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By any standard, Inspector Chen Cao is a novelty in the world of police procedurals. A published poet and translator of American and English mystery novels, he has been assigned by the Chinese government, under Deng Xiaoping's cadre policy, to a "productive" job with the Special Cases Bureau of the Shanghai Police Department.
Shanghai in the mid-1990s is a city caught between reverence for the past and fascination with a tantalizing, market-driven present. When the body of a young "national model worker," revered for her adherence to the principles of the Communist Party, turns up in a canal, Chen is thrown into the midst of these opposing forces. As he struggles to unravel the hidden threads of this paragon's life, he finds himself challenging the very political forces that have guided his life since birth. With party-line-spouting superiors above him and detectives who resent his quick promotion beneath him, Chen finds himself wondering whether justice is a concept at all meaningful in late-20th-century China.
Death of a Red Heroine is a book hovering uneasily between the spheres of fiction and fact, creativity and didacticism. For much of the novel, author Qiu Xiaolong seems more intent on driving home the actions and consequences of the Cultural Revolution and its aftermath than on the slowly unfolding plot. Tedious repetitions of the fates, under Mao, of "educated youths" joust with both the actions of the detectives and Chen's "poetic" ruminations, which, unfortunately, are infected by precisely the stiffness and arbitrariness Qiu is at pains to decry in his historical passages. The moving couplets Chen favors are potentially fascinating insights into the interaction between ancient and modern China, but instead of provoking the reader into reflection, Qiu offers reductive explanations of each and every poem.
The moments when Qiu concentrates on invoking atmosphere are both illuminating and rewarding: Detective Yu's wife's pride and pleasure in having brought home a dozen crabs at "state price" are movingly well crafted, all the more so because Qiu seems almost unaware of what he is doing. Rather than lecturing on the economic dilemmas of the modern worker, he lets Peiqin's simple happiness speak for itself. In the last quarter of the book, Qiu seems to find his stride, though his writing style remains undeniably awkward. Here Chen expands and relaxes, and with him, the novel. Qiu's debut, though anything but polished, holds the promise of better things to come. --Kelly Flynn
Book Description
In this Anthony Award-winning debut, Inspector Chen of the Shanghai Police must find the murderer of a National Model worker, and then risk his own life and career to see that justice is done. A Loyal Character Dancer is the latest in Qiu's Shanghai series featuring Inspector Chen.
"A marvelously assured debut. . . . Engrossing, immensely readable."-The Wall Street Journal
Customer Reviews:
More than Just a Compelling Mystery Novel.......2007-09-06
"Mainland China," "compelling detective story," and "Chinese mystery writer" are not word combiations that one would expect to see often together in print, but Qiu Xiaolong's compelling DEATH OF A RED HEROINE justifies their joint appearance at least this once. Born in Shanghai but living in the U.S. since 1989, Mr. Qiu (pronounced "cho," rhymes with Joe) is now a professor of Chinese literature at Washington University in St. Louis. While he pens his stories in English, his heart is clearly in Shanghai, so much so that this most Western of mainland Chinese cities virtually becomes a character in his book.
Qiu's story revolves around a young woman's body found stuffed into a black plastic bag in a small canal about 20 miles outside of Shanghai. The discovery is phoned into the Shanghai Police Bureau, where the call is taken by Detective Yu Guangming of the Homicide Divisions special (as in politically sensitive) case squad. Detective Yu's superior, the up-and-coming Inspector Chen Cao (as much a poet and Tang Dynasty poetry enthusiast as he is a detective) ultimately decides that he and Yu will pursue the case in its early stages until they see how it develops. As it turns out, theirs is the perfect place for the case to be assigned - the body is discovered to be that of Guan Hongying, a sales clerk at the Shanghai Number One Department store and nationally known as one of the Communist Party's select group of "model workers."
By far the bulk of the story concerns Chen's and Yu's efforts to peer into Guan Hongying's intensely private life and find a reason for her murder. The arc of the novel follows predictable mystery novel lines - discovery, autopsy, identification, more discovery, witnesses, suspects, more discovery, motives, applied leverage, proof, and resolution. Yet while traversing this path, author Qiu sheds fascinating light on numerous aspects of modern life in mainland China. His story opens a door onto the workings of the Communist Party and its founding cadres (and their children). As well, he ushers readers into the whirlwinds of societal and even physical change swarming through Shanghai, contrasting the disappearing lifestyles and personalities of old Shanghai with that of the new city exhibited in Pudong and along the teeming shopping districts of Nanjing and Huihai Roads. To his even greater credit, Qiu takes us into his detectives' homes and daily lives, particularly that of Yu Guangming and his family.
Much like Martin Cruz Smith's Arkady Renko (GORKY PARK, WOLVES EAT DOGS, STALIN'S GHOST), Qiu's Inspector Chen is intelligent and intuitive without being flashy. Outwardly, both Renko and Chen appear to their compatriots as dogged loners, unbending and resolute in their determination to solve the case and bring "the truth" to light, whatever the personal and political cost to themselves and their careers. Both authors have created charming, Columbo-like heroes whose foibles, talents, and persistence make them remarkably sympathetic to the reader.
DEATH OF A RED HEROINE is a thoroughly entertaining story that secondarily serves as an outstanding window into the life and culture of mainland China. Having lived in Suzhou, China off and on for several years and visited nearby Shanghai many times, I can attest that Mr. Qiu's characterizations of Chinese life and the sense of atmosphere he creates in his writing are spot on. This book is enjoyable both as a mystery novel and as an armchair tourist's look into mainland Chinese life.
China.......2007-08-23
This is an outstanding book which weaves the commercialization of the PRCand a murder mystery Ch into the continuing dominance of the People's party leadership.
