Product Description
Two cassettes.Playing time 3 hours. Read by Steven Pacey. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

plain rubbish.....
i was really disappointed reading this book- the dialogues were corny, giving useless information (and in a rather stupid maner, might i add), un-explained actions which only seemed to serve the plot, and a general feeling that the author has read too many pulp fiction and cloak and dagger books, and REALLY wanted to write one, too. the lines are so over dramatic, that you can actually envision the scene ending with a soap-opera close-up.
absolutely terrible....
avoid at all cost!!

too generic
I had to check to see when this was written, because it is so devoid of current technology, it could easily have been written in the 60s or 70s.The villain, Dr. Goslar, is one of those all-powerful shadowy figures usually seen in pulp fiction (e.g., Fu Manchu).If he is so powerful and such a threat with some new biological weapon, why are there only a few agents attempting to bring him down?And why does Goslar fail again and again to kill them?There is also a plot twist involving sisters which I saw coming at least three hundred pages early.Weak, especailly when stacked up against say, Frederick Forsyth or Andy McNab.

Action-packed British thriller with corny dialogue!
Ah, but we love Colin Forbes for this! His books are so entertaining. This is his latest thriller(at least until RHINOCEROS comes out) and is up to his usual standards! The main characters are once again Britain's best MI6 agents Tweed, Paula Grey and Bob Newman. Along witb ace sniper Marler and also heavies Pete Nield and Harry Butler, they are up against the evil genius Dr Goslar who has perfected a bio-chemical weapon of mass destruction. France, hungry for Euro-domination, wants this weapon, and sends agents of their own after Goslar. America's military is also after it - who will reach Goslar first? Along the way, Paula Grey is kidnapped, a former British Army weapons expert Brigadier Adam Burgoyne helps out - but whose side is he really on? The action of this story takes place in Geneva and also the French town of Annecy. Forbes describes his locations authentically, I have visited Annecy myself when Inter-Railing five years ago and could relate to these parts of the book well. The climax and final twists in the plot are well unexpected too. Add to all this two token ladies also trying to get to Goslar, Serena Cavendish and Judy Warner who Tweed cannot trust and you have a real top potboiler of a novel! In typical Forbes vein, the narrative does contain some unintentionally funny lines. For instance:

(p.1) Tweed, talking to a police inspector: 'I told you Roy. Because of the message that came into SIS headquarters in London. From that evil genius, Dr. Goslar!'

(p.45) Tweed: 'La Defense? That's the amazing business centre in Paris with incredibly tall buildings.'

(p. 341) The main rotor blade struck him just below the jaw, sliced off his head.(poor grammar!) It flew through the air like a melon, a leaking red melon.

Not to mention Goslar's mansion called GARGOYLE TOWERS. But it's all great. clean fun. And of course, they all get to stay in the best hotels and drink litres of champagne and wine in between tracking the baddies. Hugely entertaining. ... Read more

Product Description
It's an ordinary day for Arthur - he's just faked a heart attack to get out of Maths and is contemplating the beauty of Gwen Lott. But a glimpse of her bra strap sets off a chain of events that reveals that Arthur's so far rather pitiful life is far from ordinary. He and his new (only) friend Lawrence are about to discover that they are the spirit of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table reborn| Our noble heroes must save Albion Wood and a rare species of 'white bird fingies' from destruction...God's swimming trunks| Are they up to the challenge? ... Read more

Product Description
Two cassettes.Playing time 3 hours.Read by Steven Pacey. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

Rats 2 delivers the gruesome goods.
The only thing connecting this novel to the previous entry, as well as the one that followed it, are the rats themselves.Here they have escaped to a wooded area that surrounds London and are gulping down campers and hikers as well as rural townfolk.Herbert's vignette laced narrative is a deceptive breeze to read, for it makes the blood curdling attacks, of which there are quite a few, all the more effective.Animal attack fans should need no encouraging to hunt this down, but others will find something to enjoy as well.Recommended.

An enjoyable follow up to The Rats
If you liked The Rats, then you will like this one, as it is more of the same, except this time the rats are on the rampage in a forest just outside London. (This is the second part of a trilogy, although the books can be read separately.)No-one does this quite like Herbert: The action is taut, the description is vivid, and the story is gripping. If the characterisation is a little one dimensional and the story a bit predictable, it doesn't ruin the enjoyment of the book. Come to it with average expectations and enjoy. Not his best but a good one nevertheless.

Pleasantly Surprised About This Great Suspense Story
For those of you who don't know the order of the Rats trilogy already, let me go ahead and get that out of the way first.It starts off with Rats, then Lair, and finally concludes with Domain.All are great books but I must admit when I started Lair I wasn't ready to give it the credit it deserved.It was a sort of neglected middle child out of the "Rats" family.The first book, Rats, sets up the plot for the entire trilogy, as would be expected and while the premise by itself (people being mutilated and killed by giant mutant rats) seems like something out of a 50's B Horror movie, Herbert actually manages to pull it off, due probably more to his skill as a writer than anything else.And this was when he was an up and coming writer.Reading his later works one can see how much he has evolved [kind of like his rats :):)].Rats was the starting point and was pretty interesting in and of itself, while Domain was a straight home run out of the park.When I started Lair, with the knowledge of what was to come in Domain, I read it mainly so I could get to Domain, kind of how you drive through Jersey so you can get to New York.But I guess the surprise was on me because I actually really enjoyed reading the book.The rats come back and in full force, except instead of being in the London docks they are in Epping Forest, an outskirt of London.The no nonsense, tough as nails hero with a vendetta in this book is Luke Pender (although if you like Pender you'll really like Captain Mather, a sort of British John Wayne).Pender works for Ratkill, the extermination agency that helped stop the London outbreak four years earlier.People looking for recurring characters might be disappointed (although not surprised since many of the main characters in Rats either got terribly mauled or killed) as the only one we get is Stephen Howard, a grunt in the original Rats novel, but now the big cheese at Ratkill in Lair.The book is action packed with lots of rat attacks, as would be expected, the usual gratuitous sex scenes one always expects from Herbert (just joking Mr. Herbert) and a great finale worthy of the House of Usher.This book can be thought of as an extension of the first book, Rats.One could read Lair in and of itself but it would make more sense if they read Rats first then Lair, as it involves the reader more in the story.Yes, the book has some predictable scenes.One sometimes wants to shout "Don't go in there" but Herbert's prose does make up for any misses.For richness of plot you might want to turn to Harlan Ellison or Ray Bradbury, but if you like smooth prose that floats off the mind like a fine wine as well as a riveting action adventure novel then give Herbert a try.(And don't forget to read the other two books in the trilogy).

Formulaic
James Herbert is Englands Dean Koontz. His books are formulaic, samey and predictable. They consist of a main character who is oddly similar to every other main character he has written, a love interest who's general purposeis to provide a lurid, by-numbers sex scene, and vignettes of peoplegetting killed in elaborate ways. Lair is the extremely tedious tale ofkiller rats, like 'rats' basically but with different killings. Herbertdoes has talent, he wrote a really good book called 'Shrine' (set nearwhere i live!) which was a generally scary book and another book called'The Jonah' whose plot i can't remember but it was quite sexy. So checkthose out and ignore this piece of amateur 'shock' writing.

The best of the 'Rats' Trilogy
Being 13 and still reading comics was too much for my brother, so he threw a copy of 'Lair' at me, with instruction to 'start reading something more grown up'.

Ever since that day I have been a fan of not just this book,but of James Herbert too.

This is a follow up to 'Rats' and a prequel tothe last of the trilogy - 'Domain'.Having read Lair first, then Rats,then Domain (and then all again in the right order), only Lair is the one Icontinually return to. Rat's reads like what it is - his earlier work, andDomain can be a little too heavy going.

Lair is a perfect balance, andjust like sitting down to watch you fave movie for the hundreth time, thisbook just calls out to be read every so often and you never put it downtill you reach the end.

Along with Moon and The Dark, Lair rates as myfavourite horror novel and a masterpiece of the genre.

Incidentally,whereas the pages of Amazon list this as now being out of print, my localBritish stores stock recently reprinted copies of all his work. ... Read more

Product Description
A thriller featuring Tweed of the SIS, as he battles to discover which one of his European sector chiefs is a traitor. Other work by the author includes "The Stone Leopard", "The Palermo Ambush", "The Heights of Zervos" and "The Greek Key". ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Nothing Much to Write Home About
Like Janus, this book had two faces, one bad and one ugly.I do not mind it if an author is going to pass off an old, well-used story line on us - this is the spy mole hunt with the odd pairing of hinters, but you have to make it interesting. We just kind of moved through this book at a plodding pace that never picks up, the characters are so weakly described that you really never care to find out what happens. I heard he was a good author so I struggled through to the end, but I now regret the lost time.

