This is a fantastic series by Donald Clayton Porter that describes the life of "Renno" the fictional Seneca Warrior that is also a "white" man. The series begins in the 1670's when Colonial America was beginning to branch out from the American Coastline.
Renno, becomes the adopted son of the great "Ghonka", the main Chief/Warrior of the Iroqouis Confederacy. Renno grows to become a skillful warrior, leader, and emissary between the Colonial Americans and his people. Porter may have simplified and added some "tall tales" to this fictional series, however, it does not distract the reader one bit.
Renno's adventures, dealings with his Indian family and his relations with the Colonial Americans is interesting and I dare say "quite a page-turning". This is the first novel in a large series that tells about Renno's life and the generations after him.

The early books are long out of print, however if you ever have an opportunity to find the books, I can tell you that you will not be dissapointed in the least! This is a series that needs to be re-issued so other fans of historical fiction can enjoy this fine author's tales.

Highly recommended!

Porter's potrayal of Renno,the White Indian has always sparked my imagination. I have enjoyed every book Porter has wrote. Though, Ambushed started slower than the others,it was a great book to read.I thought it was a shame that it was the last one.

This time Jessica takes it to the courtroom. Once again, Jessica takes her wit and proves who did it. A must for the Murder She Wrote fan.

Jessica is going to New York City to promote her book, and she even appears on Larry King Live. She see's someone she reconizes from Maine, and takes a picture with a disposible camera. The rest of the book snowballs from there. This was the second Murder She Wrote book I read, but I thought it was kind of slow, and real dumb at some parts.

Jessica B. Fletcher, the famous character of the mystery writer from Cabot Cove played by Angela Lansbury, needs no introduction. After the TV series came to an end, fans have a new opportunity to further share into the lives of all those beloved characters through this saga of mystery novels.

The first installment, "Manhattans & murder" was published for the Christmas season of 1994. Jessica is in New York for Christmas, doing what most famous authors do when in this city: promoting a new novel through numerous book signings, cocktail parties, TV and radio interviews, etc. The book jumps right in: during her own Christmas shopping spree Jessica happens upon an old acquaintance from Cabot Cove. The man, who goes by the name of Waldo Morse, is working for charity as a Santa Claus on Fifth Avenue . Although Jessica hasn't seen him in years, she remembers that it was rumored back then he'd had to "bolt" from his own wife and children because of some involvement with drug dealers. When her friend recognizes her he tenses up, and asks her to come the next day to talk. But what she witnesses the next day is his murder - or is it? Things are never as they seem and Jessica, who has the curiosity of a cat, is determined to find out what's going on no matter what. For the purpose she disguises her personality, hires a private car, and goes to the most decrepit places in New York (spying from the security of a limousine, of course). Murder is always close to Jessica, who has to deal with an arrogant detective of not too good a fame.

Far from being a particularly interesting plot, it does give a good insight of the dark world of the Federal Witness Protection Program and the NYPD. The setting, however, is wonderfully cozy, making some of us (like me, aspiring writer), do a lot of wishful thinking about the wonderful social life, all the media attention and the stays at wonderful hotels that are a common lifestyle for V.I.P.'s the world over. Even though this is not an extremely good beginning, the book will very much appeal to fans of the show, who will recognize Jessica's friends Dr. Seth Hazlitt and Sheriff Morton Metzger, who are always on hand to accompany Jessica wherever she goes.

Mystery fans and future writers the world over will find in Jessica B. Fletcher a "model", who is always groomed to perfection, intelligent, independent, shrewd and surrounded by the most important people.

For anyone who likes mysteries, this book is for you. It's suspenful yet light-hearted all at the same time. I promise you that this book won't be a dissapointment. You should read it.

This book does an ok job, but I feel that the Cisco Press release of the Advanced Cisco Router Configuration explains things alot clearer. What I found most lacking in this book was the explanation of route summarization and the explanation of stub and totally stub areas. There are several questions on the ACRC exam on these topics. This book doesn't go into enough detail to understand the questions being asked in these areas. I read this book and Cisco Press's ACRC and the Cisco press book makes things alot clearer in the big picture. Anyone can memorize the commands to configure a router. However for this exam understanding why is more important than the how.

Using this book alone as my primary study guide, I passed the ACRC exam with a 920! That is a great grade. It is a very tough test, and hands-on is a must. YOU WILL NOT PASS THE TEST WITHOUT HANDS-ON! Anybody who wants to pass the test without hands-on experience needs to evaluate why they are taking the exams. This a great book, and if you want to pass the test, you gotta have this book. The review questions had almost all the questions I received on the real exam. Load the IPCALC from the CD to test your understanding of subnetting. Also, read the review questions at least 3 times before taking the exam. If you run through the recommended labs at the end of each chapter, you will pass. NO HANDS-ON, NO PASS! So, yes, as the reveiw on this page say's "Buyer Beware", it is true. If you try and pass the test like ccollins@door.net from Texas did, you will fail like he (she?) did. If ccollins@door.net from Texas would have practiced on routers, then he (she) would have passed using this book alone. This book has everything you need. However, this test is a big step up from the CCNA exam. Good luck! Rob.

