Philadelphia English teacher Amanda Pepper worries about the strange change in behavior of one of her brightest students, Adam Evans. In recent days, Adam seems filled with fear and rage, ready to strike out at anyone. Assistant librarian Heidi Fisher provides Amanda's class with a tour of the public library. Not long after, she is found dead, strangled to death. Adam, who was on the tour, is missing.

The police believe Adam is on the run after committing the murder. Even Amanda's significant other, police officer MacKenzie thinks the lad is guilty. Only Amanda believes her student is innocent. She thinks he saw the killing and is on the lam from the murderer. All Amanda needs to do is find the teenager before he becomes victim number two.

With the recent violence in Colorado, ADAM AND EVIL has a sad timeliness that takes away from its dark humor and wit. However, what cannot be ignored is that the amateur sleuthing remains first rate and the problems in modern school systems are handled with dexterity. Amanda is one of the better characters in fiction today and author Gillian Roberts keeps the Philly scene fresh even though it is her ninth Pepper tale. There will be o questions questions of why Ms. Roberts is an Anthony Award winner after the reading of this superb detective story.

Harriet Klausner

Adam Rapp writes about a young kid serving his time in Hamstock, a juvenile detention center that promotes violence, abuse, negative reinforcement, and a social structure worse than the kid's home and street situations. The kids learn quick to be just like adult cons. Although many of them have hardened beyond hope, some of them balance on a fine line of possible rehabilitation. Sura is one of these kids, a sensitive, troubled youngster that tries to keep himself and his bunkmate on top of things and out of trouble. This is not easy when kids victimize each other and the administration steals any self respect they may have left.

At night, Sura lies in his bunk staring out the window at a lifeless tree standing stark and barren outside. He must take turns with his bunkmate to stay awake, alert to the possibility of other juvies slipping into his cell to victimize them. Night after night he fights sleep and despair, counting the days and nights until he is out, but drawing plans for an escape. He cries like a little boy, but has to fight like a grown man. It is a situation beyond his years and coping skills, and he lies there on his bunk in the pitch black dark, forever gazing out at the buffalo tree.

This book, written in the language of the street, details Sura serving time at the center with his patch mate and best friend Coly Jo, who got sent up for breaking into people's homes to watch them sleep. As Sura somehow breaks through the mire and rises to the top, Coly Jo is beaten down both physically and emotionally. At the end Sura is set free, and has learned to appreciate life at home with his mother, though I doubt he'll be there for long.

An excellent novel, once you learn to decipher the street slang. Not that the slang is bad; it adds to the credibility of the story and I learned lots of new words.

Russell Atwood is off to a fantastic start, seizing all of the noir conventions and making them work for a new generation. Payton Sherwood isn't a knight on a white horse. He's just a working stiff trying to get through the day with his hide intact and keep his conscience square with the house.

Noir fiction, the best at least, is a morality play pitting a flawed hero against the temptations of lust, greed, anger and revenge. The characters the hero comes across during his investigation inevitably serve as avatars of these various human frailties. Our pay-off as readers comes when the hero, despite his personal woes, does the right thing, the thing we all hope we would do in his situation, but aren't sure we would.

Atwood seems to understand this emotional dynamic implicitly. What he brings to the table is a fantastic ear for snappy dialogue and characterizations that refuse to divide cleanly into black and white absolutes.

This is a fast read and it's well worth the time and money. Russell Atwood is on his way to a great career as a mystery writer and commentator on modern mores.

Since childhood, I have viewed certain books as "magic carpets." I include Ferling's book among them. It transported me back more than 200 years and deposited me amidst the brave and brilliant men who were about to set the world "ablaze" with their incendiary passion for an independence soon to be declared and eventually to be achieved. Ferling guides his reader through this highly combustible process. Of special interest to me is Ferling's presentation of Adams (characterized as the "Bulwark" of the American Revolution), a founding father not always mentioned in the same breath with Washington and Jefferson. With all due respect to Jefferson's accomplishments, Ferling concludes the final chapter with this observation: "To the end, he was incapable of accepting the reality of his culpability in the perpetuation and expansion of African slavery and the danger it now posed to the achievements of the American Revolution." And then in the Epilogue, Ferling asserts that the Revolutionary generation "was indeed fortunate to have had Washington and Adams as its greatest stewards and shepherds."

