This book is perfectly calculated to be read in the street on a hot day, holding the place lightly with a finger as one walks from one superb building to the next. Effortless learning and prose shine on them like a torch. The book has the humility to accept historical Islam on its own terms, uniquely explaining the Arabic texts written on walls already saturated with religious and political meaning. Is there any other guide quite like it and quite as good?

Cairo is one of the great cities in the world, and a walk through its Islamic areas transports you back hundreds, even thousands of years. This guide has been my bible as I've walked and walked and walked on many visits over the years. It illuminates what you see. Almost every block has something of interest, and it is invariably described lucidly in this guidebook.

Enough said -- if you want to walk through Islamic Cairo, you need this book. And if you don't want to walk, the book will make you want to!

Caroline Williams and her predecessors have put together a marvelous guide to most of the Islamic monuments, large and small, in Cairo. The book is divided by sections of the city and Williams suggests several "tours" visitors can give themeselves. I found it a valuable "tour guide" when I was exploring the city and an important reference when cataloging my slides after returning home. With detailed information about the history and finer architectural points of some two hundred monuments, as well as tips for getting around Cairo, this book (or its paperback version, ISBN 977-424-316-2) is a must-have for every Cairo-bound traveller!

I read that Stark thought "The Jugger" was his worst book. I disagree. I think I see where he's coming from, though. This story and book are out of character for Parker. He actually has to explain himself a couple of times and his enemies are outside of his world. So, it's a bit different from the previous books. I think, however, that this is the best plotted since the first book. I really enjoyed the novel and it could easily stand alone outside of the series. I hope "The Seventh" comes back in print soon.

Joe Sheer, a fine old man, retired safecracker (jugger), has been Parker's contact man for years. Parker receives a disquieting letter from Joe and wonders if he is getting a little old for the job. Parker decides to pay him a visit, not to present a gold watch, but perhaps to help Joe along to his eternal rest. The usually overly careful Parker flies to Sagamore, Nebraska to have a hands-on visit with Joe using his clean-as-a whistle alias, Charles Willis.

Picture Smalltown U.S.A. Friendly folks, picket fences, nicely clipped lawns, tree shaded lots, porch swings, and you have Sagamore. Now picture deadly purposeful Parker strolling down the sidewalks. Neither one of them are quite ready for the other. Alas for Parker, there is no heist this time, Joe is already dead, and the local and state police are taking far too much interest in Charles Willis. Parker has to put his superb planning abilities in high gear to settle the natives, and solve the mystery of Joe's alleged buried fortune. Parker's sole interest in this is to get Charles Willis back to Miami unknown and uninvestigated.

This is a fine Parker outing where Parker is the only one in Sagamore with good sense, and with much exasperation has to lead the law to the truth. To get the job done, a few homicides happen, and a left over lady with "the eyes of a pickpocket and the mouth of a whore" helps him out. "The Jugger" is best read after you have read a couple other Parker novels for background. For all other Parker aficionados, this is choice.

Talk about waking from a coma. The Jugger begins confusingly - good confusingly, that is - with Parker in a hotel room in a small town in Nebraska. There's a dead guy in the obituary column, an annoying guy hanging around Parker, a cop outside. Everyone knows more than the reader at this stage, but nobody really knows anything. Turns out after a few chapters that the dead guy is the titular Jugger - a locks man who knew too much about Parker. The annoying guy and the cop think the dead guy knew something else - like where his life's earnings are hidden. Parker needs to make sure no one else knows what the dead guy really knew.
The story unfolds piece by piece, and Parker responds in the only way imaginable for one of fiction's most amoral characters.
Tough, very tight.

Richard H. Curtiss has presented a thoroughly documented text that attempts to present the underlying influence of pro-Israel lobbying groups on our legislature . This is a must read for American citizens interested in understanding how the interests of a foreign entity can sometimes compromise the values of the American Constitution.(p)

Curtiss understands the sensitivity of this subject matter and seeks not to blame, but only to inform common people such as myself on the extent of pro-Israel lobbying in mainstream USA. This book sheds the light on how effective grass roots lobbying and finacial contributions can motivate legislators to formulate foreign policy in a region where our nation has important commercial and diplomatic investments. The results can many times run counter to the interests of the American taxpayers.

Richard H. Curtiss has presented a thoroughly documented text that attempts to present the underlying influence of pro-Israel lobbying groups on our legislature . This is a must read for American citizens interested in understanding how the interests of a foreign entity can sometimes compromise the values of the American Constitution.

Curtiss understands the sensitivity of this subject matter and seeks not to blame, but only to inform common people such as myself on the extent of pro-Israel lobbying in mainstream USA. This book sheds the light on how effective grass roots lobbying and finacial contributions can motivate legislators to formulate foreign policy in a region where our nation has important commercial and diplomatic investments. The results can many times run counter to the interests of the American taxpayers.

