I read the book to my middle school classes and then had them fill in an "I AM" writing assignment I picked up at a writing conference. There are 18 2-word sentence starters. The kids were to choose to be one of the four characters in the story and write from that point of view. The papers are some of the best I have ever gotten out any English class. Boys wrote with the most emotion that I have ever seen. The book also lends itself to the dicussion of abandonment and foster care, of which I am a foster mother myself. It was great to see these kids feel the character they chose, and express thoughts "beyond the print", a Six Traits of Writing Program phrase for an advanced skill in reading. I teach remedial kids all day long, and this book captured them. I never showed them the pictures so they could see the characters in their own minds. They understood how the tail lights of the car looked liked mean red eyes as it sped away.
Asking the kids if they could fit all of their possessions in a shopping bag gave many a real cause for pause.
It was a real story for kids to relate to. The next day, we made a Valentine gift for their moms. I had the best week of this year because I took a chance and jused this book. It is a must for caseworkers and foster parents.

This is one of the simplest, humblest collections of sermons I have ever read! Very practical and very insightful to the human condition and struggle on the path to loving God and giving up all for Him. It is a basic spiritual textbook of experiential, real Christian devotion. I carry it around with me since the sermons are relatively brief and can be easily read in a spare moment. Inspiring!!

In an age when children are all fed the same diet of movies and TV shows, Eric Idle's work speaks to the individual, the special creative person in each child. The story, the style, the humor lets me laugh while reading it to children, and lets them laugh while hearing it (not to mention the laugh they get watching me laugh). The point? This is a wonderfully written story that pleases and amazes children and adults. If there is a person on AMAZON who hasn't already enjoyed Eric Idle's other work (not to mention his Monty Python work), then this is a great start

Tracers is a compelling, harsh funny and moving look at the Vietnam War, as told by men who fought there. Originally developed through psychodrama workshops, the play takes several archetypal soldiers- the black militant, the scared kid, the hippie soldier, and places them in a series of vignettes that are frighteningly realistic in what the young men of the 60s and 70s went through in Vietnam. A must read!

This book isn`t only about Fischer. It contains many stories about Fischer and other players. It contains many games of Fischer, but also games between other players. It contains pictures of Fischer and other players too. What i especially loved about this book was the stories, about Fischer and other players. It contains many games from Fischer`s 64 simul tour of the US, and quite a few stories from these simuls. It contains articles and other things. " A Bookstore in Argentina " was quite intriguing, but as was other stories and stuff. It also contains letters from Fischer to Larry Evans in the 70s. It is all in all a great book about chess. It isn`t a teaching book, but many stories about players in the 50s,60s and 70s. Combined with interwievs, pictures and other stuff. Many games are included, and in a sense i do believe we can all learn something from these games...you know what i mean when i say it isn`t a teaching book. This book is a true treasure, and while i admit i regret buying mnay of the books i own this one is great.
It`s ashame it`s currently out of print, especially since it is a newer book ( 1999 ). If new copies arrive, or you see it in a used book-store grab it and never let go!!

this game is pritty easy so you dont really need this guide but I bought it after beating the entire game. I just wanted to have it to see the combo listings.

A fourth generation Coloradoan, I can appreciate the time and patience it must have taken for John Fielder to assemble this photo archive. Who knows if Jackson left exact notes as to where he was standing when he composed his shots? It looks as if Fielder had taken great pains to get the shot from the same or similar vantage point as Jackson. It was great to see that some aspects remained the same, and the changes were interesting too. My sister had her name on a waiting list for three months before she was able to purchase this book for me, and I'm very glad she did. If the publisher ever gets more, the next one is for my sis. It's a great book for our public libraries, too. What's with the shortage?

This book is one of the most spectacular that I have seen. John Fielder has catpured Colorado's true beauty in his photos. I would recommend this book to anyone, especially people who have never been to Colorado. I'm from colorado myself, and I never knew that Colorado had such beauty tucked away. The difference in the age span of the pictures truely amazing. Some places have changed so much, but some are left untouched...still pure.

