The Mysterious West

Book Description

Edited by Tony Hillerman, the Southwest's foremost suspense writer, this first-ever collection of mystery stories set in the West contains 20 original entries by such luminary mystery writers as Marcia Muller, Susan Dunlap, and Robert Campbell.

Customer Reviews:

Mysterious West.......2007-09-27

This is an anthology of short stories by authors other than Tony Hillerman written in 1994. I generally only read science fiction anthologies, but it was pretty spooky that the very first story was set in an area I just drove 500 miles to check out as a place to live. Timber Cove is breathtakingly beautiful, but very isolated (and controlled by the coastal commission among others).

Each tale is like a piece of gormet canip.......1999-10-03

THE MYSTERIOUS WEST Edited by Tony Hillerman

This is an ecclectic collection of short stories in settings that rage the American West by a wonderful variety of writers. They are all new, never before published, stories.

Each story is a "mystery" of some sort. I found them all to be quite facinating, even if most are not about cats. One story is most decidedly about a cat, Midnight Louie.

Louie has his own series of novels. The short story in this anthology is a good example of Midnight Louie's other adventures.

If you or your purrrson like mysteries and stories of susspense, deceit and excitement, this is a great book to have. The stories are completey engrossing, easy to read and a treat! Take the book along when you have to wait for your next medical, dental or other appointment. Each tale is like a piece of gormet canip--a pleasure that almost doesn't last long enough.

A book for adult readers, but without sleaze, or the need for parental discression!

Twist, a prrroud member of CLAW, and the CLAW Bookstore Committee

Interesting change of pace for Hillerman........1997-11-09

I've been reading a lot of novels lately. 600-pagers. So when I found this collections of short stories, I gave it a try. I love the West; I love short stories; why not a change of pace. Hillerman has collected stories set in the West, not western stories. At first I bridled: Hillerman without Navajos? But once I got into the first story, I was hooked. This is the only collection I have ever read whose stories are ALL good, and there are a lot of stories in the book. I liked the characters, the locations, the stories, and the surprise that most of the stories were by women. I hadn't expected that. A favorite? That would be tough. How about three: "Nooses Give" by Dana Stabenow--ridding the Tundra of bootleggers; "A Woman's Place" by D. R. Meredith--Highwater, Texas never saw no lady judge before!; and "With Flowers in Her Hair" by M. D. Lake--you CAN go back, but it may not be very nice there. What did I hate about the book? Closing the back cover.

Good introduction to many different authors.......1997-01-30

This is one of the better anthologies of mystery stories that I have read. The Western theme works well to tie it all together, though for some authors it is apparent only from the location of the story. I enjoyed the short submissions from authors whose full length works I have already read - including D.R. Meredith, J.A. Jance and Karen Kijewski. The most notable reason to get this collection is to be exposed to authors you may not normally choose. A couple I found here and had to investigate further were Dana Stabenow (writes about an Eskimo female investigator - excellent stories) and Linda Grant - who I have only read in other short story collections

Rome and the Mysterious Orient: Three Plays by Plautus

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Rome and the Mysterious Orient: Three Plays by Plautus
Plautus
Manufacturer: University of California Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0520242750

Book Description

Still funny after two thousand years, the Roman playwright Plautus wrote around 200 B.C.E., a period when Rome was fighting neighbors on all fronts, including North Africa and the Near East. These three plays--originally written for a wartime audience of refugees, POWs, soldiers and veterans, exiles, immigrants, people newly enslaved in the wars, and citizens--tap into the mix of fear, loathing, and curiosity with which cultures, particularly Western and Eastern cultures, often view each other, always a productive source of comedy. These current, accessible, and accurate translations have replaced terms meaningful only to their original audience, such as references to Roman gods, with a hilarious, inspired sampling of American popular culture--from songs to movie stars to slang. Matching the original Latin line for line, this volume captures the full exuberance of Plautus's street language, bursting with puns, learned allusions, ethnic slurs, dirty jokes, and profanities, as it brings three rarely translated works--Weevil (Curculio), Iran Man (Persa), and Towelheads (Poenulus)--to a wide contemporary audience.
Richlin's erudite introduction sets these plays within the context of the long history of East-West conflict and illuminates the role played by comedy and performance in imperialism and colonialism. She has also provided detailed and wide-ranging contextual introductions to the individual plays, as well as extensive notes, which, together with these superb and provocative translations, will bring Plautus alive for a new generation of readers and actors.