A New Star.......2007-08-02
Qiu Xiaolong is one of the most exciting writers working today. He takes an immensely fertile environment -- the corruption, cronyism, and rapid change of present-day China and puts into it an ethical cop who is also a poet and a translator of American mystery novels. Chen is one of the great new characters in detective fiction: complex, conflicted, stubborn, absolutely committed to doing his job the best he can, despite the immense pressures on him to keep the blame away from the rich and influential, where it most often belongs. All the books are brilliantly plotted, fast-paced, packed with vivid characters, and full of fascinating ethical dilemmas. You can't go wrong with any of them. As someone who writes about Asia himself, I recommend every single one of the Inspector Chen novels. They'll take you into a different world, and in the company of a remarkable character.
A good read.......2007-05-02
Having just read this book (May, 2007) I'm a bit late to the party. I bought a copy speculating that it might be a good series (or at least not the typical mystery that I usually read) and I was very, very pleased.
Set in the critical early years of the transition of China from communit to free market, this is as much a review of Chinese society of the time as it is a detective novel. The characters are likable, the plot sound, and the setting leaves you wondering how anything could get done in a fluid political and social setting as Shanghai resides. But rest assured Inspector Chen delivers, finds the bad guy, and can still look at himself in the mirror when it is all done.
All accomplished pretty much without hidden codes, high speed chases, blazing gunfights, or some sex kitten extravaganza.
It satisfied me enough to buy "A Loyal Character Dancer" (second in the series) and I'm enjoying it as well.
So if you need a change of pace from your cozy or hard-boiled mystery reading, Qiu Xiaolong takes you to a totally foreign setting (for an American) for a very satisfactory tale of crime.
Interesting.......2007-03-16
It's a bit overwritten but it's much more than a simple who-done-it. It captures the strange limbo that China was in between the control of the old guard of Chairman Mao and the freer time begun by Deng Xiaopeng. The characterizations are strong. And Shanghai is described with visceral accuracy. I'm looking forward to reading another Chief Inspector Chen mystery.
Book Description
They died in vast numbers, eight million men and women driven forward in suicidal charges, shattered by German shells and tanks. They were the soldiers of the Red Army, an exhausted mass of recruits who confronted Europe's most lethal fighting force and by 1945 had defeated it. For sixty years, their experiences were suppressed, replaced by patriotic propaganda. We know how the soldiers died, but nearly nothing about how they lived, how they saw the world, or why they fought. In this ambitious, revelatory history, Catherine Merridale uncovers the harrowing story of who these soldiers were, and how they lived and died during the war.
Customer Reviews:
soviet soldiers.......2007-09-16
As for the civilian, who has exeperienced living side-by-side with soviet army some years ago, the book did not make any new revelations. It is for a reader, who wishes to look deeper into "the russian soul", albeit in very specific historical circumstances. The author frequently refers to a russian peasant as an individual character, although agriculture in Russia has traditionally been based on collectivist mentality.
Some stories are incredible. For example, that russian couple in 1944 bought a T-34 for their life savings, and wife became a tank driver and was killed in a battle (p.214). Referring to the Baltic states, the author states that the deportations took place in 1939 (p.243), although those were carried out in 1941 after occupation of the Baltics in 1940. The final chapter gives a precise and correct observation about WWII memories, which these days in Russia build up a part of a new official state religion.
A great accomplishment.......2007-09-14
This cultural analysis of the Red Army is not only long overdue, but hits the nail right on the head. As a former paratroop infantryman with a B.A. in Russian Area Studies and a "Red Army (actually NKVD Frontier Troops) living historian", I found the book to not only be very useful, but fascinating.
If you want to know what it was like to serve in the Red Army during the WWII period, it's unlikely you'll ever read anything better than this.
It includes an extensive section about the psychological elements revolving around the infamous raping and pillaging of the Red Army in Germany.
Great social history of the Red Army.......2007-09-01
This is a very well-written book about the people who fought in the Red Army and not a military history of that Army and its campaigns. As anyone who has ever spoken to fathers and uncles about WW2 knows, it is very difficult to get these men to open up. The author makes clear that the problem is even greater for members of the Red Army. Nevertheless, she did get real stories from the frontoviki and she weaves their stories beautifully into this terrific history.
Although this is a social and cultural history of the war, her descriptions of the battles, like Kursk and Stalingrad, are as good as longer books dealing with just the military aspects.
It is a pity and a shame that so few Americans (that I know) have ever even hear of Kursk. If you are one of them, read this book.
Well written, an easy read on an oft-ignored but fascinating subject........2007-08-19
Well worth the read; the author stumbles in a few places by looping back to the same topics over and over again, but all in all, she does an outstanding job of laying out the realities of life in the Soviet Army, and the despicable manner in which the soldiers and veterans were treated. A must read for those who argue that the Soviet system was relatively benign or misunderstood.
Ivan's War........2007-07-31
Just finished reading "Ivan's War, Life and Death in the Red Army, 1939-1945?, by Catherine Merridale (Picador). For those of you who might still be trying to understand the scale, enormity and shear incomprehensibility of those six, bewilderingly catastrophic years, you might want to pick it up at your local read store. Ivan's war starts out slowly but once Catherine Merridale gets her grove on she manages to portray, with great skill, the Red Army and the men who filled its wretched ranks.
I soon found myself mourning and grief-stricken for the victims of this supremely Soviet state, and its uniquely echanting combination of totalitarianism, Stalinist ideological rigidity, and the absolute, unrelenting carnage brought onto them by Hitler's equally mind numbingly hateful brand of collective insanity. There may never be any words strong enough to express the misery of the "frontovikis" during and after the Soviets' "Great Patriotic War".
