This book was ok! it was sort of boring though! The characters were very interesting though!

In this book, one can learn that: The internet started as a Defense Department project in the 80's p. 120 The proper way to search for pager manufacturing in internet web search engines is just to mention "pager", and not worry at all about other key words or symbols. p. 124 That, according to an intelligence project, pager repair could be a great business. p.139 I was lead to believe by a book review that this book would give me a great deal of information about passive intelligence gathering. It does not live up to its promise, and lacks credibility for so many factual (1,1969 2, +pager +manufacture + industry +trends ) and analytical (3 I threw my cell phone away, and got another for free)errors. What a shame.

I work as a professional performing due diligence for VC firms and client companies in Seattle and Silicon Valley. I have been using many of the techniques for several years that enable me to rapidly assess business opportunities and develop turnaround strategies. I am also a member of the Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals.

What this book did was enable me to enhance my business process and better articulate this extremely difficult line of work. For example, the business process outlined on page 58 is crucial in that it identifies several "Stop" or check points with clients. Key in this type of consulting, especially where steps you take as a consultant may directly add risk to your client, it is important to know where to draw the line and involve them for a decision. The authors clarify where the key decision points are when it comes to going from passive to semi-active, to active intelligence gathering. Critical, as time is money to you. But! to the client, information - or exposure thereof also means risk that could become your liability.

Consultants in this field are in the knowledge business, and one of the most difficult things to do is get the client to place a value on knowledge or intelligence. The authors, through wit and excellent real-world examples, spell out some of the keys to getting paid!! (pp 67). Naturally, this would go over the head of the casual reader who has never practiced and is looking for a "cook book" approach to due diligence of new business opportunities (i.e. see above commentary from Bogota).

This book is a "how to" book in that the authors have taken the time to clarify and rank several research tools and locations that one might not normally be aware of. This comparison alone is worth the money, as anyone who has used the web for performing research would agree.

The real brilliance in this book is subtle. By connecting the examples, you learn how to ask questions and iden! tify with what is important in doing intelligence research.! Again, for anyone who has gone in circles with clients who "don't know what they don't know", or worse yet, don't know how to value knowledge - this is critical to delivering fast, and minimizing your exposure.

Frankly, the Bogota guy didn't get it and has probably never performed true business intelligence. I agree that the coverage of the Internet web search engines, which used the example of finding information on pagers, is old news. The chapter's purpose was to show how more advanced tools outside of the Internet, such as Nexis, are preferred substitutes. That point was clearly made. However, this example was only used among 10 pages of chapter 5 (which was taken up with images of why the web doesn't work). The other 257 pp of this book are the meat.

My hats off to the authors for delivering a humorous text based on real-world wisdom that cuts through a very gray area that is as difficult to perform, as it is to explain.

As an investment banking anaylst, one of my primary jobs is build financial models of the companies we evaluate. One of the most underrated and (in my view) more important element of my work comes when we perform due diligence and understand the soundness of the assumptions we build into our models. Most analysts (in my experience) are too infatuated with their sophisticated spreadsheets and believe the sheer complexity of their models can compensate for a lack of understanding of the fundamental business they are set to evaluate.

The book does an outstanding job of articulating, at every step, the importance of challenging one's assumptions and systematically gathering, synthesizing, and =analyzing= information that helps to dig through the colored lenses of wishful thinking or purely numerical analysis. The occasional injection of humor is quite welcome - in a world of stuffy self-important books on business, here's a piece of work that was written by people who love what they do, and are adept at making you better at what you do as well.

In the beginning of this book the author points out that a culture is reflected in its buildings. Then he goes on to identify the events that caused the various styles--the War of 1812 that stopped our imitation of English architecture, the change to stud framing and the effects of industrialization that mark the Victorian era, the nationalistic spirit of the 1876 Centennial that spawned the revival in Colonial archictecture at the end of the 19th century, etc.--in such a professional style of writing you'd never suspect he was also an architect. A history professor maybe. All of which explains the subject better than the usual bare chronological sequence.

