I had the misfortune of reading this book and I can safely say that I will never touch another Paul Mann book again.

The book is very poorly researched; the author's knowledge of India seems to be limited to tourist visits and stereotypes (to which he is successfully adding). He does not know the the difference between male and female Indian names, gives Muslim names to Hindu characters, has absolutely no idea of the of the Indian Police or security setup and if you have to believe him you would expect Indians always speak in the present-continuous tense. The plot is rather thin(in fact there is no plot), and the reader has no idea of how the events unfolded. It is a rather juvenile attempt to show the contradictions of modern and traditional India, and only shows the author's poor understanding of both.

The scenes depicted are rather ludicrous, the characters half-formed, situations exgagerated, at times it is an attempt to pepertuate falsehood. Only a person who has no knowledge od India and prefers to believe in the hackneyed stereotypes would enjoy this book. I am really surprised that a publisher such as Random House agreed to publish this ignorant and shallow book, which really deserves zero stars.

Paul Mann has apparently found a niche writing mysteries set in India. Alas, the idea appears to be better than the books. The Burning Ghats opens with a lethal phosphorus spill that pours down a sacred river and kills hundreds of pilgrims. It's a striking image and one that leads the reader to expect a good mystery. Alas, this book is inconsistent and sometimes downright bad.

While Mann sometimes provides carefully woven descriptions of various Indian settings, this book often seems overwritten. One scene of a press conference is particularly tedious, with the crowd compared to waves and raindrops. Also, several characters appear midway and receive a lot of ink before disappearing from the pages well before the end of the book. One character in particular, an American businessman, seems only to exist so that a racy sexual encounter can be described. The Indian characters do not fair much better, with graft and deceit being common themes. Another character, the son of a ruthless tycoon, is said to be follower of a radical cleric; yet nothing more is ever mentioned of his extreme religious views. Instead, he winds up being one of the only generous characters in the novel.

So is the real India a land of excess, corruption, and misery? As a westerner, I can't say with certainty, but I believe India is not so simple. I think mystery fans can do a lot better than this book. It is hard to recommend it, although I have read worse.

This is the third of Paul Mann's George Sansi Mysteries. As a frequent visitor to India, I find these books about the underside of modern Indian society absolutely fascinating. Mann leads the reader into the crevices of Indian life whether the drug scene, Bollywood, or in this one the corporate world and reveals aspects of the culture from the noble to the sinful. Characters from central to tertiary are finely wrought and memorable. I would recommend that the books be read in the sequence of their publication since the main characters grow and deepen in a very satisfying way that adds considerably to the stories being told. I recommend all three books without reservation (Ganja Coast and Season of the Monsoon). For me they are everything a mystery, police procedural, and adventure should be!

Students in search of a good book on financial statements should look at "The analysis and Use of financial statements" from White/Sondhi/Fried. Professor Stickney seems more interested in making money than in writing a decent book

This is good Financial Reporting and Analysis book. Some chapters have been presented in a bit confusing way, overall it deserves good rating.

A good book and great resource for someone interested in viewing FSA broadly. The authors do not forget the importance of accounting and reporting to analysis, however. Very current.

Poor Werner Heisenberg; once the poster boy for modern physics, his reputation has taken a beating in recent years. Rose's book is only the latest, and the least, in this trend. At the heart of the Heisenberg controversy is why he stayed to "build" the A-Bomb for Hitler. Why did he visit Bohr in Copenhagen? What was he after? It would seem that, barring any heretofore undiscovered revelations, these questions will go unanswered. Thus, all we have left is speculation, uncertainty.

While most writers give Heisenberg the benefit of the doubt on his character (After all, he was not anti-Semitic, nor was he a member of the Nazi Party.), Rose sees him as a continuation of the German revolutionary spirit that dates back to Luther, and thus condemns Heisenberg as guilty, especially as Heisenberg was a German patriot, and it is extremely difficult for Rose (as with most people) to distinguish a patriot from a Nazi.

