely anti-foreign Qigong adherents have allied with renegade forces of the Chinese army, and Ireton learns that together they pose a dangerous new threatto peace in Asia and relations with the United States. Ireton's hunt for McHale, who has run afoul of these Qigong army elements, brings him into the heart of China's underground "house church" movement, where McHale has sought refuge.

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Holding Juno: Canada's Heroic Defense of the D-Day Beaches: June 7-12, 1944 Review

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(More customer reviews)It is well known that the invasion at Omaha beach was the worst. What isn't nearly as well known or perhaps appreciated is that the Canadians going ashore at Juno suffered almost as high a percentage of casualties as did the Americans at Omaha (relatively speaking Sword, Gold, and Utah) were pretty mild. Further, the Canadians even reached their assigned targets for D-day in some places (the only ones to do so). The story of the Canadians landing at Juno is told in Mr. Zuehlke's 'Juno Beach' (still available).
'Holding Juno' picks up at midnight, the morning of June 7th where the Germans are massing for an attack to throw the invaders back into the sea, and the Canadians are fighting to work further inland and to consolidate the invasion beaches (at midnight there was still a gap between Juno and Sword).
This book ends on June 12. By then neither the Canadians or any of the other divisions that assaulted the beaches on June 6th were capable of more than holding actions. But by then 326,547 men had landed and the battle to hold the beaches was done.
This book is an important contribution to the story of D-Day.

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At D-Day's end, the Canadians, who had landed on Juno Beach, were six miles inland - the deepest penetration achieved by Allied forces on this infamous day. But every soldier on this front line knew worse was yet to come. For in the darkness the Germans were massing, intent on throwing them back to sea. With dramatic intensity, Holding Juno re-creates the ensuing battle and ultimate Canadian triumph and includes fascinating first-person soldier accounts as well as photos and maps.

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Doctored Evidence: A Commissario Guido Brunetti Mystery Review

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(More customer reviews)Last year, the publication of US ex-pat Donna Leon's Uniform Justice - about a murder in an Italian military academy - marked her much-lauded return to the American stage after 7 years. (They ceased to be published originally because she believed the way her publishers were marketing her books was "vulgar".) The rest of the world over, she has been a regular feature on the bestseller lists, and determined American fans have only been able to acquire foreign copies. Thankfully, that is now slowly changing. Why thankfully? Because her Commissario Guido Brunetti series, set in her adopted home-city of Venice, is one of the most enjoyable currently being produced. It is a huge big sparkling gem in the crown of crime fiction - it is a treasure trove of pure enjoyment.
Doctored Evidence is the 13th in the award-winning series, and just as good as all the rest. An unpleasant old-woman is found murdered in her apartment by her doctor. She was not liked. Treating her maids no better than slaves, and keeping her television on loud almost every night are just two of the behaviours which alienate her from her neighbours. Suspicion immediately falls on her Romanian maid, who is missing and heading back to her country. As the police catch up with her at a train station on the border, she flees in desperation, and is killed as she runs across the tracks into the path of a train.
Finding a large amount of money on her person, they believe they've found their woman. That is, until one of the victim's neighbours returns from a business trip in London, with strong evidence to suggest that she was not the killer. The investigating officer dismisses her, passing her off to Brunetti, who starts to investigate the case unofficially, and uncovers a mystery far more complex than the one they all suspected.
The fact that Leon writes these novels purely for pleasure (she has said that she would far rather attend the opera if it came to a choice) and not for fame or money (uncomfortable with any kind of "celebrity", she refuses to allow them to be published in Italy) really shines through this marvellous series. It is infused with something marvellous. This is crime fiction for the sake of it. It is pure and it is wonderful.
That's not to say it isn't serious, either, because it is. Donna Leon does for Venice what Ruth Rendell does for Britain and Michael Connelly for L.A. Like many great crime writers, Leon uses her fiction as a way of highlighting things about the world - in this case specifically Venice - which concern her. Indeed, often they expose a level of corruption which Signor Berlusconi would not be at all pleased about! Doctored Evidence focuses perhaps less on general civic corruption - although Leon can't resist throwing hints of it into the mix - and more on a kind of personal corruption, while still managing to write as piercingly and fascinatingly about the society of Venice as ever. She is in the fortunate position of an outsider able to look at a society from the inside, and she utilises that advantage brilliantly for her portrait of the city. These novels are practically drenched in culture, and their protagonist is wonderfully refreshing: he is not hard or gritty, nor particularly flawed or jaded; he is just a normal Italian, a very moral man who wrestles every day with justice and its ambiguities. Plus, his wife is wonderful! The plots are refreshing, too, in the way of much European fiction: they are much less formulaic than some American or British fiction. Leon's mysteries are predictable only in their excellence. Doctored Evidence is a wonderful novel, a pure, sublime joy that no reader should allow to pass by.

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Excessive Joy Injures the Heart Review

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(More customer reviews)Review is from Rebecca Wright, an American studying at the University of Toronto
Two women walk into "the splashy bedlam" of a public swimming pool area, then feel the steambath warmth of the chlorinated air come toward them "across the sloshed tiles, in that great booming hall of hygiene." The strawberries that Claire Vornof (the protagonist of Excessive Joy Injures the Heart) hulls are "too hard, white-knuckled at their tips", and her refrigerator is so old that it creaks like a saddle. As for one of her blouses, a pale-green shell made out of shot silk, it "looks as if it's been left out overnight in a frost."
I knew from the imagery in Elisabeth Harvor's Excessive Joy Injures the Heart that I was going to love its language, even though from the write-up on the book jacket I didn't think its story would interest me much. But as it turned out, I got hooked early on: the two central characters (Claire Vornoff and Declan Farrell) were polarized in a way that I found unusual and emotional. And by the time I'd reached the book's end, I had to conclude that Excessive Joy Injures the Heart--the title is from an acupuncture manual listing the effects of various emotions on different organs of the body--tells an incredibly electric and intelligent story, a story that also "dares to ask disquieting questions about the nature of attraction, about the responsibility for it, and the complicity necessary for two human bodies to hover, be lured, and to connect," as one of the review excerpts puts it. Even the book jacket (which was mostly pretty sappy) is absolutely right when it says that the novel is alert to the pathos of love's ambiguities.
The writing has a whole lot of momentum too, and is really original and memorable. Harvor is a writer who really seems to understand both tragedy and tenderness, but she can also be incredibly funny. There's a scene with a naturopath by the name of Mr. Spaulding that made me laugh out loud. And so did the scene describing Mitchell Kinkaid giving Claire a yoga lesson. I also really admire the way Harvor so honestly and viscerally evokes the sights and smells of the real world, as in the scene with Mitchell where Claire hasn't changed since she got home from her job (at a medical clinic) and is afraid she might be smelling a "little too sour and female. Or at the very least of a medical scent from the disinfectant at work." Or this: "The aroma of fried bananas and the crash of surfy music--surf, and some kind of tinkling, imitation Bach" that greets Claire and Tony O'Bois as they come into a vegetarian restaurant. And then there are all those other scenes that just took my breath away: a weirdly scary scene in which two men in black caps and black windbreakers skate with their black dogs on a neighborhood pond well after midnight; a scene in a theater where a theatre balcony is described as "vertigo country, and how like a precipice a theater balcony is (don't wear high heels, don't lose your balance)..."And one last thing to mention: The way that both the opening and final sentences of the novel begin with the word "Because." In fact, these "becauses" seem to symbolize the way all the questions that arise from all the human (but not necessarily wise) things that Claire Vornoff does could also be answered with that single word "Because". And so why should you read this deep and unforgettable novel? Because!

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