This is a spectacular book! Being a Colorado native I was facinated with the concept of "then and now" photos, looking closely for all changes in natural and man made landscape. I had hoped for a little more front range material, but totally enjoyed the wonderful photo art work Fielder is known for in our beautiful state. My entire family has spent hours viewing the pages. I own several other similar books on Colorado. This is most definitely a star addition to the collection.

I first bought this book for the RDS part since I've been working with ADO since it got out. I tought I knew ADO and even though I knew a lot about it, I've learned as much about ADO than about RDS with this book!

Good for any programmers working with ADO, as always, Wrox made it possible for beginners to understand the book and for experienced programmers to learn new stuff.

Another must by Wrox and I'm waiting to get a hand on the "Professional Ado 2.5 Rds Programming With Asp 3.0" that should be coming out soon.

I am an Internet Engineer for a Fortune 500 company. I recently designed and implemented an enterprise-level customer service Intranet application. This book provided many thorough explanations and examples of advanced ADO features.

I made heavy use of disconnected recordsets and data shapes, both of which I did not know how to use before reading this text. These methods allowed me to store recordset objects in session variables (remember, this was an Intranet application so I could dictate the client browser) and thus greatly reduce the load on the back-end database.

Criticisms are few and far between. I found a few nit-picky errors, nothing major. I also would have appreciated a chapter with tips on creating MTS COM objects, but I realize that topic can span an entire book (and it has).

I appreciated this book so much that after I had purchased and expensed a copy for my department's reference library, I went back and bought another copy for my personal collection. It definitely earns a five star rating.

Awesome book for somebody wanting to learn more about ADO/ASP/Database Interaction. I was dumped into the middle of a project with very little ADO knowledge and this proved extremly helpfull through my journey. I have recommended this to all of my friends interested in the subject and countless others who ask me for good books.. Definitly worth every penny!

Clara Rinker is back in John Sandford's latest thriller, "Mortal Prey." She is the deadliest female assassin that I have ever encountered in fiction. Not only is Rinker a whiz with firearms, but she can also outmaneuver the FBI and the police with ease.

Rinker has spent a good part of her life killing people for money. After years of plying her trade, she has accumulated more than enough cash to retire and she has decided to settle down in Mexico with the man she loves. However, a sudden act of violence changes Rinker's plans and she is back in the business of killing once again. She decides to take revenge on the people whom she believes ruined her one chance at happiness and the cops are desperate to stop her before she wreaks any further havoc.

The FBI calls in Lucas Davenport, a Deputy Chief in the Minneapolis Police Department, to help track down Rinker. Davenport has dealt with her before and he was lucky to have survived the encounter. Davenport is currently planning his wedding, but he leaves his pregnant fiancée back in Minneapolis and joins in the hunt for Rinker.

"Mortal Prey" is a repetitious series of vignettes in which Rinker plies her trade, always staying one or two steps ahead of the cops. The supposedly skilled team of FBI agents and cops who are after Rinker are completely outmatched by her superhuman intellect and daring. Rinker doesn't come across as a human being. She is a killing machine with ice in her veins. "Mortal Prey" is filled with violent encounters between the killer and her victims and there really is no contest between Rinker and the cops. She is simply too good at what she does. This throws the book way off balance. A good hunter/prey book has a little more balance between the combatants.

The characterizations are thin and the plot veers from one place to another with very little coherence. Davenport is a likeable enough protagonist, but he has very little to do other than try to figure out where and how Rinker will strike next. "Mortal Prey" doesn't work because the criminal is simply too deadly to be true and the book drags on long after it should have reached its inevitable conclusion.

At the end of "Certain Prey" three years ago, Clara Rinker took a shot at Lucas Davenport, missed and called him on the phone to chat about it. You knew then there'd be a sequel, and it's as good as the first - even better.

"Mortal Prey" begins in Cancun when sniper Izzy Cohen fires at Clara killing her lover Paulo Mejia and their unborn child, wounding her. Determined to settle the score, Clara takes off before Paulo's powerful family finds out she was the real target and the St. Louis mob realizes she's still alive. Her hit list includes four "businessmen" led by Nanny Dichter, pioneer of the St. Louis cocaine business, and John Ross who got Clara started as a contract killer and is still one nasty guy. The first hit comes quickly with a lot of little arrows that will point to Clara when the cops, the Feds and Ross start following them, but she'll always be a step or two ahead.

