In short, it's too thorough which makes studying this textbook a tough task. You don't know what's important and what's not. Though the general layout of the text is systemetic and unconfusing (definitely you won't find following the author's path difficult), the problem of this books comes from the author's ambition to include a lot in one book and failure to do so by dividing the content into more chapters/sub-chapters. This problem is particularly apparent in the later parts of the book, where different cycles of financial statements are analysed.
This is the comment I also heard among many of my fellows at the university. They all agree this is not a good textbook afterall.

To survive my tough auditing class, I used two different book of which the Loebbecke is truely the better choice. Thorough and understandable. However, the structure of the book is not in a logical order.

The authors did a great job in putting together all the essential elements in a logical order. Some ppl have difficulties in understanding the later part of this book because they don't have hands on experience in auditing. I used this book too when I was doing my undergrad degree in HK, this book was extremely terse to me at that time. But after spending few years in one of the Big 5 I find this book makes perfect sense to me right now. I am currently doing a PhD in accounting in the States, and I decide to buy this book (again) as a reference on my desktop.

One of the few truly regrettable aspects of Marsh's writing is her marked habit of depicting gay characters as ineffectual, rather slimy, and altogether unlikable individuals--something not seen in the works of the more widely read Christie, who also occasionally includes implicitly gay and lesbian characters in her works. This tendency resurfaces in DEATH IN ECSTACY, and it detracts considerably from Marsh's otherwise extremely fine writing, particularly in regard to her over-all talent for dismissing stereotypes and creating fully rounded characters. But if one can overlook Marsh's homosexual hysterial, one will likely find DEATH IN ESCTACY one of her more interestingly atmospheric novels, effectively depicting a cult-like religion and the often neurotic individuals who swirl around it--including some who may have motives for murder.

Not my favorite Marsh, but still very good. Nigel Bathgate (AKA Inspector Alleyn's "Watson") is simply a bored journalist looking for something to do on a rainy day. He spies the mysterious "church" across the street from him, sneaks in to a secret ceremony, and quite by accident, ends up witnessing a murder. Who does he call but his own favorite Scotland Yard detective, Roderick Alleyn. An interesting blend of spiritualism, money, drugs and murder.

First published in 1936, this mystery is just a bit dated, as one might expect. It is a little too polite by today's standards: the detective and his confidants are never in jeopardy. There is but the one murder and no real foreshadowing of another possible homicide. The plot might well have been improved by more action or at least the threat of something dire. Despite this, the ambience and characterizations are superior to most present-day whodunits. The only flaw in the characterizations is in Ms. Marsh's attempts to write grating American slang. If the reader likes Agatha Christie and the novels that are more puzzle than danger, this is a very good choice.

Hall offers yet another look at the seamy underbelly of South Florida life, this one with a plot revolving around revenge, the threat of environmental havoc, and a rather forgettable cast of characters. The ostensible hero, Thorn (although he's not particularly interesting or likable to root for, nor nasty enough to be an anti-hero) comes across a scheme to genetically modify and breed Red Tilapia, with potentially devastating consequences for Florida's coastal ecology. Thorn is apparently a carryover from previous novels, in which other relatives and friends of his have been murdered, so perhaps the reader is meant to have gotten to know him better from these previous outings. In any event, when his girlfriend dies mysteriously while diving, he and his ex-cop buddy start poking their noses around. This soon entangles them with Sylvia, a stereotype man-eating sex kitten who has a bizarre relationship with her ex-CIA hitman father. Their combined actions and motivations require a rather substantial suspension of disbelief on the part of the reader. This is also required when someone tried to kill Thorn in his house, spending a considerable time firing a gun at his house without rousing anybody in the neighborhood. Of course, it's never really clear how or why this person comes looking for Thorn, much less to shoot at! Throw into the mix a wildlife inspector with a detachable nose, a pudgy retired Mafia boss, a mass killing at a federal research facility that apparently somehow got covered up, a bizarre and herky-jerky climax, and what you're left with is a big mess. Hall is at his best in his lyrical descriptions of the water and landscape, but when it comes to dialogue and story, he falters and often fails.

