4 1/2 stars.

As the several reviews above have noted, this is the biography of Alexander Orlov, the pre-WWII Soviet foreign intelligence general whose flight from the reaches of the NKVD was broadly and mistakenly believed by the Americans (and most Soviets) to be a genuine defection. Costello and Tsarev, through reference to genuine KGB archives, convincingly show that belief to be completely incorrect, as Orlov deceived the West for many years.

This book, as it states on the cover, was the first history of espionage by a Western author actually based upon KGB files. Discussions from an earlier document request to the KGB by Costello led to a surprising agreement for him to co-author this book with his KGB press office contact, Oleg Tsarev, shortly before the failed coup attempt and fall of the Soviet Union. Tsarev was given wide latitude in utilizing and disseminating information from the KGB files on Orlov and his various colleagues and agents. Furthermore, Costello takes academic-level care to document accurately all sources for all facts and assertions in this book, a welcome contrast with the cursory, sometimes conclusory books by other British so-called "historians" of espionage such as West, Knightly and Pincher.

The primary discovery made by the authors was that while Orlov did indeed flee to the U.S. with his family, he never genuinely defected. In 1938 during the height of the purges within the Soviet military and intelligence services, Orlov received cryptic instructions to rendezvous with another NKVD officer on a ship. He failed to keep that meeting, knowing it to be a trap to return him to Moscow for execution and fled to North America. Upon arrival in Canada, Orlov wrote to Stalin and NKVD chief Yehzov and set forth a simple blackmail to insure that he did not suffer the fate of Ignace Reiss, an NKVD deserter caught by his former service's assasination squads. Orlov listed the various operations he had planned or worked on, including political assasinations and kidnapping, the theft of the Spanish gold reserves to Moscow and the development of spy networks throughout Europe (along with a list of sixty Soviet agents) with the implied promise that this information would be released to Western intelligence services if he were assasinated or kidnapped. Both the Soviets and Orlov kept to their bargains.

Orlov was able to stay hidden in the U.S. for fourteen years before immigration problems and his release of a book condemning Stalin brought Orlov to the attention of the FBI and CIA in the early 1950's. Although interrogated extensively by American intelligence, he substantially downplayed his seniority, participation and knowledge of NKVD activities and never disclosed the names of dozens of Soviet agents who had infiltrated into Western governments, keeping loyal to communism to the end. The authors state that the CIA had substantial doubts about the true extent of knowledge that Orlov was disclosing, but somehow were never able to bring enough pressure upon him to divulge that information.

The major disappointment of this book (through no fault of the authors) is that aside from the revelation that Orlov deceived the U.S. for so many years, that there are no other major revelations. The authors do reveal many significant previously unknown details from KGB files concerning Orlov's involvement in the founding of the Cambridge spy ring (including the fact that Philby was the "first man' of the ring), the founding of the Rote Kapelle and his involvement in the Spanish Civil War as the NKVD resident and senior Soviet officer in the country. However, the Russian Intelligence Service refused to disclose any facts regarding agent names or missions that were never discovered by Western intelligence services, leaving readers impatient to know the identities of those sixty agents whose names were redacted from copies made from KGB files, particularly the completely undiscovered KGB Oxford spy ring. Hopefully, in not too many further years, the need to protect the individuals involved and operational strategies will no longer exist and the RIS will open up all of the KGB files.

Deadly Illusions is a very interesting history of Orlov and soviet foreign intelligence operations, but readers expecting it to read like a Forsyth spy novel will be disappointed; it is not a difficult read, but not at all a quick one. The faults of this book are minor: Costello has a sometimes annoying habit of diverting the reader on tangents that, while not uninteresting, are not logically and relevantly tied to the preceding text. I also felt that the authors downplayed Orlov's role in political terrorism too much; aside from a somewhat limited description of Orlov's involvement in the NKVD assasination of Andres Nin, the leader of the anti-Soviet Spanish Republican faction POUM, the authors failed to emphasize Orlov's real role in establishing Soviet dominance of the Republicans during the Spanish Civil War, via terrorism. Finally, I found Costello's admission of error with regard the main theory of his previous book Mask of Treachery (in which he claimed that Anthony Blunt was the "first man" of the Cambridge ring - see my Amazon.com review of Mask of Treachery) to be rather sparse and barely adequate.

Overall, this is an extremely significant book that should be part of any espionage historian's library.