The FBI is holding her younger brother Gene on a trumped up drug charge, so Clara calls Lucas to lay down the ground rules. The lively if unrealistic banter between maverick lawman and outlaw sets the tone for the chase to come. Ten pages later Sandford repeats the conversation as Davenport heard it, capturing the gut level connection between them while their two minds work at warp speed toward opposite ends.

There's a steady flow of great action with Lucas and his unofficial partner ex-cop Mickey Andreno working the streets and Agents Mallard, Malone and the rest of the FBI providing high tech back up and firepower. Through page 350 the story follows a somewhat structured outline, moving from one showdown to the next. Then Sandford gives us three quick closing chapters. He provides a sufficient degree of closure to this saga but leaves enough loose ends and surviving old and new characters that I would bet on, hope for, future St. Louis based / Rinker related Prey stories.

One thought for Sandford's next effort: Certain Easy Rules of the Mind in the Eyes of a Secret Chosen Mortal turn Silent in the Sudden Shadow of the Winter Night.

Translated: The Prey series has been great, but don't let the 90s Lucas wear us down. Keep the stories coming, but trade in the Porsche.

I absolutly loved "Certain Prey" the 10th novel in the Prey Series. "Mortal Prey" is the 13th novel in the Prey Series and it is as good, if not better than "Certain Prey."
A woman who is a hired hit-man, or should I say hit-person to be politically correct...Clara Rinker is one of those characters that you read about and can't forget because of her lack of respect for life. This time around in "Mortal Prey" Clara looses one person she would have loved and protected, her unborn baby. Her boyfriend is taken down by a hit man and Clara goes down with him but survives, yet looses her unborn baby. Needless to say we find out early in the novel who the hit-man was really after....
Without giving the whole story away Clara gets really mad and goes on a killing spree. Enters, Lucas Davenport detective.
This is another brilliant novel in the Prey series! John Sanford has done it again.HIGHLY RECOMMEND!!

Just a note. You really should read the series from the very beginning to give this book justice. It would be hard to understand what is going on, especially in Lucas Davenports (the main character) life and other main characters in the book. This is the best detective series I have ever read! You won't be disappointed!

with another entry in his fine "Prey" series, a group of books centered on Lucas Davenport, "the richest cop in Minnesota" (rich because he also designs video games).

Sandford set the stage for change at the conclusion of his last book, letting the reader percolate on what would be the differences in Lucas when he becomes an active father, and when he leaves the police department for a quasi-bureaucratic governmental position in a new state department headed by his old boss, Rose Marie Roux. Wisely, although Sandford went forward with these changes, the impact was streamlined by having 90% of the book's action happen in rural northern Minnesota, in the fictional small town of Broderick. Family man Lucas still has his best sidekick, Del, gainfully employed with him -- and married or not, he still can spot and appreciate a great looking woman. Some things never change!

The first two murders may be motivated by racial hatred - one victim is black, and his significant other is white...they are found brutally slain and hanging from a barren tree in the frosty Minnesota winter. There's so much odd and unusual "stuff" going on in Broderick, it's difficult for Lucas & Del to pin down the any information about the murders, and the killings continue.

Sandford manages to deftly interweave his social viewpoints -- his lack of respect for the media, his vague unsettlement with the way that federal, state and local authorities sometimes impede each other to solve a case that has generated media attention, and most importantly, his support of a little known grass roots campaign that is quietly smuggling prescription drugs from Canada to US patients who need and can't afford them.
Unlike many other writers of this genre, Sandford can keep both his tale of the crime and his social commentary moving in the same direction -- one does not eclipse or slow down the other.

The book is also notable in that it provides a lot of insight into tribal casinos...a staple of the Minnesota scenery in the last decade. Tribal casinos have changed rural Minnesota in many ways, and Sandford captures this contrast of big city activity with the rural tundra.