If you have a keen interest in the War for Independence and, especially, in those who led the new nation through and beyond that war, there is this magic carpet I know about....

One value of the book is that the issues that anger the authors of this anthology are also of concern to moderates throughout the world, and not only in Islamic countries. Western readers may be surprised to learn of the vehemence of this resentment.

An indication of the editor's own political stance is his piece on the 1929 anti-Jewish riots in Hebron / Al-Khalil. He states that Arab rioters murdered 129 Jews. Human Rights Watch counts 67 deaths, and notes that other "Other Palestinian Arabs sheltered their Jewish neighbours; today the Zionist Archives preserve a list of 435 Jews who found a safe haven in homes in Hebron during the carnage" - a fact the author blandly ignores.

This leads one to ask if the author's motive is to promote understanding, or to incite blind hatred? He certainly does not mention that what instigated the 1929 uprising was fear of what eventually did happen: further Jewish immigration, occupation and expulsion of the indigenous population.

The author's own contribution reveals his book for what it is, part of a concerted campaign to demonize the dispossessed.

The "propaganda" contained here are not so much against the American people, but rather against the American-supported State of Israel which occupies Palestine.

Some of the materials are here for sheer shock value while others are simply political observations of the Palestine conflict and other West vs. East issues in the Muslim world. Few of these articles share the same viewpoint, and most sound like they have nothing to do with each other. Several, if read OBJECTIVELY, and not simply as examples of how crazy Muslim fundamentalists are, will provide useful information as to how the world works. That is obviously not the intention of the mass distribution of this book however--its attempt was to reinforce readers' predjudices against some aspects of Islam. Should this be the case, it failed with me.

Bottom line: I really enjoyed this book. It is a must for any fan of the original Batman TV show.

I especially liked the author's point that meat eaters see the vegetarian diet as a diet of scarcity and that showing meat eaters just how delicious and abundant a vegetarian diet is can be one of the best ways of dealing with them.

As an added bonus, there are about 50 recipes included. So far I've tried three (Roasted vegetables with fennel seeds, mushroom cobbler, and tasty tofu) and found them all to be outstanding. I can't wait to try more.

I highly recommend this book and will be giving copies to many of my vegetarian friends.

The strength of this book lies in Alina Adams' written dialog and character development. There is no big suspense or mystery subplot, and not a lot of technical medical narrative - just the halting and sometimes painfully realistic unfolding of a relationship between two people who are very cerebral and who long ago had to learn how to suppress feelings and spontaneity in the service of their profession. In this respect, it's a romance in its purest form, and if you are used to a lot of action in your stories, you may find this one a little more challenging to read. It's a story that can't be read in one sitting because it's too intense, and at times, I had to put it down to take a breather. However, I found I couldn't abandon it. Brody and Elliot stuck to me like cockleburrs, and I had to find out what they were going to do about their dilemma. These characters are not starry-eyed and suddenly smitten; instead, there is a fairly pervasive sexual tension between them throughout the book. This story is also different in that the characters are older and more experienced than is usual in this genre - both are in their early 40's and entering the height of their professional achievement. AA's book reminds us that love blooms at any age and in the most unanticipated places - a really nice story.

In 2000, both work at Los Angeles Valley Hospital. Elliot runs the renowned pediatric trauma medicine department while Brody heads up the Pediatric Neurosurgury Department. They remain close friends, though Deborah still loves Max. However, the unthinkable occurs when Max suddenly dies from a heart attack. Elliot supports his best friend through her grief, but one night they lose it and make love. While she wants to return to being buddies, he wants her to be his bosom buddy forever.

WHEN A MAN LOVES A WOMAN is an entertaining contemporary romance that centers on friendship between the genders. The lead characters drive the story line as their strong friendship turns into a passionate love. Though the two doctors are a charming couple, Max is the rare character that gains reader respect. He not only approves his spouse's friendship with Elliot; he encourages it because he trusts her with every cell in his body. Alina Adams provides readers with an enjoyable medical romance that will send the audience seeking ANNIE'S WILD RIDE.

Harriet Klausner

I am dismayed that I didn't know of the award-winning David Adams Richards before reading this book, but I will certainly be reading his other books at the first possible opportunity. The author's talent is rare and wonderful; his eye is clear and he wastes no time on frilly adjectives. This is prose (and truth) at its purest--a truly remarkable achievement.

My highest recommendation.