The average spy roman
This book could have been much, much better if Forbes would have describedbetter his characters. The story is about a Russian spy known as Balkan,who is the head of one of the European headquarters of the SIS. The chiefof the European sector, Tweed, tries to find out, who the black sheep is.His help is a newswriter called Newman who is actually his bodyguard. Theplot is too simple and the characters don't really have "faces".If we forget about this, the book is good, readable, but not so muchenjoying. That's the cause of the 2 stars. ... Read more

Product Description
A page-turning novel of assassins and double-crossing from the master of modern mystery, Ian Rankin.

Michael Weston is a gun for hire. He's paid well to do his job and ask no questions. But after successfully assassinating a TV reporter, the cops are quickly on his tail. How did they know how to find him? And who is his anonymous employer? Why did he or she want the reporter dead in the first place? Was he set up to be caught and thrown in jail?

The answers may lie with Hoffer, a private detective who has been hunting him for years--ever since Michael dispatched a bullet and accidentally hit an innocent young American girl. Her grieving father has kept Hoffer on retainer and on a mission to bring Weston to justice no matter what the cost. Could Hoffer have finally trapped him?

The only way Michael can stay ahead of the police is to find his mysterious employer and figure out who has been playing him like a puppet on strings--or he may find himself on the other end of the rifle. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (16)

Don't Read This One First
I am so glad this wasn't the first Ian Rankin book I read.Otherwise, it would have been the last, and I never would have discovered his terrific Inspector Rebus stories.Rankin has the advantage on me with his Rebus novels because I don't know anything about Scotland, so whatever he says about that, I can believe.But, while reading Bleeding Hearts (which I chose not to finish), I kept thinking to myself, 'this guy doesn't know what he's talking about.' The American private eye somehow manages to get himself on British TV as a famous American private eye. Does that ever happen? Know any famous private eyes?And he says things to people like, 'I'm an American, and where I come from, we show hospitality to strangers.'Really?And he's from New York!I do admire Rankin's efforts to get America and Americans right, and appreciate how difficult that might be for someone from Scotland, but he fails time and again, leading me to finally put the book aside.It is a failed effort.That said, the Rebus mysteries are great.

Characters could not hold my interest
I agree with an earlier reviewer, that none of these characters are very likable.This was my first experience with Ian Rankin, after being told many times that I would love his writing [guess I should have started with a John Rebus story]. I never got into any of the characters, did not believe them or their motivations, and really struggled to care what happened to them.Really, the most interesting character is the woman who gets killed in the opening chapter.Finally, just gave up after about 150 pages, flipped to the back and read the last few chapters and the "twist" was what I expected.Blah.

"Some snipers go for the head. Not me. I go for the heart."
Oh, the blessings of being an author with too much time on his hands. I can just picture Ian Rankin sitting in the house (farm? cottage?) he and his wife bought in rural Dordogne, having whizzed through the manuscript for yet another increasingly well-written John Rebus novel and - having left behind all other employment across the British Channel and neither inclined to carpentry nor gardening - feeling his mind growing restless, in need of occupation. Now, wouldn't you have started looking for another outlet for your creative energy had you been in his spot?

The result of the aforementioned process, which Rankin describes in the foreword to a 2000 (alas, British-only!) compilation uniting all three volumes, were a series of thrillers he wrote under the pseudonym Jack Harvey: Jack for his newborn son, Harvey for his wife's maiden name.

After a good, albeit a bit uneven beginning with "Witch Hunt" - the story of a female assassin hunted by agents of the British and the French governments - things really shift into high gear with the second Jack Harvey novel, "Bleeding Hearts." Unusual is, already, its protagonist: another assassin, but this time a large part of the story is told from his perspective, and the presumed "bad guy's" first person narrative magnetically draws you in, until you end up rooting for *him* - the cool, slick, smart, presumably rather goodlooking operator - and not for the ex-cop-turned-P.I. who's been on his heels for years, and compared to whom even a classic noir gumshoe would almost look like an epitome of innocence (besides being a good deal slimmer). What is more, the story's enigmatic anti-hero suffers from a birth defect both supremely ironic and potentially fatal in his line of work: hemophilia ...

Mike Weston's nickname in professional circles on both sides of the law is "Demolition Man," for the small set of explosives he plants near the site of each job in lieu of a calling card. After a few jobs have gone anything but smoothly (or so rumor has it), he needs a good, clean hit to restore his reputation. Just that seems to be handed to him with the assassination of a reporter about to embark on a story involving a religious cult with the peaceful-sounding name "Disciples of Love." And initially everything goes as planned: the target is where she is supposed to be exactly at the time she is supposed to be there, and he nails her with a shot into the heart; another calling card of his.

But then things start to happen that he hasn't been planning for, and in his view there's only one explanation - he's been set up. So while normally he would leave the place of his hit as quickly and silently as possible, now he has to retrace the job to its origins, find out who was behind it and who wants him out of the way. Assisted by Belinda, the daughter of his trusted, reclusive Yorkshire gun supplier, he soon finds himself on the trace of a group of ruthless people who actually do make our Mike look well-neigh moral in comparison, as well as an international conspiracy not only involving the "Disciples of Love" but also, in the novel's conclusion, drawing on a lesser-known factual tidbit from the Iran-Contra affair.

We learn little about Mike's motivation and moral code over the course of the novel. He does reveal that, not having found much pleasure in more ordinary occupations, he gradually slid into his current profession through the fascination with guns and his prowess as a shooter that his father had first awakened in him; and he presents us with all professional killers' age-old adage: "I knew I wouldn't be working for the Salvation Army. But then I wasn't killing any nuns and priests, either. It was only after a few hits that I decided anyone was fair game. It isn't up to the executioner to pronounce guilt or innocence. He just makes sure the instruments are humane." Outside a few insights into his psyche like this, however, Mike's focus is more on the "who," "what," "where" and "how" of a job, not the "why" - the latter only becomes a question when his own life is at stake. But this is all just as well. Rankin walks a tight rope in keeping Mike's inner workings largely concealed from the reader, and he walks it convincingly; much more so than if he had tried to overtly humanize Mike Weston.

Along their chase, Mike and Belinda encounter a number of unique and likewise deliciously drawn characters; to name but one, Mike's friend Spike Jackson, as gun-crazy redneck as you'll ever encounter them but at the same time, their only true ally. Add to that Rankin's superb instinct for locales, language and dialogue, and you have one heck of a ride; a high-powered chase from London to Yorkshire, Scotland and all across the United States, ending with a shootout near Olympic National Park in Washington State that could have been choreographed by the likes of Sam Peckinpah and Brian De Palma.

Although I'm happy enough for Rankin's success with Inspector Rebus and wouldn't want any story featuring Edinburgh's finest (and most hard-drinking) D.I. missing from my bookcases, in a way I regret that Rankin had to shelve Jack Harvey after only three books; and of all of them, "Bleeding Hearts" is by far my favorite. In the foreword to the above-mentioned compilation, Rankin concedes that in creating Mike Weston he may inadvertently have either "been paying homage" to one of his own favorite novels, Martin Amis's "Money," or "trying to write that seductive narrative voice of [the other novel's protagonist's] John Self's out of [his] system." Whatever it was, it certainly had me hooked. And Mr. Rankin, in the unlikely event that you should ever resurrect Jack Harvey (or write a non-Rebus novel under your own name), I promise I'll read that one, too - with pleasure.

