This is a collection of eight short stories, first published in October 1917, narrating some of the adventures of detective Sherlock Holmes, the last one entitled "His Last Bow." Sherlock Holmes is amongst the most famous characters ever created in literature, his popularity overshadowing his creator, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, to the point that some people are under the impression that Sherlock Holmes in fact existed. The inspiration came from Dr. Joseph Bell, a friend and tutor to Conan Doyle and who shared many personality features with the famous detective.
The author had Sherlock Holmes killed but public demand was so high for further adventures that we find him back in action. Determined to have a permanent retirement, Sherlock Holmes moves into a small farm and dedicates himself to other matters, refusing to offer his intellectual ability to the government. With World War I approaching he backs up on this determination and his return into action is narrated in "His Last Bow." The cases range from theft, burglary, kidnapping, to murder, and in all of the them Sherlock Holmes is a master in the science of deduction and analysis.
By those considered expert "Sherlockians," this is not Holmes at his best and certainly not as good as his masterpiece "The Hound of the Baskervilles."

After being killed in an adventure, Holmes suddenly reappears. Of course, the first thing he does is to tell how he came back alive. And then new, last stories, come up. The edition I read includes "The valley of terror", a convoluted and terrifying story in which Holmes participates indirectly. One can not go wrong with Holmes. Inevitably, the quality of the stories is varied, but they are always fun to read. Doyle is indeed a great writer, who must be counted among the best writers, right there with the big language-innovators and "serious" literates.

All the Sherlock Holmes short stories collections are 5 star efforts, of course, but this one has some of my absolute favorites in it. Sure, they aren't as well known as those in "The Adventures" or "The Hound..." novel, but they are great nonetheless. Particularly of interest are "The Adventure of Wisteria Lodge" and "The Adventure of the Dying Detective", a very suspenseful story indeed! These are must read Holmes tales.

The book covers quite a bit of the build up before combat. The begining covers some interesting history of the Gulf and it's oil production. This helps us fully understand what brought us to war there in the 90's. Most of it concerns operational/longistical aspects of the Sheild/Storm. I would have given it 5 stars for glossy pages, more photos, and more detailed operational descriptions of the navy ship's day to day action in the gulf, especially the Battleships. I've read some of these stories in other books. One thing I can say is that it changed my mind on a lot of things that I incorrectly remembered about watching the war on TV.

This is an overall thorough, but very dry account of the US Navy's involvement in the Persian Gulf War. The authors, as part of the Naval Historical Center, obviously had incredible access to firsthand sources, and it shows. It does offer some good insights and presents a "warts and all" perspective at times.

The book opens with a brief and useful historical overview of the Navy's presence in the Gulf and the run up to Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. While the story of how the US Military arrived at its plan to fight the war is interesting, the account of the logistics of the buildup is somewhat tedious. I realize logistics are the backbone of any military operation; but it just wasn't that interesting except as part of an official history.

The authors deserve credit for addressing the problems the Navy faced: a lack of integration with the other services, infighting among the Generals (Army and USAF) and Admirals, and an ill-conceived mine laying operations that cost two pilots their lives, for example. It avoids being "whiney" about slights during the air campaign from an Air Force dominated air warfare command structure, yet is somewhat bogged down in details about tasking orders and control systems.

This book will probably only be interesting to the more die hard Naval historian and students of Joint Military Operations for lessons learned. For a good account of modern Naval Warfare, I would be more inclined to recommend Admiral Sandy Woodward's "One Hundred Days" about the Falklands War.

I actually have a paper copy published prior to this one by GPO (I think). If anyone is worried about price, they may want to investigate purchasing that edition. Great book. It's nice to read about the Naval part of the war instead of just the Army part. Notice in most books, there isn't even a map showing the gulf itself - just the land masses!

This is the first of RDE's series of mysteries set in modern-day British institutions, introducing Robert Amiss, the unlikely and likeable hero of the series, and his policeman friend Jim Milton. It demonstrates RDE's trade-mark clear-sighted understanding of her settings, in this case the intricacies and absurdities of the British government and civil service. At the same time she does not lecture. She hits the plot straight away (we don't even get to meet the murder victim alive) and does not let up the pace. Amiss is the junior-but-fast-tracked (graduate entrant), intelligent and basically decent Private Secretary to the murdered Permanent Secretary who is recruited by Milton to be his mole and his guide to the complex hierarchy, conventions and personalities involved. Amiss' explanations get a wee bit laboured - I can't believe that a senior British policeman needs to have explained to him what the various "Secretaries" in the civil service really connote - but I guess explanation in some form or another is unavoidable if she is not to lose her non-British readers entirely. As it is, this is a painless and indeed enjoyable introduction to the British civil service by an insider (as RDE has been a civil servant herself).

Another RDE trademark is that believable and distinct (and recognisably British) characters come to life with remarkable economy of words. As usual with RDE the plot is not over-clever, but nonetheless tight and can't be faulted. Her strength really is making everything so true-to-life. Policemen engage in real hard thinking and thorough dog-work, coping at the same time with political pressures. People act true to nature and yet don't always conform to steorotype. Milton and Amiss display real intelligence and understanding of human nature (no glaring oversight of an obvious angle which proves to be the key to the mystery). RDE mixes realism and entertainment to a commendable degree. Needless to say, she writes well; well-paced, articulate and snappy prose.

This books take the point of view of Jim Milton more than Robert Amiss, which is interesting for devotees of the series because Amiss quickly becomes central whereas Milton fades away gradually. For the reader interested in character development, this first book provides an important piece in the jigsaw. Here Milton is portrayed more vividly than in any other book in the series, and we learn to respect his patience and professionalism, and understand a little more of his personal life. Amiss is a bit flat here compared to the following and later books where he becomes more lively. One gets the feeling that perhaps at this stage RDE meant Milton to be her central character rather than Amiss. But this is the only book where he is in real and appropriate employment so for Amiss fans it is a chance to see him on his homeground.

