i totally love this book and the fact that it is being republished... I first read it when I was 15 or so and I still think it's great reading. I didn't plan to read it it was just a lucky shot, I'd seen the movie first and..er... it wasn't very good-read the book instead.

This is a perfect book. The best "street" dialogue I've read (and you don't have to be from the "street" to recognize its authenticity), and probably the best portrayal of "young adults." Yes, it does take place in the multiethnic Bronx (just before it got way more multiethnic) of the early 60s, but almost all Americans who have attended public high schools can easily identify with the types of characters.

And try to find a hardcover copy of the first-edition just to see Richard Price's 1974 author photo. He looks like a Black Sabbath roadie.

I first read The Wanderers in my late teens/early 20's and loved it. I've reread it several times over the years (I actually replaced the original that I lost). I would highly recommend this book to people who enjoy stories about growing up and it's hardships, the early 60's, the music and style of that time and the harsh realities of approaching adulthood in the rough environment of The Bronx.

Patricia Cunninhams book is by far the best resource for language arts. You do not have to read it cover to cover to get what you need. It is so full of useful ideas that you only need to skim through the index to find numerous strategies, activities and ways to make your classroom a better place for readers and writers.

Classrooms That Work is a great reading and writing resource. It tells what strategies have been tried in the reading field. It tells what has worked and what hasn't worked. After you get through that, it gives you tons of strategies to use in your classroom when teaching reading and writing. The best things about these stratgies are that they are easy to implement and they work. You can also modify them to make them more suitable for you. These strategies allow all students to be successful in your classroom. This book is a great one to keep on hand. Although it is aimed for grades K-5, you could easily adapt or modify the strategies to work in your middle school classroom. I have many new strategies to try with my students this September!

This book changed my mind about teaching literacy skills, and the result is Special Day Class students who are reading, who love reading, and who actually TRY to read things. This book is full of great ideas that work: so many ideas that you wish you could use them all! My copy is already dog-eared and filled with sticky notes, highlighting, and notes in the margin. I've told all my teacher friends to get this book! GET THIS BOOK!

Critics repeat ad-nauseam that Price is good with dialogue and Blood Brothers is no exception, propelled sometimes almost exclusively by conversation. It's similar in subject to The Wanderers but the scope is much more focused this time around. And unlike The Wanderers it doesn't boil down to a few vignettes. After finding long-awaited success with Clockers and Freedomland, Price's earlier work is being re-released, getting it the attention it deserves. Blood Brothers is maybe superior to his later work, possessing a frankness that makes it both accessible and intimate.

A very amusing book. It is highly entertaining with great characters and a great plot. An enjoyable read. If you want a serious read, ignore but if you want an entertaing read, go for it. Read it anyway!

This book offers the reader a wide perspective about chemical weapons and how they have been used in the past. As a historic reference, it is invaluable, and as a work that helps the reader imagine what could happen in the future, this is a must. Every person involved or worried about mass destructions weapons, must read and treasure this book.

Richard Price writes a professional treatise on the perception of Chemical Weapons from WWI to current day. It is a profound work, and goes into refreshing details without the slightest redundancy with other works. The Chemical Weapons Taboo can be thought of as an original scholarly work.

He clarifies many current day perceptions on Chemical Weapons by analyzing treaties and political decisions. Rather than rely on perfunctory assumptions of those treaties, he analyzes the committee notes and conduct of those treaties to show the conflict of ideas within their own context. Classically he addresses the taboo's of poisons, weapons of the weak, and other themes, showing the inconsistencies in a norm, and how they faulter in expalining the Chemical Weapons Taboo.

Readers not familiar with the scholarly styles of contemporary writings in philosophy will find this a difficult book to digest. The vocabulary is not scientific/technical, but percise and demanding. Nonetheless, it is insightful on the processes of international law, conduct of states, and the historical era's that have influenced the current day "taboo."

An intensely rewarding study (i.e., six-stars). By showing how the "taboo" was arrived at in Western societies, it is apparent that it is not a universally held notion.

The author concludes that weapons are "political artifacts," not merely the inevitable consiquence of technology. A notion that many in the military-industial complex can concur with.