Also recommended:
Rebus: The Early Years (Knots & Crosses / Hide & Seek / Tooth & Nail)
Rebus - The St Leonard's Years
Rebus: The Lost Years (Let It Bleed / Black & Blue / The Hanging Garden)
Rebus: Capital Crimes (Dead Souls / Set in Darkness / The Falls)
Ian Rankin Inspector Rebus CD Collection: Resurrection Men, A Question of Blood, Fleshmarket Alley (Inspector Rebus) (Inspector Rebus)
Exit Music
Rebus's Scotland
Rebus
The Jack Harvey Novels
Rebus: The Complete Short Stories~Ian Rankin

Sloppy details, implausible dialogue
This is a decent read; the other reviews are pretty much on the mark. There were, however, at least three serious drawbacks. First, I was continually irritated by Rankin's lack of attention to accurate detail. For instance, as a former Army officer, I was intrigued by the wide-ranging array of information on all sorts of firearms in the opening pages. But later (p. 153 in the Little Brown mass market paperback edition of 2007), one of the dope dealers is described as carrying a .457 caliber pistol: no such weapon has ever been manufactured to my knowledge (although it's possible he meant Smith & Wesson Model 459, which is a nine mm, or roughly .38 caliber, weapon). I didn't take the trouble to try and sniff out other such lapses, but I'll bet they're lurking just beneath the surface, readily uncovered by, or even immediately apparent to, a discerning reader. Second, a considerable share of the dialogue is very implausible (e.g., the pub conversation between Hoffer and his policeman-on-the-take accomplice, Edmond, in the opening pages of chapter eleven). Real people don't talk like that. Period. And third, the detective, Hoffer, is supposed to be an American; his character, however, repeatedly uses English (totally non-American) references and even vernacular. Rankin may well be the best-selling current English mystery writer, but he's no John Buchan, or Ian Fleming, or John LeCarre, or Richard Stark, or Elmore Leonard, or Charlie Huston.

Bleedin' Readable
Ian Rankin has earned a high reputation for police procedurals injected with gritty realism; there's a stylish wry wit and a raw energy in Rankin's writing that has been likened by critics to rock and roll.His dissolute Inspector Rebus is a fine piece of work, walking the line none too steadily between Scottish organized crime, an increasingly cynical view of his colleagues, wavering personal ethics and the local pub.
Bleeding Hearts departs from the Rebus series and offers up a bang and a twist right from the start: the narrator is a professional assassin, meticulously preparing for another in a long string of hits.He nails his target without a flinch, but the police land on his tail immediately.Michael Weston therefore sets off on a helter-skelter tour of the seedier side of London, rural Scotland, and on to New York, Texas and the Pacific Northwest in search of the person who has set him up or sold him out.To add to the suspense and interest, his footsteps are dogged all the way by an overweight, drug-addicted, hypochondriac American gumshoe who has made a career out of following Weston.Neither character is exactly lovable or multi-faceted, but part of the fascination of the book is discovering which of these reprehensible characters is worthy of the reader's sympathy.The long story writhes, wallows, jogs, and lags sometimes in reflection of the narrator's anger, flattened-affect, mania and fatigue; a nice case of function following form. I was impressed to find my native Seattle/Olympic Peninsula accurately depicted, but disappointed that the narration had so little feeling for the place.Oh well, that would be in line with the characters: sweat-stained, desperate road warriors, all.
Overall: RWR (Recommend With Reservations). Very well plotted, original and more than decently written.This is a very violent novel -- lots of descriptions of weapons, beatings, blood, and little redeeming social value, but all pretty much expected and therefore not too horrifying.If you enjoy a gritty crime novel, you will like this book.I personally found all the gun stuff tedious, but I'm just like that. ... Read more

Product Description
'As he ducked he heard the familiar sound, like a giant ripping heavyweight canvas, an automatic weapon throwing bullets at a cyclic rate of almost two thousand rounds a minute, and the bullets tore into the side of the Maserati, beating in the metal with an ear-numbing clangour, while glass exploded in upon Peter like the glittering spray as a storm-driven waves strikes a rock. Glass chips pelted across his back, and stung his cheek and the back of his neck. They sparkled like a diamond tiara in his hair'. The hijacking of a jumbo jet off the Seychelles galvanises anti-terrorist chief Peter Stride into the action for which he has spent a lifetime training. But even in the hail of bullets which follows, he knows that this is only the beginning of a nightmare. Stride is the one man who might find the twisted genius who holds the world hostage - if only his every move were not anticipated by the enemy... ... Read more

Customer Reviews (12)

Disappointed
Not up to his usual. A number of inconsistancies. I pinned the bad guy and his flunky about half way through. He should stick to earlier times.

A cleverly designed adventure story
There were only fifteen passengers for the British Airways flight at Victoria Airport on the island of Mahe in the oceanic republic of the Seychelles. But one alone made the others seem insignificant by the sheer splendour of her physical presence. Once aboard she becomes a brutal and fanatical terrorist, spearhead of an international organisation intent on holding the world's powers to ransom. As the search for the power brain controlling the terrorists heightens, the explosive passions aroused by the beautiful hijacker reach an unforgettable climax in the sun scorched deserts of Galilee. Top suspense and action with a very well designed plot.

Tops, great seller, fast ship!
Great book on the issues of pirates stealing elephant ivory. Informative about Africa as a whole. Great read! Smith gets a bit preachy at times, but you learn about the ivory trade, Africa, and it is suspenseful to boot! Tops!

WILD JUSTICE = WILD ACTION

I am a Wilbur Smith fansince reading THE SEVENTH SCROLL which was wonderful.This book I had a hard time on the first two chapters and then it takes off and really provided excitement.One of my favorite scenes is when the main character's daughter is kidnapped and he must find her with few clues.I really liked
this book and it stays with you.Also the tension when he suspects his love interest of being a terrorist was acute.

Besides the 7th SCROLLHungry as the Sea was a huge hit with me
as well as most of his other books.Smith is able to write action scenes thatreally stick with one's imagination.

I am eagerly awaiting his next novel.

Not your usual Wilbur
I'm a big "Willllburrr" fan, but this book was disappointing.This book was was not as engaging as his historical novels (which I ADORE), & parts of it were ludicrously implausible. ... Read more

Product Description
Shanghai, 1926. A city of British Imperial civil servants, American gunrunners, Russian princesses and Chinese gangsters. For Richard Field, it represents a brave new world away from the past he is trying to escape. Seconded to the police force, his first moment of active duty is at a brutal crime scene where a young White Russian woman lies murdered. But as Field begins to peer through the glittering surface to the murky depths beneath, he sees a world where everything has a price, and where human life is merely another asset to barter.Amazon.com Review
Tom Bradby's third novel (though his first to be published in the U.S.) is a feverish work of historical noir, a labyrinthine thriller set in a vicious world where everyone--as in Bogart's Casablanca--has a reason for hiding. The year is 1926; the city is Shanghai, a swamp of organized crime, corruption, turf wars between British intelligence and street-level law enforcement, Communist sympathizers, and East European refugees from Bolshevik atrocities. Into this sweltering, cutthroat port city steps Richard Field, an idealistic policeman from Yorkshire looking to distance himself from a painful past. Ill-suited to Shanghai's heat and shocking violence, Field nevertheless throws himself into investigating the grisly murder of a Russian prostitute, the latest in a line of dead women who lived in the orbit of a powerful Chinese mobster. Slowed by official roadblocks, Field learns that the only man in his department he can trust is a tough Chicago detective, Caprisi, a touchstone of sanity even as Field loses his rookie head over another doomed Russian call girl.

Bradby, a seasoned correspondent for Britain's ITN television network, has obviously spent considerable time researching 1920s Shanghai. His feel for the city's Byzantine society and exotic textures is matched by his accessible vision of Shanghai as a junction of international fallout and internal intrigue. Less compelling, if not outright distracting, is Bradby's more contemporary emphasis on ghastly serial killings with a sex-crime edge. But in the end, the book's remarkable prose and density of experience are uniquely rewarding. --Tom Keogh ... Read more

Customer Reviews (25)

Brain Drain
This book is so poorly written, the characters so contrived, the plot so full of holes that I scarcely know where to begin in reviewing it.Well, yes I do.Put simply, this has to be the worst novel I've read in years.Teachers should use it for classes on how NOT to write.Examples proliferate on every page.As a screenplay, it might just be passable. But, even then, it would require an assiduous copy editor.Who are the idiots who write these "professional" reviews going on about the "lush atmosphere" and "ghastly splendour."?Show me one piece of Chinese cuisine that appears here, one aroma that distinguishes a locale, one psychologically astute apercu concerning any of the characters. I almost think that I have read a different book than other reviewers.

But perhaps all this could be forgiven if this book was an even slightly suspenseful whodunit.Unfortunately, the identity of the culprit became all too obvious to me about halfway through the book.A Hardy Boys or Nancy Drew book contains more suspense!

What else to say?It's this sort of book that makes a reader want to become a bricklayer; which is, as far as I'm concerned, what Mr. Bradby should have done, or at least attempted to do...bricklaying takes a sense of nuance and a knowledge of construction that I'm not at all sure Bradby could master, ever.