However, If Rose were a prosecutor, a jury would need only ten minutes to acquit Heisenberg on all counts. Rose simply fails to make his case. The alleged anti-Semitic remark by Heisenberg is second-hand via Max Born back in 1945. Hardly the testimony that can convict. It also comes late in the book, after we have been subjected to much screed about a German radical anti-Semetic tradition that Heisenberg wanted no part of at any time. Otherwise he would have been a good Party member, as were others in his scientific circle. Also, as the excellent earlier review asserts, this trend would have been long noticeable at Gottingen, the center of German physics and natural science. No, Rose simply has no case and spends over 300 pages making a hysterical justification for something that simply never was.

However, this does not mean I am leaning toward the portrait of Heisenberg given in Thomas Powers's book. Powers makes Heisenberg out to be a sort of James Bond character, brilliantly defying the Nazis to prevent the mad Hitler from obtaining the ultimate weapon. Nonsense. The simple truth about Heisenberg was that he was both naive and a coward. Any chance of him openly defying the Nazis was laid to rest with the attacks on his "Jewish physics" in the SS newspaper. It is interesting that he had to have his mother intervene with Himmler's mother to clear his name. It tells us much about the character of Heisenberg.

Also consider Heisenberg's theory that Hitler would lose the war and then evertything would come out all right. Heisenberg felt the scientist was above mere politics, and politics were only an unwanted intrusion into science. As the Second World War bore out, he was not the only one to have that view. Heisenberg's visit to Bohr may have been to ask for advice on how to proceed in building a bomb. It seems Heisenberg wanted some sort of absolution for remaining in Germany, and if he confessed to Bohr, that would have assauged his guilt. But because Bohr refused to speak with him in private, Heisenberg did the next best thing: he took the money for nuclear research and farted it away on baseless research. The Allies were surprised at how little the Germans accomplished in their program. But the real question is how much did the OSS know? Powers has Moe Berg walking next to Heisenberg in Switzerland with a revolver in his pocket, ready to blow Heisenberg's brains out. Yet, he doesn't pull the trigger. Could it have been that Berg discovered how little progress Heisenberg had made? If that were to be leaked out, especially to those at Los Alamos, would our scientists, many of whom were Jewish German emigres, hace continued work on America's A-Bomb?

It is most interesting that Rose never touches on this point in his screed, for it would undermine his argument. Instead he focuses on Heisenberg's lack of technical expertise in understanding how the bomb could be built. Heisenberg did indeed lack those engineering skills, but so did his counterpart in America, Robert Oppenheimer. But Oppenheimer compensated with a tremendous will to build the unthinkable, while Heisenberg was content not to ask to further funds or to even speculate that a bomb could be built. The transcripts at Farm Hall pretty much seem to bear this out, and in the process, destroy Rose's case.

Heisenberg did not build the bomb, and he was crucified for it. One only pauses to think how history would have treated him if he actually did build a bomb.

After having read this book, I am left with very mixed feelings. First the good stuff: This book gives a thorough account of the german A-bomb project during WW2. Lots of original documents are provided, so that one can form an own oppinion. Also the technical aspects are quite well captured for a non-physicist.

For the bad stuff: This book is thoroughly racist. I am flabbergasted, that a major publisher is willing to print a book that, in its foreword, already contains a statement about the deep hatred of the author not against Heissenberg or the Nazi regime, but against German culture and Germans as a whole. Also the treatment of Heissenberg as a physicist is certainly not adequate. It may very well be true, that he was morally corrupt or overly proud and arrogant, but statements like that he did not understand the concept of critical mass just because he never explicitly wrote down the exponential growth of neutrons in a bomb are at best uninformed and childish. Especially disgusting however is the authors revelation of 'the truth about the german mind', which traces a line of evil from Hitler back to Martin Luther.

For all its qualities as a source of information, this is the worst kind of a historical book: One that was written to judge. And this it does not only based on facts, but largeley on the authors all too apparent prejudices against a whole culture, which are labeled as 'the truth'.