I dont know much about John Costello but two of his books, Mask of Treachery and Deadly Illusions, are absolute gems. As well as being exciting to read, they are valuable resources on the underside of the cold war, the real business of espionage. The most exciting thing is how he takes us back through the mists of time to the beginning of the century to reveal how the Soviet espionage effort developed practically simultaneously witherh Russina Revolution. It has been fashionable for years to lampoon the communist witchhunts and McCarthyism of the early cold war but there was a massive sophisticated and implacably determined Soviet penetration effort throughout the world and it much it began long before WWII. The Cheka, the Comintern, the NKVD, the Rote Kapelle, the Spanish Civil War(which seems to have been the most affecting event, more than WWII, for a whole generation on both sides of the Atlantic), the Cambridge Spys, the forth man, the fifth man, the Rosenbergs, the mole-hunts that debilitated Western counter-intelligence services, it was a seamless continuum, real but hidden, that the world was and is still largely ignorant. Costello's bravura scholarship plus his relationship with former Soviet intelligence players make a valuable resource for all who would know how things really did occur in the defining political struggle of this century.

Very insightful book, from a Godly theologian. Cheat sheet: the book highly recommends repetitive reading and reading completely and non stop through any given book, and then repeat to gain insight and understanding.

Even so......this is an excellent book and i hightly recommend it.

This book is a must read, and should be in every serious Bible student's library!

Simple and engaging, yet very informative. I recommend this book to any Christian counselor who feels the Bible alone is not fully equipped for counseling. MacArthur makes a very strong argument for its adequacy and confronts all doubters head on. A great introductory resource for new pastors and counselors.

Introduction to Biblical Counseling authors MacArthur and Mack develop an easy to read and understandable text that conveys to the reader the importance of nouthetic (biblical) counseling. I strongly recommed it as a must for any minister's library or anyone in the counseling field. It controdicts all main-stream psychological theories, while revealing the power and truth that the Bible holds. From cover to cover, I found myself fully embracing the simplistic yet accurate method of nouthetic counseling the writers desired to convey.

I read The New Money Masters after the Market Wizards and the New Market Wizards. When I saw "winning investment strategies of: Soros, Lynch, Rogers, etc etc on the front cover, I immediately bought it. Like any trader who jumps into the market without a plan or thorough study, I lost this trade. Train tried to portrait what's in the masters brains but he failed. Even worse, his writing skill had been quite bad to convince me to complete the whole book. Well, how am I supposed to expect something from a 379 page book that carries 147 pages of appendix?

If you want to read a concise book about the investment styles and philosophies of recent great investors this book might be the one for you. Any student considering asset management as a career should read this one as well as The Money Masters, its predecessor.

I would encourage everyone to understand the difference from this book and its predecessor. This book is primarily focused on investors that became household names in the 1980s such as: Jim Rogers, Michael Steinhardt, Philip Caret, George Soros, George Michaelis, John Neff, Ralph Wanger, and Peter Lynch.
The prior book, The Money Masters, deals with Golden Age investors who, for the most part, attained their reputations prior to the crash of 1973 and 1974.

Both of Train's books are in the form of interviews he has with them. Train's writing is crisp and entertaining, and his interviews uncover many pearls of wisdom applicable to any investor's philosophy.

The biggest brand name interviewed here, for most, is Peter Lynch who ran Fidelity's flagship Magellan fund. Lynch pioneered a consumer approach to the investing process and invested using a hybrid of the growth and value style that has come to be known within the industry as GARP, standing for Growth At A Reasonable Price. Both Soros and Rogers have fairly interesting ideas about the nature of investing and the sentiment behind it. Both of them worked at Soros' Quantum Fund, which was the largest and most successful hedge fund for decades and left both of them extremely rich.

If anyone is interested in books on the people behind the financial industry read Money Masters, New Money Masters, Predators Ball, Money Culture, Den of Theives and F.I.A.S.C.O. 25 Investment Classics and Goldman Sachs: the Culture of Success are other notable books. I gave the book 4 stars because, while it was very concise and well written I didn't find any information within the book that was of great help to me. It was entertaining and informative but not ground breaking or made me say "AH HAH" or have that light bulb go off in my head.

sorry if you expected a how-to in 25 words or less; the guys highlighted within could think- arriving at creative solutions, work obsessively or at least- with discipline [ check out Rogers' work sheet in the appendix..], and were rock solid in their convictions .....

good to see efforts like these highlighted in the newest go-go era, in which for a lucky few- monster payoffs, quickly, were more common than lottery winnings. [ I know more than a couple who've gone from 15 to 500 in a virtual heartbeat, sometimes with no more conviction than : 'Sure, why not!! ' That's not how these people scored. Nor how most of us ever will.]

Regarding, Train- I'd be inclined to buy a book of his blindly; can't imagine him disappointing.

I first saw John Paul Caponigro's images 3 years ago and thought he was an exceptional artist. His book describes some of the Photoshop techniques he uses to create his art, a melding of traditional photography with digital techniques. I especially enjoyed the chapters on creating atmospheric perspective, compositing images, creating shadows and generating symmetry. He also offers a different perspective on how to use many of the Photoshop tools.