Not enough texture
This was an interesting read.I would like to have given it 3.5 stars.That seems like the appropriate rating.The plot was well done. It didn't bog down at any point.But, as the title of this review says, it seemed to lack texture somehow.Its presentation of 1926 Shanghai was believable enough, certainly to someone like me with only scant stereotypical expectations.But I didn't feel like there had been enough detail presented of life for Field and others around him.I almost feel as though some people and things utterly incongruous to the story, some laughter, jokes, etc would have helped.

Not a gotcha review
At this stage of writing it is difficult to add new insight; the 22 reviews before me have covered most reviewing stances.

After 150 pages I wished I hadn't started on the book, which I finished nevertheless. I haven't learnt much about Shanghai of the era of the novel, not even much of the "occupying" district described. The characters were cardboard, including Field.

I don't want to engage in "gotcha" review, showing that the author uses a few neologisms, nor even that he doesn't know that zippers were not that wide spread in Shanghai.

(The following may be a spoiler.)

But I was amazed at the fluency with which foreigners spoke Chinese, or the Chinese English. This has not been my experience in the US. But one must suspend judgement in a novel like this. Still, I am surprised, that no reviewer has commented on the following.One of the most important documents in the novel was a hidden note describing something in ledger 2, found by the Englishman Field in the Lena Orlov's apartment. It is hardly likely that the Russian woman would have written the notes in any language other than her mother tongue, Russian. And it is beyond belief that Field could have read and understood the notes. Of course, it is only a little less difficult to believe that Lu would leave a document of such importance lying around open, and that any Russian woman could decipher the Chinese writing so easily. Since so much depends on this document, the author could have thought of a better way to bring it to light.

After this, dare I say that, once more, the detective could not figure out the identity of the criminal.

superb thriller with exotic setting
Shanghai 1926 -- a humid, brooding city carved up between competing interests. The British, Americans and French all have their own imperialist enclaves, each with its own police force. Corrupt, fabulously wealthy businessmen make vast fortunes smuggling drugs and other contraband, dealing in prostitution and child abuse. The Chinese communist underground is trying to build strenth; the local Chinese mobster has national aspirations as well. And thousands of White Russian refugees, forced to flee their homeland after the Bolshevik revolution, scrape a living using whatever means they can.
Richard Land, a young Yorkshireman, arrives seeking to build a career in the British police force and quickly finds himself investigating the brutal slaying of a Russian girl. He is caught up in events he barely understands, buffeted between competing factions in the British community, appalled at their decadence and corruption and the general brutality and cheapness of life in Shanghai. He also falls in love with another Russian girl -- is she a witness, a victim or a collaborator?
This is a superb thriller. It does what all such books ought to do -- transports the reader to a time and place far away and makes it seem authentic. The characters are flesh and blood and their dilemmas seem real.
I knew nothing about Shanghai in this period but the author's prodigious research brings it to life. You smell the squalid stink of the sweating city. I knew little about the plight of White Russians -- the author rescues them from history.
There are a couple of awkward moments -- phrases that seem to belong more to 2000 than 1926 (one character is said to be "anal") and I wasn't enthralled with the sex -- but those are minor quibbles. I admired this book greatly -- and enjoyed it even more.
For more on my book, The Nazi Hunter: A Novel and me, go to www.alanelsner.com.

A Better Editor Might Have Helped
I allowed myself to be conned by the blurbs on the cover.

The book is marred by numerous anachronisms, errors of fact, improbable events, and even bad grammar.It appears to have been written by a journalist; it has a researched, contrived feel. ... Read more

Product Description
"Breathless action...Explosive stuff" was the "Mirror's" summing up of Matthew Reilly's third - and previous - novel "Area 7", the second to feature his unstoppable new protagonist, Captain Shane M. Schofield, USMC - a legend for our times. Lieutenant 'Scarecrow' Schofield first burst across international consciousness with Reilly's second novel "Ice Station", an extraordinary tour-de-force from a young Australian author still in his mid-twenties. He is now a best-seller in every continent. A keen movie-goer, this author aims for filmic speed of pace, a rip-roaringly original story, non-stop action and thrills and adventure, with all of these in exotic settings. His ongoing ambition is to reinvent what he already does so brilliantly - and take the action thriller up to the next level. ... Read more

Product Description
In Talking it Over, Gillian and Stuart were married until Oliver - witty, feckless Oliver - stole her away. In Love, etc Julian Barnes revisits Stuart, Gillian and Oliver, using the same intimate technique of allowing the characters to speak directly to the listener, to whisper their secrets, to argue for their version of the truth...Love, etc is a compelling exploration of contemporary love and its betrayals.Amazon.com Review
Oliver, Stuart, and Gillian have been friends and lovers. But it's been 10 years since this backbiting trio, which Julian Barnes first introduced inTalking It Over,last met--and a lot has changed. For starters, Oliver has married Gillian,and Stuart, his erstwhile best friend, hates him for it. Not just becauseStuart was once married to Gillian, but because he still loves her and hasnever ceased to regard himself as her savior. Under the guise of repairingold friendships--"all blood under the bridge"--this mild-mannered thirdwheel insinuates himself into the couple's life by offering advice, providing support, and even giving Oliver a job. Once he's maneuvered his nemesis into a crippling depression, Stuart unveils his master plan.

In Love, Etc. Barnes adopts the same technique he used in theearlier installment, allowing his characters to speak their innermostthoughts and secrets directly to the reader--and just about everybody gets somegood lines. (Oliver: "Yes, everything went swimmingly, which is a verypeculiar adverb to apply to a social event, considering how most humanbeings swim.") But the book is also a bewitchingly intimate excursion intobetrayal and jealousy. With painstaking detail, Barnes creates a vibrantportrait of a modern love triangle--as funny as it is cruel, as absurd asit is deep. Few contemporary writers can portray Middle England, with allits temptations, so darkly. --Matthew Baylis ... Read more

Customer Reviews (12)

Love, etc by Julian Barnes - richly observed and moving too
It's hard to imagine a more perfect marriage of form and content than Love, etc, in which Julian Barnes continues the story of characters that came to life in Talking It Over. If, however, this marriage is fine, then equally the marriage of Gillian and Oliver is not. And neither, for that matter, was the previous one that temporarily joined Gillian and Stuart.

Julian Barnes tells the story of this love triangle entirely in the first person. Gillian, Oliver and Stuart appear like talking heads on a screen to relate their own side of things. Since we left them at the end of Talking It Over, Stuart has moved to the States, where he has become a successful businessman and has found a new partner. Oliver, meanwhile, having won the hand of fair Gillian, has started his family but has fallen on hard times, an experience he seems to regard merely as a passing phase, except that it's clearly not a phase and neither does it pass. Re-enter Stuart, and thus the situation progresses.

Occasionally, especially when the principal actors mention them, minor characters appear to have their often substantial say. There is an ex, a new girlfriend, an occasional mother. Also, the children have their say, their naiveté as confused as it is innocent, their vagueness inherited, perhaps, from their personal environment.

And so a story unfolds. Oliver is as full of theatre and bravura as he was throughout Talking It Over, but now it rings more of a bluff, a screen erected for self-protection rather than an extrovert's sheen. Unemployment and illness seem to have exhausted him. Stuart, having made his fortune, is on an up and begins to reassert his desire to occupy the position he has always coveted, the space by Gillian's side.

There are surprises in store, surprises for the characters and for the reader. But what Julian Barnes communicates with such subtlety, skill and ease are the inconsistencies of human character, the incongruities of events, the contradictions and deceptions of behaviour, and the illusions these confusions create. These people all act primarily out of self-interest. But then who doesn't? That's the point. And thus the process takes all of us to places we have all been, but have often failed to notice or acknowledge, even if we have admitted and recognised our motives, which most of us have not. Love, etc is a brilliant book, brilliantly conceived and brilliantly executed with a lightness of touch that leaves us wholly surprised when we encounter a fundamentally serious point. The plot? Who cares?