Readers who believe the journalistic nonsense of the Powers book will certainly not like the reality presented by Dr. Rose. Having taken two courses with him some years ago, I know how brilliant, perceptive and inspiring he is in class, and these qualities carry over into his work. Dr. Rose does not pull any punches. He does not try to sugarcoat the fact that Heisenberg and other eminent German scientists did everything they could to develop a means of destruction that would supercede the rockets being used against the British and others, and yet, at the same time, maintain their distance from the more distasteful aspects of their Nazi masters. Rose demonstrates that Heisenberg made a fundamental error of calculation early on that ultimately made the German effort unsuccessful. This demonstration is a black-and-white explanation of the nuclear physics involved; Rose has written this so well that even a non-scientist like myself can understand it. The last section of the book is the most fascinating when Rose discusses the national characteristics of the Germans and ties the argument not only with Heisenberg and his failure to develop an atomic bomb (and his attempts after the war to excuse himself from responsibility), but also the reasons why the Nazi regime and the Holocaust occurred specifically in Germany. Anti-semitism was rampant in many countries; in many cases, it became murderous on an individual basis. Only in Germany were the national characteristics ripe to greet Hitler's state-sponsored plans for extermination of a people with such enthusiasm.

As an avid Doctor Who fan, I was appalled by this sad attempt at a story. Filled with chaos and nonsense, the authors evidently knew absolutely NOTHING about the Doctor. What's with the homosexual references? And the Doctor's mother? Do Hoad and Magrs know anything about the Doctor's history, or where they drunk when they wrote this?

Thanks, guys, for messing up the continuity.

I have read all the books in the 8th Doctor series. Some I liked more than others. This one I DESPISED.

I've now read three stories (two novels, one short story) with Isis, and my opinion hasn't changed: poor writing, convoluted, nonsense plots--no more! The Blue Angel had a couple good moments (the Star Trek parody was fun--to a point), but it was basically another "Isis saves the day" novel, with the Doctor playing catchup. Writer wish-fulfillment, maybe?

Paul Magrs, with Jeremy Hoad, returns with his second eighth doctor novel entitled the Blue Angel. After leaving Earth and saying goodbye to Sam and Sarah Jane, the Doctor, Fitz, and Compassion travel in the TARDIS only to land on board the Galactic Federation starship NEPOTIST. The crew treats the Doctor and his companions as guest and everything seems to be normal until the ship runs across the legendary city of glass, Valcea. It is ruled by a tyrant named Daedalus who has fooled the glass people into believing he has their best interest at heart. Meanwhile, Iris Wildthyme, in a brand new incarnation, runs across Daedalus' lost son Icarus who was adopted by an older earth woman. The Doctor and Iris meet again but the end to this adventure causes a rift to form between the Doctor and his longtime friend Iris. There was a balance of dialogue and narration in this novel but the method in which the Magrs and Hoad divided the paragraphs is most unusual. This can cause the reader to lose track of the story very quickly. The Nepotist's captain and its crew are an obvious mockery of Star Trek and Capt. Blandish himself is a mockery of William Shatner's character, Captain James T. Kirk. This satire brought out the humor Magrs and Hoad were trying to show. The imagery of places such at the City of Glass and Iris' TARDIS were crisp and vivid. In addition to the poor divisions of the paragraphs there was excessive narration used that was not necessary. There were times that Magrs was trying to overcompensate for those who did not know who Iris Wildthyme was if they did not read her first appearance in The Scarlet Empress. The final chapter entitled, twenty questions, was fun but served no relevance to the plot or the subplots. Magrs and Hoad could have illuminated more on what the obverse was and why Iris could not tell the doctor about it. The interludes of the Doctor, Iris, etc. having tea at her house should have been cut. While these interludes were the future and the story itself was the past this can make reading the novel difficult. The reader may lose track of what is the past and the future. 3 stars out of 5 for The Blue Angel.

