Eve Elliot has a bummer of a 40th birthday party. She's separated from her straying husband of 20+ years, she's sick and tired of the dog-eat-dog world of New York City high power advertising, and the spector of middle-age has reared its ugly gray head.

So an invitation to visit her favorite, elderly aunt, in the charming waterfront Maryland community near Chesapeake Bay, sounds like the perfect anecdote to encroaching burn-out and an inevitable divorce.

Aunt Lillian runs a small Real Estate office, faltering in the past year since the death of her beloved husband, Max. Eve's drive over to view the property of curmudgeonly Ray, whose waterfront holdings include a small cove, results in a gruesome discovery. It seems the old man is busy fishing the body of a large white out of the water, obviously someone's beloved pet.

Discovering the yellow nylon rope cinched tightly around the limp body, Eve can only imagine the worst. When the old man's body turns up floating the almost the exact same spot less than 24 hours later, close knit town folk begin to mutter and gossip, comparing this to another questionable drowning, in the identical location, 25 years ago!

While Eve struggles to come to grips with her failed marriage, and takes leave from her high pressure job, she also decides to take up residence in the dead man's cottage. Her sense of ownership, she found the man's body, lead her to ruffle more than a few feathers in the Pines. The hornet's nest she stirs up may come at a high cost: her life.

A number of locals come under suspicion as Eve seeks to unravel mysteries that most would prefer to ignore. The Police Department takes the view that these deaths are accidental, and takes little action, if any, toward solving what Eve is certain are linked murders. The final showdown is graphic, exciting and ultimately satisfying.

Lee's first novel gives a good sense of place, offers several deftly created, and likeable characters, and provides a highly enjoyable, plot-driven tale that you will be hard pressed to put down. Somewhere between a cozy and more sharply etched mystery, Barbara Lee has created a heroine that will have you seeking out her two other volumes in this highly regarded series: Final Closing and Dead Man's Fingers.

I am on my way to receiving my elementary ed. certification, and I have always dreamed of filling my classroom with art. This book has taught me how I can get my kids excited about making AND thinking about art. Herberholz and Hanson give many ideas about how to implement a quality arts program in your classroom: art production, aesthetic perception, art criticism, and art history. This book has really informed and improved my ability to create quality art expriences for my students.

Anne Arundel County, Maryland is not a place where one would expect female real estate agents to take a self defense course for their own personal protection. However, someone has threatened many of the woman and one has been found brutally murdered while showing a prospective client an exclusive home.

Eve Elliott works as an agent in her elderly aunt's real estate office. While starting to develop a thriving business, Eve still has doubts that selling houses is what she wants to do for the rest of her life. Even with a handsome lover, Eve wonders if she should quit and return to the Big Apple where she once was a rising advertising guru. However, a second killing occurs of a colleague in which Eve finds the body. Eve knows that if she decides to stay, she needs to uncover the identity of the killer.

FINAL CLOSING is the second entry in the brilliantly written Eve Elliot series. Like the first novel (DEATH IN STILL WATERS), this book is a marvelous murder mystery due to a scintillating who-done-it populated by an intriguing cast, especially Eve. Barbara Lee is rapidly rising to the top of the sub-genre as readers will want more Eve Elliott novels.

Harriet Klausner

Simply put - the author manages to make the most complex financial matters elegantly simple. No matter the gender or age of the reader - one will find oneself in the case studies and will gain a new perspective on one's financial issues. Truly - this book will help any reader become financially independent.

This book is excellent. Give it two thumbs up. It's great for ages 6-14, or maybe 100! This is a funny and exciting book. And it can show how things can seem bad, but turn out good. And great for the whole family! I'll make this short, because noone likes reading long reviews. That's all!

The following is the text of a letter from award-winning translator Barbara Wright on Lee Fahnestock's translations of the poetry of Francis Ponge.

I knew nothing of how Francis Ponge's poetry had been presented to Anglo-Saxon readers until I was unexpectedly given Lee Fahnestock's translations of his The Nature of Things and Vegetation. My immediate reaction was: Lee Fahnestock must certainly be "Ponge's voice in English". Several rereadings, and a comparison with the French originals, confirmed this opinion.

Ponge was the first modern poet to be moved to imagine the inner nature of objects - "things". Things animal - vegetable - mineral. Snails - moss - pebbles. Ponge's imagination delves into the very being of the objects, he sees how even the most apparently insignificant of them is an integral part of the world we know, he shows us how the nature of inanimate things is intricately linked to all things animate, to all of us human beings. He made it his lifelong task to use his fastidious felling for words and language to make strange and beautiful poetry out of his vision.

To represent this unusual view in another language, it is evident that the translator must have a deep empathy with the original visionary, and it is clear that this empathy was what urged Lee Fahnestock to make these poems wider known. Ponge's poetic intentions may seem very serious - and they are - but he expresses seriousness in a joyous, often insouciant style, full of humor, lighthearted word play, puns, alliteration, allusions, imaginative contrasts. And I feel that this unique combination has be reproduced with love and understanding by Lee Fahnestock. She gives us Ponge's tones, rhythms, humor. She has maneuvered his word play with respect and unostentatious discretion; she knows how to read between the lines. Here, to my mind, is indeed Ponge in English.

A catalogue/book of a 1986 exhibition organised by the Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco with the National Gallery of Art, Washington.

An invaluable resource for anyone interested in the Impressionist period in modern art. The book begins with essays entitled: ' The Impressionists and Edouard Manet'; 'The New Painting:Concerning the Group of Artists Exhibiting at the Durand-Ruel Galleries'; 'The Intransigent Artist or How The Impressionists Got Their Name'; 'The End of Impressionism';

The works are arranged around the catalogues of each of the Impressionist exhibitions in Paris (1974, 1876, 1877, 1879, 1880, 1881, 1882, 1886). Each section includes readable essays on the particular exhibition, and reproductions of and notes on the paintings represented in the San Francisco/ Washington exhibition , as well as reproductions of the catalogs of the original Impressionist exhibitions.

The quality of reproductions is very high, given the limitations of still enabling the book to remain affordable to the generalist reader.

There is a wealth of detail in this comprehensive work. The book would be a valuable addiditon to any secondary school, college or public library collection.

Highly recommended.

Any college-level arts library collection including classes or studies in stained glass will want to include this specialty history, which examines the collaboration between draftsmen and glass painters in southern Germany and Switzerland from 1480 to 1530. While Albrecht Durer is the focus here, others are examined for their contributions to the stained glass field and Painting on Light is packed with drawings and color examples of their works in a unique, appealing presentation.

I found this book to be very useful in curving spending habits. It contains a great many useful web sites. It"s a keeper for anyone interested in saving some money.