Brazil is known as this sensual, sexual, exotic place and yet there has been little scholarly attention to that topic. Parker's book is an important intervention in that regard. It is a survey of Brazilians' views on sexuality. Parker interviews Brazilian men and women of all sexual orientations. It shows how Brazil's sexual mores may differ from those of the United States. (For example, a Brazilian man would fear being called a cuckold more than he would fear being called gay.) I used this book to write a paper and found it a really reliable source. This book is a must-have for all those interested in Latin American or Portuguese diaspora issues.

Point Blank is a very compeling story which I must recommend to all of my fellow readers such as yourselves. I dont want to spoil the book for you, all I want to say is that it is an excellent book and a true page turner (it was for me!).

Richard H. Curtiss has presented a thoroughly documented text that attempts to present the underlying influence of pro-Israel lobbying groups on our legislature . This is a must read for American citizens interested in understanding how the interests of a foreign entity can sometimes compromise the values of the American Constitution.(p)

Curtiss understands the sensitivity of this subject matter and seeks not to blame, but only to inform common people such as myself on the extent of pro-Israel lobbying in mainstream USA. This book sheds the light on how effective grass roots lobbying and finacial contributions can motivate legislators to formulate foreign policy in a region where our nation has important commercial and diplomatic investments. The results can many times run counter to the interests of the American taxpayers.

I saw this book on "Between the Lions" and I loved it, so I bought it. I figured my daughter (then about 18 months) wouldn't have any interest, but I'd keep it until she got older. Boy, was I wrong. She loves it. She loves looking at it by herself and she loves us to read it to her. I'm not a major jazz fan, but the book is impossible to read without feeling the rhythm. The illustrations are fun and the cat looks just like ours!

Picked this book up at the Library after it was featured on PBS's Between The Lions. My son never put the book down, so we bought it. The book is fun, easy to read for children, and the pictures are great. Both my boys have it memorized and read it often.

No doubt about it. A classic that has my three year old now in love with be bop. Beautiful, whimsical paintings and delicious text! A great alternative to usual kid book drivel and TV engineered pap like authur, bernstien bears and disney stuff. Looking for children's literature. You found it.

Most people who have just had their face reconstructed would be inclined to go through a period of mourning as they lament the loss of their familiar appearance. Not so with Parker. Apart from a quick glance in the mirror to make sure he looked different, he is completely unaffected.

This reaction probably best sums up this mysterious and dark character. He always prefers to take the most prudent action rather than be ruled by his emotions, giving him a cold, calculating persona. But these same qualities also make him very efficient and strangely likable.

After receiving his new appearance, Parker goes straight back to work in planning an armoured truck heist. He has some misgivings about the job because it involves someone he has never worked with before, but this is just another contingency for him to plan around. Indeed, it appears that Parker has been built with no reverse gear installed. Once a course of action has been planned, it's full steam ahead and as obstacles rise up, as they inevitably do in this caper, he deals with them head on, scarcely breaking stride.

This is the second Parker book, following his appearance in The Hunter and is a thoroughly enjoyable story. The no-nonsense attitude of Parker, whether it's going ahead with a plan or casually shooting someone in the ankle makes for very entertaining, if a little cold-blooded, reading.

You don't need to read the predcessor of this book to enjoy it, but you might as well. This is book is great from start to finish. It is thoroughly enjoyable.

Donald Westlake writes of Dortmunder, a bumbling petty criminal it's really hard to like. Then as Richard Stark he gives us Parker, a much more competent crook who will kill when he has to, and surprisingly or not, a much more likeable character.

It was written in 1963 when the mob was "The Outfit", Exxon was still Esso and you took the ferry to Brooklyn, not the Verrazano Narrows Bridge. Parker gets a new face from Dr. Adler, a plastic surgeon in Nebraska who was a pre 50s Commie, then goes back to New Jersey for an armored car heist. Skim and Elma, Skim's overbearing waitress girlfriend, set up the heist, develop an unworkable plan that Parker fixes and set up a doublecross that Parker anticipates. All would be fine except Dr. Adler has been killed, and a guy named Stubbs is sent to find the killer.

The interaction between Parker and Stubbs and their search for a swindler named Wallenbaugh, now Wells, take up the rest of the story. Parker's reasons for getting to Wells and going back to Nebraska to square things come from logic only his mind could concoct, but it makes for a fun adventure.