Rarely do i start a book and have to abandon it after 200 pages..It happened with this one.
Set up in a clean-cut Edinbourgh of the future this novel is basically a patched up work with bits and pieces and ideas rooted mostly in Orwellian domains (allthough it's a sacrilege to mention Orwell in the same context with this book).
The story is your basic crime story which comes at you the way a storm of cliches would. A serial killer, the witty "cool"-and-against-the-system detective who gets dragged out of retirement to catch the beast that terrorises the city, the murders that keep happening until Sherlock gets the right clues, and you yawning your way through this horror of a book.
Actually the only thing intimidating about this novel is exactly that: how horrible it is. The writting is at best uninspired and lacks any positive contribution to the genre, but worst of all the characters are such that if they existed in real life you would do your best humanly possible not to meet them unless you think that boredom is a virtue.
I read somewhere that this book even won an award in the UK! They must be kidding us!
I found myself totally not caring about the plot of the story already 50 pages in the book and the only reason i kept reading (until i finally gave up a full 150 pages before the end) was that i thought: a. there's an incredible twist coming up here that will save this joke of a story and b. i wanted to see how bad the book can actually get.
But i didnt even get the vicious satisfaction a masochist would seek by reading the worst possible book he could lay his hands on. Because, you see, if it was THAT bad i might've at least finished it. But it's not. It's flat, so flat, that it sets a standard. If this ever gets to be made into a movie some hollywood exec will lose his job.

The debut in Johnston's series set in Edinburgh circa 2020 suffers from having a more interesting setting than plot-which is a rather banal serial-killer number. In this world, the UK has dissolved and Edinburgh exists as a kind of repressive city-state run according to Plato's Republic. The "Enlightenment" led to the elimination of crime, along with individuality, resulting in a combination Stalinist/Puritan society rife with rules, regulations, fines and work camps. The city's primary economic driver is tourism, which the city achieves by combining the gambling of Las Vegas with the sex trade of Amsterdam. Unfortunately, while Johnston does a good job showing how corruption undermines this dystopian society, he never develops the city and its people enough to fully convince. The lives and status of "guardians" (police) are well-depicted, but we never see much of the average citizen and how the rest of the city functions (perhaps this developed later in the series).

The book's nominal hero, Quint, is a standard issue haunted former policeman hero who is recalled from disgrace by the city officials who decide he is the only one with the knowledge/skills to solve the murder of a public guardian-the city's first murder in years. He's typically reluctant, nosy, lustful, burdened with old guilt, and all those other noir detective traits, but his character never quite fully develops. It doesn't help that Quint's parents were both founding members of the Enlightenment, and that his mother is the head of the council. In any event, he is assigned to track down a grisly killer before any damage is done to the tourist industry. This part of the book (ie. the story) is pretty standard stuff, and the few red herrings are easily recognized for what they are. If you're looking for a mystery with an unusual setting, thus might fit the bill, just don't expect the story to live up to the milieu. Future entries in the series may be more fulfilling.

It's Scotland, but not as we know it. In the year 2021 the UK has broken up, and Edinburgh is now a city-state run on the lines of Plato's Republic, with a good measure of corruption thrown in. Unfortunately, that's about as interesting as this book ever gets. The plot is very standard 'grizzly murder' fare and the tone is so cynical that I found it impossible to care about any of the characters, especially the protagonist, Quintillian Dalrymple. I suspect Paul Johnson's reputation has benefitted from the current high level of interest in Edinburgh crime writing. However, for better characters and plots try Ian Rankin; for better writing, try Iain Banks and for grizzlier murders try Christopher Brookmyre. Maybe Johnson's writing will improve. I hope so. In the meantime, I'd certainly recommend this book to someone who is intrigued by a crime novel set in the Edinburgh of the imaginary future. Sound like you?

Too bad Barry Sadler is dead.. I don't think he would approve of the way Casca is rewritten....

worst casca book ever written. casca is mainly a side bar in the book was so bored did not even finish book . as a fan who is hungry for the next casca book i would starve before buying one written by dengelegi. please get a new author.