Ever-since the fall of the Soviet Union, the reconstituted Russian state has opened its archives to greater scrutiny and researchers like Ms. Merridale have been allowed to dig in and conduct interviews with former Red Army soldiers and officers. Russian and foreign historians will no doubt have a field day with its archived decades but what is certainly not going to change is that there is, and will always be, far more ways to die at the hand of man, than there are ways for men to peacably live by it.
A longer review on my blog- http://blog.olivierlaude.com Entry title: Kiss me I'm bipedal.
Book Description
When Paula D'Arcy lost her husband and baby in a car crash, she began an inner search for a faith that was stronger than fear. In Gift of the Red Bird she shares her remarkable spiritual adventure.
Customer Reviews:
Disappointed.......2007-07-15
I ordered the Gift of the Red Bird by Paula D'Arcy. The book was mailed on June 13, 2007 via US Postal Service. Unfortunately the item has yet to arrive. I have a tracking number but no way of contacting Amazon.
spiritual insight.......2007-03-08
This book was exactly what I had hoped for in that it was an individual description of a personal spirtual quest and the finding of the divine on this earth. A very uplifting, down-to-earth story that reads amazingly quickly
Gift of the Red Bird.......2006-08-13
Very inspirational. I was totally filled with the Holy Spirit. I think I would like to go on a retreat like that. We have so much to learn. Please try it.
Short but beautiful book . . ........2006-04-21
Gift of the Red Bird, a Spiritual Encounter, reads like a journal from Paula D'Arcy's life. On August 18, 1975, on a return trip home to Connecticut, Paula's car was struck by a drunk motorist. Her daughter, Sarah, died of head injuries on August 20, and her husband died three days later from a ruptured spleen. Paula was alive and three months pregnant with her second baby daughter, Beth. For this reason, she went on living.
Gift of the Red Bird tells of a story of extreme loss and ache, of searching for answers, of making sense out of the pain, and of looking for some light in the darkness.
This is Paula's journey, and when she goes on a wilderness retreat -- where it's just her, God, and nature -- she begins to get some comfort for her wounds.
A deeply moving narrative, this book may be short, but the message is deep and lasting. It's a journey well worth taking for anyone who has ever had a tragedy hit their lives where they've had the same questions.
Gift of th Red Bird.......2006-03-19
A very good book. It was an excellent testamonial. It is well written. I plan to use it to finish our year end Bible Study/
Product Description
A fearless exposé of mainstream medicines most revered dogma, Malignant Medical Myths is solidly based on trusted medical and nutritional books and journals. Americans spend $2 trillion per year on health care, about $7,000 each, yet it buys almost the poorest healthcare among developed countries, with 200,000 deaths per year from medical treatment. Find out why advice from authorities on screening tests, drugs, diet, exercise, alcohol, radiation, radon, and water fluoridation is often wrong and commercially motivated. See how clinical trials are slanted. Understand how sickness is created to sell treatments, and which government agencies support these shenanigans.
Customer Reviews:
malignant medical myths.......2007-10-05
This was exactly what I was looking for, INFORMATION and while it isn't a book for the beach, I will read and refer to it for many days,months and years. Would not part with this book.
Buy One for your Physician.......2007-06-13
One of the most remarkable examples of herd behavior among humans is their tendency to create and believe lore about medicine. Although biomedical researchers consider themselves above all this, as Kauffman shows, they are not. Without engaging in either inflated rhetoric or florid outrage, Kauffman exposes and dissects conventional wisdom in a careful selection of conditions that affect large numbers of people. Despite the occasional misstep, he puts the evidence and argument out on the table for us to see and judge. We cannot ask for more. When you are finished reading it, send it to your doctor.
Evidence based medicine at it's best!.......2007-02-26
If you care about your health, or that of those around you, this is a must read book.
This certainly isn't a book you can simply skim read. It took me a while to ponder about the impact this might have (I'm a medical student). The arguments are very well presented; he puts all the studies in front of you and analyzes them in a relevant manner.
What I consider to be a minor flaw in the book: the author sometimes concludes that certain differences in mortality are "negligible" when I don't think they are negligible. Certainly though, improvements in mortality rate are far easily attainable via fish oil, magnesium and other quality supplements.
I would love to see a new version of this book, further exploring and digging through the literature on various drugs and supplements.
Highly Recommended.......2007-01-29
You need this book. It is easy to become so engrossed in Kauffman's easy writing style that you will continue reading and lose track of time. Thumb through and stop at any place and you are guaranteed to find a wealth of information. Detractors to the best toxic-free remedies are provided rebuttals--you can learn a comprehensive approach to what and why. Let's make this required reading in medical schools! The only error I found was a typo misspelling of Antiplatelet in the Fig. 1-2 Treatment Meta-Analysis Table (p. 21). Again, this book is so loaded with useful information you will constantly refer to it. On p. 232 and again on p. 254 we read, correctly, how sunblock contributes to cancer by blocking Vitamin D formation--something that Rodale Press in their vast publishings fail to impart. Rodale Press, whom some may consider a leader in preventive health publishing, recommends sunblock to unsuspecting readers.
The hallmark of clinical observations (p2-3) over random clinical trials [RCT] is a common sense approach often missed in the medical literature and is sometimes used to discredit bonafide treatments that elicit positive results. You will learn of the class-action lawsuit against Pfizer regarding Lipitor [still want to ask you Dr. if it's right for you?](p97) and that statins cause cancer (p98).