...Hall, if you are at all familiar with him, is absolutely an incredible author. If you are coming to Hall via Hiaasen/Shames/Dorsey/Barry or even Leonard, a word of caution: Hall tends to use a slightly more doom and gloom approach to his writing. His is a work that is going to have a more ominious (even melancholy)tone to it---no offbeat hijinks to level off the atmosphere. With the other authors, save for instance Randy Wayne White, you get a little humor to lighten the load somewhat. Not here. Here, you better hang on because it's going to be a bitter armageddon.

This is classic Hall. The story involves a huge amount of topics, all of which Hall (like a juggler) never lets fall. There are times when Hall returns to a point/storyline a bit late, but I truly only say that as a word of caution to those with severe attention-span disorders. But, as I cautioned above, the storylines here weigh pretty heavy.

Topics include a mafioso guy with a penchant for child pornography. An under-developed, highly-sexed-in-situations girl who in involved with an incestuous relationship with her father (whom she is trying to kill). The incest-father is an ex-cia masterkiller who is slowly poisoning the stroke-victim-husband of his exwife (incest victim's mother). Not to give too much away, mafioso guy is related to incest victim and exwife and has his hand in the murder. Or does he? How???? Hmmm, for you to find out.

Also include some great government conspiracies and nudist colonies. Now throw in some old fashioned underwater murder and you've got just a wee sketch of what's going on.

Hall carries this off amazingly. Dark subject matter, sure. But a [darn] good story by an altogether incredible author. Other authors could learn a thing or two from Hall. Particularly, as much as I love him, Tim Dorsey. Dorsey has a slight problem with including far too many storylines that are of no consequence (and are totally meaningless in the big picture), and has a [heck] of time trying to keep them altogether. Still, don't take this to imply that you should avoid Dorsey. In fact, read all of his books. I certainly have.

Anyway, enjoy this one if you are up for it. Just realize what you're in for. Hopefully I've given you a heads up as to what that is.

James W. Hall is an excellent author, his books are always full of adventure, non stop edge of your seat suspense and packed with factual scientific information pertinent to the day in time.

Hall introduces the story by forcing the reader to feel what it's really like to be inside of Thorn's skin. With the death of his close companion we share his anger, outrage, frustration and grief. The plot of the story holds more meaning because the reader is personally and emotionally tied to the story.

Although the story is obviously fictional one cannot help wondering how far fetched a biological disaster as such could really be. In nature one finds that these occurances are often natually corrected however this book presents the question, "What if it occurs intentionally?" and more importantly, "Why?"

James W. Hall is indisputably worth your money, attention and time. Don't stop with Mean High Tide!!!

The editor of this book could not have possibly played a significant role in getting this book reviewed prior to publication. The editot should have cleaned up the grammar. There were simply too many short thought that could have / should have been grouped together for increased clarity.

Nothing but an overview. Covers very nicely the topics of what can be done. It is extremely lacking of details of anything that you may need to implement. (If you are a system Admin I would hope you would not need this weak reference.) For implementing the SMS product, especially in an enterprise setting, It is a horrible reference.

This book is good for setting up the software on the servers and on the clients,and gives an overview of how it functions along with the different services and how they interact, but to truely use sms u need to have some scripts, and this book sorely lacked any sms scripting training or setup, what scripting information was given was very vague...

THE EUROPEANS IS NOT ONE OF HENRY JAMES BETTER NOVELS. NEVERTHELESS, FOR FANS OF JAMES, IT'S QUITE READABLE.
THE NOVEL IS ABOUT 2 EUROPEANS - A YOUNG MAN AND WOMAN, BROTHER AND SISTER, WHO TRAVEL TO AMERICA (BOSTON) TO VISIT THEIR LONG LOST AMERICAN COUSINS.
THE PLOT INVOLVES THE AMOROUS ENTANGLEMENTS OF THE COUSINS AND THEIR AMERICAN FRIENDS.
MUCH OF THE STORY DEALS WITH CONTRASTING THE EUROPEAN AND AMERICAN "WAYS" AND "LIFESTYLES" - A FAVORITE TOPIC OF JAMES.
THE BOOK IS NOT A COMPLEX READ LIKE SOME OF HIS LATER NOVELS. IT'S QUITE ACCESSIBLE AND MILDLY ENTERTAINING.

