The ST. JAMES GUIDE TO CRIME & MYSTERY WRITERS is the most useful reference book available now for mystery fans. It also is a very entertaining book. The one limitation is that the quality of the various entries seems to vary somewhat because of the large number of contributors.

This book is a guide to the works of over 650 authors of crime, mystery and thriller fiction. Each entry includes a biography, a complete list of published works in book form and a critical essay. The 1261 page volume was nominated for a MaCavity Award for Best Critical/Biographical Work published in 1996.

This book is just fantastic. There's so much that's good to say about it, but if you're an Irving fan like I am, it's essential to your reading. She looks at his work in parts and as a whole, and does it wonderfully. I can't recommend this too highly.

I am also a student of Dr. Lotchin's, though a current one, taking his class on the history of the American West. What does this have to do with the book? Nothing, except that it is one of the texts we are reading. I found Dr. Lotchin's book to be informative at best, and cluttered, poorly written/edited, and uninteresting at worst. While the history of San Francisco and its rapid growth are astonishing and fascinating, Lotchin's rendering of the city's life from 1848-1856 is something short of spectacular. Most of the problems I have found with the text--including copious grammatical errors which create hard to read passages--could have been remedied with a better editor.

I was once a student of Roger Lotchin's; I took his classes on the history of the American West and the history of American Urbanization, and in one of those classes we read this book. It was good and I'm not saying that to get a good grade (this was several years ago). In truth, I just thought it was amazing how the town sprang up and in so short a time really did become a major city with a culture all its own. Thank you, Dr. Lotchin for teaching us to question things (because you didn't hesitate to question us ;-) )