James W. Hall not only tells an intriguing story, but his quality of writing is superior to most in this genre.

James W Hall has a knack for creating quirky characters and sleazy bad guys. In this book, he has outdone himself with Dougie Barnes, a dimwitted, muscle-bound, rhyme-spouting, trash-talking thug with an appetite for murder and sex. If you think he's bad, wait until you meet his dad, Douglas, Sr.

In Bones of Coral, ambulance paramedic Shaw Chandler of Miami finds his long lost dad dead in an apparent suicide. Then he gets a frantic call from his Mom. The next thing you know, Shaw is headed to his hometown of Key West to learn the truth about his dad's death and some startling discoveries about his past. James W Hall is an excellent story teller and Bones of Coral is a knock down thriller that will stay with you long after you put it down.

FIVE STARS!!

Hall has the ability to bring you right into setting and engross the reader in the story. As in all of his books, he always has great villians and that is the fun part of the book.

The story opens with a woman and her daughters in the Borneo jungle looking for orang-utans, seeking to document their positions as part of a census. They are shocked when they stumble upon poachers who are hunting the apes, but who are not afraid to turn their guns on humans.

This book deals with the dwindling numbers of endangered species and man's indifference to whether they live or die. In particular, the orang-utan is highlighted. It's a battle between Alison Farleigh who is desperate to stamp out poachers, trappers and other enemies to animals, and a couple of brothers who have made it their lives work to capture wild animals no matter the cost.

Once again James Hall portrays his bad guys as just about the lowest, most demented scum of the earth, yet smart enough to keep getting away with their evil deeds. Thorn, Hall's recurring laid-back alternative-living hero, plays a minor role as the backup for Alison. It seems that his main role in this book is to get the living bejeezus repeatedly beaten out of him.

It's an action-packed thriller interspersed with more sensitive moments when the story is told from a young orang-utan's perspective. There are no real surprising twists to the story, yet it remained compelling from start to finish. Any book that highlights the plight of the many endangered species of animals around the world is a worthwhile book.

This book was awesome, it had everything: murder, fighting, monkeys, etc. Everything you need to make a good book. I was only going to read the first chapter, but after that i got drawn in and couldn't put it down. A real killer of a book.

As I get immersed in the Florida heat and sounds and even smells of the latest James Hall book, I cringe to think what he will do to his characters next. Hall is more likely to kill off his main characters and the people close to them than any writer I've ever read. It makes for a much more exciting, if heart-wrenching read, because he also has a knack for making you care deeply about the people in his novels. No formulas here, all bets are off. Please hurry with the next one, Mr. Hall!

Men Against the Sea is the fictionalized second book in the Bounty Trilogy. Mutiny on the Bounty recounts the tale of the voyage of the H.M.S. Bounty from England to Tahiti and a little way back, the mutiny, and the subsequent events that affect those of the Bounty's crew who remain on Tahiti. When last seen in that book, Captain William Bligh is cast adrift far from land in a small vessel overladen with 18 other loyal men and about 7 to 8 inches of freeboard above a flat sea. Practically speaking, their chances are slim.

Men Against the Sea begins with the mutiny and describes what happens to Captain Bligh and those he commands as they make their way eventually to the Dutch settlement of Batavia in the Dutch East Indies. Along the way, Captain Bligh and his men traverse around 3,600 miles in their fragile vessel while suffering many horrors including attacks from the native people, lack of sleep, storms, bailing for their lives, cold, thirst, too much sun, and hunger. The authors make a good decision in choosing to have the ship's surgeon serve as the narrator of this saga. This perspective made it possible for the book to include his physical descriptions of the deprivations of the Bounty's abandoned crew to help make the story more compelling. In the true spirit of a story about English tars, there is a considerable discussion of how the starvation the men experienced affected their intestinal tracts.

Captain Bligh comes across very poorly in Mutiny on the Bounty. The opposite occurs in Men Against the Sea. His leadership is one of the great accomplishments of seamanship of all time. Throughout the troubled voyage to the first landing at the Dutch settlement on Timor, Captain Bligh only lost one man. Captain Bligh also comes across as a brave, worthy, and dedicated sailor who is more than willing to share the deprivations of his men. In one stretch, he mans the tiller for 36 straight hours despite being exhausted. At the same time, even the most querulous of the crew usually keep their silence.