THE EUROPEANS IS NOT ONE OF HENRY JAMES BETTER NOVELS. NEVERTHELESS, FOR FANS OF JAMES, IT'S QUITE READABLE.
THE NOVEL IS ABOUT 2 EUROPEANS - A YOUNG MAN AND WOMAN, BROTHER AND SISTER, WHO TRAVEL TO AMERICA (BOSTON) TO VISIT THEIR LONG LOST AMERICAN COUSINS.
THE PLOT INVOLVES THE AMOROUS ENTANGLEMENTS OF THE COUSINS AND THEIR AMERICAN FRIENDS.
MUCH OF THE STORY DEALS WITH CONTRASTING THE EUROPEAN AND AMERICAN "WAYS" AND "LIFESTYLES" - A FAVORITE TOPIC OF JAMES.
THE BOOK IS NOT A COMPLEX READ LIKE SOME OF HIS LATER NOVELS. IT'S QUITE ACCESSIBLE AND MILDLY ENTERTAINING.

THE EUROPEANS IS NOT ONE OF HENRY JAMES BETTER NOVELS. NEVERTHELESS, FOR FANS OF JAMES, IT'S QUITE READABLE.
THE NOVEL IS ABOUT 2 EUROPEANS - A YOUNG MAN AND WOMAN, BROTHER AND SISTER, WHO TRAVEL TO AMERICA (BOSTON) TO VISIT THEIR LONG LOST AMERICAN COUSINS.
THE PLOT INVOLVES THE AMOROUS ENTANGLEMENTS OF THE COUSINS AND THEIR AMERICAN FRIENDS.
MUCH OF THE STORY DEALS WITH CONTRASTING THE EUROPEAN AND AMERICAN "WAYS" AND "LIFESTYLES" - A FAVORITE TOPIC OF JAMES.
THE BOOK IS NOT A COMPLEX READ LIKE SOME OF HIS LATER NOVELS. IT'S QUITE ACCESSIBLE AND MILDLY ENTERTAINING.

Why do most of John Gardner's James Bond novels seem like screenplays? I think that is what was always missing from his writings. Because they were similar to screenplays they read like movie scripts, not novels. It just leaves the reader so uninvolved. Detail and flavor for the settings are always noticeably absent from his Bond novels. This one is no exception. I suppose we all lose!

Like the other reviewers here, I don't much care for John Gardner's James Bond novels. Gardner just doesn't seem to be in touch with Ian Fleming's classic character or the special world Fleming created for him. The only reason I am reading Gardner's Bonds is that I want to read those by Raymond Benson...

However, although it gets off to a slow start, I would have to say that (so far) "Win, Lose or Die" is arguably a highlight of the Gardner books. It is also the only one that I feel could actually work as a Bond film. The characters are a bit more respectable than most of Gardner's creations, especially his usual cookie-cutter villains. The book also carries some of the wonderful, sinister, almost supernatural imagery that Fleming was so fond of, portraying Bond and the other characters as players in a strange spiritual plane that seems to stretch beyond Earthly bonds.

Now, if only Gardner could have learned to do away with all those...one-liners he has Bond spout after he does something. This is supposed to be Fleming's Bond, not Roger Moore's. Furthermore, the book continues to slip with the horrid scenes in which Bond interacts with M and Bill Tanner. In Fleming's books, M was a man of few words, and when he said something, it was to the point and deadly serious. Unfortunately, Gardner again sinks to the level of having Bond and M trade barbs, if you will. Fleming's Bond would NEVER smart off to his boss the way Gardner's does.

However, once you get past the tepid first third of the novel, the narrative really picks up. This book actually has enough high points to outweigh the low points. The section where Bond is used as bait at the Italian villa is almost up to Fleming's speed. And the climax aboard the hijacked carrier is absolutely spellbinding.

"Win, Lose or Die" is one of the few Gardner Bonds that those of us "Fleming purists" can get through without rolling our eyes darn near every page.