Locust: The Devastating Rise and Mysterious Disappearance of the Insect That Shaped the American Frontier

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Terror in the Sky
Why no maps?
Two different books in one volume
The mystery of the missing Melanoplus
As engrossing as "The Da Vinci Code" but true

Locust: The Devastating Rise and Mysterious Disappearance of the Insect That Shaped the American Frontier
Jeffrey A. Lockwood
Manufacturer: Basic Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0465041671
Release Date: 2005-05-10

Amazon.com

Imagine looking up to see an ominous black cloud on the horizon. Now imagine your growing horror as you watch that cloud reveal itself as an immense, miles-wide swarm of ravenous insects. In Locust, entomologist Jeffrey A. Lockwood reveals the bizarre history of a bug responsible for killing countless settlers on the American plains. First-hand accounts of the Rocky Mountain locust's horrific depredations are reproduced in the book, and Lockwood adds his own vivid reconstructions:

We expect grasshoppers and locusts to consume our gardens and fields, but when these insects begin to feed on fabric and flesh something seems demonically amiss.... Although the settlers may have been astonished by the locusts' voracity, they were appalled by the insects' fierce cannibalism.

Swarms of locusts would touch down like tornadoes on homesteads and farms, stripping away every growing thing and desperately eating other insects in search of much-needed fat and protein. These hordes were thought by many, including the Mormon settlers in Utah, to be divine punishments, or at least signs from above. After describing the effects this insect had on the American frontier, Lockwood delves into the entomologic mystery of the locusts' abrupt disappearance. Had they become extinct? Or gone into hiding in some ecological refuge? When Lockwood abandons history for science, his glee for his subject keeps the book moving, albeit slower than in the first few chapters. --Therese Littleton

Book Description

In 1876, the U.S. Congress declared the locust "the single greatest impediment to the settlement of the country between Mississippi and the Rocky Mountains." Throughout the nineteenth century, swarms of locusts regularly swept across the American continent, turning noon into dusk, devastating farm communities, and bringing trains to a halt. The outbreaks subsided in the 1890s, and then, suddenly-and mysteriously-the Rocky Mountain locust vanished. A century later, entomologist Jeffrey Lockwood vowed to discover why.

Locust is the story of how one insect shaped the history of the western United States. A compelling personal narrative drawing on historical accounts and modern science, this beautifully written book brings to life the cultural, economic, and political forces at work in America in the late nineteenth century, even as it solves one of the greatest extinction mysteries of our time.

"Lockwood makes a compelling case that he has solved what he calls 'perhaps the greatest ecological mystery of modern times.' Along the way, he tells a tale of the Old West that few of us have heard before, and he tells it exceedingly well." (Los Angeles Times Book Review)

Customer Reviews:

Terror in the Sky.......2006-09-20

In the 19th century swarms of locusts regularly devastated the farms in the West. Some wondered if it was divine punishment or personal failures. The Federal Government established a commission to study the problem. A few decades later the Rocky Mountain locust disappeared like an extinct species. Jeffrey Lockwood decided to investigate this long-lost pest and try to solve this ecological mystery. The `Introduction' describes a plague of locusts in July 1875 Nebraska. One famous account is in Laura Ingalls Wilder' book "On the Banks of Plum Creek". Once the locusts laid their eggs a new plague would erupt the next year, and the year afterwards. Chapter 1 tells of the diseases of the 19th century: cholera, lice and typhus, parasitical worms. Famine and hunger were real threats. While poultry feasted on locusts, this left their flesh and eggs inedible. Turkey gorged themselves to death. The stench from dead locusts created a problem. Locusts cannibalized the wounded or dead. The people were terrorized by these events. Hot dry weather made locusts flourish (p.22). The low-level jet stream spread them for hundreds of miles (p.23).