This is not a book for a beginner wanting to learn Photoshop ('Classroom in a Book' is my suggestion), nor perhaps for an intermediate (I recommend 'Photoshop Artistry') but for someone who is familiar with the program and who wants to learn the techniques of a highly skilled artist 'Master Class' is a good choice. Some may find his musings on his artistic choices too Zen-like but if you like his art you'll probably love the book. I certainly did.

is what this book is. For me personally I found it very inspiring and John Paul actually opens up a new realm of thinking when creating digital imagery. Each chapter is well thought out and easy to follow, although I don't think it's a book for beginners to learn from. That's not to say it couldn't be inspiring, but one must have a very good understanding of Photoshop to take his techniques and implement them. His approach to creating images is truly unique and particular chapters ending with a couple of techniques to create what has been talked about. i.e Color to Grayscale, Multitone image creations etc.

Before I read this book, I didn't know a thing about Photoshop. John Paul Caponigro's unprecedented images, his engaging prose commentary on his own work, and his lucid descriptions of basic and advanced techniques alike made this book a pleasure to read and gaze upon. There is something here for everyone interested in Photoshop; and until his monograph is released in a year, this book offers the first chance to peruse a wide selection of his images in book form. A treat for my eyes and my curiosity.

This book begins with history of te and a couple of masters. Of course in Funakoshi style there is no in depth details nor any dates. Ten no Kata is revisited, which is no longer practiced with frequency today. Funakoshi's books were the text book of karate in the early 1940's. Good for their time, but still a good addition to your library.

All of us who study karate are lucky that Funakoshi wrote all he did. Except for a very few others, Funakoshi is the only early written information about karate and the earliest material that was translated into English.

Unfortunately for myself and many others who study karate history, Funakoshi never goes into much detail about much of anything. He almost never gives a date and he rarely, if ever says where he learned any of his kata or other practices.

The material on his teachers (Itosu and Azato primarily) is in summary form, never mentioning more than anecdotes. There are no dates, mentions of other students they had, what they taught etc...

Over all, this kind of book is about real karate, certainly enough to get a young mind going in the right direction about karate. It is well written, we can probably thank the translator for that. It contains some interesting material that is fun to read. Beyond that, it lacks detail to keep you interested for long.

Most of Funakoshi's books are like this for history. For the real meat of Funakoshi's karate (rather than this introduction), take a look at "Karate-do Kyohan", which contains much more technical information.

There are certain books in which EVERY true martial artists should have in their library. A few of those books are "The Tao of Jeet Kune Do", "Karate-Do KyoHan", "Zen in the Martial Arts", "The Book of Five Rings", "The Art of War", and last but not least, "Karate-Do NyuMon". Gichin Funakoshi has a view of Karate-Do that most practitioners do not see. He wants it more of a way of life...a whole excesize of mind, body, and spirit. In this book, he expands on this belief and even includes the almost forgotten (but SO important) Ten-No-Kata. It is short and worth the study. VERY IMPORTANT! This book contains a lot of "Do" as well as technique. Funakoshi is the "man" in my book, along with Lee, Inosanto, Ueshiba, Rhee, and Hatsumi. I HIGHLY recommend this book.

John Feinstein first tackled the PGA tour with his excellent book A Good Walk Spoiled. In that book he extensively looked at the lower end of the tour, Q School, in which golfers competed to gain a Tour Card that would allow them to opportunity to play on the PGA Tour. In his latest, The Majors, he dives into the other end of the spectrum as he dissects the four tournaments that make up the Grand Slam and the elite golfers chasing the immortality of being a Majors champion. As usual, Mr. Feinstein's research is impeccable and we get some in depth information about the history of each of the tournaments, especially that of the Masters. While Tiger woods, David Duval, Phil Mickelson and other stars are profiled, the real star of the book is Mark O'Meara who won two majors in '98 after previously winning none. As he notes several times in the book, a golfer is never considered to be a truly great golfer unless he has a Majors victory on his resume. Mr. O'Meara had long been considered the best of the B's (golfers without a major) and the insight we get into his quest of a Major is superb journalism. The one negative of the book is that too often we get into the personal lives and relationships of the golfers and those sections start to read like a copy of Tiger Beat. That aside, this book is a good read and has the right balance that will appeal to both the hardcore and casual golf fan.