The book covers FileMaker Pro version 2.0 in intimate detail. Since FileMaker has progressed to version 5, many people will discount this book as irrelevant. It's not. It's written in a very readable style and it's goal was to get as much as you possibly could out of FileMaker back when all there was were flat files. Much of FileMaker hasn't changed since version 2 including the various "modes" of operation, defining fields and calculations, writing scripts, implementing security, and making an easy to use data entry layout. Rich's writing is clear and jargon-free. While the files on the Mac 800K disk may be unusable to you, the content of the book is rich and rewarding as an introduction to the world of FileMaker. This is by no means "all" there is to know, but it's a darn good start before drowning in some of the newer and more advanced features introduced in versions 3, 4, and 5. Hopefully, when Rich's new book comes out that has been updated to version 5, that will completely eliminate the need to hunt this one down, but until that time, it's a nice starting point.

As a long time user of FM, I find myself still referring to this excellent book (now presently worn and post-noted to the nth degree..). The authors have a major focus on real world practicality and interface design, concepts that are quickly forgotten in the world of databases. Although the book refers to version 2.X, many of the ideas still apply to the latest version (5). There are numerous tips and tricks, many that were obviously developed in "real world" environment. The authors patiently remind the reader of the overwhelming and timeless importance of INTERFACE design and how to do it, something that is often forgotten or misunderstood in our database and web world. The book reflects the nature of the product: ease of use and simplicity for both the developer and the user.

I found this to be an excellent book on forecasting financial markets. There is a very readable explanation about how to use forecasts for asset allocation and how some famous Wall Street analysts do their forecasting. I enjoyed this book and found it well written. This book is probably best for intermediate to expert financial people, however.

This book explained in plain English how to model financial markets using common forecasting tools. I was especially interested in the thorough review of how data can be used and misused to create a forecast. This is important because it is directly related to the reliability of a forecast, which was also discussed in depth. There also an easy-to-understand explanation of modern portfolio theory, as well as a review of the approaches of three other Wall Street practioners. Altogether an excellent book.

Reading the title of the book, we know that the defendant is guilty, it is to what degree of guilt the story takes us. Mr. Patterson writes believable, even likable, characters. They are not perfect, but nor are they caricatures. I was particularly intrigued by the courtroom manueverings. While they are believable, they are certainly fiction. The plot line was solid, with no real glowing inconsistancies. I agree that Mr. Patterson's books rise above John Grishams. They are not read as quickly & easily, but the extra work is worth it. I will read more from Mr. Patterson.

As I continue to read Mr. Patterson's books, I am in awe at this man's brilliance and writing skills. "Degree of Guilt" is an awesome book, filled with labrynthine plottings, excellently developed characters, and competent legal derring-do. As in all of Patterson's books, we find characters that are far from perfect, and whose personal secrets and disappointments can be both heartwrenching and disturbing. Unfortunately, I read "Eyes of a Child" which was written after this, so I knew some of what was going on with Mary and Paget and with Teresa and Richie. Patterson's development of the tension between Terri and her worthless husband is chilling; with no resolution truly in this book, one can find out what happens in "Eyes of a Child," but you would do best to read this one first.
Anyway, we know from the beginning that Mary Carelli murdered Mark Ransome, but why and what is all the intriguing things that Mary has done that she won't share with Paget? Patterson brilliantly unfolds a scenario that takes us back into Chris and Mary's past; and how Terri and Chris become the best of friends and more so. It's a great book, I don't want to go into too many plot details, but trust me, this one is a real winner!
HIGHLY HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

The book was enjoyable to read. The story itself was good and it was well written and it fit together. The court room scenes were well written credible, creative and the mystery was a little predictable but nonetheless did not detract from the enjoyment of the story. That's says alot. It shows that Mr. Patterson was a trial attorney. The book is well researched. The characters and dialogue was interesting and mature (which I have been surprised to learn can be hard to come by even with best-selling author novels). I enjoy stories that are well written and avoid being sloppy. I've read a Richard North Patterson's written in 1981 and I've read one published in 1996 and many in between and I highly recommend him to those who enjoy legal mysteries. A couple of excellent twists in this one.

If you have any experience at all reading the whodunit type of mystery story, you will know within the first two chapters who the murderer is in this story. If that's all you care about, you'll be tempted to stop. My advice? DON'T !!!

