Poor Cochrane has just retreived his pooch from quarantine only to have the poor doggie stolen along with his briefcase. Not only that, but the kennel owner's missing car and shotgun make the authorities jumpy. When the events lead to a murder case, as a woman's battered body is found near the burnt car, the kennel owner finds himself embroiled with trouble.
Lovely outdoors adventure in Scotland with a clever mystery involving a dog... who could ask for more?

Comprehensive, accesible and updated with great Web resources. Highly recommended!

This is a fun and easy to understand book for a often-tedious though important subject --corporate finance. Wachowicz takes pain to update the book through his web page. Excellent!

This book is used in the Applied Capital Budgeting at University of Massachussetts Dartmouth. It's a very helpful and useful book. In order to understand time value of money, financial statement analysis , capital budgeting and risk , return , I am strongly advise you to buy this book.

The not-so-grand finale in the Charlie Resnick series certainly exhibits the signs of Harvey's weariness with the series. The highly predictable main plot features an escaped murderer with a sordid childhood, and is the least interesting element of the book. The police efforts to stem a series of drug-related killings brings in a number of minor players from past books and is somewhat more interesting. But of course it is the developments in Resnick's private and professional life that drives the book and rescues it in the end.

I did not realize until nearly at the end that this was the last of the Resnick novels. I'm embarassed to admit that he has become a part of my life and that I awaited his next installment like a child on the first day of school. I feel like my life will somehow be incomplete without the wisdom of Charlie but anxiously await the latest character.

This series will be well worth the attention.

Mr. Harvey, how can you leave us to be a publisher? Charlie deserves to go on and on and on.

The whole book itself is way too long-winded. Simple concepts which could be explained in one or two sentences are instead used to fill up pages of text; not only that, but the same concepts are repeated over and over again throughout different sections of the book. I guess the authors like to hear themselves talk. And then there's the annoying sections like the one where they go on and on about something elaborately called "Einthoven's Law" which is nothing more than simple KVL from basic circuit theory. Stuff like that is just plain annoying, because it feels like you're wasting your time reading a long-winded, substance-wanting text. They should consider renaming the book from "textbook of medical physiology" to "physiology for dummies." Here's an excerpt from the book:

"If the net potential of lead I is positive, it is plotted in a positive direction along the lead I axis. Conversely, if this potential is negative, it is plotted in the negative direction."

Numerous passages like the one above make you feel frustrated and annoyed. Time is a valuable thing to waste; I would suggest getting a more condensed and better organized book on physiology.

Guyton remains one of the best physiology books for the medical student with its clear elucidation of fundamental physiological concepts and its pathophysiological correlations.

I want to address some of the criticisms of this book. One reviewer claims that it is missing trivia that professors love like the so called ENaC channels. Well, it does mention these channels on pg 304 as the special channels through which sodium diffuses into P-cells. Any medical student who has studied pharmacology or medicine knows that these are the channels that are inhibited by potassium sparing diuretics (amiloride and triamterine). Till recently they were called amiloride inhibitible sodium channels. Since they are found on other epithelial cells, they are now called ENaCs (epithelial sodium channels). There may be many more such trivial points you may find missing in Guyton, but if it is physiology you want to learn (rather than get into trivial pursuit) this is the book for you. No book is perfect and no book can contain EVERY single detail. Even Ganong, while being a very good book is lacking in the explanation of many fundamental concepts which it states but does not explain, for example it just tells you that high protein diets raise the GFR, but only Guyton tells you why. The chapters on cells and immunity etc could use updating, but these are topics covered in great detail in other courses--cell bio, molecular bio, biochem, immunology.

Another criticism is about lack of diagrams. I found that the diagrams in the book were of a functional nature--good enough to explain the concepts being discussed. If it is comic books you are looking for, buy an atlas.

Thirdly, the so called verbiosity. Yes, the explanations are detailed, but many first time readers would find that a positive point. It is hardly physiology for dummies.

In conclusion, although all the above criticisms are justified to an extent, if you want to learn the hows and whys of physiology, Guyton still remains a good book that covers pretty much everything a med student needs to know for physiology for courses and the usmle.