But the men are only human after all. Someone steals two pounds of pork. Another shipmate sent to capture birds is overcome by the need to eat them, and spoils the hunting for everyone. In their weakened state, they miss many wonderful chances for food. When they reach civilization and begin to recover from their privations, complaining quickly returns.

My test of how well written such an adventure tale is that I often felt like I was in the boat struggling with them. The main weakness of the book is that it skips many days on end, when the circumstances were at their most dire such as during unending days of storms. By doing this, the reader is denied the chance to have the full horror of the crossing bear down more strongly.

Most of the weaknesses of Mutiny on the Bounty are overcome in Men Against the Sea. So if you found that work unappealing, give this one a chance. It has many of the qualities of great survival and adventure books.

After you finish this remarkable tale, I suggest you think about the ways that adversity brings out the best in you. How can you do as well when times and circumstance are not adverse?

Squarely face the challenge, with confidence that success will follow!

I actually picked up Men Against the Sea expecting a mundane but entertaining sea story. It started off innocently enough until the unlucky crew was sentenced to their watery fate. Then the book suddenly plunged into turbo mode. Now, for an authour to write such a long book about the adventures of 18 men on one small boat and not skip a beat is remarkable.
Captain Bligh establishes his presence on the vessel with an iron grip. His leadership skills and confidence are quite extrodinary as he takes control of boat. One cannot help but feel for the crew as they struggle against all odds. Men Against the Sea is one of those stories that swipes the reader right of their comfy couch and throws them head-first into the raging ocean. The writers describe the hunger and thirst of the men so convicingly that I actually had to grab a bite myself or starve with them! The storms and squalls are believably violent and the Island natives frightfully savage.
It is really a great adventure story. The book manages to surpass its predecessor, Mutiny on the Bounty, by leaps and bounds. From rationing food barely sufficient for one man amongst 18 hungry seamen, too eating raw fish, the crew, lead by their relentless captain, are determined to survive. You will no doubt find yourself cheering at their victories and subsequently mourning their defeats.
What makes the read even more enjoyable is the realization that it is basically a true story. Man against Nature! Trully a book not easily forgotten. It has been 4 years since I read the book and it is still imprinted in by mind.

Read it for yourself. Such books makes being an avid reader so much fun!

It was a hot summer day, and I was in the mood for a sea story. I luckily picked up MEN AGAINST THE SEA and quickly became engrossed. Where the prequel, MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY, was a story of a mutiny, this one was one of the best men against the elements stories ever penned. We see a very different Captain Bligh, whose temper still flares up from time to time, but who this time is successful in managing a small crew of men in an open boat over 3,000 miles from the site of the mutiny to Timor, which is today part of Indonesia.

Fletcher Christian and his mutineers allow Bligh and his loyalists no guns, three cutlasses, a small medical kit, and a pitiful store of water and victuals. Their boat must skirt all inhabited islands because they had no gifts to give to the natives -- which in the islands at that time meant that they were risking attack every time. Their water supply came from rainstorms and occasional landings for food. They had no gear for fishing. All they had to go on were Bligh's knowledge and guts.

I actually prefer this book to MUTINY and now eagerly look forward to seeing if PITCAIRN'S ISLAND, the third volume in the trilogy, is as good.

"Pitcairn's Island" tells the story of nine mutineers from the Bounty after they took the ship and set Captain Bligh adrift in an open boat. Settling on a tiny uninhabited island in the South Pacific, they and their Polynesian companions found an earthly paradise. The island was large enough to sustain the small population, and was so remote that discovery by the British navy was unlikely. During the first years on the island, they worked to develop the community, and there was little strife. But as their living conditions became less precarious, they were confronted with timeless problems that eventually plunged the inhabitants of the island into turmoil. Jealousy, lust, drunkenness, sloth, oppression, adultery, avarice and race hatred soon destroyed this ideal society in violent and shocking ways.

The authors present a meticulous fictional narrative, derived from the accounts of vistors and islanders. They treat the savagery and debauchery that occured there mainly in a decorous and oblique manner. The only real flaw with the book is the map, which is inadequate to guide the reader throught the events. Notwithstanding, the book is very entertaining and one will certainly want to learn more about the island and its people. Best of all though, is the way in which the book raises questions about the essential nature of human beings. The mutineers and their companions had an Eden, but it could not and did not last.