Chapter 4 tells of the methods used to destroy locusts. One of the simplest was a ditch; the little locusts fell in but couldn't get out (p.54). Dead locusts were used to fertilize root crops (p.55). Farmers diversified into corn, peas, and beans from just the vulnerable wheat. Livestock grazed the grasslands and denied these lands to locusts. Native birds consumed great numbers of locusts (p.58). The Rocky Mountain locust was a national threat because it caused economic havoc (Chapter 5). In those days Darwinian theory blamed the victims for their problems (pp.65-67)! Some states gave aid to the devastated counties (p.68). States offered a bounty for eggs and nymphs (p.72), and called upon Washington for federal disaster funds (p.75). The US Entomological Commission was funded to study the locust problem (p.91). Increasing mobility of people also spread insects, weeds, and pathogens. Chapter 7 tells of this Commission, who discovered the uniqueness of the Rocky Mountain locust. Their destruction was best done by destroying eggs (p.114). They also recommended the a diversified agriculture. After the locusts disappeared they were replaced with grasshoppers (p.130). They were as damaging as the dust storms of the 1930s. But the Rocky Mountain locust became extinct (p.137).

Chapter 9 tells how Boris Uvarov described the changes in locusts as phases (pp.146-147). [Does this explain crime and violence in city life?] The spread of alfalfa was followed by the disappearance of locusts (p.160). Could a warming climate have ended the locusts (p.170)? Forested areas were a barrier to locusts (p.177). The disappearance of bison was followed by the disappearance of locusts (p.179). Chapter 11 tells of the Grasshopper Glacier north of Yellowstone National Park. Modern science could reveal unknown facts about locusts (p.184). Chapter 12 tells how melting glaciers provide water for agriculture (p.210). Lockwood imagines swarms of locusts carried north by winds. Falling temperatures then killed them and encased them in ice (p.214). Curved lines across the width of glaciers marked annual deposits of ice; this showed locusts going back 300 years, long before settlers arrived. A high degree of inbreeding and narrowing genetic diversity leads to extinction (p.223). This was not the case of the Rocky Mountain locusts. "Extinction happened suddenly and without warning to a normal, healthy species" (p.224). There was a great influx of people after the financial panic of 1873. Crop land displaced the living areas of locusts. The irrigation of land by settlers destroyed locust eggs (p.242). Alfalfa could not be eaten by young locusts (p.243). Plowing and harrowing destroyed locust eggs (p.246). Grazing cattle affected vegetation and streams (p.247). The resulting flooding killed locust eggs (p.248), as did the rooting and tramping of cattle (p.249). People were also menaced by financiers (p.253).

Lockwood's theory on the extinction was published in a 1990 journal. Chapter 14 concludes with remarks on other species. Species are being lost faster that the "normal" rate of extinction [not defined here]. Lockwood wonders if the elimination of the Rocky Mountain locust could have been "the result of unplanned, uncoordinated, and unintentional human activity" (p.260)? No, the prior pages tell how this was accomplished. Could this locust have survived in some refuge (p.261)? This is a very rich book that can't be adequately summarized here. It is another argument against the Darwinian theory of evolution which denies cataclysmal changes. Lockwood seemed to have failed to research old publications from the 1880s-1900s to discover what they said about locusts. Arguing for an unplanned extinction may have a political motive.

Why no maps?.......2006-08-06

I actually really like the book and would normally be happy giving it 5 stars. But, I couldn't figure out why he didn't include any actual quantitative information. No maps. No tables. He mentions a couple of times how good the maps were in the original reports he uses as references, but he doesn't include any of them (except once as a small chapter opening illustration). Even just an inside cover map of the Permanent Zone and the range of the Locusts would have been a really nice addition.

I still recommend the book very highly.

Two different books in one volume.......2006-07-09

...Or maybe three.

It starts out as a history, first talking in general terms and then focusing on the lives and work of a number of 19th century entomologists. Then midway through, the book shifts gears and becomes the story of the field research done by a modern team of entomologists. This is not a criticism, it just was a very different approach from the first half of the book. I personally found both halves very interesting, but I am equally interested in both history (where my primary interest lies) and science (when written for lay people).

My only complaint is that I would have liked more general background on the history of various types of locusts in other parts of the world. This is probably unfair, as the author makes clear that he is telling the story of one species on one continent.