If you liked Barry Sadler's Casca books, it is difficult to imagine how you could like this one. Every time Casca would have done X, the imposter in this book did Y. It was like being given something that looks like an apple, but when bitten tastes like burnt liver.

....men in suits could kick drunks on the street
....brilliant kids could stop speaking to their parents
....welfare mothers could just get their acts together
....kids would just follow the rules
....the strong could get rid of the weak

All would be well for this book.

....Nada. One of the characteristics of a PoMo writer is his shifting of shapes. Cantor slips from the shape of the traditional critic reading Hamlet line-by-line to that of the critic tackling the most PoMo of topics--a TV show like Gilligan's Isle. Such shifting presumes a certain above-it-all divinity in which Cantor is in all shapes (close reading/cultural studies//canonical/pop culture//Hamlet/Gilligan's Isle) and in no shapes. Downright nihilistic, one might say...

This is a great introduction to the play within a Reniassance context. The author does an admirable job in reconstructing the historical and literary contexts surrounding Hamlet. For example, the conflict which the play embodies between classical ideals of heroism and Christian skepticism is well-developed. Overall, this is the best place to begin any study of Hamlet, and it may be all you'll need. The language is clear and concise, in contrast to the pompous jargon-laden prose of so many "post-modern'" critics. Well-written, well-argued, well-informed: one of the best works available on this quintessential Renaissance play.

This book was a disappointment. My expectations were of something much deeper than the surface this book examines. Very little effort is put into unpacking the psychological "condition" of a uniform's wearer, past and/or present. Instead, one finds page after page of wordy musings on the decoration of uniforms and personal biases. Our intellect is a bit more evolved than this book suggests.

Mr. Fussell has written one book too many. This is a stream of thought on the subject. If ever there was an opportunity to illustrate, it was missed here. At less than 200 pages, he was obviously in a hurry. One wonders, why he even started. I heard an interview with him on NPR and it was interesting. Perhaps, Mr. Fussell should consider selling the tape.

Okay, I'll admit it. I borrowed this book from the library and I'm glad. Glad that I didn't pay money for it.

It really sounded like an interesting topic...chapters on just about every group that wears a uniform: military (of course...actually several chapters in all), military reinactors, delivery men (FedEx, UPS, Post Office), nurses, doormen, ushers, athletes, you name it.

Well, the delivery is just downright boring. The author writes as if he is trying to be scholarly. But then he lets his personal biases come poking through in little parenthetical comments. He's really big into finding a sexual meaning behind almost everything (military shoulder boards, football shoulder pads, even the UPS driver's shorts) and has a real fascination with buttons. Yeah, I guess a lot of uniforms have buttons, but it gets really old after about the fifth revelation. Gee, Gen. Patton liked silver buttons. Great.

Anyway, I found the book to be a disappointment. I kept waiting for it to get better and it never did...I read about two thirds of it over six or seven nights and then just quit. Don't waste your time or your money on this one. Even if you suffer through it once, I guarantee you won't come back to read it again.

I did not do much research before I bought the book. I was totally disapointed. The book saids "Open this book as a Novice and Finish it as a Pro" is misleading. You need to be a C programmer to start, and you wouldn't get anywhere after you're finish with the book. The book spend all of 40 pages(out of 700) on visual C++ fundamentals, then it jumps right into Database Management, ActiveX, Security,... You wouldn't be able to code an application using the simplest controlls after reading the whole book. The book should be titled "An overview of C++ environments" instead.