The section on fluoridation is a must read. "How Antiflouridationists Have Weakened Their Cause," to only non-English speaking countries having the foresight to reject fluoride, to 60% US public water supplies being fluoridated--we get the good, the bad, and the ugly. As fluorides have been shown to increase cancer risks, adding them to water violated the Delaney Clause of the 1958 Amendment to the Food Drug & Cosmetic Act of 1938. So, the Delaney Clause was repealed in 1996 (p.273). Also, adding fluoride violates the EPA policy on drinking water standards (Safe Drinking Water Act) explaining why the 1990 National Toxicology Program on sodium fluoride was "revised" with findings of "clear evidence of carcinogenicity" to "equivocal" evidence. This was necessary to keep the flouridation program legal (p274).
On mammograms, benefits claim lower breast cancer mortality without providing all-cause mortality. Kauffman reminds that this is also a major fault in "major texts in gynecology and oncology" (p217). However, I was surprised to find thermography cast in such low regard, but then this is coming from the American College of Radiology, who cites a false-positive rate of 25% (p.212). Kauffman clarifies this in Addendum 1, on an entire page devoted to Thermography, in which thermography is better "able to detect breast cancer 5-8 years before mammography with vastly fewer false-positive errors" (p.327).
On anti-oxidents in red wine, Kauffman notes no evidence that moderate drinking offers worthwhile health benefits (p.142). What Kauffman calls "sudden enthusiasm for red wine in the late 1990s," reminds of a medical school course in which the professor remarked his telling the grape juice convention promoters that their product wasn't needed--that wine was preferred. No mention was made by the professor of the far superior anti-oxident capability of 1 gram of Vitamin C--in comparison.
There is absolutely no reason that this book should not sell out and go through several subsquent printings. A valuable edition to your medical library or home book-shelf.
A valuable book.......2006-10-21
In Joseph Conrad's famous novel, "Heart of Darkness," Marlowe, the narrator of the central tale travels to the Congo in search of the enigmatic and elusive Kurtz, a renowned European ivory trader who went to Africa as an idealistic "emissary of pity, and science, and progress." Marlowe finally encounters Kurtz on his deathbed, in a compound surrounded by a ruined fence, the posts of which are capped with shrunken human heads. Kurtz, having succumbed to primitive, destructive forces-- both external and internal-- utters his last words-a withering realization of truth: "The horror! The horror!"
Readers of Joel Kauffman's book "Malignant Medical Myths" should prepare themselves for an analagous journey of discovery. Not only will they learn of the specifics: that taking an aspirin a day may not make you live longer; that low carbohydrate diets are beneficial, not dangerous; that statin drugs, while effective in reducing cholesterol-an irrelevant endpoint-do little to reduce mortality-and then only in a very select population; that high blood pressure is over-treated; that the benefits of moderate alcohol use, exercise, and mammograms are exaggerated; that chelation therapy is unfairly maligned; that fears of radiation are overdone; that cancer cure rates have not changed much in the last forty years.
More important than these specifics is the totality-the picture of the medical establishment which emerges from them. That establishment, like Kurtz, is often seen as a beacon of pity, and science, and progress, but, when examined more closely, seems corrupted by greed, an aversion to truth, and a kind of tribalistic conformity; it seems to lack the structures which would provide an ethical backbone, and promote a commitment to scientific thinking. The hospital compound, with its white coats and gleaming machines is shadowed and compromised by an ominous fence of grievous errors and unpleasant truths.
The first subheading in Dr. Kauffman's introductory chapter is: "You Do Not Have To Trust Your Doctor." The reasons gradually become clear: Doctors' recommendations often rely on information which is "outdated, biased, flawed, and sometimes based on outright fraud."
Drug companies manipulate the results of clinical trials by careful selection of volunteers, by elimination of those who show initial adverse side-effects, by publishing only favourable results, by dealing only with surrogate endpoints, by failing to use placebos, and by failing to provide total mortality figures. Relative risk statistics, which are often highly misleading are used to advantage. Abstracts of medical papers, and hence press releases, may contain selective and hence misleading information. Doctors may not only rely on information given by drug company representatives; they are feted, gifted, and even paid by drug companies. Doctors on decision-making committees and panels often have conflicts of interest because of financial ties to drug companies. Doctors have great difficulty in exercising independent judgement, because conformity to current thinking, no matter how mistaken, is the safest course.
"The horror! the horror!"
We should be grateful to Dr. Kauffman for the research he has done to expose these medical myths, and reveal the corruption which initiates and maintains them. I became aware of Dr. Kauffman's work in 2005, in researching the causes of heart disease. Dr. Kauffman is a former professor of Chemistry at the University of the Sciences in Philadelphia, and (according to biographical information on the back cover) has now "turned his attention to exposing fraud in medicine."
I think everyone should read this book, but there is no doubt that many will find it troubling. At the end of Conrad's novel, Marlowe meets with Kurtz's fiancee. When she asks what Kurtz's last words were, he responds: "The last word he pronounced was - your name."
He lies, because, in the end, the truth is too difficult. (It is the "necessity" of this lie that is the "Darkness" referred to in the title.) Dr. Kauffman is a Marlowe who has the courage to tell us what really happened.
Book Description
When did Abby Foote's life become an episode of Law & Order?
First, a former boyfriend (who dumped Abby in the most humiliating way imaginable) is found murdered the day his engagement is announced.
Then two other ex-boyfriends report attempts made on their lives right after breaking up with her. Coincidence? Detective Benjamin Orr, of the Portland Police Department (and Very Probing Questions and Incredibly Delicious Face), doesn't think so. Neither do Abby's friends, family, coworkers and other exes--who are suddenly shaking in their shoes. Soon everyone is sucking up to her as though the Abby they know and supposedly love to death is capable of poisoning their drinks….
Is someone trying to frame her?