If you are not interested in the scientific end, I nevertheless urge you to read all the way through. Not only is the writing very well done, but the author's proposed solution to the mystery of the locust's disappearance is one of those "aha!" moments that we all live for.

And I strongly, strongly urge everyone to pay special attention to the final chapter. At that point the author starts to turn away from hard science again, and begins almost a meditation on ecology and the value of biodiversity. But there's one final, thought-provoking twist in the story that MUST NOT be missed.

Well done!

The mystery of the missing Melanoplus.......2006-04-03

Once the scourge of the North American West, the Rocky Mountain Locust had disappeared before World War I. When settlers had built homes and planted crops, the locust would appear in clouds that would blot the sun. In their billions they swept through fields, stripping them bare. Well fed, they would breed, spreading eggs across the land in preparation for another swarm. In this highly personalised and informal history, Jeffrey Lockwood recounts the effect of the swarms and the struggle to understand and learn to cope with them. Yet this "biblical scourge" tapered off mysteriously, ending after driving many from the frontier. Lockwood led the studies investigating the why the Rocky Mountain Locust [Melanoplus spretus] is no longer seen. He arrives at surprising conclusions regarding both the extinction and the lessons we may gain from it.

The impact of this insect pest on farming was highly significant wherever it occurred. With pleas for controls, as well as relief, governments floundered before the onslaught. Lockwood treats the appeals for divine intervention lightly, but his account of scientific efforts to cope with the plague are serious. There are some heroes in his story, most notably, Charles Valentine Riley. Riley, although lacking academic credentials, made the locust his crusade. With two associates, Riley led a campaign to deal with locust outbreaks. With Charles Darwin's theory as one of their tools, the trio made progress in understanding the life cycle of the locust. From far away, another researcher was coping with similar infestations. Boris Uvarov introduced an entirely new concept in entomology, the "phase" cycle - insects could exhibit different appearances and habits under varying conditions.

Lockwood's own quest came long after the Rocky Mountain Locust had withdrawn from human ken. Indeed, it was that disappearance the piqued his interest. An insect that had numbered in the trillions now reduced to zero was a mystery he felt compelled to solve. He deduced that so many flying insects would leave traces in the glaciers scattered about the Rocky Mountains and centred his quest there. To say there were adventures is grave understatement. There's even a murder involved. More significantly, specimens retrieved from the ice offered few clues to the disappearance, although significant information was gathered. Since Lockwood chooses to depict the extinction as a mystery, it would be inappropriate to reveal the conclusion here. Suffice to say that Lockwood's analysis makes for compelling reading, both in the circumstances of the locust's extinction and the lesson derived from it. The assessment is far-reaching in both time and place and is well worth your time to learn. What has been learned has implications for the future. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

As engrossing as "The Da Vinci Code" but true.......2006-03-23

Locust swarms of literally incredible size swept through the Midwest in the nineteenth century, when homesteaders were settling, and then, toward the end of the century, disappeared. The volume of a swarm is hard for us to comprehend; if the swarm were square it would have been 450 miles on a side and a quarter to a half a mile deep-about 3.5 trillion locusts, corresponding to 600 locusts to every human then living on the earth. The destruction created was commensurate. Technological ways of destroying the insects failed but resourceful farmers turned from wheat to crops that survived the infestation better and to cattle. (Lockwood notes in a footnote the dangerous present return to monoculture in the prairies.) The response of religious leaders was ambiguous-were these swarms God's punishment on a sinful people? Government response was equally ambiguous-were the distressed farmers lazy mendicants or victims of a disaster? One compelling argument for giving aid was the threat that the Midwest would be abandoned. Besides the aid finally delivered a second government response was the establishment of a commission to do research and find a solution to the locust problem-Lockwood identifies this as the first government effort to harness science to the common good. The commission did much good science and built a scientific infrastructure but the locust swarms ceased on their own. In 1904 a Montana entomologist reported not having collected one in five years. Grasshopper plagues did occur but they were not nearly as traumatic, partly because farmers and government agencies had learned from the locusts. Theories abounded about what had eliminated the locusts: widespread planting of alfalfa? the demise of the Bison? climate change? removal of Indians? It would not be fair to the reader to give the secret away. Part of the research leading to the explanation involved digging locust bodies out of glaciers in nearly inaccessible parts of Wyoming. Certainly one of the most engrossing books I have read in a long time. History, religion, biology, public policy come together in Locust; the most important lesson, though, has to do with the fragility of the environment.