I glanced through this book at the store and saw what looked like actual code/real world programming, which was lacking in other VC++ books I looked at. When I got it home I realized the simple "Text Editor" sample program was a useless example since the book didn't build on it and expand it. The real disdain came when the later chapters jumped headlong into Databases (without a middle-ground), then into HTML. Aren't there enough resources on the net for learning HTML, if not freeware programs? What book(s) will teach me how to write Windows apps (not internet apps) using MSVC++?? What book(s) contain useable code samples that cover more than internet and text editors? The title says "open this book a beginner and finish it a pro". Did it teach me how to make a GOOD and MARKETABLE text editor? No. Did it teach me how to make any other applications (like a web browser, a paint program, a system analyzer, etc)? No. Is it worth the money? No. Note to all authors: If you write a book about a programming environment like the Visual Studio components, don't include HTML. Fill your books with CODE that generates REAL programs, not Active X controls for snazzing up web pages. Those things get put into other books, and are not an integral part of application programming.

Well when i first read this book, I really thought it to be a good one, mainly because the author has given detailed explanations on database development using both ODBC as well as DAO. this was quite helpful. But On the other hand there are too many code snippets which, are difficult to understand as to what they are and what they achieve. Overall not too bad !!.

This is the first book that I have read by Paul Theroux. I am generally a Stephen King reader but unfortunally my English teacher does not allow him for a book report. Anyways, I had an oral presentation to do today on The Black House, and since this book didn't catch my intrest, I only read to page 25. Come on! I was falling asleep. I still give all regards to the author but I just couldn't stand the boring lit.

I could only bear the first 110 pages. I can't stand reading anymore. Argh! I gave it this much time of my life because he is a renowned author and deserved some respect, but, one can only take so much boredom. Sorry to all the Theroux lovers.

English anthropologist Alfred Munday has returned to his homeland for health reasons after a decade in Uganda studying the Bwamba tribe. Frustrated by this forced change in his life, Munday finds himself unable to begin preparing his research for publication. His marriage sits on precarious ground, and he and his wife have just taken on a domestic disaster: the home they leased site-unseen--Bowood House, "the Black House" to locals--is ruinous, inhospitable, and apparently haunted. Munday's superior, intellectual airs quickly alienate the couple from their neighbors in the town of Four Ashes. Then the beautiful Caroline appears, and she initiates a torrid, reckless affair with Munday, whose old troubles are quickly exchanged for new ones.

There is a prevailing tone of despair, even damnation, to Paul Theroux's ghost story, THE BLACK HOUSE. Munday is a pathetic creature, a surly egoist unable to make or keep friends or to fill his roles as husband and scholar. He allows the trappings of his identity slowly to be stripped away until he is only a shadow of his formerly serious and professional self. He invites an African acquaintance to Four Ashes for a visit, but Munday, under the influence of this growing malaise, becomes suddenly embarrassed by the very sight of the man and abuses him at every turn. Though clearly he needs no help at it, some of his new neighbors are more than willing to aid Munday's decline: while giving a presentation at a local church about his anthropological work in Africa, a valuable and dangerous Bwamba artifact is stolen from him; the theft drives Munday to distraction, sensing that if he should ever see the object again it will not be under happy circumstances. The great irony which unfolds over the course of the novel is that this anthropologist, who considers it his vocation to make one African tribe comprehensible to the outside world, cannot himself adapt to the simple community of Four Ashes. In placing himself above small town life, Munday rejects the basic principals of social integration, thus making himself ideal prey for the mysterious Caroline.

The quality of Theroux's writing and the dark mix of psychology, intense sensuality, and metaphysical unease place THE BLACK HOUSE in the estimable company of Richard Adams' THE GIRL IN A SWING and Robert Aickman's "strange stories." This is a territory in which unexpected and inexplicable episodes drive the narrative: Munday glimpses two mutilated dogs under a tarp in a local man's garden; a woman applying for a maid's position at Bowood House leaves information leading the Mundays to the wrong address; the scorching eroticism of Caroline's surprise visits threaten to leave the Mundays' home in flames. Such incidents accumulate over the course of the novel, tempered by Theroux's cool but entrancing prose. From this grows a palpable tension that--perhaps in keeping with its nature--never actually resolves. One almost anticipates the novel's vague, indecipherable ending, a point at which Theroux compels his readers to share, for a moment, Munday's banishment to a maddening limbo.