I am a Dallas native who grew up around the time the Ski Mask Rapist was hunting in North Dallas, so I was very interested to read this book. It was so scary to read about my neighborhood in this book. But the book is great, very readable, and gives a great insight into the mind of Gilbert Escobedo.

Swindle has done an excellent job here of walking the reader through not only the investigation of the rapes committed, but the background and personality of the criminal, Gilbert Escobedo. The fact that Swindle was able to visit and interview Escobedo several times during his incarceration was, I am sure, immensely helpful. I feel that books like these can actually help prevent crime...in this case rape...by arming potential victims with crucial knowledge. The first thing they have to realize--and this is immensely obvious in the book--is that they ARE a potential victim. Escobedo committed upwards of 100 rapes, and even managed to maintain some "normal" relationships on the side...even going so far as to initiate not only an intimate relationship, but also a business relationship with an unsuspecting woman who, coincidentally, was previously one of his victims. She never even knew until he was finally arrested. You really can't make this stuff up.

this book is excellent. it is so detailed and once you start reading it, you can't put it down. it explores the profiles of serial rapists, how the police create profiles, and it gives you the chilling feeling like you are there observing the crime scene.

E.M. Forster appeals to many because of his early novels, "Where Angels Fear to Tread", "A Room with a View", and "Howard's End", the last which is included in this book. They seem like updated Austen novels, neat and well-structured, albeit more surprising, but still in all appearances novels dealing with social manners. However, "Howard's End" and "A Passage to India" deal with much more substantial themes of industrialization and imperialism as well as Forster's overarching idea of connection between peoples and ideologies.

"Howard's End" sets up the opposition between the cultured Schlegels and the industrious Wilcoxes. Simplistically, each family represents the division within society at the time, whether to embrace the outward form of change in motor cars and encroaching tenements or to hold onto the land and the responsibility and feelings contained within it. Forster also makes use of associations and symbols to further the reader's understanding of a greater meaning, such as the teutonic assocation with the Schlegels or the description of Mrs. Bast's photograph to suggest her occupation. Still, the theme of connection found in its famous epigraph "Only connect... (the prose to the passion)" is woven well throughout and sometimes surprisingly so.

"A Passage..." is Forster's greatest work, and rightfully so because in it he is most ambitious, adding elements of imperialism and religion to that of relationships between people. While the novel is not a political novel per se, it justifies the interpretation through its mostly sympathetic treatment of the Indians and the absurdity of British bureacracy in a culture beyond its understanding. I assert that this is one of Forster's more pessimistic novels with an appropriate ending, but my colleagues assert the opposite, that it makes claims to the hope of connection. I leave it to you to conclude for yourself. Forster also gives a good foretaste of the post-modernist technique, with his attempt to show that the "many-headed monster" of India or any culture cannot be adequately treated by a single perspective.

Gilly: A Humble Crusader is the intrinsically interesting biography of Gilbert Roberts, an ordinary man who set out to accomplish a happy life for himself and his family. Just as Gilbert reached his fifties (in 1955), he happened to visit a Navajo Indian reservation and witness terrible starvation. Gilbert Roberts then spent the rest of his life striving to help these Native Americans. Co-authored by Gilbert Roberts' son Howard Roberts, Gilly: A Humble Crusader is an especially recommended and poignantly thoughtful look at life, the bonds of family, of love, of social obligation, and personal dedication.

I agree with the reviewer who said the book had no real point. It's just plain old bad. Don't buy it, spend the money on your kids' college fund instead.

...because the story was pointless, painfully long, and boring. I don't know where my wife picked this book up, but I wish she would return it. The pictures are nice but the book just goes on and on and on...without ever coming to a conclusion.

I don't mean to ruin it for anyone, but the entire premise of this never-ending book seems to be that people should clean themselves. I don't know what the other two positive reviewers were thinking. Perhaps they are chums with the THREE (you're kidding, right?) people it took to write this.

Hey guys, next time at least try to work a knock-knock joke into the mix...

My kids love Sticky Stanley and his friends at Camp Wacki Kooki. The second graders at our school chose this as their favorite book of the year for their door decorating contest. They laugh at the campers- each one reminds them of someone they know. Each time Sticky Stanley gets messier, they laugh and sympathize at the same time. They love to read along with the Camp Wacki Kooki tape. This one doesn't stay on the bookshelf.