Jacob Asch is about as close to Marlowe as it gets. When I read crime fiction (especially first-person stories about private investigators set in LA!), I'm continually making comparisons with Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe. So far, I've found two worthy successors to Chandler: Crumley and Lyons.

Lyons' execution is nearly flawless. The story never sags, from its opening in which a new client is found dead in Asch's office. The pursuit of the truth about the client, his prostitute girlfriend and junkie crime-partner is wound into a tight, elegant ball of a plot, surrounded by a host of LA police detectives... some cooperative and some downright suspicious of Asch's motives.

I encountered and read this book by accident. I will hunt down the other Asch novels for the simple reason that this book is an entertaining, nearly flawless example of LA PI fiction.

Reporter turned private detective Jacob Asch agrees to meet a man on short notice--anything to take Asch from the ennui of tracking down elderly people for conservatorship actions. The man says he suspects his wife of being unfaithful, and Asch takes the case. After a fruitless day of following the woman, Asch returns to his office to find his client murdered. Asch is further confused when the man turns out not to be who he claimed to be. The police are not confused, though. Asch is promptly jailed.

When the police verify Asch's whereabouts during the day, they finally release Asch, who vows to solve the mystery of the murdered client. When each lead seems to leave to a corpse, Asch finds himself involved in an even larger mystery and a growing cast of suspects. He finds himself growing increasingly suspicious as he falls into the arms of a gorgeous blonde homicide detective. But can he trust her, her alcoholic partner, the self-centered reporter who did the story on police corruption, the widow of a slain cop, the mechanic who dabbles as a pimp, or any of the other people in the story?

"False Pretenses" is a hard-boiled detective story for the '90s, true to the genre's pioneers without being an anachronism. Jacob Asch may not be Sam Spade, but he is not too far removed. The result is a very enjoyable novel.

I read this book for the very first time and I could not put it down. I found myself interested in the mystery about cryonics and Parker's love life. It held my interest because I wanted to know if they would find out that the women was still alive when Gaberial had the doctor cut off her head to be perserved. I was kind of spooked when Parker went home after the white Dodge was following him and he went into his home and noticed somebody has been in there. I was shocked to find out it was the student from the college he taught pathology at. The ending was great and I am glad Ennis got what he deserved and Parker is seeing Leah.

I bought this book several years ago in a second hand book store, I originally bought it just becuase of the title but once I started reading I became quite engrossed, the book is very factual and to the point and not at all like alot of the so called satanic or occult books on the market that glorify perversion and depravity. If anyone wishes to find out about satanism historically as this is quite an old book or just out of general interest I would recommend this as a thoroughly good overview and actually made quite alot of sense as it takes a hedonstic view on the subject. If you enjoy an alternative lifestyle or if you would like something a bit different to read you should read this book. It deffinently gave me a view on life which I had already started on but made me feel much more confident in the process.

This is an absolutely wonderful book about Satanism. The author actually has a sense of humor, such a rare thing when writing an exposition on modern Satanism... Read this book.

This book belongs on the shelf next to LaVey's Satanic Bible, for it puts Satanism in more of a historic and modern context. The chapter on heavy metal was particulary interesting. While the public's "fear" of this type of stuff has abated during the 1990s, this book remains a must-read.

Freemantle offers us a interesting look as if opening a time capsule of information in 1863. Freemantle enters Texas and his journey starts there. Soon he discovers how soldiers and civilians of the south live and handle the hardships of war. Freemantle meets many popular Southern leaders such as Johnston, Davis, Lee, Longstreet during his travels. He is very fortunate to give us interesting views of the people involved in hardships and conflicts in various cities of the south such as Jackson, Vicksburg, Richmond, Winchester and others. His information certainly documents the timeline. I was most interested in reading about his Gettysburg exploits as he has become more famous in modern times most likely due to the movie, "Gettysburg" in which he presented. I was curious to read about his opinion and eye witness accounts which helped support explanations regarding the Battle of Gettysburg. Freemantle doesn't involve himself in many details of battles or conflicts. He likes to write about people and share his opinion of them. After Gettysburg Freemantle travels north to board the ship China which will take him back home to England. In doing this we are offered more interesting commentary as he writes about northern views and how northerners are coping with the draft, slavery and the war. Overall this is a quick book to read although it is vital for any historian looking to understand people and places during the early summer of 1863. I recommend it!

Fremantle's diary offers an interesting and indeed first -hand view of the Confederacy during his brief tenure in the Southern states. The reader quickly realizes that Fremantle has become quite enamoured with the Southern spirit and elan. Once I finished this marvelous account, I did, though, wonder what his diary would have been like if he'd begun his journey in more Northern climes. It is most interesting to see his natural European bias show at times - his usual disdain for the Dutch and Germans of Pennsylvania, and of course, his affinity for the Southern aristocracy of which as a Brit he is well versed.Also of note is the fact that this account was published shortly after his travels - hence, we see no post-war agenda being served like many other after-the-fact memoirs and such. All said, a wonderful look at the times with a true "you are there" approach (don't miss his climbing in the trees to get a good glimpse of the battlefield at Gettysburg!)