This novel has screenplay written on it. It is fairly simple and would translate to the screen well. Good as a started Bond book for the casual suspense reader.

Hmmm... not sure if I can find the words to describe this one. Trite? Pretenious? Boooooorrrrring? While Kate Fansler is both amatuer sleuth and professor of English, there is absolutely no reason for her to go around spouting off obscure Joycean witticisms to any and everybody (and I actually like Joyce)! For the non-English studies person some parts of the text will make absolutely no sense, and for the English studies person those parts will just seem senseless. I was literally more than 1/3 finished with the book before I realized that the crime had not yet take place because Cross had spent most of that time making sure that the reader was well aware of her knowledge on Joyce.

...

In this early Kate Fansler mystery, Kate spends some time away from the university, sorting letters from James Joyce to his American publisher. A local unlovable woman gets shot and the fun begins. This is an entertaining book with many possible suspects and almost as many plot twists.

Several academics in a country house containing rare James Joyce manuscripts. The murder plot is secondary to a lot of talk about academic and literary life some of which is clever and informative. The dialog is elaborate and full of phrases such as "If you had decided to embrace the rural life you might in decency have let me know" interpolated with Oscar Wilde type paradoxes, which are sometimes mildly amusing. Many cliches - people are in "hot pursuit" "immured in the library" "deep in conversation" and fall into "fitful sleep" If you like this you will like Sarah Caudwell, but the reverse does not hold. It's just not as good as Caudwell.

What a SUCK-FEST! This is the worst book I've read in a long time. The (unlucky) 13 authors seem only slightly concerned with plot continuity, and the result is like a novel with every third page torn out. Characters come and go, and come back again for no apparent reason, other than to satisfy the authors' self-indulgent egos. In particular, the chapters by Elmore Leonard and Vicki Hendricks were appallingly bad. Hendricks ignores all the preceeding chapters and suddenly changes the eponymous manatee from an aquatic pinhead into some amalgam of Lassie and the Hardy Boys. In a later chapter Carl Hiaasen openly mocks this sudden swerve in character. (Tip: avoid books where one co-author ridicules another co-author's writing) Elmore Leonard contributes a time capsule that might have been hip 25 years ago, with a black character refering to someone as a "cat", and in the very next sentence actually using the phase "shuck and jive". I am very happy I checked this book out of the library, instead of squandering 22.95 on this train wreck of a book

OK, thirteen of Miami's favorite writers are sitting around a campfire (this isn't a joke). Dave Barry kicks off a story involving a couple hit men, a manatee, a 102-year-old woman and a box containing the head of Fidel Castro, and passes it to the writer to the left. The next eleven writers circle the story around the campfire in an attempt to blend this motley cast of characters (and heads) into the literary equivalent of a refreshing Miami Beach smoothee.

Throwing in monkey wrenches, stranger characters and even more heads-in-boxes in the process, they mostly succeed in creating a wholly unbelievable, extremely offbeat and wildly entertaining mystery. Poor Carl Hiassen (of Striptease fame) is challenged with tying up all the loose ends without playing the Demi Moore card, and succeeds in delivering an ending as strange as a manatee is large.

Above all an interesting experiment, Naked Came the Manatee is also an entertaining quick read.

Booger is the answer to the walls talking. Suspend belief and enter the world of a manatee that thinks, feels and reasons like us. He becomes involved in a mystery not as a victim, but as a participant in important events. The concept of a manatee detective aiding the likes of Brit Montero in solving the case of the Castro heads is only exceeded by the writing of this by the many different writers, from Dave Barry to Carl Hiaasen. No mystery should be this much fun

The major portion of the book confirms our suspicions of the massive tax avoidance and evasion that is extant in the U.S. today. I found much of the material to be revealing of the methodology used by rich and poor to escape the responsibility of paying ones dues.
The authors lost me in their attack on VAT ( National Sales Tax ) which has worked successfully in tne United Kingdom and in Canada. These countries are way ahead of us in Social Services. Any tax plan will have its defects, but this is one way to avoid the off shore plans, and the refusal to even submit the 1040 form.
The final chapter devoted to the authors' solution to the problem is a joke. If you take one suggestion after another it is clear that our economy will not tolerate their badly constructed cure. I think that they were just in a hurry to close out the book and had really ill considered, ( or no ), advice from seasoned economists. These two chapters left me with a feeling of let down and disappointment. I had hoped to find some well constructed answers to a pernicious problem. But they offered none.

