"The Best of Pif Magazine Off-Line" offers a refreshing assortment of new stories and new voices. A standout among them is Mimi Carmen's "Love Birds". Ms. Carmen's tale of an aging mother and conflicted daughter resonates with idiosyncratic vision and gritty passion. The bird imagery is breathtaking. I also very much enjoyed "23 Johnson Avenue, 1985" by Diann Blakely. If writers were race horses, and I had money, I'd bet my wad on these two.

A wonderful collection - refreshingly different, but solid. My favorite is "Love Birds" by Mimi Carmen. I'd like to read more of her work.

I am bored with many print magazines nowadays. The same things, the same things. Ho-hum. I've been following this zine for a while now, open it every month with relish. They've definitely picked a lot of their best, and Camille Renshaw's intro says a lot about WHY I don't like other magazines. Here is something worth a read, something that will make you want to get everything the magazine has put out since the beginning. There's even a rationale for professional wrestling, something that wants me to buy a tape of the event with the Undertaker/Mankind Hell in the Cell match, and I NEVER watch that stuff! You should definitely have this on your shelf--impress your friends with how in the know you are.

Michael Largo's Lies Within opens explosively (both literally and figuratively) with the chilling and violent kidnapping of an eight-year old girl in Haiti. Shortly thereafter, her distraught parents - CIA agents James and Lily Curan - exact a daring rescue and subsequently find themselves on a boat rigged with explosives. The massive explosion leaves the kidnapped girl and her twin brother orphaned and in the care of Earl Johnson Tucker - distant relative, alcoholic, and ex-alligator poacher.

The first twenty pages of this novel will have you on the edge of your seat. But the true test of a great thriller is its ability to sustain that chilling and nail-biting suspense. Lies Within meets that challenge head on.

When the novel picks ten years later, Tucker - now a recovering alcoholic - and the twins, Katey and Jamie, find themselves caught up in a conspiracy that is larger and more insidious than they can imagine. The novel introduces us to a cast of corrupt and thoroughly despicable villains who cross and double-cross each other. And when horrifying violence enters his own home, Tucker takes to the Everglades and vows to get even.

With its complicated plot involving the twins and their parents, the CIA, corrupt law enforcement, alligator poaching, a heroin drug cartel, a political uprising, and more, Lies Within takes readers on one hell of a ride. Largo establishes the players and the crimes early on, but to understand what's really going on, you'll be reading right up to the last few pages. A terrifying opening scene, a fast-paced thriller, and lots and lots of alligators - Lies Within will definitely keep you on the edge of your seat.

"Michael Largo's long awaited second novel is here and it has the heart-beat and pulse of his first novel--and much more. It's the kind of intense, action-packed novel that will keep you completely involved till the end. A standing ovation for Michael Largo!" ---Clarence Major

"Michael Largo has wriiten a subtle, controlled thriller in which the horrific phantasmagoria of the South Florida landscape act as a silent witness and protagonist both. Extraordinary terrors unfold before the reader's eyes in a steady crescendo, with fearful simplicity and inevitability. Cause and effect snap shut like an alligator's jaws, catching the reader with powerful, clamping teeth. In Largo's world, the only thing scarier than night, is the daylight." Michael C. Browning, Florida Journal Columnist, MIAMI HERALD