Who? And why? She has to find out fast. Because by-the-book Ben is bound to break her heart.
Which makes him next on someone's list…
Customer Reviews:
Loved it.......2007-10-08
I thoroughly enjoyed the author's voice in this book. It was funny and engaging. The mystery was only a piece of the book for me. I liked the way Abby interacted with her co-workers, friends, and family. If you're looking for a mystery, I'm not sure this is the book I'd recommend. If you're looking for a few laughs, however, this is definitely it.
Interesting premise.......2007-08-13
Magazine columnist Abby Foote has never met a loser she didn't date. From the lothario that just wanted her virginity, to the CPA that wanted a write up in her magazine, she always manages to get her heart broken. But no one broke it more thoroughly than suave Ted Puck, who brought his "cousin" to Abby's birthday party, only to be caught in a compromising position. After getting abandoned at LL Bean when her new beau Henry discovers what a bris is, she's melancholy as she reads about Ted's engagement to his "cousin." When he winds up dead the next day, the police come knocking on her door. When two more of her former boyfriends report occurrences after having broken up with her, suspicion is cast on Abby, she receives apologies from every past misdeed cast against her over the last 25 years. Add to that a scorching crush on the investigating detective, Benjamin Orr (not to be confused with the lead singer of "the Cars"), and Abby is in more trouble than she bargained for. She decides that the only way to clear her name is to actively participate in the investigation, much to Ben's consternation.
Senate's latest is a laugh out loud funny story - every time Abby is sarcastic to someone they end up taking out an order of protection against her. But it's also sad - Abby was far too tolerant of a very disloyal family that doesn't deserve her - one sister even requiring her to wear a blond wig in her wedding so she could have a totally blond bridal party. The story did get a little redundant after awhile, with a pretty unlikely person revealed as the culprit. But Senate is such a good writer that I found myself reading into the night to see how it all turned out.
Repetitive and short.......2007-07-15
I agree with the reviewer above you said that the scenario was far fetched and the main character was flat. The problem was that in this book, the main character said "i am not the murderer" at least 50000000 times and i was like, yes, we all know this. the detective's dialogue was very repetitive as well - "i cannot discuss this case." i felt like not only did the author not research criminal investigations (ie, it seemed implausible that the detective would share a room with the prime suspect or trail her around), but she really didnt have much to offer in terms of WHY, in the absence of evidence, Abby was the prime suspect. that being said, i liked the background stories of abby's drama. i just wish that we had more of a reason why she fell for the detective, beyond holding onto some highschool crush. this book was cute but left a lot to be desired. i may still read future books, if i can get them for $5 on bargain books.
Would not recommend to others.......2007-06-06
I found the characters flat and underdeveloped, the scenarios unrealistic and the dialog awkward and unconvincing. I had the feeling the author threw this book together in just a few days. I always say that life's too short to read bad writing, and this book qualifies. Thankfully, I borrowed it from the library, so I only wasted time and not money.
This was an okay mystery.......2007-03-26
I felt bad for Abbey from the get go. Not only did the police NOT seem to be looking elsewhere for suspects, but jus because you break up with someone cheating on you doesn't mean you kill him six months later. It did seem a bit far fetched. As did the other two exes coming forward with claimes of Abbey trying to commit murder on them as well, months and months prior to when the events occured.
Also, her family was god awful to her. Instead of standing by her, her half sisters more or less caved into their mother, Abbey's step mother. And in one of her sister's case, caving into her husband, Abbey's brother-in-law. They were not there for her when she needed them the most. Why Abbey allowed them back into her life and was in a wedding to one of them was beyond me.
The plot at the end had an ODD twist to it. Odd, but good. The killer was someone I would have never suspected.
I am however looking forward to the next Abbey Foote mystery, mostly because I want to see what happens with Abbey and Ben, the police investigator who she went to high school with, in the next book.
Average customer rating:
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Walter Mosley Omnibus: Devil in a Blue Dress / A Red Death / White Butterfly
Walter Mosley
Manufacturer: Pan Macmillan
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
 Mystery | Mystery & Thrillers | Subjects | Books | Anthologies | British Detectives | Canadian Detectives | Cat Sleuths | General | Hard-Boiled | Historical | Reference | Series | Sherlock Holmes | Women Sleuths
Mosley, Walter | ( M ) | Authors, A-Z | Mystery & Thrillers | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 0330336258 |
Average customer rating:
- Great insight into Dr. Drew and the "refused treatment" controversy....
- Performs a needed service
- Someone at Amazon Needs to Check The Ingram Review Here!!!
- Readable history
- A magical synthesis of African American history and myth.
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One Blood: The Death and Resurrection of Charles R. Drew
Spencie Love
Manufacturer: The University of North Carolina Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 0807846821
Release Date: 1997-10-29 |
Book Description
One Blood traces both the life of the famous black surgeon and blood plasma pioneer Dr. Charles Drew and the well-known legend about his death. On April 1, 1950, Drew died after an auto accident in rural North Carolina. Within hours, rumors spread: the man who helped create the first American Red Cross blood bank had bled to death because a whites-only hospital refused to treat him. Drew was in fact treated in the emergency room of the small, segregated Alamance General Hospital. Two white surgeons worked hard to save him, but he died after about an hour. In her compelling chronicle of Drew's life and death, Spencie Love shows that in a generic sense, the Drew legend is true: throughout the segregated era, African Americans were turned away at hospital doors, either because the hospitals were whites-only or because the 'black beds' were full. Love describes the fate of a young black World War II veteran who died after being turned away from Duke Hospital following an auto accident that occurred in the same year and the same county as Drew's. African Americans are shown to have figuratively 'bled to death' at white hands from the time they were first brought to this country as slaves. By preserving their own stories, Love says, they have proven the enduring value of oral history.