Eyes of a Child is one of the best mystery novels I have ever read, and I picked it up by accident, thinking it was by another author. Lucky accident! The story is told largely through the eyes of Teresa Peralta, a young hispanic legal assistant in San Francisco, whose husband of six years, Richie, is murdered just before she leaves to go to Venice with her boss and lover, Christopher Paget, a major character carried over from a previous Patterson novel. We know Chris can't possibly be the murderer, because he's the good guy in the previous book, so we're left with only one possible suspect-- so there's no mystery at all about 'whodunit.' In spite of that, the book is a terrific mystery-- not about who, but about how and why.

The 'victim' is a slimeball of major proportions. He's killed in the first few pages. Then, through flashbacks, we're taken through the last few months before his demise. By the time he finally gets what's coming to him, we're ready to go to SanFran and kill him ourselves!

The dramatic insensity picks up when Christopher is arrested and tried for the murder. We know he didn't do it, but his efforts to prove his innocence in the face of many facts that make him look guilty provides the terrific suspense. The outcome is unexpected and exciting.

But I'm missing the main point here: This is no ordinary mystery story, and the plot pales in comparison to some other issues. These are 'real' people. We care about them. We care what happens to them. We want Christopher to 'get off' without revealing to the authorities who the real killer is, because the murderer has done society an immense service and deserves to remain unidentified and free.

Although the adult characters make the plot move, it is a child who is the center of the story-- hence the title. Teresa's daughter is one of the most haunting and sympathetic characters you will ever encounter in literature. What happens to her along the way is far more important in the long run than the more prosaic question of who is 'victim' and who is 'murderer.'

I have only two minor complaints: 1. A couple of the characters easily arrive at insights into their own personalities that no real-life person could similarly achieve, and 2. They are able to articulate these insights more clearly than any similar real person could. In other words, the author puts words in their mouths for them. This damages the illusion of reality in a couple of spots. However, the book's many strengths far outweigh these piddly weaknesses.

A fascinating read. I can't recommend it highly enough.

RNPATTERSON WRITES BOOKS YOU JUST DON'T WANT TO PUT DOWN. THE CHARACTERS ARE WELL DEVELOPED AND I FOUND MYSELF HATING RICKY BUT LOVING THE OTHERS, EXCEPT CHRIS. I COULDN'T FIGURE OUT WHAT HE WAS UP TO BECAUSE HE WAS KEEPING SOMETHING TO HIMSELF AND I DIDN'T KNOW WHICH WAY TO GO WITH HIM. EVEN WHEN HE WAS ON TRIAL FOR KILLING A SOCIOPATH I ALONG WIH HIS LAWYER DIDN'T FEEL HE WAS REALLY NOT GUILTY. PATTESON HAS THE KNACK OF KEEPING YOU INTERESTED IN ALL THE ACTION, DETAILS, AND HOW A GOOD DEFENSE LAWYER HAS TO THINK AHEAD AND WEAVE THE LOOSE ENDS INTO A SOLID LEGAL DEFENSE FOR HER CLIENT. I THINK SHE'S BETTER THAN GRISHAM'S LAWYERS. AT TIMES I LOST PATIENCE WITH TERRI WHO WAS CONFUSED AS TO WHAT SHE SHOULD DO TO PROTECT HER FIVE YEAR OLD DAUGHTER WHO WAS ALSO CONFUSED RE HER PARENTS' LOVE FOR HER. THIS WAS AN EXCELLENT READ THAT KEPT ME GUESSING RIGHT UP TO THE UNEXPECTED ENDING. IF YOU HAVEN'T READ ANY OF PATTERSON' BOOKS, GET STARTED. THIS IS HIS 6th NOVEL SO START BACK BEFORE THIS 1994 BOOK.

This is only my second RN Patterson book, but wow, what a find! I can't wait to go back and get them all.
"Eyes of a Child" is one heck of a story, that grips you right from its chilling opening until it's shattering finale.
The characterizations are richly drawn and extremely credible. Patterson's way with setting up compelling dramatic scenes is amazing. There's one long scene in the book where Terri and her mother Rosa finally discuss why Rosa stayed with the abusive husband. It's forthright, somber, believable and sad, as well. Patterson does this kind of great work in other scenes, too, including the one where Terri comes to find out her daughter, Elena's, horrifying "secret."
Christopher Paget is a noble hero, and I didn't realize he has been featured in other novels, so I was beginning to think he was the murderer. His trip to the Goodwill is one factor; the "journal" is another.
All of the characters are brilliantly conceived: the evil and despicable Richie, whose death seems more than justified; Paget's teen-age son, Carlo, trapped in those waning years between adolescence and adulthood; Rosa, the mother, is compelling and one can't help but sympathize with her; Caroline Masters, Paget's defense, who is a brilliant lawyer and seems to be a true friend as well.
There are no easy answers in this well-crafted novel and our heroes do some foolish things, but it chronicles the tragedy of what happens when a child is placed in a "used" position, and how sometimes even love isn't enough.
EXCELLENT!
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

This if my first Richard Price book, and after finishing it this morning, I can tell you it won't be my last. Smart, urbane, honest, rich are all adjective thrown around to describe writing, but in this case, those words have weight and truth, as does every single page in Samaritan.