Look forward to reading all of Starks novels after reading this one The impressions and swift moving plots put you write there in the action Thank god for writers like Stark

It goes without saying that a Richard Stark "Parker" story is read at one sitting. Fortunately for the reader (or the sittee, if you will), the books are rarely longer than 300 pages. It's manageable. The writing is as spare and smooth as fine leather holster and concise as a Hemingway vignette.

Parker gets nailed in a pharmaceutical robbery gone south. He is detained by the law in a fortress like detention center situated in the flatlands. This is desperate times for Parker who has escaped from a prison in the distant past and killed a guard in the process. He must escape and does in most ingenious manner. He is coerced (against his better judgment) into a jewelry heist that involves tunneling into an impregnable armory. It is all in the finely engineered details that enchant us. How they get in. More important, how they get out. It isn't Parker's lucky day. He has to get another confederate out of jail. Surprising to me, Parker and crew take some hostages. (I'm surprised because I think of Parker as a "take no prisoners" type.) By this time, Parker has been trapped so many times through no fault of his own, all he wants is to get back to Jersey in one piece. Will he make it? Of course he will.

People always wonder why they have this fondness for Parker, a cold-blooded outlaw with no remorse and no friends, only "associates." For me it's easy. I feel safe with Parker. Wherever he goes, he has to take me, the reader, and he will think for both of us. "Breakout" is fine vintage Parker and even goes a tad beyond his usual high standards.
-sweetmolly-Amazon Reviewer

The latest Parker book by Richard Stark (Donald Westlake) is a series of breakouts and breakins. A bumbled robbery lands Parker in custody, but not for long. Parker assembles a small crew of fellow inmates to break out of a holding facility while awaiting arraignment. They successfully breakout, but then the real trouble begins when an attempted breakin of an former armory housing a wholesale jewelry operation goes astray and they are trapped once again in a "prison" of their own making.

Parker is his usual tough and quiet self, not hesitant to kill, but still someone the reader roots for to pull off another heist, and make he getaway. Stark's writing is very straight forward, with minimal words wasted on secondary characters who are used to drive the plot.

it's surprising that i've never heard of parker before june of 2000. but blue hour kept me awake for a couple of days while i finished reading. so many novels these days deal with the same subjects--law-room dramas, murder mysteries, techno-thrillers, super viruses, and the impending destruction of the human race. blue hour stands out a bit because of parker's characterization. little details about merci rayborn and tim hess kept me interested in what would happen to them. at first glance the may-december romance between these two characters seemed a bit contrived--how many times do we read (or see in movies/television) that a much older man catches the heart of a young woman so easily? but by the end of the book, hess had charmed me enough that i believed. merci rayborn's tough-girl act also had me rolling my eyes at times--not because it seemed false, but because it was so real. to use a worn phrase: i felt i knew her.

Detective Merci Rayborn is smart, talented, ambitious, and also very rough around the edges. By Sheriff Department standards she's pretty unpopular, and does not work or play well with others. Retired detective, Tim Hess, has seen it all and then some during his forty plus years on the job. Three times divorced and fighting lung cancer, he's back on the payroll as a full-time consultant. He needs the benefits. This unlikely, mismatched team is hand picked to catch the "Purse Snatcher", a serial killer who abducts attractive women from Orange County malls, leaving behind only their purses and lots of blood in remote locations. With no bodies or other forensic evidence, and very little else to go on, Hess and Rayborn dig deep, working every conceivable angle to draw this killer out in the open, and hopefully push him to make a mistake..... T Jefferson Parker has written a masterpiece of suspense that grabs you from page one and never lets go. The writing is crisp, vivid, and intelligent, and the dialogue rings true. His intricate and compelling plot cleverly twists and turns, keeping the reader off-balance and guessing, and is filled with intense, riveting scenes. Mr Parker's indepth knowledge of Southern California, law enforcement, and police procedures adds real credibility to the story. But it's his brilliant characterizations that make this thriller stand out and sparkle. These are well defined, real people, sometimes heroic and well-meaning, often flawed and chasing their own internal demons, and Parker breathes life into even the most minor of characters. The Blue Hour is the first book of a superb series that just gets better with each installment, and those who have not yet met Merci Rayborn should begin here, at the beginning, and read them all.

T. Jefferson Parker's The Blue Hour captures two unusual police detectives at work on a series of murders. Tim Hess is an old school cop, recovering from cancer surgery, aware his days are numbered. Mercy Rayborn is today's policewoman. She is young, energetic, ambitious, and, some say, ruthless. Her career is mapped out clearly ahead of her, date by date for future promotion after future promotion are already inscribed firmly on her heart. The developing relationship between Hess and Rayborn is perhaps the facet of this thriller I most enjoyed. Mr. Parker spins his usual complicated plot, and my native Orange County is captured perfectly. Excellent book, and I plan to read his follow up, Red Light, soon.