Customer Reviews:
Great insight into Dr. Drew and the "refused treatment" controversy...........2007-05-17
This is an excellent story on both Charles Drew and the power of myth in the African American community. I too grew up on the story of Charles Drew being refused treatment at a segregated hospital. Given the history of African Americans and the medical establishment, this was easy to believe, especially by those living under the oppressiveness of Jim Crow. For example, the sad story of WW II veteran Maltheus Avery being turned away by Duke University Hospital shows us why the Dr. Drew hospitalization refusal story took on a life of its own.
The book also gave me some additional insight into just who Dr. Drew was as a man and as a physician. He truly was an outstanding man who exemplified manhood, scholarship, perseverance, and uplift. If I'm not mistaken, there is no comprehensive biography of Dr. Drew that has been written outside of the dozens of children's books about him. That's very surprising to me, given his accomplishments and his legendary status in medical circles and in the African American community.
I applaud Ms. Love for writing a truly fascinating story that needed to be told, both of Dr. Drew and the stories that surrounded his death. This is non-fiction writing at its best.
Performs a needed service.......2004-03-22
Too often, what passes as "Black History" to the public on radio shows, the internet, etc. consists of myths and conspiracy theories as the "Willie Lynch Letter," The first president being Black, African-Americans being descended from Ancient Egyptians, ad nauseum. Spencie Love performs a well-needed service by debunking one of the most common (albeit one of the more plausible) of these myths-the idea that Black blood plasma pioneer Dr. Charles Drew bled to death because he was refused admission to a segregated hospital. Fact was, as she carefully demonstrates, this actually happened to another Black person named Maltheus Avery around the same time while Dr. Drew was treated responsibly at the time of this death.
As a Black scholar, I have long decried the use of fabrication in the telling of Black history as something a people starved for true knowledge could ill-afford. Thank you Miss Love for showing people that REAL history does matter.
Someone at Amazon Needs to Check The Ingram Review Here!!!.......2003-07-23
I decided to look up the Amazon site for Spencie Love's book "One Blood," because I recently wrote a review of Phillip Roth's "The Human Stain, where I point out the erroneous information provided by a character about the death of Dr. Charles Drew. The character claimed that Drew bled to death because he was refused admission to a Caucasian hospital due to his race. Lo and behold I look up this Amazon site and read the Ingram review of "One Blood," only to discover that it too, has erroneous information. The review claims that Drew was refused admission to one hospital, then treated in the emergency room of a segregated hospital, after which he bled to death. Apparently, the reviewer didn't read Love's book either. That's not what she describes as happening. Drew was IMMEDIATELY admitted to the emergency room of Allamance County Hospital in Allamance County, North Carolina, where doctors couldn't save him because he was entirely too injured to be saved. Love makes this VERY CLEAR in the book. The Ingram review implies that first Drew was taken to one hospital and refused admission, then taken to a "segregated" facility where he was treated, but couldn't be saved. No!!! This is not what Love says happened. In the book she describes how it was JUST ONE HOSPITAL ALL ALONG where Drew was taken and treated. Part of the point of her book is to correct the long held fallacy that Drew bled to death due to the refusal of a hospital to admit him. Please someone at Amazon, GET THE BOOK. Then read what she wrote. Then post my review of Roth's novel, where I express my dismay that Roth got away with furthering a myth that is still well entrenched among those who should research such matters before commenting about them (or having characters comment about them).
Readable history.......1999-02-10
This wonderful book not only includes accurate, scholarly historical research, it tells a gripping story of two fine black families and their experience with health care for African-Americans in our society. Very readable.
A magical synthesis of African American history and myth........1998-12-27
Spencie Love has written one of the few genuinely biracial explorations of the history of black-white relations in the United States. She uses the story of Charles Drew to illustrate the ways in which white Americans have misunderstood and distorted the contributions of black Americans to their shared culture--whether science, politics, education, medicine, or daily life. THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW called this a "superb book" and their review was spot on.
Book Description
It's 1953 in Red-baiting, blacklisting Los Angeles, a moral tar pit ready to swallow Easy Rawlins. Easy is out of "the hurting business" and into the housing (and favor) business when a racist IRS agent nails him for tax evasion. Special Agent Darryl T. Craxton, FBI, offers to bail him out if he agrees to infiltrate the First American Baptist Church and spy on alleged communist organizer Chaim Wenzler. That's when the murders begin....
Customer Reviews:
The Blaxploitation Movie's Daddy.......2004-07-07
Even though Mosley's popular whodunnits started taking shape in the 90's, it's easy to see that the stories he writes stemmed from a certain influence:
Shaft, maybe even Black Ceasar, et al. for the action and "givin' it to da man!" undertones. Mixed in with a little bit of "Cotton Comes to Harlem" and "Mohagany" for the occasional romance and levity. In fact, his works don't seem much different than what you would see on the 1973 big screen in a theatre packed to the back with black faces. Note the similarities...
1. You've got your classic hard brother, be he a private dick or just a good guy out to get what's coming to him. Easy, in classic Easy fashion, is a guy trying not to do what's wrong because he's seen enough of that. A hard drinker because of the pain his past has caused him, this fellow with kill only if he has to.
2. There's always the white folks who turn out to be the bad guys. They're cops or ganglords or jerks with a ton of dough. Here we have Lawrence, a tax agent who comes down on Easy because of tax evasion. Second we have Craxton, the FBI guy who wants to use Easy for his own purposes, but makes a deal with him - do my bidding and I'll chill out that tax thing. Finally, there is Officer Fine, a bit player who lusts after the cries and screams of anything black.