This is a magnificent book and the best of the Bounty Trilogy. I've read it many times over the years and find myself wholly captivated by it each time.

"Pitcairn's Island" follows the story of Bounty mutineer Fletcher Christian and eight of his men who are hunting for a sanctuary in which to hide from the long arm of the Royal Navy. They bring their Tahitian wives and several Tahitian men along with them. Finding Pitcairn's Island uninhabited, they settle there in 1790, less than a year after the mutiny. The men range from about age 21 to 38, Christian himself was only about 24 yrs old although the movies always seem to depict him as being older.

The Pitcairn story operates on multiple levels--- the attempt by criminals to make a Utopian society, the conflict between the English and the Tahitians, the conflict between the men and the women, conflict between the educated officers, Christian and Young, and the low-born seamen. The tiny colony struggles with alcoholism, race warfare, slavery, rape, insanity and even religious rebirth. The story seems impossible to believe and yet all of it is true. The mutiny story has made for several rousing motion pictures but they always end with the mutineers arrival at Pitcairn and never deal with what happened afterwards, which is the most fascinating part of the story.

Will some filmmaker PLEASE bring this story to the screen?

Before reviewing this book, let me note that it contains explicit scenes of violence that would cause this book to exceed an R rating if it were a motion picture. These scenes are very effective in enhancing the emotional power of the story, but certainly exceed what had to be portrayed.

Pitcairn's Island is by far the best of the three novels in The Bounty Trilogy. While the first two books seem like somewhat disconnected pieces of the whole story of the events leading up to and following the mutiny on H.M.S. Bounty, Pitcairn's Island stands alone as a worthy story. In its rich development of what happened to nine of the mutineers and those Polynesians who joined them, this book ranks as one of the great adventure and morality tales of all time.

The story picks up with the H.M.S. Bounty under sail in poorly charted seas, commanded by Fletcher Christian and looking for Pitcairn's Island. On the ship are 27 adults (9 British mutineers, 12 Polynesian women, and 6 Polynesian men). Everyone is a little edgy because Pitcairn's Island is not where the charts show it to be. After much stress, Pitcairn's Island is finally sighted. Then, it becomes apparent that the Bounty cannot be kept safely there in the long run because of the poor mooring conditions. If they commit to Pitcairn's Island, there will be no leaving it. Should they stay or go?

The novel follows up on what happens in the 19 years following that fateful decision. The key themes revolve around the minimum requirements of a just society, differences between the two cultures of British and Polynesians, the varying perceptions and expectations of men and women, and the impact of immorality on the health of a society. Anyone who has enjoyed Robinson Crusoe, Swiss Family Robinson, or The Lord of the Flies will find this novel vastly appealing. Here, part of the fascination is that real-life events are being described.

The decision to turn this into a novel is a good one. The accounts of what occurred vary, and cannot be totally reconciled. So no one can really know what happened, other than it was dramatic. Towards the end of the book, the narration becomes that of one character, and the use of that character's language, perspective, background is powerful in making the novel seem more realistic and compelling.

This is a story where the less you know when you begin, the more you will enjoy the story. Out of respect for your potential reading pleasure, I will delve no more into the book.

After you finish reading the book, I suggest that you take each of the characters and imagine how you could have improved matters for all by speaking and behaving differently then that character did. Then, think about your own family, and apply the same thought process. See what you would like to change about your own speech and behavior in your family, as a result.

Think through the consequences of your potential actions very carefully when many others will be affected!

Included in this volume are two plays whose heroine are Iphigenia, the daughter of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra. One takes place before the Trojan War, and the other after her siblings Orestes and Electra had killed their mother. In the first, "Iphigenia at Aulis", she was to be sacrificed in order to appease Artemis and allow the Greek army to sail to Troy. The plot is the hard decisions the sons of Atreus, Clytemnestra, and Iphigenia herself had to make, to see if the sacrifice would be worth it. It is interesting that this also sheds a new perspective on the return of Agamemnon after the war, beause Ighigenia told her mother not to be angry about it. Obviously, because the "Iphigenia among the Taurians" took place some eighteen years later, she didn't die, but I'll leave the conclusion a surprise. The second play takes place in a barbarian land, where Iphigenia is a pristess. Orestes, her brother, has come here in exile, and is to be sacrificed because he is Greek. AFter they recognize each other, they plan their escape, but will they make it? Read these plays to find out.

