This is a reprint of a long-forgotten mystery which would better have been left forgotten. The book's two strong points are its sense of atmosphere and the character of the detective. Its drawbacks are (1) the murder method is extremely dubious--cyanide does NOT kill instantly with the victim making no sound, (2) the chief female character, supposedly a mature woman, acts in such an adolescent manner as to engender a desire to kick her rather than any sympathy and (3) the solution is more or less sprung on the reader.

As the previous review notes, the publisher of the series in which this book appears is on a mission to reprint long-forgotten mysteries. This one should have stayed forgotten.

Specifically, the characters are undeveloped, the method of killing is both unlikely and scientifically dubious, the denoument is sprung with little advance support and the chief female, instead of being sympathetic, acts in such an adolescent fashion as to make one want to smack her.

A Colorado mystery bookstore, The Rue Morgue, has been on a mission to reprint long-forgotten mysteries of the 1930s and 1940s, and their latest is "Death at The Dog," a tale of a murder in a rural British pub. World War II has just started and the first hints of change to their quiet life have started to appear: blackouts, army mobilization, and those older men left behind wondering how they can get into the war before its over. When the hated local squire is found dead in the corner after a night of drinking, an alert doctor discovers he had been injected with nicotine, and Scotland Yard inspector Guy Northeast is called in to investigate. The plotting is intricate and fair in the Golden Age tradition. But "Death" is only 156 pages long, which means there's not an ounce of fat on the story, but also no room for a depth of characterization and viewpoint that powers Sayers and Christie's works. But Cannan slowly builds interest in Northeast, and he becomes a compelling character. After the mystery is solved, it's not so much the story we remember, but the yearning, sad figure of Inspector Northeast. One would like to know what became of him.

This is my first experience with Sandra Brown. Judging from other reviewer's comments, this is not her finest book. Perhaps it's because I just finished Madame Bovary and some other more literary books, but this book was very mediocre. Sure, the plot was fast paced and kept me entertained for a couple of hours. My objection is to the feeling that I'm being manipulated as a reader. For example, many chapters end with the, "Just then, a piercing scream rang out," type of thing that propels you to the next chapter. It's hard for me to believe that this kind of mediocre writing comes from a bestselling author (or should that be considered par for the course from a bestselling author?). The sex scene was SO poorly written that it was painful to read. I felt like I was reading a teenager's English paper under some horrible forced assignment: try to make a sex scene sound sexy. I'm not trying to pick on her, but if you read this outloud to a friend, you'd be laughing so hard you'd never make it through it.

So, decent entertainment I suppose, but not very impressive as fine writing.

Standoff is the story of an ace TV reporter starting out her much needed vacation to a mountain getaway. She hears on the radio that two teenagers, one of whom is kidnapped, are headed towards Mexico. She decides to delay her vacation to get the story. She stops off at a convenience store and while there comes face to face with the two teenagers. One of which goes into labor in the store! The story progresses through the night and into the next day as the hostages and teenagers try to deal with the situation.

I thought this story was entertaining. It was suspenseful enough to keep me reading until the end. The ending was a little sugary but that is to be expected from Sandra Brown. I thought the character development and the plot were excellent in this book. It was impossible to guess what was going to happen next. The characters were believeable and well written.

This isn't a deep, soul searching book but an entertaining way to pass the day!

I have been a fan of Sandra Brown from the beginning of her career and witnessed the change of writing style from complete romance to suspense with a little romance fit in. In this book, the whole story revolves around 1 night in a convience store. Which is very odd for Brown. However, she makes it work somehow. Two teenagers fall in love and run away from the girl's multimillionaire father. You see she is pregnant and her father won't allow her to keep it. Deciding to run away to Mexico, they need cash fast so they decide to rob a convience store. In the store is a star reporter who would do anything for a story, a rancher known as "Doc", a older couple on their honeymoon, a couple of Mexicans who are scary, and a loud mouth clerk. Before the teenagers could take off with their loot, the girl goes into labor and the police and FBI are waiting outside. It's a life and death situation. The rancher "doc" and the reporter help the young couple deliver their baby and calm the couple from doing anything that might harm anyone. The reporter discovers that there are more important things than the big story and the rancher learns a thing or two. Read the story to find out the explosive ending. A good book for the beach.