By His Own Hand?: The Mysterious Death of Meriwether Lewis

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Highly readable and well edited
True crime?
Dissecting the suicide argument and outlining inconsistencies in the theory.

By His Own Hand?: The Mysterious Death of Meriwether Lewis

Manufacturer: University of Oklahoma Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0806137800

Book Description

For two centuries the question has persisted: Was Meriwether Lewis's death a suicide, an accident, or a homicide? By His Own Hand? is the first book to carefully analyze the evidence and consider the murder-versus-suicide debate within its full historical context. The historian contributors to this volume follow the format of a postmortem court trial, dissecting the case from different perspectives. A documents section permits readers to examine the key written evidence for themselves and reach their own conclusions.

Customer Reviews:

Highly readable and well edited .......2007-02-28

By His Own Hand? is a valuable addition to the Lewis and Clark literature. The centerpieces of this slim volume are two extended essays, one by James Holmberg of the Filson Historical Society in Louisville, the other by John D.W. Guice, professor of history emeritus at the University of Southern Mississippi.

In "The Case for Suicide," Jim Holmberg does an excellent job of setting out the evidence that Meriwether Lewis committed suicide in the early morning hours of October 11, 1809. The strength of Holmberg's essay is the overwhelming support of documentary evidence that the people closest to Lewis, including William Clark and Thomas Jefferson, believed he was in a suicidal frame of mind. Holmberg also points out that the supposed tradition of murder did not begin until the 1840s, many decades after Lewis died, when the residents of the area formed Lewis County and began to embrace the legacy of their most famous, if deceased, resident. William Clark's son, Meriwether Lewis Clark, may have also played a role in attempting to rescue his namesake from the stigma of suicide.

By contrast, those who believe Lewis was murdered have never been able to muster much evidence against any of the many suspects and rely heavily on the dubious supposition that Lewis simply wasn't the type to commit suicide. There are big holes in all the murder theories. Fictional accounts such as Frances Hunter's "To the Ends of the Earth: The Last Journey of Lewis and Clark" can fill in such gaps, but no documentary evidence exists that can do so in real life.

Yet Guice's essay, "Why Not Murder?" is more valuable than the confused tales of murder in the night might suggest. Guice points out that, starting with Thomas Jefferson, there has been a long history of retrofitting Lewis's life and actions to point to a suicidal nature. Scholars often point to Lewis's 31st birthday journal entry. Written literally as the Expedition was poised to become the first Americans to cross the Continental Divide, Lewis seems to lament the fact that he's never accomplished a doggone thing in his life. But is this really evidence that Lewis was self-destructive or a raging depressive? And how about the missing journals, or Lewis's failures in politics after the Expedition? Might there be explanations other than mental illness?

Guice does a good job of showing that when interpreted through the assumption of suicide, Lewis's foibles seem much more ominous than they would otherwise. He also points out that the suicide tradition is based largely on hearsay, and calls for an exhumation of Lewis's body to search for forensic evidence that might settle the question once and for all. He notes that over 200 Lewis relatives signed a petition asking the National Park Service for permission to examine the remains, but the NPS denied the request.

I also appreciated Guice's defense of Vardis Fisher, whose Suicide or Murder? (1962) doesn't always get the respect it deserves. Fisher did yeoman's work in compiling the stories about Lewis's death, and his work on the subject remains the most complete on the subject.

There are some good primary source documents included in By His Own Hand?, and an excellent round-up of the arguments by Jay Buckley of Brigham Young University. This anthology is highly readable and well-edited and will be enjoyed with anyone with an interest in Lewis's sad fate.