Lieut. -Col. Arthur Fremantle has not given us in this work a tired and boring look at strategy and tactics. He has also not told us anything new about the leading men of the Confederacy. What the reader will get is an excellent look at day to day life in the Confederate army and in the southern nation itself.

The lack of tactical detail could result from the fact that Fremantle, although a career military man had never seen combat until Gettysburg. It could also result from his desire to avoid aiding the north by giving away secrets while the war was still in progress. There are, after all, instances in the book where Fremantle makes it clear that he is not writing about all he saw for that very reason. Whatever the reason, I'm happy he left out the tactics for it would have only slowed down a marvelous account of Fremantle's trip through the Confederacy.

It is obvious early on that Fremantle is very taken with the south and some of his stories about happy slaves might reflect a bit of propaganda. Overall however, his stories of individual behavior are more than credible and drive home the point that this war was affecting the lives of real people, not historical figures. The stories of hotel keepers in northern territory that were hesitant to let him have a room until he produced gold coin for payment, the slave of a Confederate officer leading a Yankee prisoner by a rope tied around the poor prisoner's neck, and the several stories of southern women being far more antagonistic toward the north than were the men, all help bring the human side of the civil war to life. Reading Fremantle's account of General Lee's behavior as his broken troops returned to Seminary Ridge after the disaster now called Pickett's charge almost makes the reader feel as if they were there.

Read this book with a small grain of salt, remembering that Fremantle is writing this book in England while the war is still in progress. His anti-Irish bias kept getting under my skin but as with the rest of the book, you must keep in mind who is writing the narrative and when it was written. Overall however, I think the reader will find that Fremantle's observations are both entertaining and enlightening.

i found this one by accident in a used book store, never read anything by arthur lyons before. enjoyed it tremendously! people who like hard boiled detective stories, especially ones set in LA, will probably enjoy this. i'm now looking for other arthur lyons stories but they are almost all out of print.

"The Second Coming" is an interesting and fairly accurate description of Satanism as it was at the time the book was written. The author avoids moral condemnation of the topic, and usually avoids the sensationalization that Satanism is often subjected to.

As one who has had a number of attorneys over a long lifetime, I found the book disappointing. I was looking for "something new" and did not find it.

This book helps you to put attorneys into a solid perspective that can ensure that you not only don't get screwed financially, but also get an attorney that is qualified to do the job you hired him to do. An excellent book. The only reason that I didn't give it a 10 was that I got depressed reading about all the ways attorneys screw their clients. But in spite of that, the book was rather fun to read. It had many interesting anecdotes and illustrative stories.

my experience with lawyers was greatly enhanced by having read this book. OK it may be elementary to those more experienced than I was at the time I read this, but if all I learned was that lawyers work for you and not the other way around, it was worth it. Now the lawyers should read it. MY experiences with lawyers can be summed up by what one told me. "I won't do what you ask because it is an unusual thing to do." With the help of this book, I found a lawyer was willing to try something "unusual" and it turned an adversarial situation into a win-win one. This book made it easier for me to have a good working relationship with a responsive lawyer.

The best quote is on page 67: "Your lawyer's only duty is to advise you of the legal risks involved in a deal; it's your call whether to ake those risks."

I am a fan of noir, but it looks like I was focusing on the A Movie Variety. So I picked up this book to see what the B-side had to offer.

Overall, it was an okay read in that it introduced me to some noir titles I was not familiar with. However, it lacked the depth that I am used to in reading film anthologies. The author chose to drop as many titles as possible in the book without more than a generalized plot summary in the filmography section. I would have preferred a good discussion about a few notable titles. To that point, the placement of the summary of films also perplexed me. I did not even realize there was an epilogue until this morning when I decided I had my fill of the book and flipped through the remaining pages.

These criticisms aside, I am glad I read the book since now I have a starting point to explore this side of noir further. In the end, maybe that was the point of the book?

P.S. It was fascinating to discover that Hugh Beaumont (aka Ward Cleaver) played the hard-boiled type in some B movies.

This book wisely steers clear of the usual suspects (the classic films noir that everyone has written about) and stakes out new territory. I discovered a lot of promising B films to pursue. If you want something different to read about film noir, and something not overblown with pretension, don't miss this book. Excellent.

Ever heard of the films Bad Blonde, The Come-On and The Mysterious Mr. Valentine? No...? Well then get into the car Punchy, we're going for a ride into dark and dank world of film noir. Thanks to Arthur Lyons' book 'Death On The Cheap', obsure film noir is back!