I advise every medical student to read from this great book. It might be time-consuming, but believe me once you read the beginning of any chapter, you still want to read it till you finish it! What makes reading even more interesting is the clinical relevance presented at the end of each chapter, which makes you understand the mechanism of a disease. Its biggest drawback is its lack of enough diagrams and illustrations, which if present are still poor, compared to other illustrated physiology books.

If you dont understand what the words Futures/options are and you want to know it, this is the place to start. hull(from McGil i think!) has excellently presented information on these subjects for the student as well as for the practitioner. As a student of MBA(finance) this was the prescribed text and I can safely say this compares with the best. sepcifically this book deals with the entire gamut of Futures/Options/Swaps with mathematical models where required. From CBOT to this day!!

Hull wrote a classic book for the introduction to futures and options markets. It's for the serious reader who doesn't want to all the deviations and basics of option pricings. If, after reading this book, you're still interested in derivatives you cann proceed with Hull's "Options, Futures, and Other Derivative Securities", Kolb's "Futures, Options, and Swaps", or for the very ambitious student Wilmott's "Derivatives or Quantitative Finance".

The material is similar to his other book, Options Futures and Other Derivatives, but much more easy to read. With Brealy & Myers, this forms a good complementary text.

1. The book is comprehensive. It describes many algorithms, and includes several studies on statistics about text compression and language modeling. It is very good in this respect.

2. Math theory is not approached systematically neither algrebaically. For instance, a proof that arithmetic compression works can take less than a page, and the details given take a lot of space and are not as clear as they could be.

3. Although the book emphasizes the idea of separating the model from the coder, the language used is the C programming language, which imposes severe restrictions to this separation. The model and the coder do not exist as entities on their own, they just have different memory space allocations. Compare this to a reasonably good implementation in a pure object environment, where you can actually model a coder object and a model object.

4. I wrote a final project based on this book consisting of several kinds of compression algorithms with implementations for the course Mathematical Objects in Smalltalk at the University of Buenos Aires.

Hi y'all...

The authors have released the second edition of this book titled as "Managing Gigabytes : Compressing and Indexing Documents and Images". It is more upto date & also covers image compression rather than the first edition (this book, that is, Text Compression) covering only textual compression. It also has lots of other new info in the second edition. Btw, the second edition is cheaper than the first edition.

BTW, this is a tremendous book to have if you are brand new or a pro in compression technology. One of the authors also wrote another book called "Data Mining: Practical Machine Learning Tools & Techniques with Java Implementations", which is a really good addition to one's library!

Sir, I am an Undergraduate student. I like to be different from others. While all are looking in the above layers of programming i look into the core level. I am in India. If i see the cost of book as some 50 $, i comes nearly to 2000 Rs which is nearly 1/3rd of my family income. So if you make this Cost factor considering the Cost of living of other countries then it will be really a boon for the Indian People who has stuff but no proper guidence. Thank you for listening my Comments. Avail disounts for Students.

Lucas Davenport is the detective in charge of the investigation. Davenport's ability to unfold the plot is extraordinary. This time he finds murder is hitting close to home. The action is non-stop and I could not put it down. Davenport finds the motive for the killings are revenge. I loved reading this book, once you start to read you are hooked!

"Sudden Prey" is the latest addition John Sanford's "Prey" novels. This series is known for great stories, suspense, and characters. The lead character of "Sudden Prey" is once again Chief Lucas Davenport of the Minneapolis Police Department. In this story Lucas is once again on the trail of some sadistic serial killers. Their leader is out to avenge the deaths of his sister and wife at the hands of the Minneapolis police. His plan is simple - to kill the loved ones of the police officers involved in the shooting. This is a great addition to the "Prey" series. Lucas is once again very believable in his quest to find the killers. Although "Sudden Prey" will not win any literary achievement awards, it is an exciting book. A great read for the summer.