"Samaritan" tells the tale of Ray, mysteriously wounded in an attack in his apartment by an assailant he's not willing to identify. Enter old childhood friend Nerese, a soon-to retire detective and old friend of Ray's, who gets roped into but quickly compelled to solve this brutal attack. Price spills out a bevy of complicated, interesting characters that seemingly haave hard lives and could have done the crime. Without Ray's help, it falls on Nerese's shoulders to turn on her detecting skills, which are finely honed if underused. In fact, it is probably Nerese's character that I found most interesting, loving her stamina, goal orientated thinking, and sheer determination.

Price's writing strength is in his brevity of words saying so much. His sentences contain punches that more than once caused me to reread them to get the effect again. Price masters the art of saying much by saying it originally and saying little. It is truly inspirational writing.

My only complaint about the book is in some of the characters "stories" that they tell. This is a novel about stories, everyone has a story to tell, from Ray's return to the projects where he grew up, to Nerese trying to give her son a real life, to Ruby, Ray's wrought teenage daughter. However some of these stories wander on for pages and pages, and at least one of them seemed unimportant to the plot. They became distracting towards the end of the story as you just wanted to wrap it up. Small complaint, but valid.

Don't miss this book. Put it on your "must read" list, meet Price's characters, and remember them for a lifetime.

In this masterful novel, former TV writer, cab driver, and drug addict Ray Mitchell moves home to Dempsey, New Jersey , after leaving a successful writing job in LA. Ray was raised in the projects, and now he wants to give back by teaching at his old high school. He also wants to be closer to his daughter, Ruby, who lives in nearby Manhattan. But before much of any of this can happen, Ray is assaulted in his apartment and in the hospital with a crushed skull. What he is not is giving out details to Nerese Ammons, the detective who's on the case. Richard Price takes the story from both Ray and Nerese's point of view and employs a flexible time line. Level after level of past and present are revealed to add depth, power, and real suspense to a completely engrossing and satisfying read. Price has a remarkable ear for dialogue, and knows places like Hopewell Houses in Dempsey inside and out. He is unsentimental about life in the projects. The characters are etched in such sharp relief that you know you've seen them somewhere.

It is a kind of liberation for readers to be in such capable hands that you know that whatever happens, you will not be disappointed. There are no false steps in "Samaritan," no easy choices, and no plays for sympathy for Ray or anyone else. It's tough, good, and a learning experience about not only about what it means to be a samaritan, but about how a really good novel should be written. Don't miss it.

I'll admit it: I was a sucker for detective stories for years. Bring me a Spenser novel, a cup of black coffee and a Barca-lounger, and I'd be happy as a clam. I'll also admit that, as I grew older, the spate of new mystery novels by Parker and Grafton and others began to seem dry, lacking in vitality. Sure, their protagonist heroes spat their share of wisecracks, but no amount of one-liners could hide the fact that most current mystery novels were devoid of substance and feeling. With Samaritan, Richard Price ups the ante fivefold on the detective story. He breathes life into it by giving the story and its characters a remarkable human touch, by going after our hearts as well as our nerves.

We meet Ray Mitchell upon his return to his birthplace of Dempsy, NJ, so he can start his life over. There, he begins teaching a creative-writing class at his former high school, reconnects with the residents at the Hopewell housing project where he was raised, and attempts to rekindle a relationship with his thirteen-year-old daughter whom he lost in the aftermath of a divorce. Ray is often generous, which is impressive considering he's had a less-than-perfect past, involving the loss of his daughter, a lowly cab-driving job, a perpetual addiction to cocaine, and finally, a letdown after an ever-so-brief stint as a TV-writer comes to an unexpected close.