(3.5): Solid, But Not Quite Fully Formed
I love Julian Barnes and believe he is one of the best writers producing fiction today (along with Coetzee, Murukami, and McEwan). With that in mind, I had very high hopes for this novel, and as much as I whipped through it and enjoyed it (I read it over the course of two evenings), I have to say that there's something missing. The premise is simple enough - guy marries girl, girl leave guy for best friend, time passes, but raw emotions do not. Now, Barnes chooses to write this in a series of interconnected monologues (see also Hornby's "A Long Way Down," a more successful version of this literary style, as well as portions of "King Lear") where characters are limited to what they can see, but in connecting all of their reflections, you get a wonderful picture not only of what is going on, but how the characters interact with one another and really misunderstand what is taking place around them. So on that level, in terms of its completeness of vision and its readability, the book is classic Barnes, but after thinking over my reading experience, I can't help but think that maybe the whole venture was not a complete success. If this were a writing exercise, it would be perfect in every way, but as a novel, I think it comes up short. There is something too staged and unbelievable about the situation and one of the motivations of one of the characters, Stuart, becomes so blatantly obvious that it takes away the subtlety that works so well through much of the novel. But with one of the three protagonists being too much of a cookie-cutter personality, and with the novel being all about voice, I couldn't help feel a little disappointed with the outcome. I would definitely tell Mr. Barnes to read Hornby's "A Long Way Down" to see a more successful and interesting version of what he seems to be trying to accomplish.

As an aside, the thoughts on love are quite comprehensive and interestingly put. Barnes covers the specturm in terms of the range of emotions people can feel for one another as masterfully as he has done in his other work.

Souffle light style - dark matter
Love etc. is not one of Barnes's heavier novels - it has the tone of being whisked up as a quick and fairly easy second course after the original Talking it Over. I found it slightly better than the original. The original dynamic of the love triangle - Gillian marries the dull Stuart, then falls for his flamboyant friend Oliver was too unconvincing and insubstantial to make a good novel. The sequel is darker, the characters are grown up and there are more dimensions to the story which give it's quick, light tone something to get it's teeth into. The cuckolded Stuart has made a success of his business and a failure of his second marriage in America, he returns to meet Gillian and Oliver in London, whose lives have not taken off as they might have hoped. The results are not as predictable as you may imagine.

Like the original, it reminded me of a Nick Hornby saga of modern, urban, London love lives, a sort of spicy Hamstead novel, but it is cleverer than the standard works of this genre, and contains more of Barnes's characteristic playfulness with form (most notably a great part when Gillian addresses the reader directly about marital sex). The ending is the weakest part of the book - the various carefully constructed strands of the story become somewhat frayed and unresolved. It seems as if Barnes wants to keep his options open to continue the threads through to a third book, thus making the series a sort of periodic chronicle of English everyman life the way Updike's 'Rabbit' novels did in the US.

Too clever?
Stuart is trying to seduce his ex-wife Gillian, now married to his ex-best friend Oliver. It's a sequel to "Talking It Over"(which I haven't read) but Oliver might well be the son of the protagonists of "Flaubert's Parrot."
It's told in the voices of multiple first person narrators. (This seems to be fashionable but could be a throwback to 18th and 19th century novels such as Collins's "The Moonstone.")
It's fully of dazzling witty insights about love and friendship and life. These are clever enough to keep you reading for their own sake, as well as carrying the plot along for the first half of the book. As the plot thickens, and as Oliver gets depressed, and Stuart becomes a more sinister figure, they clog the narrative more

Real-time
This is a rather unique situation: ten years passed since "Talking It Over", ten years passed in the author's life, in our lives, in the lives of Gillian, Oliver and Stuart. It is not often that we see a sequel developing at normal real-time pace. Imagine "Star Wars, Episode II" being filmed (with the same actors) not just a couple of years after Episode I, but after, how many was that, I'm not really a fan, let's say twelve years.

And it looks awful. Really awful. I identified myself with Oliver pretty much while reading the first book; after all, he's smart, quick-witted, and loves long words such as "crepuscular" (I've noticed that Barnes is personally extremely fond of this word himself; there's rarely a novel which goes without this word). But look what life has done to him. And how Stuart matured and vintaged, if this is a valid word.

And worst of all, it is so bloody realistic. Can't any of us count several Olivers, bright and brilliant, with high hopes (both their own and imposed on them by others), and utterly devastated and reduced to near-nothingness by the age when one should be in one's creative prime?

This does not spur me into going for ecological trade, or banking, or whatever it is what Stuart is or was doing. But this novel is an earnest warning to all us Olivers out there. ... Read more

Product Description
The story of Pinocchio, fully illustrated with an audio cassette narrating the tale word-for-word ... Read more

Product Description
1948: Europe is at peace, but a new war is just beginning. Laura is waiting on a street with a Colt. 32. She is desperate to find out what happened to her sister. They were both SOS spies during WWII ... Read more

Product Description
The thrilling sequel to Alistair MacLean's masterpiece of World War II adventure, The Guns of Navarone. Now reissued in a new cover style.The guns of Navarone have been silenced, but the heroic survivors have no time to rest on their laurels. Almost before the last echoes of the famous guns have died away, Keith Mallory, Andrea and Dusty Miller are parachuting into war-torn Yugoslavia to rescue a division of Partisans ! and to fulfil a secret mission, so deadly that it must be hidden from their own allies. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (9)

Not Free SF Reader
This is a strange book.The sequel novel ties in partly to the movie, with some of the characters, but pretty much sticks with the backstory and other information found in the Guns of Navarone.

As such, it is a bit on the problematic side, and definitely not anywhere as tense, exciting or well done.

A SEQUEL, BUT NOT A SEQUEL.


May sound strange, 'a sequel but not a sequel'.Dictionary definition of 'sequel' is a continuation, and it is that from a character viewpoint, however, it is also not a sequel in that the action and events are not tied to Navarone at all. This is a book designed to stand alone and to introduce an entirely different view of a WWII theatre.

On thing of apparent interest to Alistair MacLean was the Gustav Line in Italy and goings on in Yugoslavia. He not only writes of this subject in this book in 1968, but in 1982 returned to similar subject of the partisans and cetniks in his novel PARTISANS.In this Force 10 book he means to bring out the difficulty of the terrain on which Tito's forces had to fight, also the very limited amount of men and supplies they had, but also how they were able though always outnumbered and opposed by their fellow citizen Cetniks to generally come out as the victor. After the war Yugoslavia was estabished and for one who grew up in the 1950's, Marshal Tito seemed to be a frequent person in our weekly TIME magazines.

In fact, to this reader, this book holds more closely to historical fact than Guns of Navarone, which in its way spoke about the fighting on Crete and the general evacuation of troops in the areas of both the Aegean and Dodecanese. Both books are excellent reads and as true with most books come off much better than the movies later filmed from them.

If a reader enjoys Alistair MacLean's writing this book can never, ever be labeled a waste of time. The subsequent movie may be somewhat a waste of effort, but never the book. But while mentioning the movies, it is always of interest to note that Mr. MacLean quite often wrote the screen play from which the films themselves arose. Somewhat strange, almost as if he were trying to either rewrite his original book or write a completely different book on that subject.

Now that Mr. MacLean has been dead for many years, almost anything he brought into print is more than worth the effort to read. As one reviewer mentioned, they don't have writers such as MacLean anymore. And we are much more the loss for it.

Semper Fi.

What Went Wrong?
Alistair Maclean is one of my favorite authors.His story lines are usually fairly realistic with lots of action and plenty of fun dialogue.This story, takes the cake...I loved the Guns of Navarone, so I thought a sequel would be great.Unfortunately, Alistair relied to much on the fact that this was a sequel and failed miserably in the areas of plot, dialogue, and realism.This book, if it had been realistic, might have been a really good book.However, I found myself thinking, "This isn't real.I can't picture that," the whole book!
If you're bored and have nothing to do, it's fine.But if you have a choice between this and something else, do the something else.

Direct sequel to the MOVIE of "Guns", not the book.
This book isn't really a sequel to MacLean's novel of "Guns of Navarone", but in actuality the book was written to continue the events in the film adaptation of "Guns".
It directly mentions characters and events who were in the film but not the novel.
For example:
-Miller is a Brit like in the film of "Guns", instead of an American like he was in the novel.
-Andrea was never called "Stavros" in the book of "Guns", but was in the movie. In "Force 10" he is called Andrea Stavros.
-At the begininning of the novel "Force 10", Andrea is with the girl Maria he ended up with in the film, the character Maria was not in the novel of Guns.

A few posters had expressed confusion in their comments about the differences between the two novels. Hope this explanation will clear it up.

The Sequel to The Guns of Navarone
In "Force Ten from Navarone", author Alistair Maclean reunites us with the three main characters from "The Guns of Navarone" just after the completion of their desperate commando mission in the Greek Isles of the Second World War.However, there is no rest for the exhausted heroes, who are promptly launched on another mission by their boss in the British Special Operations Executive.