Although it is probably best to read some of Euripides' other plays before this collection, this volume contains the best of his extant work (in my opinion). Besides the Bacchae there are two truly great plays centering around the tragic figure of Iphigenia (a daughter sacrificed to Artemis by Agamemnon so his fleet could set sail for Troy in Homer's Iliad).
Euripides has had his detractors over the centuries, but the oratory, emotion, and sensitivity of his tragedies sets him apart from Aeschylus and Sophocles (each of whom was also excellent for other reasons).

Come Retribution is opaque, at times difficult but a wonderfully fresh look at the official role of the CONfederate government in the assasination of Abraham Lincoln. Unlike most works on the Civil War, it is not a re-comilation but a new look at an old subject using new evidence. And the evidence is damning -- the authors, all modern day intelligence experts, argue convincingly that the death of President Lincoln was a runaway operation that was designed to kidnap the president and/or blow up the War department. The authors ability to uncover fresh evidence at so late a date is an indication that modern research and analytical techniques used by the intelligence community have a strong and valuable role in historical reseacrh as well. This book is an absolute must read for anyone interested in the assasination of Lincoln, the Confederate Secret Service or historical detective work. MichShul@aol.com

While not as readable as a novel or even a narrative history, this book is fascinating reading for anyone interested in the subject of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. While everybody and his brother has been accused of killing John F. Kennedy, few have questioned the "lone gunman" theory that John Wilkes Booth was a madman who acted on his own. Some years back there was an inept attempt to blame a conspiracy involving Union secretary of war Edwin Stanton, but no one seems to have thought to explore the obvious possibility of Confederate involvement--at least not since Stanton himself gave up trying to pin it on Jeff Davis shortly after the event. Now this book presents a sizable body of circumstantial evidence to show that, at the very least, the assassination was a last-minute perversion of a Confederate plot to capture Lincoln and thus bargain for its independence, or at least for its soldiers in Federal prisoner of war camps. The book is well written, and the thesis it presents is convincing. No one who has not read this book really understands the end of the American Civil War

In this book, the authors make what seems to be an autobiographical account of a year of traveling and adventure throughout the South Seas. They decide to travel in different directions and meet again after a few months. They write in turn about their own experiences and stories as narrated to them by other characters, covering a wide range of stories, from the mere description of island's habits, to beautiful native stories, to what must be the most thrilling and yet poetic treasure hunt I have read. Possibly a slightly minor work from this authors, better known for the Bounty books. Yet, if you like the mystery of the South Seas a little more than its adventure, add that fifth star to my rating. Please bear in mind my comments are based on a first edition of this book, dated 1921, which I own. I write the review in the hope that it will be useful since there is none to date, but I have not actually read this new edition.

I agree with Gerardo... This book will give you unvarnished observations from new visitors to the south east Pacific immediately after WWI. The descrptions of Hall's visit to the Paumotus (Tuamotus) are really priceless today, as is his account of Hotel Tiare and Lavaina, before her death. If you enjoy this, then see if you can get a copy of My Island Home. The island parts are very good (especially Singh, A Song of Six Pence). Also read The Forgotten One, and Other Stories, a darker look at the affects and outcomes of caucasians in the islands.

The Arcanum is typically an organization that easily falls into the shadows in most WoD games for several reasons... First of all this is an organization consisting, at least mostly, of mortals - according to a lot of people the WoD consists of vampires, wraiths, mages, werewolves and a whole bunch of other weird creatures as well as a few hundred mortals for these people to fight over. At least it looks like it judging from the amount of information you can find on mortals in most WoD books. This book is an exception. In here you can find information on the Arcanum as well as information on what means the mortals have to fight back against the supernatural. I run a vampire game myself and after I got this book (even though it's really an addition for MtA) one of my players immediately wanted to play a mortal... Mortals exist in the WoD and time and again they do actually have a clue about what's going on - that is what this book is about.