This is one of my favourites in the Prey series. Two females are shot in a bank robery, and the husband of one of them escapes from prison. Now he wants to get his revenge, but not by taking it out directly on the police officers. He wants them to suffer as he is, and wanting nothing by revenge, he's going after their families...
Sandford is a master of writing about different motives for the killings in all his thrillers. Previously I've read about someone killing because (s)he feels (s)he have to do it, another time I read about a much more dangerous motivation, the profit. In this book, Sudden Prey, the main character, Lucas Davenport, is facing the most simple and purest motivation, which is revenge. But can his killer-instinct, fast thinking and intelligence help him to solve this case?
Sandford has the ability of making you so curious about what will happen, that you simply can't put the book away. You have to finish it right away. And if you enjoy the Prey series, this book is a must. Certainly one his best. A great book also recommended to anyone who loves to read, and those who like thillers.

Lucas Davenport is back and better than ever. With Winter Prey, Sandford relocates Davenport yet again, this time to the frozen countryside of Minnesota and Wisconsin. Sandford's last Prey novel, Silent Prey, tried something similar, moving Davenport to NYC but it was, unfortunately, not at all successful. Luckily Winter Prey proves to be a much better installment in the series.

Much of the action and plot of the book follows Sandford's "prey format" and Sandford doesn't disappoint in Winter Prey. Quite a bit of the appeal in these stories is derived from the evolving back-story and the development of Davenport. And while Winter Prey largely ignored recurring characters seen in previous novels, Sandford's characters were likable and I can only hope that some of them return.

Overall, if you felt burned by Silent Prey, you'll feel much better after Winter Prey. A real page-turner.

The "Prey" series is one of my favorite. This one had me feeling cold while I read it. Wonderful!

Sandford creates some really great characters in this series and one great detective in Lucas Davenport.

The stories are always gripping and believable. The action is fast paced and nerve racking.

Most importantly, unlike so many other detective novel series by other other authors, the ending doesn't cheat the reader.

Start with the first book in this series and work your way through - you won't be disappointed.

Winter Prey is suspenseful and tense. The setting is rural Wisconsin at 20° below. The hero is the likable Lucas Davenport, who gets pulled into solving the murders of the LaCourt family by the small-time county sheriff, an inexperienced, near retirement, sometimes pathetic, but mostly sympathetic character. While the dialog was sometimes less than impressive, the story was action-packed. A real plus--there was never a moment before revealing the murderer that I even thought I knew who it was. The Iceman is a real surprise, not only because of the twists in the story, but also because you're not given enough information to suspect him. I plan to read more John Sandford after this, mostly for the character Lucas Davenport. I only hope they don't have such corny, awkwardly written love affairs as the one in this book with medical examiner Weather Karkinnen.

By now, John Sandford (the pen name of John Camp) has these things down pat. His main character, Lucas Davenport, is a three-dimensional policeman, hunting serial killers and dangerous murderers, seducing women, and cracking wise now and again. The secondary characters---other cops, the killer, his girlfriend, victims---are marvelously rendered, and you're actually sad when one meets his/her end.

This time around, the bad guy is an art professor named James Qatar, who kills beautiful women, and has been doing it successfully for years. He's an interesting and very well-drawn character, what with his obsession with clothing, and his meticulousness about the killings that he does. Davenport is looking at a particular murder, and it's discovered that a woman, missing for several years, resembles the killing in a few details. Then clues begin to build up, and the suspense builds as the plot thickens, so to speak.

I would recommend this book, though of course it's not the best (I still think Rules of Prey was in a class by itself; it should be read first) and if you haven't read other books in the series you're going to be a bit at sea about the relationships between the various characters. Still, a good book.

Colleagues respect St. Patrick University associate professor art historian James Qatar for his collective works. This includes one book and several scholarly articles published in highly regarded journals and magazines. Unbeknownst to his peers is that Professor Qater has a second life in which he hunts blondes, has sex with them, and kills them.

When an early victim is found, the police link her to photographs that are part of Qater's hobby of creating pornographic works with women he knows but who don't really know him. Being a political appointee, Minneapolis Deputy Chief of Police Lucas Davenport expects to lose his job within six months when the mayor retires. Lucas intends to use his time wisely to catch the killer.