Reinforced by a group of young British Commandos, the new team is parachuted into Nazi-occupied Yugoslavia and right into the midst of a three way conflict between the Germans and several Yugoslav factions who are also engaged in a civil war.The team's mission is to traverse the war-torn country, navigating between the warring factions, and destroy a huge dam that is the key to a planned German offensive.

The heroes from Navarone are world-weary, and wary, warriors compared to the young and enthusiastic commandos with whom they are teamed, but all will have to pull together if they are to survive a series of betrayals and mishaps.Maclean has provided a typically twisted plot that produces surprises and suspense to the very end.Maclean's excellent and sardonic dialogue is matched with a good sense of place for war-torn Yugoslavia.This novel is infinitely more entertaining than the movie of the same title starring Harrison Ford and Robert Shaw, with which it shares not a whole lot more than a title.

This book is highly recommended to fans of Alistair Maclean, and to readers looking for an entertaining novel. ... Read more

Product Description
It's a race to locate a legendary Incan idol - one carved out of a strange kind of stone. But a stone which, in the present age, could be used as the basis for a terrifying new weapon. The US Army wants this prize at any cost. But they are not alone...The only clue to the idol's final resting place is to be found in a 400-year-old manuscript. Which introduces Professor William Race, a mild-mannered but brilliant young linguist, who is unwillingly recruited to interpret the document that could lead the US team to the idol itself. So begins the mission that will lead Race and his armed companions to a mysterious stone temple hidden in the foothills of the Andes. This is a carefully contrived sanctuary seething with menace and unexpected dangers. But it is not until the silence of the temple is breached that Race and his team discover they have broken a golden rule ...Some doors are meant to remain unopened.Amazon.com Review
William Race, a mild-mannered professor, is impressed into the U.S. armyon a bizarre mission: to retrieve a centuries-old Incan idol revered by a Peruvian Indian tribe. The idol, carved out of a meteorite, is the missing ingredient in a so-called "planet-killer," a weapon long sought not only by the U.S. government, but also by a neo-Nazi group whose scientists, linguists, and anthropologists seem to be one step ahead of the Americans. Only Race can translate the legendary manuscript that holds the key to the idol's location high in the Andes in a temple guarded by huge, man-eating panthers, on a moat seething with equally carnivorous crocodiles.

It's a preposterous setup of the Crichton/Cook variety, but Matt Reilly, author of Ice Station, takes it to the max, with plenty of improbable feats of physical strength, an arsenal of weapons that would give Tom Clancy pause, and a breathtaking conclusion. There's also a sneaky little internecine war going on among various branches of the American military just to keep the tension ratcheted up. It's not too long on character development, but it's a fast-paced read, with plenty of cliffhangers (literal as well as metaphorical), lots of firepower, and enough villains for a whole other adventure. --Jane Adams ... Read more

Customer Reviews (154)

Completely Ridiculous
I decided to try Matthew Reilly because he was recommended based on the fact that I read books by James Rollins.In the beginning, the book seemed intriguing and entertaining.Unfortunately, this did not last.While I am willing to suspended some belief this book asked for far too much suspension.As the book progressed, the main character, who was a professor no less, seemed to get out of situations that were so over the top it was like watching Indian Jones saving himself from an atomic blast by hiding in a refrigerator.Eventually, this book culminated into a final battle that was so over the top when it was over I just rolled my eyes and realized I had wasted a lot of time reading a book that even teenagers would find hard to believe.
Honestly, I cannot believe that Reilly could have written this book with a straight face.After this book, I am not inclined to read another by him.

Awsome from start to finish
great read. all his books are action packed from start to finish. i can never put them down....

Made for TV


I love the historical angle and the intertwined stories, on the face of it this book is everything that would usually appeal to me but come on!How many times can one man narrowly escape death!It reads like it was written as a big budget action movie.

You know when they take an absolutely fantastic story cut out all the interesting bits and character development and just leave the bare bones and action scenes? That is Matthew Reilly all over.

I origanlly read Seven Wonders and though the story had promise I tried to read it and gave up several times. I eventually got through it and was left very disappointed, but it had such potential I thought Temple might be better.......it wasn't, though I did manage to read it without giving up.

I love the ideas behind the stories but for me the continual blow-by-blow, overly detailed action just destroys it.
Very disappointed, Temple could have been so good.

Good read
This is the second novel by Matthew Reilly I have read, the first being Contest.I am not completely finished with the novel at the time of writing this review, but have stayed awake later than I should on nights just to read more of the book.

The action never stops
Matthew Reilly has created a thriller that will keep you on the edge of your seat from the time you open the cover. Professor Will Race is late for work at NYU and finds that his day is going to get stranger than he can imagine. From the concrete jungle of New York City to the dark of the Amazon rain forest, from Nazis to American servicemen to Inca warriors, Race finds himself running (and flying) from death at every turn trying to find an ancient key to a decidedly high tech weapon. Like every good hero story, Race also discovers that he is more than he thought he could be. Oh, and he has to save the world. Reilly does a great job of moving the story and keeping the suspense at a high level. I'll be reading more of Reilly's work. ... Read more

Product Description
When Igor Insarov, KGB agent, meets an Auschwitz survivor who can identify him as an SS Colonel, he reacts with savage speed - within a day, his former victim is dead. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

a spy novel and travelogue
This is one of Helen MacInnes' two best novels. It is set in Paris and the island of Mykonos. The plot is excellent and the romance that is in almost all her novels is well woven into the plot. The story is dated, as are all her novels (She died in 1985), but the writing is excellent and the description of the locations where her story takes place makes the book worth the price. I have been to Mykonos and Ephesus and it make it more fun to find her locations. It's worth reading.

her best novel
The Double Image is MacInnes's best novel. The romantic plot and the thriller plot are not just tied together -- they drive each other at just the right moments. As with her other best work, the point of view of the story mainly lies with amateurs who have been sucked up into the world of espionage. The difference between this and some of her lesser works is mainly just perfection of style and execution. In any collection of anything, one member of the collection has to be the best. For MacInnes, this one is it.

The Queen of Spy stories at her best!
Helen Mac Innes (1907-1984), an American writer born in Scotland has been described as "queen of spy-story writers" by Time, is a favorite of mine. She has been a favorite writer of Alistair MacLean too.

Helen MacInnes specialising in spy/espionage stories, mostly on WW-II sceneario,has written over 20 books, each one being a gem .

Her very first book,Above Suspicion(1941) was a bestseller followed by many other best sellers including;Decision at Delphi, Message from Malaga, Venetian Affair, and Salzburg Connection which was also made into a 1972 movie.

Helen MacInnes writes most credible stories, and creates most credible,humane characters...no outlandish Ludlum type scenarios, no superhuman characters like James Bond. Reading Helen, one can feel that any one of us can be in similar situation. The Hero's only qualifications are; he is an intelligent and resourceful person with a presence of mind, and has a sense of duty to the country/society. Most of her stories are spy stories in which a common man, accidentally/inadvertently gets caught in a tangle of international espionage and intrigue. Using his own wits and common sense the Hero gets himself out of the situations and in the process thwarts the enemy plans too. The stories have an under current of a subtle romance and love too, which not only embellishes the story but also provides much needed relief to the reader from the tension which readers feel while reading mystery-suspense books.

Helen writes beautifully,her description of people,places,and situations is so lucid and picturesque that a reader feels like being in a movie hall watching it all.

Double Image is one of her best books. John Craig, an American, economic historian while vacationing in Paris,bumps into his old college professor of Archaeology, Mr.Sussman. Sussman , a survivor of Auschwiz, is in a shock having been accosted by an ex-Nazi official,( who has since been declared as a war criminal )on streets of Paris whereas officially has been declared dead over 10 years ago! Craig teels about the experience to his sister, who blurts it out at a party. Next day Sussman is dead, and Police start questioning Craig, French Intelligence Suerete steps in,...the nightmare starts!.

Soon French,Italian,British and American intelligence step in because the man who accosted Sussman is not just an ex-nazi, but much more than that!

The scene shifts to Greek Islands, more people get killed, intelligence agents and the enemy agents try outwit each other, intense struggles and interesting chases.