I give this four rather then five stars because some later books in this series (Matricide, Ten Lords, Publish) are more deserving of full honours. She hasn't quite gotten into her satirical stride in this first book, though that's not to say that she's not irreverent. But it is only in later books that her satire gets truly and howlingly wicked, and her comic talent blossoms. I recommend any book in the series; not one of them is a dud.

Ruth Dudley Edwards does an effective job of presenting the character of James Connolly, hero of the 1916 Easter Rising, in all his contradictions--socialist and nationalist, intellectual and day laborer, practical labor leader and socialist theoretician. She does a particularly good job of 1) selecting from Connolly's writings to show how he resolved, at least to his own satisfaction, the contradictions between socialism and nationalism, and 2) how the frustrations of his life as a radical newspaperman and labor organizer eventually led him to an alliance with romantic fatalist Pearse and the rest of the doomed nationalists of the Rising. The book is very short, and well worth the effort.

Robert Amiss only lives up to his surname when he heeds the advice of his friend Baroness Jack Troutbeck. After all the misadventures that Jack gets him into he wonders why he still listens to her. This time around, she persuades (perhaps bullies is a more apt description) a near broke Robert to accept a job accompanying her when she visits Westonbury Cathedral. He should have known that the easiest job in the world would turn int o the job from hell if Jack is involved. ..... It seems that the locale, the Westonbury Cathedral, is imbued with a massive controversy that threatens to rip the Church of England in half with its worst feud since Henry's days. The new dean is an American fundamentalist who wants to end all the new age gurus that have entered the church. His ideas split the church into two factions who turn violent and deadly, including killing the new dean. Robert and Jack find themselves flooded with numerous suspects as they try to uncover the identity of the killer. However, in Robert's mind, it is Jack's friendship with everyone in the universe and her opinion on everything under the universe that is driving him away from the church. ..... The Robert Amiss tales are superb satires that laugh at every potential politically correct thing imaginable. However, it must be understood that MURDER IN A CATHEDRAL is not for everyone. Some readers will laugh at the antics of Jack, while others will feel that she is an abrasive SOB. The who-done-it is fun, but whether the reader enjoys Jack's pontificating on everything right and wrong with the C O E (the Church of England not the Corps of Engineers) depends on whether they love a British satire that overwhelms the mystery. ......Harriet Klausner

The thought of assembling a cast of farcical characters in a secluded castle representing all different viewpoints in the Anglo-Irish struggle had a great deal of promise in the beginning. In fact, when I read the first chapter or so, I had high hopes for a brilliant lampoon of all aspects of Irish and English society. But then the very one-sided political views of the author began to intrude on the novel. She is obviously very pro-British and pro-Unionist in her views, and anyone on the Irish nationalist side or any who are too close to them are either fools or villains in her view. In fact, the only criticism lobbed at any of the British characters is that they are too wimpy and give in to the "ridiculous demands" of the Irish nationalists (or "killers and mass murderers" as Ms. Edwards puts it.) The Unionists and Orangemen are all shown to be noble, upstanding characters (though somewhat eccentric), except for one who gets too close to the nationalists and gets murdered for his trouble. Outlandish characters like an Indian and a Japanese are shown to be wise men, even though vilified by racial epithets by the British baroness in charge of the conference in the castle. But of the four Irish nationalists or sympathizers in the plot, all are evil hypocrites or utter fools. Three are killed off in the plot and one later on, to show that "the only good Nationalist is a dead one" apparently. Various conference events provoke arguments amongst the attendees, and of course the views of the Irish are ridiculed. The author goes so far as to claim that the Irish Potato Famine was not an example of British inhumanity, but just "a spot of bad management". Sorry, but an event that left over 1 million people starving to death while the ample foodstuffs in the island were exported to England for sale does not qualify as "bad management". The word "genocide" comes to mind instead. She also blithely claims that the Protestant population in the Republic of Ireland was mostly wiped out through massacre, which is patently absurd. And her defense of British colonialism as a "beneficent policy" makes her look foolish. Perhaps she should have had her Indian character explain why, if British rule in India was so beneficial, the Indian population couldn't wait to kick the British out.
While I appreciated the farcical elements (like naming many of the lesser characters after famous Irish patriots) and enjoyed a few of the characters' foibles, the author's polemics against the entire Irish race and against the Catholic Church in particular ruined the book for me. Even the Irish characters who were not villains were maligned in some way, as with one who is shown to be an absolute alcoholic. Sorry, Ms. Edwards, but a good political lampoon coupled with a mystery (and the mystery part of the story is barely developed at all) requires the author satirizing characters on all sides on a fairly equal basis, not just savaging the ones whose political views you disagree with. (By the way, when you refer to the Northern Ireland nationalists as mass murderers and criminals, I might point out that twice as many Catholics were murdered in the Troubles by the British Army, the highly-prejudiced Protestant police force and the Protestant paramilitary groups as Protestants were killed by the IRA and their supporters. So it would seem the government and their supporters were mass murderers and criminals too.)

It could have been an excellent book, but the one-sided nature of the presentation made it seem in the end like something the Rev. Ian Paisley might have produced had he over-indulged at the pub one Saturday night.

This book, as with Edwards' other books, is a great spoof on political correctness and sterotypes. The mystery is not exciting - but the book is worth reading just for her discussion of the MOPES (Most Oppressed People on Earth). That seems to be the title most people vie for these days. This book is really funny.

the death date of Early Edwards Sr. is wrong