What helps in a book like this are the odd bits of information casually thrown out that show mastery of the subject.
Colonial homes were never white; Greek Revival were never anything but. A particular cornice is usually done incorrectly, compared to the true Classical version.

He also make the sensible point that you can only compare styles within limits, that at some point you're really discussing altogether different building types, as in ranches, bungalows, and certainly octagon houses. And early on he boasts he can design a modern four bedroom house in any style. Then he proceeds to do it, providing a front elevation and a repeating ground floor plan (front: LR, center hall, DR. rear: family room, kitchen, mud room) with added porch, tower, fireplace, chimney, as needed. Not so much to explain the architectural features, I think, but to give the prospective homebuilder something that actually could be built today.

Where most authors stop around WWII, he continues up to the present. His next-to-last chapter shows the recent builder's styles which will be familiar to anyone who's driven through any of those vinyl village developments with the Olde English names: the Townes, Pointes, Glenns, and Harbours. Here he doesn't hesitate to criticize the tastless examples, and continues his tirade into last chapter, where he argues against the Post-Modern assault on tradition in favor of a return to order and careful design.

This is a great way to study the different elevations/styles that can be applied to the same basic floorplan. Also a quick reference for the many Architectural styles of the U.S.

This fascinating book is a quick introduction to the evolution of house styles across the history of the United States. Each chapter has a short introduction to the era in American history, and then launches into a description of the house styles, complete with excellent sketches of a typical house and floor plan of that style. I found this to be a fun and educational read. I enjoyed this book, and highly recommend it.

Maybe its just me, but I just could not buy into the premise of this one. There were times I literally laughed out loud, and not because of a humorous passage, but that the scenario teetered on the brink of the ridiculous. I read MOSAIC and thought that was pretty good, but ABEL BAKER CHARLEY just didn't do it for me. I'm no stranger to psychological thrillers, and I can accept some pretty bizarre premises, but I think Mr. Maxim...I don't know what he was thinking with this. I have never felt so, well, insulted after finishing a book. I only give it a star because Maxim is not some hack and at least some effort was put into the building of suspense. I stuck with it in the hopes that I would have some moment of understanding, or at least acceptance, at the end, but I was sadly disappointed. If you are a Maxim fan, do yourself a favor and pass on this one.

In this novel Maxim operates on the assumption that since the human brain is compartmentalized, each individual can become several personas sharing the same body. Therefore each is a totally separate individual. This is different than a split personality in which each personality is really a part of the total person.

The other assumption is that genes can inherit memories from ancestors and thus if someone in an individual's past was a concert pianist, the memory is there in the individual's genes. Thus that individual can become a concert pianist.

A doctor who specializes in creating new personalities for people, takes advantage of this theory and is able to transform individuals into totally new individuals.

These theories are very interesting and are the only thing that keeps this book together. The book itself is a mismosh of activities and events. The author's descriptions often lack clarity where it is very difficult to picture what is happening and it is very difficult to follow the supporting characters. Some seem to appear out of the blue and it seems that the author assumes you know something about them.

A lot of what happens is implausible and some of the ideas seem to be copied from the old tv series The Incredible Hulk. (meek David Banner would turn into a super strong monster when he was enraged).

Maxim wrote a much better book dealing with the mind called "Time Out of Mind."

I have never missed a chance to read a "Maxim" book and Able Baker Charley does not disappoint. As with all Maxim books the unique plots and marvelous characters not only entertain and fascinate the author has made them so just plain likable that I find myself turning pages as quickly as possible to continue the adventure! ABC can take its place along side the rest of Maxim books as a "can't put down". If you have never read a Maxim grab one fast. The good news is that you are going to really love these books. If you have something else you need to be doing the bad news is you are going to really love these books!

Whereas I am always greateful when new Holmes stories are released, particularly in anthology form, and as long as they do not deal with utterly bizarre places or events, I found that these stories were rather lack-luster. Within the first three days I had the book, I read through five pieces, none of which were as remarkable as I hoped they would be. The usual contributors are here, and one can usually expect outstanding entries by Loren D. Estleman and Edward B. Hoch, but here their stories are as flat as the rest. Hopefully in their next effort, the writers will write more engaging tales.