The prize of the novel, as many readers have commented, is new character Letty West, who will doubtless appear in future instalments. A precocious 12-year old, Letty's like many rural kids that come from dysfunctional single parent families....in the cities, kids from these homes tend to run with gangs...in the country, they tend to be loners, with old souls. Letty is such a character, and she's the best addition to the series in a long time.

This may not be the finest of Sandford's series, but its darn close! Don't wait for the paperback!

Lucas Davenport is back in John Sandford's continuing series, and fans of the detective won't be disappointed. Davenport now works for a Minnesota state agency, the BCA, under Rose, his old superior from the Minneapolis police department. A murder scene that resembles a lynching is enough to bring in Davenport and his partner Del to invesigate and clean up before a major political crisis can begin. The murder scene is discovered by a very unusual 12 year old girl, Letty West, who talks and acts many years her senior. Davenport enlists Letty's help in his investigation, which revolves around the hanging murders, multiple kidnappings, a car theft ring, and drug smuggling. The individual crimes are linked through several threads that are not apparent at first to Davenport or the several law enforcement groups he is working with on the case.

Davenport's domestic scenes with his wife Weather are kept to a minimum in this yarn, with almost all of the action focused on the crimes. Letty West takes center stage, and she proves more than a match for Davenport. She traps muskrats, totes a rifle, drives pickups, swears a lot, and helps pick up the pace of the book whenever she appears (which is often). There is strong rapport between Davenport and Letty, and the foundations are set for the making of a good team in future editions of the series.

This is the fourteenth novel in John Sandford's PREY series, and it's almost perfect conclusion makes it one of the best that I have read. There have been some changes in Detective Lucas Davenport's life; he is now married to Weather and they have a young son, Sam. Lucas has also changed jobs, following his boss, former chief Rose Marie Roux, to her assignment as Director of Public Safety for the State of Minnesota. Lucas is now her chief troubleshooter and liasion for the most politically sensitive cases. Not surprisingly, such a case is about to explode into the headlines as the story begins. There is enough background information provided that first time readers of this series can throughly enjoy the story on a standalone basis and should not hesitate to read this book with the caveat that they may well get hooked and want to read some of the earlier novels. At the same time, the changes in Lucas life and job add an element of the newness necessary to make the series of continuing interest to long time readers.

Letty West, a twelve year old muskrat trapper who lives in the far north small town of Broderick, discovers two nude bodies that have been hanged from a tree near her trap line and are frozen "like popsicles". The sensational nature of the discovery is magnified by the fact that Jane Warr, the female victim, is white and Deon Cash, the male victim with whom she lived, is the only black resident of the entire rural county. Thus, the media and a well known racial agitator are quick to commandeer the term lynching to describe the killings. Lucas and his frequent partner Del Capslock are helicoptered to the area; they soon discover that there appears to be much more to the case than an interracial double homicide. As they begin to investigate the connection of Warr and Cash to a surprisingly variety of illegal activities centered in Broderick, additional violence erupts although none so dramatic and described so vividly as the NAKED PREY. The small town has many interesting characters including a group of ex-nuns doing charitable work and who end up playing a crucial role in the story.

The mystery here is not who committed the crime or their motive, both the reader and Lucas know those answers before the book is half complete. Rather, the story revolves around the attempt of Lucas and Del to make semse out of the remaining pieces of the puzzle. The author continually provides the reader with partial insights into the interrelated mysteries by changing the narrator as the story proceeds. The effect is excellent, the overview provided actually increases the tension and the realism. The reader wants to see how Lucas will piece the threads together without the benefit our knowledge, it is a difficult technique to master but works because the final outcome is unknown.

There are a few truly despicable characters in this story, but little detailed violence after the initial murders. The real hero and central character is in many ways Letty West. She is wonderfully developed as she deals with the traumas which she has experienced (begining well before this incident). As she attempts to help Lucas puzzle out the case both Lucas and the reader come to care as deeply about her as bringing the criminals to justice. Both aspects of the conclusion, Letty's future and the fate of the criminals are consistent with the narrative development, they ultimately both provide a profound sense of justice and also delight the reader while making it appear clear that we will have the pleasure of reading about further cases under investigation by Lucas Davenport.