3. Can't forget how nobody else "understands him but his woman." And she's black, no way around that. With Easy, he's messing around with a woman who can get him killed as sure as the day is long: Mouse's wife. Now if that's not a mistake, I don't know what is. Mouse is Easy's friend, for one thing. For another, he's a cold-blooded killer. But Easy's willing to risk it all for love.
4. Must mention the white woman he cheats on her with. This is thrown in soley to annoy the white man. In 1970, this act of spite was a given. And it's in this book too.
5. Jive talk. Nothing but jive talk. It simply must be indicative of the era and this novel plays out perfectly as a piece choc full of blacks who were taught how to talk by their 1930's parents, who were taught to talk by THEIR 1900 former slave parents, who, before that, were educated in grammer and English by Africans who weren't even born here and ignorant overssers. Mosley is obviously no stranger to this snowball effect that whites have come to call "ebonics." As the credo goes, "write what you know."
6. The hard brother has to be a vigilante type. No way is he an angel. Easy has taken lives and he regrets it. He drinks like it's going out of style and he needs it. He cheats The Man out of his money to keep things balanced. He can be a sinner, but he must be able to rationalize it believably or the reader (watcher) won't sympathize with him. No problem with that here.
So yeah, it's like a blaxploitation movie with one catch: the white friend. I've never seen that in the movies, yet I've read two of Mosley's books and in both he seems to project his antagonists with an affinity for Jews, similarizing their plights in doomed histories. This approach is effective in that it shows open hearts and opened minds during an era of rampant hate. I liked this book because I could identify with many of the characters, some of whom I am ashamed to say I feel like I've known well in my lifetime. But there's just something about the story that keeps it average...
Mosley Takes a Step Back in A Good Sophomore Effort.......2003-09-14
A Red Death is not the novel Devil In A Blue Dress is, but really what could be? Mosley's style and storytelling are just as sharp, and he takes time to further develop the character of Easy Rawlins, the protagonist and narrator.
The main story of the novel is the same as Devil in a Blue Dress, Easy, a good man, comes into some trouble and has to use his wits, his fists, and his crazy friend Mouse (who conveniently has no problem with any moral questions that may arise on the streets of L.A) to get him out.
Mainly what a Red Death lacks is the tension, the overbearing sense of danger that hangs over every page of his first novel. The classic mystery elements of the plot are niether as complex nor are they as well defined as in Blue Dress. Too many details of the mystery are kept from the reader, therefore the audience is not as engaged during the story and not as satisfied with the resolution. These little disappointments however, will not keep me from following Easy Rawlins in White Butterfly!
Rawlings is weird.......2002-08-02
This is the second Easy Rwalings book, a series by Walter Mosley.
It's a short and fast-paced book, easy to read. There are two problems with Easy Rawlings, though. As happens with all Mosley books, the plots are kind of misty, you just don't know for sure what Rawlings must do or discover through the story. Other thing I find extremely annoying is that, except Rawlings, other characters are completely undeveloped, they're just names thrown into the story, making it a little confusing, you almost never know who is who and what part they seem to take in the plot.
Easy Rawlings is a funny character, though a little too stupid. He acts before he thinks. Mosley thinks this is a means to provide action in the book and it works well, but I thought Easy was rather obtuse sometimes. But maybe Mosley just wanted to create a story as close to reality as possible. As in "Devil in a blue dress", the most interesting character is Mouse, Easy's friend, a murderer without scruples, who should get a book of his own.
I'll give a try to "White Butterfly", the next book in the series.
Grade 7.3/10
Average and ordinary mystery.......2002-01-24
People say that Mosley's characters are full of depth, but I'd have to disagree. It's a conventional mystery with the everyday mystery characters: good guy, bad guy, guy you're not too sure about, and a chaotic mess of characters indifferent to the plot who are only there to create a disturbance. It was supposed to be set in the 50's, but there was a great lack of signs that it was in the 50's, and the few signs that were there felt thrown in--an oh-by-the-way.
The characters seem written from a story workshop approach, rather than by a writer who feels the character. A separation between feeling a character and describing a character.
Some say there are layers and layers to this novel. A pineapple has layers and layers. Anything can be interpreted, now whether or not it asks to be interpreted is something different. Interpret James Joyce, Gertrude Stein, what a baby wants when it cries: these are valid. Interpreting for the sake of interpreting is just what it is.
It is an easy read, perfect for when the mind doesn't want for much thought; for example, read it on the bus or in the car while driving to here and there.