This is a great book. This book provides current and practical information to support Cisco routing, and also provides a method to pass the Cisco Routing exam. The book assumes an IOS of version 12.1 for most examples, so if you are using an IOS version prior to this you may need to consider version differences. The book is well organized, and I especially liked the detail given in the book about the Cisco router product line - drawings with configurations were presented for all Cisco routers in production. Good job!

Bret Moeller, CCNA, CCDA, MCSE, CCA, MCT, CCT, CNA

I am going to be honest. I passed the CCNA exam on March 2000. So I started studying for the CCDA exam. I will have to say that the exam is hellish. I have Sybex, Syngress and a Cisco Press CCDA study guide. It takes much more than just reading the book. You really have to be around the Cisco products. If you are a test taker and feel that you can pass it on the first try then please be my guest and take it. I am so burned out that I have decided to pursure something else. Just to give you an idea of how hellish the exam is. I took it in October of 2000 and scored a (711), I took it again in December and scored a 670 and I took it again today and scored a 695 (Passing score is 755). Each of these were failing scores but what is so unique about these scores are that they are very close together and the scores did not improve even though I studied harder than the previous tests. I hear so much praise from everybody I just wanted to add my advise so not to skew people's perceptions - yes people do fail the exam.
For the exam, what I felt the study guides needed was to concentrate more on are the scenarios. You need to know how to give the customer the best option available to him based upon what he wants and how his current network is set up. - This was approximately 30-40% of the exam.

I passed my CCDA exam on 10-11-2000 using only the Sybex study guide and with no networking experience other than the Sybex CCNA sudy guide and the CCNA exam I passed.

I scored 100% on 6 of the 10 sections of the 640-441 and passed with a 815. I studied and knew that study guide very well and thought there were several points that the book didn't address but the thourough knowledge of the other subject areas gave me enough points to pass. This was a very difficult exam for me, especially having no hands-on knowledge of networking. This book alone should be more than adequate to pass this exam for anyone with a reasonable knowledge of Networking.

Good luck everyone!

I used Lammle's CCNA book to help prep for the CCNA certification and was not disappointed. Unfortunately this CCDA book did not measure up (as far as the 640-441 exam). Despite my cirticism I will say I would not have passed without it. If you're just buying this book to pass a test, go elsewhere, it only covered 20-30% of the exam material (or at least the test version I had). It did contain a wealth of information that is useful on a daily basis especially if you need a good review of the basic concepts. The Sybex/Lammle format is easy to follow and there was not too much superfluous information to get lost in. A good review of technologies you may not work with on daily basis. Usually it is these items that trip you up on the exams. While I would buy Lammle again I've decided to give Newcomb's CIT book a try for both continuing to build my knowledge and moving up the CCNP ladder.

I also passed the CCDA using this book as a review, but I relied heavily on 8 years of experience in networking. I do not recommend using only this book to study for this test. This book was not nearly as well written as Lammle's "CCNA Exam Notes" (note that Akin, not Lammle, is given top billing on this one). The book has too many typos to count, and in a few cases it misses the mark on technical accuracy. . .which is unacceptable for a book of this type! Overall, however, I have to grudgingly give the book three stars as an acceptable review text.

I have the CCDA Exam certification Guide by Cisco and the CCDA study guide by Sybex's and I like this book the best. Those two other books are good for sample case studies and an in-depth knowledge of design. This book focuses on passing the exam! It uses one sample case study from the CCDA Study Guide. I like the way the book is layed out. Use the other books as a reference and use this book to outline and cram for the exam. Im taking the test in a couple of weeks so I will let you know if this book paid off. SO far it looks pretty good. I only gave it 4 stars because it had some typos and I didnt want to be accused of being a Sybex's salesman. Study Hard...

ObiWan, CCNA, future CCIE

I think the key to passing the CCDA is to take it shortly after the CCNA. Within a month if possible. It's not a difficult test, and this is the primary book I used to prepare. The book is well written and well worth the money. It's a breeze to read and prepares you with the all of the concepts that you will need to pass the test.

My only complaint is that the book does not address the structure of the test very well. The CCDA is unlike any other test I have ever taken, following various fictitious companies throughout the exam. The book prepares you to answer the questions quite well, but it does not prepare you for the structure of the test. But all in all I highly recommend this book. It's very well laid out and easy to read and absorb. If you have any actual experience with Cisco equipment this book will definitely help with test.

Some people writing reviews here would have you believe that purchasing every Cisco Press title on the CCDA exam and DCN is required to pass the test. Well, its not. Just because they like to waste time and money should be of no concern to you, and just because they lack the skills and competency to get it done right is also not your concern. This book is a great reference, and I highly recommend it. I do think using the Cisco Press CCDA Exam Certification book is not a bad idea, but ONLY for the case studies. All I used was this book, and the case studies in the Cisco Press book and it was a pretty easy test.