Mr. Feinstein would probably agree that many golfers describe golf as the game of life and say that you get to know everything you need to know about a person by watching a person on the golf course. I feel like I have shared the thoughts of those written about in THE MAJORS. Having watched when O'Meara won the British Open and watching Tiger Woods here, make it clear how important one stroke, or being off by just the slightest angle is. Golf really is a book about life, and we are getting a glimpse at those who excel in THE MAJORS. To excel in what we do every day, I also suggest reading THE 2,000 PERCENT SOLUTION, by Mitchell, Coles and Metz. You will find an occasional tradition story of etiquette on the golf course, and, of course, Tiger Woods "mastering The Masters" in the chapter about identifying your ideal best practice for you key activities. Mr. Feinstein is to be congratulated for doing such a thorough job and for making it so easy to dream with THE MAJORS.

I couldn't put this book down. Feinstein weaves a great story together about the 1997 Majors season. This was Tiger's first US Open defense, and a great year for O'Meara. John Daly was falling apart, and Fred Couples was having his challenges.

I'm guessing that through interviews with the players, as well as their friends and family, Feinstein gets a great deal of background material. The story that he's put together takes the reader through the four Majors in order, and makes each place come to life. I learned a great deal about what it's really like to play at Augusta National. For that matter, I learned a great deal about what it's like to spectate at the Masters.

Admittedly, I have a love for the game of golf. I have played it for over twenty years; since about 7th grade. I play well, I love being on the course and I love watching the majors.

So, buyer/reader beware. I ought to have loved this book. That being said, it's got plenty to offer if you're a golf widow or just like a good read about professional athletes.

One at the front: The really own words of the master are excellent. One must make sure that only 43 sides of the only 7 x 5 inch small book are interviews with Bruce Lee. The rest consists of interviews with the former interviewers. However, as a paperback this book costs not really a fortune. But the words of the master are absolutely worth-while, as already mentioned at the beginning.

I wouldn't wbuy this unless you're'a die hard bruce less fan. buy the warrior within by john little. it covers far more of bruce's philiosophies then this book.

This book gave me a further insight into the kind of person Bruce Lee was. This is due to my reading a couple of others about him. The impression that was most re-inforced was that he was a positive minded person. The other thing I picked up here was that he was the kind of person who always evaluated himself on a regular basis to see how he could improve etc.
The bad thing about thing about this book is the interviews with the interviewers; these are nothing more than opinions about Bruce by men who, in my book, didn't know Bruce long enough to warrant their opinions to be worth printing in a book. I think these were included to give volume to the book. Because I was only interested in Bruce's own words, I learned nothing from these bits. (It is because of these wasteful bits I only given 3 stars)

Overall, this book was helpful. I discovered about a dozen distance learning MBA programs that I wasn't aware of. However, I was disappointed with a couple of inaccuracies in the book. It listed several MBA programs as being accredited by the AACSB when in fact they weren't. Also, at the back of the book they give a url that you can check for mistakes and outdated information published in the book. The link provided is not active.

With that said, I would still recommend this book. It was helpful in pointing me to several MBA programs I didn't know about before.

My review is based on last year's guide. Bear's Guide to the Best MBA Programs by DL was my guidepost during my selection process. The first five chapters are the best, especially the sections on vital factors in selecting a program and the section on accreditation. This information made me a much better consumer. I probably annoyed more than one admissions counselor with my questions! The detailed information on each school is only fair -- make sure you go to the schools web site instead. John Bear really cares about this topic and often posts to DL forums, so in my opinion you can trust him. He even responded to a personal email with some good advice. After exhaustive analysis, and marking up Bear's Guide from cover to cover, I choose a particular European MBA DL program. One year later, I changed to a MBA program in the US but not due to bad advice from Bear. Read the section on accreditation and choose carefully.

This book very clearly spells out the options of earning a business degree via distance learning. Accreditation (typically one of the most confusing issues facing students) is thoroughly explained, and there are no unaccredited schools listed.

My only criticism is that some schools I think are good options (such as Baker College) are left out. However, the title is "Best MBA's", so obviously some have to be left out. If you're in the market for a non-traditional business degree, buy this book.

This book, although a very good idea, and well researched, was so poorly written I could have shredded it in frustration. In the hands of a more skilled author, this book would have been great. As it is, it's dreadful.

If he had not been a famous British newsreader, I doubt if John Suchet would have managed to get this book published. Again, its a classic example of 'it's not what you know, but who you know'.

Finally an accurate and plausible novel on Beethoven. I can't wait for the next volumes. The musicological approach is captivating.

I was overjoyed to find a book such as the one written by John Suchet. I commend the author for writing a book about Beethoven in a way that I don't think was accomplished before. I hope that John Suchet may provide future "historical novels" about other famous composers. I am a pianist myself, and I love reading about the lives of the great composers. I recommend this book for anyone who wants to learn about Ludwig van Beethoven from the point of view of a story.