Before I read the book, I had the (mistaken) belief that all income tax evaders had an equal chance of an IRS Audit. I now see that the IRS is set-up to audit citizens that can't afford lawyers--the book has good evidence for that, the kind you can find for yourself.

Unfortunately, the book isn't totally solid. It rightly points out that the current tax system is unfair for the un-wealthy, and I think the authors provide fairly good evidence that this unfairness is largely due to a congress that has created a behemoth tax code while simultaneously stripping the IRS of its ability to enforce it. Unfortunately, though, there were times that some claims went un-referenced (e.g., past tax code), which left me wondering about what was "factual."

The book is biased towards blaming the wealthy for lobbying congress while dumping billions into tax shelters (this bias, nonetheless, seems well supported), but the book isn't about wealth bashing--it is about the notion that in our country, to some extent, we are all our neighbor's helper, and to cheat taxes is morally incomprehensible and consequential. They point to the ills of society fostering an environment for cheaters of all kinds...from tax evaders to cheating college freshman, as evidence for the cheater's mentality. In this regard, the book has a pessimistic view of a human nature that always reduces itself to the "lowest common denominator" (i.e., if the wealthy cheat on taxes, why shouldn't I?). The authors pose good arguments against flat taxes and sales taxes, while supporting a progressive tax such as our current tax structure. They argue that the current tax code is too complicated and should be simplified. This complication is largely do to the history of special interest groups successfully lobbying for tax loopholes. Overall, I know more about taxes (and tax evasion) than I had before the book.

Just read the last two chapters, "How Congress plans to increase your Taxes" and the final chapter on their solution. These authors show how Congress is crippling the enforcement of tax cheats by the rich, even granting them loopholes so they pay even less than they should. The flat tax and national sales tax are shown to be the shams they are, the rich will get very rich and the poor and middle class will take the burden of the lost taxes from the rich. Don't believe me, read the book. Why did Warren Buffett endorse Gore saying he (Buffett) pays less taxes than his secretary? Because this is all true, Congress has always made the tax laws favor the rich, hiding it in complex regulations that only the rich can afford the lawyers and accountants to figure out. They pay less taxes and now the Republicans want to make the income tax so difficult that the rest of the country can be sold a bill of goods that repealing the income tax and putting in a flat tax will help the middle class instead of the truth that it will devastate the middle class. Buy the book, get the book from the library, but read the book before you vote!

It's unfortunate that the most believable parts of this yarn are the flying children. The plot is trite and obvious, and there's little in the way of surprise.

Patterson picked a great topic, but his storytelling is unconvincing.

I have read a few other JP Novels. This was very different from his other explosive murder mysteries. I really enjoyed it and can't wait to read the sequel! Before JP, I had a hard time finding books that could keep me interested. Now I find it hard waiting to read from one book to the next. I'm hooked!

This book was absolutely riveting. I've learned from reading Mr. Patterson's books that you only start reading them in the morning, on a Saturday or Sunday, and if you're smart, you don't have any pressing engagements. If you do, you'll do one of two things.............you'll call and cancel or you just won't show up. I've read the Alex Cross books and they are some of my favorites, but this book was SPECIAL. The concept of these winged children was so unique that it truly captured my heart. You actually become so involved with Max that as you move through the book you actually form an emotional attachment to her and then to the other children. It would make a wonderful movie, but the casting would be very difficult. The children really would have to be unknowns or they wouldn't be believable. Someone would always say well "she" was so different in "...........". I read about 4 to 5 books a week, most of the mystery genre, but James Patterson is my absolute favorite. Please, if the publisher reads this, we need a sequel to "Max"........and soon. Believe me...this is one novel that everyone should read. Keep it up Mr. Patterson, just write faster!