True crime?.......2006-12-18

You talk about true crime, this puts them all to shame. Or was it a crime? For almost two centuries scholars, criminologists, medical professionals and a host of other sleuths have tried to determine what caused the death of Meriwether Lewis of the famed Lewis and Clark Expedition. Was it a suicide, a homicide, or an accident? The shooting on October 11, 1809, in an Inn along the Natchez Trace in Tennessee has created much controversy, speculation, legends, and myths and yet the mystery has not been solved. Or has it? This book is the first to analyze the evidence and, within the full historical context, consider the murder-versus-suicide debate. Four historians outline the facts and present the evidentiary problems; make a case for suicide...and murder; assess the strengths and weaknesses of both arguments; and present a document section from which the reader can examine the available key evidence. What ultimately caused the death of Meriwether Lewis? YOU decide.

Dissecting the suicide argument and outlining inconsistencies in the theory........2006-12-14

BY HIS OWN HAND? THE MYSTERIOUS DEATH OF MERIWETHER LEWIS surveys the evidence in the strange death of explorer Lewis, who was found dead from two gunshot wounds while staying at an inn in Tennessee. Who fired these shots may never be fully known, but BY HIS OWN HAND takes a healthy stab at a case with no eyewitnesses. Contributors here are all historians of the West and conduct investigations making the case for different results, with editor Guice dissecting the suicide argument and outlining inconsistencies in the theory.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

Field Guide to Mysterious Places of the Pacific Coast (Field Guide to Mysterious Places Series)

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Field Guide to Mysterious Places of the Pacific Coast (Field Guide to Mysterious Places Series)
Salvatore Michael Trento
Manufacturer: Henry Holt & Co (P)
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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A Field Guide to Mysterious Places of the West

ASIN: 0805044507

The Mysterious Stranger Manuscripts (Literature)

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last writings form a dream-like collage
Mysterious Stranger

The Mysterious Stranger Manuscripts (Literature)
Mark Twain
Manufacturer: University of California Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0520246950

Book Description

Six years after Mark Twain's death, Albert Bigelow Paine, the author's literary executor, brought out a bowdlerized edition of The Mysterious Stranger, which he patched together from Mark Twain's three unfinished manuscripts, produced, Paine asserted, during a period of supposed creative paralysis. Scholars have since discovered that Paine's edition of the book was largely based on the earliest of those three versions, onto which Paine then grafted the final chapter of the last version. Indeed, Paine changed so many of the book's essentials that it cannot be said to accurately reflect the author's mood and thought at all.
Gibson's volume, first published in 1969 and now back in print, presented the manuscripts for the first time exactly as Mark Twain wrote them. Here the reader is offered a glimpse of Mark Twain's creative process on what many critics consider the finest fiction of his later years. While the work was begun in 1897 and revised first in 1902 and then in 1908, the third version was the only manuscript actually titled The Mysterious Stranger. These texts provide a rare opportunity to observe Mark Twain's sustained literary struggle with a central theme.

Customer Reviews:

last writings form a dream-like collage.......2002-07-22

I must first of all confess that, since reading Huck Finn as a kid, this is the only Twain I've read. I must also confess that the nearest comparison I can give for this book is the writings of William Burroughs!

In his last years Twain several times approached the idea of a story about a mysterious, "satanic" figure who appears to a small community and brings about an anti-religious revelation. This book contains his three attempts, thankfully free of the posthumous bowdlerisation that marred its previous publication.

The middle section is most like "classic" Twain, a semi-comic episode set in the familiar time and territory of Tom Sawyer. The "bookends", however, are set in a vaguely medieval middle-Europe and have a somewhat Gothic atmosphere. The first section is the most scathing, while the last is more like a dream.

The effect of these three substantial fragments being presented together is a remarkable insight into the creative processes of an extraordinarily imaginative mind. This breaking beyond narrative and into the writer's consciousness is the reason I draw the comparison with Burroughs. The result was never meant to be published as is, but nonetheless it is a challenging and haunting work, which provides a unique insight into the writer's mind.

Mysterious Stranger.......2000-03-30

THis is an excellent book! I really liked the main character and the way he love the ourdoors.

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gripping.

Mysterious Illinois
Troy Taylor
Manufacturer: Whitechapel Productions
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 1892523434

Customer Reviews:

gripping........2007-07-14

I was born and raised in Central Illinois and i have always been fascinated with the unknown. This book grabs you and pulls you in and you cant put it down until you have read it all. It has good stories with details and pictures. I would recommend this book to anyone. Wether you live in Illinois or not this is a must read. Troy Taylor is a great author and all his books are must reads.