Exceptional novel.......2001-07-01
I'm not quite sure if this novel qualifies entirely as a mystery novel because there are so many layers that permeate the book, envelop the senses and relate to the reader about another world that sits on the fringes of everyday African-American reality. There is within thsi book something that can only be compared to the U.S. discovering a Nazi secret decoding book. There is a cadence, a language, a knowledge that is carried within Africanist people, thrugh the neighborhoods, the folks that live in them that is apparent here. That's very, very hard to translate adequately on to paper, to reveal that code, bare it to the light of publication and yet in many ways still keep it private. Easy Rawlins is more complicated than simply being a good man. He's a bit of a tortured man, wanting his best friends woman and child as his own, risking death to be with them and then still remaining loyal to his insane friend Mouse and telling him where they are. Problem #1. Problem #2 Another insane man, an IRS man who is after Easy for not paying his taxes and who challenges Easy as at face value, the color of his skin not realizing that Easy will kill him, wants to kill him and is only stopped by a meeting with Problem #3---an insane FBI agent who wants Eays to infiltrate a Baptyist church to root out communists. Of course Easy knows that communism is the scapegoat for the ol' okey-doke but he's in a terrible spot and getting more and more desperate. Usually half way through a book you can see where it's going, who has to die, who the killer is, even why the killer did something but Mosley turns this around into something that chugs the mystery along but makes it secondary to whatever is goign on in Easy's life. Every thing has a freenzy, a desperation in Easy's life---love, sex, money but he's trapped by what color he is and where he's comfortable. I read this book in a night and felt a nice comfort in its' embrace, its' soft language and hard people. People who drift in and out of the story, some mattering, some not but all the same all of them are watching Easy, some with love, most not. I don't know if this can be seen as the best book from a series and I don't even know if a series can be seen from these books---they stand on their own but shoudl be read one right after the other. I'm jumping all over the Easy map now but the one thing I can say is that I met Mr. Mosley, I wa swalking with a friend and he wa sstanding by a tree in the Village, and right before we got close enough to speak with shared a glance, a look that communicated so much, as much as Easy does in and more about what it is to be an African-American man simply being, how trouble gonna come for you and your choices are face it, run, kill it or be killed. Not too many books teach aabout manhood, African-American manhood so deftly. Buy the book, send it to a friend, not all of them will get it but then tell them that this is why African-American strangers nod, say hello to each other---we all know the code.
Average customer rating:
- moving story
- As The Mystery Unfolds
- MY EYES!!!!! THE PAIN!!!!!
- Gone but not forgotten
- Looking for Red
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Looking for Red
Angela Johnson
Manufacturer: Simon Pulse
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
Fiction | Siblings | Family Life | People & Places | Children's Books | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 0689863888 |
Book Description
Twelve-year-old Mike -- short for Michaela -- loves the ocean. The sights, sounds, and smells of her coastal home are embedded in her very soul.
But Michaela loves her brother, Red, even more.
Then one day Red disappears. One minute he's there, the next...gone. No warning. No time to prepare. And Mike must come to terms with that loss or risk never finding comfort in what remains of the life she and her brother once shared.
Customer Reviews:
moving story.......2006-11-30
This novel is a moving depiction of grief, and of the unbearable secrets we keep even from ourselves. I use LOOKING FOR RED in my course on writing fiction for children and teens at Mills College as an example of spare and lyrical writing.
As The Mystery Unfolds.......2006-05-23
I first became aware of this book three years ago as a first -year teacher. It was at this time that I went to the school's library to find a book to read with small groups. I found Looking for Red written by Angela Johnson. Overall, I found it to be a very realistic view of guilt and grief and how a young girl and her friends deal with it. I did notice however, that may of the students had a difficult time following the main character's thoughts and actions as they switch from present to past, yet we forged ahead and finished the book. I really liked Ms. Johnson's style of writing and would recommend her books for Middle School students to read.
MY EYES!!!!! THE PAIN!!!!!.......2005-11-29
practically everything that can go wrong with a book did in this one. i couldn't understand a STINKING word this girl said! i just couldn't follow this girls thoughts. at the end, i finally got to understand what happened to Red, but did it really have to take a hundred pages? i, like another reviewer, had to force myself to finish this book. it was a terribly boring. i think i didn't really enjoy this book because it's one of those stories with a deeper meaning. and i was not about to spend my time with a shovel digging.
Gone but not forgotten.......2004-05-01
I personally hate anything sad. I know things happen but reading about it is even more hard to deal with. This book is about Michaela called 'mike' for short, she narrates about how one day her brother disappears. The book is told in many variation, from current to past times. You have to really pay attention because if not you can miss what is going on. It was kind of hard to read but it really is about a young girl talking fondly of her older brother. I was confused at first about how he died but in the end it explains exactly what happened to him. I did not like that it did not explain why Mona his girlfriend left...meaning did she leave the neighborhood? I wish the author would have given a better conclusion. I personally like everything coming to an end when the book is finished. Altogether it was a very moving story.
Looking for Red.......2004-03-11
Overcoming troubles
In this story Looking for Red there is a girl here name is Michela. She is trying to overcome her fear of losing her brother that she spent all her time with. One night, michela's brother was gone from his bed and there family searched for him for weeks. Then they found his body a couple of weeks later in the woods. Michela could not forget here brother that she loved so much she couldn't look at his body at the funeral. She felt there was no safe spot where she could feel her brother's love again. She felt so lonely after her brother died was she going to do well read this book and find out.
I didn't like this book because it was hard to read. I had to read this book over again to understand it. Also this book is sad and not very many details of what is going on, there is no other big event in this book. The only excitement was in the beginning when her brother dies. This is hard to understand because there are too many flashbacks that I couldn't tell what she was saying or thinking.
Average customer rating:
- homage to athens and jerusalem
|
Death in the Rain: A Novel (Red Crane Literature)
Ruth Almog
Manufacturer: Red Crane Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
General | World Literature | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
General | Foreign Languages | Reference | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 1878610090 |
Customer Reviews:
homage to athens and jerusalem.......2007-08-28
Death in the Rain is really homage to an overall eastern Mediterranean aesthetic: the novel jumps among the prospective of four characters between Greece and Israel, who communicate to the reader in a series of letters, journal entries, and in one case, editorial interpolations. This creates a complex but interesting narrative, full of small but rewarding surprises. The translation is also marvelously wrought: Almog has a keen eye for the detail of flora, color, texture and smell in Israel and Greece, and it shows through in the remarkably elevated tone of the English translation. In fact, Israel and Greece, the two cornerstones of Western Civilizations, are really being played out here through the emotional entanglements of friends and lovers -- and to great effect.
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- Get Out of That Pit: Straight Talk about God's Deliverance
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- History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
- History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
- History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
- History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
- History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
- History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
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