It's very exciting with me.I have no idea how interesting the children's book.

I have no word to say. But, this is the nice filling-time-book. I read it when I have no work and homework and test. I am sure you will get pleasure when you read it. ^_^

I didn't like this book what so ever,it was boring,stupid,and uninteresting. i hated it. It was'nt worth reading it. Dont waist your time reading it!!

In my opinion, I think that it was a very poor book. I did not think that it got to details clearly, I thought that they jumped around alot. I got the feeling that it was leaving out parts, and nto getting directly to the point. I guess that I am just used to reading love stories, and not adventure stories.I love to read, but when I was reading this, I was not interested, and my mind wondered instead of actually getting into the book. I just thought that it was written poor, and not exactly thought about clearly. That is just my opinion though, I did not like Treasure Island, I thought that it was very uninteresting. That is just my opinion though, no one has to listen to it.

Reviewer an 11 year old boy.
A 4 star book. This is a book about the high seas. The author is Robert Louis Stevstonson. There are a lot of characters including Long John Silver, Black Dog, Billy Bones, Jim Hawkins, Squire Trenly, and Dr. Livesey.Black Dog and Billy Bones get into a fight. They have names for the sails on the boat such as flying jib ,jib, fore sail, fore top sail, main top sail,and mainsail. I think this book was good.

Rimbaud's crackling poetic prose and gorgeous poetry is full of inventive energy in French: in this translator's English, it is flat, stilted, awkward and energyless. If you read French, the book's OK, because you have the original on facing pages. But if you read French, why buy this?

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This story is not an original Enid Blyton. The author is in fact Fiona Cummings who was commissioned to write another series of Noddy Stories under the Enid Blyton trademark. Dame Enid gets full credit on the cover and title page but you have to look on the publisher's details page (ISBN etc) to see that the story is in fact by Fiona Cummings.

The story is written 40 years after the classic 24 title Noddy Series "All Aboard for Toy Land". A good example of the original is "Noddy and Tessie Bear" The fate of the new generation "Mr Plod and the Stolen Bicycle" is very similar to what has happened to Pooh Bear and Tigger in recent years. We have gone from the quaint Edwardian language of the original to the uncomplicated, perhaps, trivialized language of the contemporary versions.

We have lost all of the "Englishness" of the original. Strange vocabulary and sentence structures could be off-putting to children used to a cartoon/comic dominated diet. Old fashioned concepts such as manners, politeness and deference have been expunged.

The illustrations have also been sanitized. Compared to the pictures in the original series they have lost their bright hard edges and have drifted into a more pastelly palette.

Although the original series of Noddy could be heavy going for some of today's young readers, we have seen how JK Rowling has demonstrated that the reading appetites of young readers can include sophisticated content.

Look out for the "Noddy Classic Library" and avoid the "Toy Town Stories", As bedtime stories go, the Classic Noddy will give you a 30-minute passage to dreamland. In contrast the modern versions like "Mr Plod and the Stolen Bicycle" would be lucky to give you 3 minutes of story. What child would be satisfied with that?

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I don't usually like being rude about books, but the 'new' adventure series were complete and utter rubbish. I have been reading all of Enid's books for my new website, and I picked these up by mistake thinking that they were the original books. Ha ha! If you like Enids writing style, don't waste your time with this new series. They were not written by her, and frankly they are not a patch on the originals. The joy in reading genuine Enid Blytons is the naievety, and old-fashioned appeal, these books are too modern and the characters are no where near as rounded as they are in the original books. Final word: DONT WASTE YOUR TIME!.

What is this story about? What reading level? How long? What genre? C-mon, we need answers