John Sandford is one of the top authors of police procedurals due to his three dimensional characters that consistently turn the "Prey" books into great reads. The hero is a flawed individual with a complex and realistic personal life that places demands on him even as he risks everything because he believes in the value of justice for all. CHOSEN PREY is the best of a great series. The audience knows the identity of the killer early on, but watch in fascination as Lucas tries to do likewise while balancing his complex personal life.

Harriet Klausner

All of us Sandford fans deeply look forward each year for early May to come around because that mostly means the release of a new Prey novel! In "Chosen Prey," Minneapolis Detective, Lucas Davenport, along with Marcy Sherrill, Sloan, Del, and Weather (Lucas fiance), return in one of John Sandford's most interesting and exciting Prey novels that he has written. The plot: James Qatar is a prestegious history professor at St. Patrick University in Minneapolis. He has a very secretive life on the side. He enjoys playing kinky sex games with women he barely knows and ends up killing them for pleasure. He also enjoys taking pictures of women and distorting their figures to look like they are participating in grotesque sexual activities. His method of murder: a rope. James Qatar is a very sick individual that has killed over eight women in three states. None of the cops have been able to link him to the murder. When a murdered women turns up in the barren woods, close to home to Lucas Davenport, he vows to find this killer who killed this beautiful woman. After investigating for a while, and with the assistance of and out of state officer, he discovers that three other women have mysteriously disappeared in Wisconsin. All these murders/ disappearances are connected. Can Davenport and the gang get James Qatar before he claims his next victim? The twelfth novel in this amazing series is a definite success!

"Fish" is a parable that deals with Mary Jane who was assigned to the third floor of her company who had the reputation of being ineffective, unfriendly and labelled a "toxic energy dump." Mary Jane had to find ways to improve morale and basically changed the attitudes of some thirty employees under her supervision. She employed the tactics of fishmongers at Pike Place Fish, a world famous market in Seattle in order to learn from them how to make the workspace more fun and effective.

The four principles that Mary Jane learned from the fishmongers are "choose your attitude," "play," "make their day," and "be present." The book basically explains how these principles would improve morale in the workplace, making it fun to work even if the work itself is boring and at the same time, valuing both their internal and external customers. "Fish" is quite encouraging and it reminds me a lot of "Who Moved My Cheese?" as both books are short, concise and easy to understand.

Fish! is a deceptively thin but surprisingly inspiring book. I found it easy to relate to and engaging because the main characters, Lonnie and Mary Jane, were down-to-earth people in realistic circumstances. There weren't any business buzzwords or corporate strategies to make it feel contrived. While claiming that there are 4 things necessary to change the way we look at our work, I found one major theme prevailed for me: bring 100% involvement to our jobs - no matter what we do. The book talks about "choosing your attitude" and "playing" at work, but it was clear to me that these seem to happen naturally when you don't resist your work and become totally involved in it "being present" as Lonnie describes it. I believe these philosophies go far beyond work and apply to every area of one's life. If we are totally engaged in any activity, especially the one we spend most of our lives doing, learning to be present is easy when you simply do what you have to do.

The best book I have ever read on the subject of being present is Working on Yourself Doesn't Work by Ariel and Shya Kane. While Fish! is a fun way to learn how to enjoy even mundane tasks, it only scratches the surface compared to what Working On Yourself Doesn't Work will teach you about truly being present and satisfied in all aspects of your life. Both books are simple, fun reads and can help you discover magic in your life.

A wonderful book that simplifies the steps to have the right atmosphere in any environment.

Mary Jane has been given the difficult task of turning around the 3rd floor inefficiency to be a productive and pleasant place to work. In helping her in the task she meets Lonnie, who works in the fish market, and who makes her see how he managed to bring the best out of his employees even though they work in a stinky place.

The four lessons learned to achieve such results are: Attitude, Play, Make their day, and Be present. Those simple words and how to carry them between the employees and be able to transmit them to the customers should be enough to turn the life around.

A great book, that also helps with our daily lives and how to approach life on daily basis, make the best of things, give it your best shot and the rest is history.