Halls of the Arcanum provides detailed information on one of the most fascinating groups in the World of Darkness. This book was released during the Year of Hunter for Mage the Ascension. Though they don't hunt mages or other supernaturals like the Inquisition, they do pose a serious threat due to the tremendous amount of information they have. The Arcanum is after all a society that studies the unknown. This book is ideal for storytellers who want to run mystery campaigns with an emphasis on investigating the supernatural with normal humans. The presentation and the mood of the book worked extremely well. The horrors of the unknown are in every corner and it's up to them to bring light to the darkness.

Another great book from the master sabermatrician, Bill James. It is obvious that James is a huge baseball fan who is simply fed up with the current fabric of the Baseball Hall of Fame. Why, for example, is Hack Wilson in the Hall of Fame? James examines his curious selection, among others, in this must-read.

If you really care if Phil Ruzzitto should or should not be in the Hall of Fame this is the book for you. Bill James is the dean of sabrematicians, the guys who study baseball statistics for what those numbers can tell us about the game. The Politics of Glory uses statistics to examine the players who are in the Hall of Fame and makes some judgments as to whether they should be there and looks at players who are not in the Hall of Fame and makes similar judgments. The book is fun to read for anyone who likes baseball. The statistical methods are easy to follow and is written with a good humor that makes this potentially dry subject very intersting.

Once again, Bill James uses the facts to answer many of baseball's perplexing questions. And the answers he gets aren't always the obvious ones. I have sent this book to several friends. This book is available in paperback but it's been renamed "Whatever Happened to the Hall of Fame" or something close to that

There aren't many characters to root for in this story, especially the anti-social, anti-authority hero Thorn. Too typically, the characters for whom Thorn has a soft spot are murdered and his latest girlfriend is the sister of a childhood chum (she also nurses a grudge). However, to lift this novel from a lower rating, there is a clever underground railroad service that the bad guys offer to undesirables who want to disappear from their enemies. The title deserves some credit too for the double entendre applied to both a winter cold spell and the utilization of an ice cream truck

In this, James Hall's second novel featuring Thorn, the author expands on the one of the odder heroes of the Florida Keys. Thorn enjoys being the odd man out, anti-authority, anti-employment and a bit to out spoken for his own good. Mix this with an instinctive desire to right wrongs when they present themselves to him and you have a natural formula for trouble and good reading.

This time Thorn's friend, FBI agent Gaeton Richards involves him in a very strange car deal (where the buyer tries to feed the salesman to the alligators) and then offers Thorn a job as fishing guide for Benny Cousins, a local political up and comer. Thorn declines (later he has to drop Benny in a hot tub to make his point). Benny may sound good, but he acts bad, and he is up to something more than a little fishy. Unfortunately, Gaeton, who was working undercover in the Cousins organization is exposed and suddenly disappears.

Thorn is drawn into a relationship with Darcy Richards, Gaeton's sister and the local weatherwoman. The quest to find Gaeton ends grimly and Darcy and Thorn set about bringing the guilty to justice. What neither realizes is that Ozzie Hardison, a somewhat mentally deficient Florida Cracker (self-described), who has a compulsive yen for Darcy, is convinced that, if he only could kill everyone she liked, she would surely fall for him. Ozzie is a loser for sure, but he adds some deadly complications. Between Benny and Ozzie bad things are bound to happen.

James Hall has a knack for pure storytelling. He paints with firm well-made strokes that make each character and every scene stand out from all the others. He uses a strong sense of humor to contrast perfectly with the grim and ugly parts. This type of story, the modern day heroic tale, is a challenge to write well. In order to make the quest for justice work the author must give away many of the plot's mysteries, hoping to draw us into the plot with suspense and ingenuity. Once again, Hall has proved himself a master of this genre.

This is Hall's second novel, Thorn's second outing. It is rich with minor characters and full of the elegant writing that marks all of his work. The book is about a scheme to smuggle into the US some very bad guys from other countries. Thorn stumbles onto it after losing one of his childhood friends who was an FBI agent working on the case.

There are some really funny scenes and some beautiful snapshots of Key Largo. He brings that place alive brilliantly. It's almost as good as Under Cover of Daylight and right up there with some of the later Thorn novels, Mean High Tide and Red Sky at Night (my favorite).