The story is very interesting and well written, taut, racy and fast paced. I cant revealRevealing anything more will take away the pleasure of reading. I want all the readers interested in spy thrillers to read this book. In my opinion, its one of best books of this genre, and highly recommended for a dull weekend. ... Read more

Product Description
A hazy aerial photograph and a sinister curse are the only clues Dr Ben Kazin has before he stumbles on the archaeological discovery of a lifetime. Beneath the red cliffs of Botswanaland a magnificent unknown civilization has remained buried for millennia. But the magic of uncovering a lost culture is harshly interrupted by the violence of terrorists, love, intrigue and the breathtaking secrets of centuries... ... Read more

Customer Reviews (43)

This one is different
Has Spoliers
Take this review with a pinch of salt because I am talking about a reading from 20 years ago. I read about 8 (more than 5 not more than 10) Wilbur Smith books. I was young. They were racy, stereotypical, testosteroned, adventures. After about 8 books, they all seemed the same. But this one sticks in my mind. It was different. It is experimental. It is the only book by Wilbur that I can remember. Some of the viewers complain that it does not have a conclusion. It is open. It is a tragedy. It is even philosophical. The whites may be super intelligent and great long distance runners but they are doomed. And the book goes some way to say why. It reminds me a little of One Hundred Years of Solitude (because races condemned to one hundred years of solitude did not have a second opportunity on earth). It is a Wilbur Smith adventure. But it is the book where I feel he shared and bared his soul more than any other. It is a troubled book. And it sticks with you, with me anyway. It has a sort of honest self loathing, an exploration of the dark side of White civilsation. It is Oedipus in Africa. The Heart of Darkness. I want to read it again.

Misogyny and typos
I bought the kindle version of this book and couldn't be more disappointed. As a I wandered my way though the typo-littered text I was astounded by the blatant misogynistic attitude of the book. The female characters of the book are constantly described as childish or child-like and must be guided by the greater expertise of the men.

I've read many of Wilbur Smith books but I was seriously disappointed by this one. Not only was the editing for the kindle edition exceptionally poor but I am not interested in reading a book that lacks any serious female lead while the two male leads are busy showing off spectacular feats of strength at every turn. The characters are under developed and the plot is unsurprising and boring. I wish I could return the item but unfortunately that option isn't available for kindle books :(

Smith's Best
This is Smith at the peak of his formidable powers.Amazing story-telling, detailed description, gripping action, sympathetic (and not-so-sympathetic) characters....it's all here.I read it every few years to remind me what a great novel is.

Get it. Read it. Praise it.

Overlook the Paternalism and it's a Great Read
Edit note: The Kindle version is just appalling. Definitely the worst Kindle book I've seen.At times I couldn't figure out what was meant due to the extensive and frequent errors.
====================
"The Sunbird" is imaginative, robustly plotted, and has well-developed characters in exotic locales, with fast-paced action, and an interesting reworking of ancient history make this a terrific read if you can overlook the paternalistic "great white man" tone of the first half of the novel. African wildlife gets a pretty hard time of it as well what with all the great white hunters taking pot shots at them in the first half and the unlimited slaughter in the second half.

The first half of the book is really an elaborate set-up for the second half of the novel which packs an authentic emotive tale of friendship, love, war, and betrayal. The second half is set in an imagined Punic colony which considers itself civilized although it is wantonly cruel. It is a civilization that should not continue, yet the author makes it sympathetic through the focus on close relationships among the protagonists, each of whom mirror the protagonists in the 1972 world of the first half of the book.

The setting is somewhere in Botswana in the region of the Zambezi river in Africa of today, (1972 at time of original publication), and also as it might have been between the fall of Catharge, (146 BCE), to somewhere in the mid-5th century.There is a clever mirroring of ancient and modern characters that helps create suspense.

The Kindle version seems to have been scanned without benefit of correction. The price is the same as the paperback version (which is actually more expensive than the hardback) but at least the paperback does not contain thousands of typological errors. Often you have to figure out what is meant from context because the errors can be extensive.Apparently not even a basic spell check was run on this text after it was scanned. It is a pity that Amazon does not have some kind of quality control over text that it sells for its Kindle.

Butchered Kindle Edition
The one star rating is no more than a warning that the Kindle edition has hundreds of typographical, spelling, punctuation, spacing, formatting and other errors.Do not purchase the Kindle edition unless you hanker for books which read like distracting and illiterate emails, text messages and the like.Friends say the print edition is error free.In fairness to Kindle, I received the device several days ago as a holiday gift, and have read only a few books on it.The others were not butchered. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (60)

Not to be missed!
Unlike other readers, who may have first been exposed to Joanne Harris through Chocolat, I first read her novel, "The Girl With No Shadow," and decided she was an author to watch.This book is BY FAR my favorite of hers that I have had the pleasure to read (through CD).I have a long drive to the university each day and am lucky to be able to "read" on my drive there and back.This book is an ABSOLUTE TREASURE and the narrator is simply fantastic.I was hooked from the first CD and never wanted my drives to end so I could keep on enjoying the story!The characters are so interesting and the "bad guy" is the most clever sociopath since Tom Ripley.I can't say enough good things about the narrator.At first I thought his English accent would be difficult to understand or make it hard to identify with the characters but that was SO not the case.After awhile, the inflection in his voice told me which character he was portraying and I got GOOSEBUMPS from listening.The last 1.5 CD's are the roller coaster ride we all want in our novels.Haven't you read (and enjoyed) a book up UNTIL the ending and been sorely disappointed with the outcome?That will DEFINITELY not happen with this novel!The ending packs an unbelievable punch--one you won't soon forget.I have my husband listening to the set now and plan to pass it on to my daughter in San Francisco after that.Isn't that the mark of a really good book--when you want the ones you love the MOST to spend their time reading (or listening) to the story?I can recommend this book to ANYONE who appreciates a good story with a clever sociopath as the main character and a dash of intrigue thrown in for good measure.Buy it!Rent it!Borrow it!You won't be sorry!

Intelligent and suspenseful
Joanne Harris's Gentlemen & Players is told in the first person from two dueling perspectives. Roy Straitley is a classics teacher in his 34th year at St. Oswald's Grammar School for Boys, a private establishment steeped in tradition and resented by the locals who could never afford the school's tuition. The second narrator--who for much of the book is known by the alias "Julian Pinchbeck"--is a teacher who's new to the school but who, as a one-time townie, has a score to settle with St. Oswald's. Pinchbeck proves to be intriguingly evil, vengeful and misguided and jealous yet not wholly unsympathetic, a genius at deception. Readers may be reminded as I was of Patricia Highsmith's Tom Ripley, a sociopath and chameleon who is, like Harris' protagonist, self-hating and motivated in part by obsessive love. Pinchbeck, having once haunted the halls of St. Oswald's in youth, now conducts a campaign against the school that culminates on Bonfire Night with a pair of jaw-dropping surprises.

Gentlemen & Players is an intelligent and suspenseful book and it offers an unusual plot. Once released from the author's spell, one begins to think the story unlikely: it's hard to believe that Pinchbeck would go to such lengths, first to fit into the culture of St. Oswald's and then to destroy it (though I suppose going overboard is to be expected from an obsessive sociopath). Still, I had no trouble suspending disbelief when it mattered.

-- Debra Hamel

High literature that is wildly entertaining and has great plot twists?! Wow!
My goodness... where to begin? I cannot even recall the last time I've read such an incredible book! The characters, the setting, the mystery, the heartbreak, the laugh-out-loud hilarity, the profundity, the poetry, the plot twists--OH MY GOD THE PLOT TWISTS...!!

And the language...! Writing like you wouldn't believe--so, SO unspeakably beautiful at just the right moments, so cheeky or hair-raising or mysterious or any of the other many, many things demanded of it by this exhilarating story...! Joanne Harris is just... a TRUE MASTER of the English language! Her prose is so poetically beautiful, powerful, lush, in-command--and without ONCE becoming tiresome or belabored! The words just draw you in and carry you away without a moment's pause.

Part of that compelling force is thanks to her FANTASTIC characters, no doubt! The two main characters who "face off" in this amazing and thrilling battle of wits are so different and yet so truly and beautifully drawn... There is no blatant announcement that the story will be told by two narrators and no clear label (beyond the chess pieces--Black Pawn and White King--that appear at the beginning of each chapter, though I missed their identifying significance until much later in the book), but from within the first few words of a chapter, you know immediately who is speaking. It isn't so much that they speak idiosyncratically or have extremely distinct speaking levels/accents/etc (in fact, both being highly literate and well-spoken and tending toward black humor, you would think they'd be very hard to tell apart).