A Field Guide to Mysterious Places of the West

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An excellent supplementary guide for vacationers & travelers
A extrodinary look at the mysteries that surround us
What happened to Utah?

A Field Guide to Mysterious Places of the West
Salvatore Michael Trento
Manufacturer: Pruett Publishing Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Field Guide to Mysterious Places of the Pacific Coast (Field Guide to Mysterious Places Series)

ASIN: 0871088517

Customer Reviews:

An excellent supplementary guide for vacationers & travelers.......2003-01-11

Field Guide To Mysterious Places Of The West by archaeologist, geologist, and experienced traveler Salvatore M. Trento is an exciting and unique tour guide to an impressive series of unusual and noteworthy locations throughout the American West. Ranging from the Turtle Rock Geoforms (granite blocks of Colorado which have eroded into recognizable shapes), to sacred sites, ruins, solstice sunrise petroglyphs, and so much more, Field Guide To Mysterious Places Of The West is organized by state, and complemented with black-and-white photographs and diagrams. Field Guide To Mysterious Places Of The West is very highly recommended an excellent supplementary guide for vacationers and travelers looking to see and experience something different in their journeys throughout the American West.

A extrodinary look at the mysteries that surround us.......2000-06-11

I loved this book. I was excited to read the different explanations about these strange things found in nature. It is even more interesting after you have seen some of these places for yourself. I think that the photos in the book added a lot to my understanding. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in natural mysteries!

What happened to Utah?.......2000-05-16

The author covers interesting places in most of the Western states, with the noteable exception of Utah. After spending the past 2 weeks in Utah, exploring caves, petroglyphs, and cliff dwellings of the Anazazi and Fremont Indians, I referred to the book to see if any of the places I visited were mentioned. I was surprised to see that the entire state of Utah was ignored.

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A tale of great wealth and possible malfeasance

The Mysterious Death of Jane Stanford
Robert Cutler
Manufacturer: Stanford General Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Poisoned Palms: The Murder of Mrs. Jane Lathrop Stanford

ASIN: 0804747938
Release Date: 2003-07-11

Book Description

Jane Stanford, the co-founder of Stanford University, died in Honolulu in 1905, shortly after surviving strychnine poisoning in San Francisco. The inquest testimony of the physicians who attended her death in Hawaii led to a coroner’s jury verdict of murder—by strychnine poisoning. Stanford University President David Starr Jordan promptly issued a press release claiming that Mrs. Stanford had died of heart disease, a claim that he supported by challenging the skills and judgment of the Honolulu physicians and toxicologist. Jordan’s diagnosis was largely accepted and promulgated in many subsequent historical accounts.

In this book, the author reviews the medical reports in detail to refute Dr. Jordan’s claim and to show that Mrs. Stanford indeed died of strychnine poisoning. His research reveals that the professionals who were denounced by Dr. Jordan enjoyed honorable and distinguished careers. He concludes that Dr. Jordan went to great lengths, over a period of nearly two decades, to cover up the real circumstances of Mrs. Stanford’s death.

Customer Reviews:

A tale of great wealth and possible malfeasance.......2004-04-15

True crime aficionados will enjoy reading this book, and it will also appeal to graduates of Stanford University and those interested in turn of the century Honolulu, where the putative murder took place. It's an interesting locale, situated at the juncture of violated native sovereignty and a new, tourism-based economy.

The author is dry to the extreme, and again and again nobly resists the opportunity to speculate (i.e., fictionalize) the details of his complex story. He makes it clear whom he suspects, and it's a terrible story indeed. And to think that for a hundred years Jane Stanford has been commonly thought of as dying by accident. Accident--no~-far from it--this was cold blooded murder!

A classic case of who-done-it and who covered it up.

Average customer rating:
An Authenticated History of the Famous Bell Witch . . . The Mysterious Talking Goblin That Terrorized the West End of Robertson County, Tennessee
Ingram; M.V.
Manufacturer: Library Reprints
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Library Binding
ASIN: 0722248423

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