But no--the voice of these two characters--the dangerously bright, sardonic, charismatically arrogant young avenger who comes to bring down the prestigious St. Oswald's Boys' School (Black Pawn) and the cheerfully cultured, dryly witty, consciously old-fogeyish sixty-something senior teacher Roy Straitly (White King) who is trying to save the school--are so solidly formed in their personalities, speech, thoughts, witticisms, etc, that it TRULY is as though these two distinct and very real people exist and are simply pulling you back and forth to continue the conversation you'd been having one-on-one with each of them. It's just amazing... a marvel...

And best of all, even more than all this amazing skill and character-crafting and all... the style is so charming and engaging; you fly through the story and absorb every, single word because every word, as I said, is PERFECT and just where and what you expect of it. Like poetry. So clean that when a rule is broken, when something unexpected is thrown in like a wrench into the gears (and MY GOODNESS there are some UNBELIEVABLE wrenches in there), they hit you as hard as Harris intended them to hit you.

The plot twists, as any and all reviews about this book will gush about, are just--unbelievable. I'm so, so tempted to tell you about how clever it all was--so very, VERY clever--but I couldn't spoil such a delicious experience for you all! Please do yourself a favor and open this book. From there, its own power will instantly ensnare you and sail you along through this driven, powerful, profound, moving and wildly entertaining story until you are left standing at the end with your head full of boys' schools and bell towers and teachers' lounge politics and vengeance and murder and the wild abandon of adolescent love, not believing you devoured the entire book and the huge, huge story it contains in the space of a single day...

I cannot recommend this book enough. Whether you're a fan of the finest literary fiction, or the most purely-for-entertainment mystery/suspense/thriller books, or school stories, or England, or avengers, or hilarious old fogeys or the most breath-taking plot twists ever heard--READ THIS BOOK. It's nothing short of a marvel.

Brittle Dividing Line
This book exposes the brittle line dividing the haves and the have-nots in this disturbing yet strangely intriguing story set in the hallowed halls of St Oswald's, an aristocratic British boys' school hovering on the edge of extinction.I can't really tell you why I liked this book, but it had me from the beginning and I was disappointed when it was over, because I really cared about the characters, even the ones that I shouldn't have cared for.

This is a book that is hard to put down
This is a wonderful story that has so many twists and turns it makes all the roller coasters at Six Flags tame. I loved envisioning the plot twists in my head. This is a book that will keep you up at night. ... Read more

Product Description
After their thrilling exploits in Matthew Reilly's bestseller "Seven Ancient Wonders", super-soldier Jack West and his loyal team of adventurers are back, and now they face an all-but impossible challenge. For a mysterious ceremony in an unknown location has triggered a catastrophic countdown that will climax in the destruction of all life on Earth. But there is one last hope. If Jack's team can find and rebuild a legendary ancient device known only as the "Machine", they might be able to ward off this coming Armageddon. The only clues to its location, however, are held within the fabled Six Sacred Stones, long lost in the fog of history. And so the hunt begins ...From Stonehenge in England, to the deserts of Egypt, to the spectacular Three Gorges region of China, "The Six Sacred Stones" will take you on a non-stop rollercoaster ride through ancient history, modern military hardware, and some of the fastest and most mind-blowing action you will ever read. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (84)

a book for teenagers or the naive
I got it based upon good reviews here. Big mistake. Did the same with a couple of Reilly's other books and I'm now done with him. It's soooo corny that I just gave up after about 75 pages. Maybe 2 stars is generous, but I could see how I might've liked it at age 15.

Surprising page Turner
I must be the last person on earth to read a Matthew Reilly book.I know for a fact that he has had a HUGE impact on boys and young men especially, getting them excited about reading.Now I understand why.The story is bigger the heroes more heroic and the baddies badder than ever.

This book is the second in the Jack West Jr series.You don't need to have read the preceding book, but be warned - you WILL want to read the following book in the series...

The canvas islarge - the whole world in fact.The goodies criss cross the planet, following clues laid down hundreds and perhaps thousands of years ago, in an attempt to save the world.Of course, they have to evade, fight or beat the baddies at every turn.It is the "dangling at the end of a rope over the cliff" kind of breathless storytelling that really works and has you turning pages madly.I was SOOO cross that the book ended with a cliffhanger - so I immediately started reading the third in the series because I just HAD to find out what was happening.

One thing that really impressed me with Reilly is that he draws on a lot of research and history to put his stories together.I found myself being intrigued by some of his references and learned quite a bit in the process of finding out the background to some of the names and places.Good stuff.

Great story, mediocre writing
I just love this sci-fi mixed with history stuff.It is a very Laura Croft / Indiana Jones kind of story, and the plot is very well crafted.The characters, however, can best be described as silly.The whole concept of this book is that all of the world' big countries (like the US and China) are bad while little countries like Ireland, Australia, and the UAE are good.Various Rambo/James Bond types from these and other "little countries" get together to try to save the world, and to the extent that there is character development, it is in the direction of obsurdity (like the main character who is the world's greatest bad-a$$ with a metal arm and a pet falcon that helps out every now and then with the bad guys, and the genius children that tag along for shootouts and tomb raiding).

Once you get past that, however, the story is very cool and quite imaginative.I won't spoil it for you, but I would say the premise far exceeds the story lines from either of the major franchises I mentioned above.

I will warn you though.This book has no ending.It is a cliffhanger going into the next book - The Five Greatest Warriors: A Novel.So, if you want to know what happens, make sure you don't expect to find out with this book alone.

Totally implausible nonsense
Wow, I had eyed this up a number of times before buying but now wish I hadn't wasted my money.I like my action-adventure books to at least be a bit plausible but this was way over the top. The proponents dash desperately from one life threatening crisis to the next.

The writing itself lacked maturity to the point where I skipped whole paragraphs but still understood what was going on.

Sorry to say but I won't be trying another Reilly book in a hurry.

Offensive
The author has created an interesting story with non-stop action.His characters are quite likeable.The problem is a recurring theme of insulting America.As an American I find the book offensive.It is easy to accept China as the enemy of humanity but putting America into that role is absurd.He is basing this on certain behaviors of the CIA of decades ago, before they were chopped off at the knees.Even at that the CIA is not America and we do not deserve being categorized with the Chinese. ... Read more

Product Description
"Wise old man, won't you help me, please? My house is a squash and squeeze." What can you do if your house is too small? The wise old man knows: bring in a flappy, scratchy, noisy crowd of farmyard animals. When you push them all out again, you'll be amazed at how big your house feels! "a bit of a classic...A goat on the bed and a cow on the table tapping out a jig? My readers collapsed in heaps, and then had to have it read again. And again." - Vivian French in the "Guardian". ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Fun to read to kids, but also great for small stage shows
This is a great book - hilarious morality tale which children can understand, wonderful rhymes and beautifully illustrated too.

In this an old woman is complaining about how crowded her house is, it is in fact "A squash and a squeeze". She goes to an old man, who gives her some 'good advice' about taking in her farm animals until at last she throws them all out - and now she feels like she has more space than she could ever possibly need. Well, bear in mind it is a lot funnier when Julia Donaldson writes it!

This is a great book for pre-schoolers to act out - we read it out and the children get to be the various animals and be squashing and squeezing. You under 6's will really enjoy this one! But also get Room on the Broom and the Gruffalo by the same authors - glorious children's books all round.

Cute little book if you have some spare cash
I bought this book after I saw it read and acted out on Playschool (TV show in Australia).It's a great little rythmic book to read aloud and has endearing illustrations.A little old lady decides her house is much too small for her - a wise old man helps her to solve her problem by suggesting she move all her animals in to live with her (one by one).Of course, by the end of the story, the house is very squashy so she moves all the animals out and realises that her house is not that small after all!Good little tale for teaching children to appreciate what they have.Nothing too deep and meaningful, just a sweet little story.Not a must have but worth buying for your library if you have spare cash and already own some of the really special books out there.

Excellent book for a toddler
I bought this a couple of weeks ago for my 19-month old daughter and she loved it right away. She chimes in now with the key phrases that are repeated throughout the book like "a curious plan" and "my house is a squash and a squeeze"! (She obviously understands the latter phrase more than the former! I give her 'squash' and 'squeeze' hugs when we get to those phrases.) The rhymes are great and there's certainly a song-like rhythm. You don't need great story-telling skills for this one. It sounds great just being read aloud. Not one that a child or adult reading to the child will tire of easily I think. ... Read more