Just as Ray begins to find his place again in Dempsy, he is found beaten almost to death in his apartment. Enter Nerese Ammons: a cop, a childhood friend of Ray, a former resident of Hopewell, and someone forever indebted to Ray for saving her life when they were just kids. Nerese feels morally obligated to take on Ray's case, but Ray obstinately refuses to identify his attacker and won't press charges. Nerese must now enter the abyss of Ray's past in order to solve the puzzle, while simultaneously working to keep her own life intact in the bleak and unforgiving Dempsy.

On the surface, Samaritan is made out to be a whodunit thriller, and it is, but to call it simply that would be doing the book and its author a great injustice. The strength of this book lies in the way it is written, and this is how Price brings his cast of characters to life. He records every nuance, every movement, every thought the characters possess behind their lines of dialogue, turning story characters into living, breathing people. They speak with mellifluous street-savvy, but don't be fooled. They may be hardened but their words simply glow with realistic emotion, at times expressing unrelenting urgency, at others, heartfelt compassion. Price gives all of his important characters vivid back-stories, important details of their lives and psyches, all of which may seem to some readers as unnecessary belaboring, but nonetheless clue us in to exactly what kind of people we are dealing with at certain points in the story. Simply put, Price makes us care about his characters and their various states because everything about them is real, filled with a kind of depth and humanity that can only be pulled off by an accomplished writer with an eye for the intricacies of human life.

Samaritan, all plot details aside, is about the powerful effect that adults have on children, and the similar effect children have on those adults. One of the many manifestations of this is shown in Ray's attempts to reconnect with his adolescent daughter, Ruby. Ruby has clearly distanced herself from her father following his return to Dempsy. Ray knows he's been guilty of poor fatherhood in the past and tries ceaselessly to mend the rifts, but Ruby is staunchly unyielding to her father's desperate attempts to reenter as an important part of her life. Without Ruby, Ray admits he feels as though he is nothing, hopelessly downtrodden. But Ruby is also powerfully affected by her father, shown by her stony revulsion towards him, the result of a debilitating sucker punch from her tainted past. The pain is felt by both: the child rejected by the adult and the adult rejected by the child, and the pain is felt heavily because the sacred relationship between father and daughter should be one of care, and not of heartache.

Price compels us to sink into the thriller he ravels for us, but in doing so, he never strays from the true meaning of the work. Each piece of the puzzle has a greater significance than its literal role in the mystery would suggest. We want to read on; we want to find out what happens not only for the sake of knowing Ray's attacker but also to learn a greater truth about life and people. It is as if we are a bit wiser by the end of the book, because we don't just know who dun it...we know what it is about the world that makes who dun it tick; the 'why' behind the mystery.

Richard Price thrusts us into a gritty, unfamiliar world with unfamiliar people, and by the end we couldn't feel more contrary. We know the town of Dempsy (love it or hate it we may), and we feel as though we grew up with these faces and their stories. We feel what they feel because we love them like people we intimately know. It's really for this reason that the story (and the mystery itself) has such depth: there are consequences for everyone involved in this web, not just the perpetrator. All of the characters must move their lives through the tumult of everything around them, some of them within inches of crumbling. In short, Richard Price has written a mystery novel where we feel something, where our thoughts and formulations coexist with our feelings and emotions quite harmoniously, and I believe that's precisely what a good reading experience should be.

is the best way to describe this story of Caroline Masters' defense of a young woman accused of murdering her boyfriend. Patterson vets will recognize Masters from Patterson's previous works, and her witty banter and courtroom theatrics remain intact; those elements make this book a worthy read. The story becomes mired, however, in flashback scenes that, except for one, do not add much to (and actually detract from) the tale at hand. Rather than place the story in context, the flashback scenes interrupt it. This, of course, is a familiar vehicle for Patterson (does anyone remember Degree of Guilt and Eyes of a Child), and though some may find it an element of suspense, in this book it reads like filler.

Having read Degree of Guilt, Eyes of a Child and Private Screening, The Final Judgement lives up to a publishers expectation of following a thread to develop another best seller. I liked the book because, as with other North Patterson novels, the author develops several suspects with motive, and keeps you guessing until the last of it. Focus on the evidence will lead the reader to the real killer

I absolutly love the books of Richard North Patterson. You can't put them down. I read Degree of Guilt, Eyes of a Child and I am currently reading The Final judgement. I can't imagine how these books could be improved. You are always given hints as to the ending but he'll still suprise you. If you love a good mystery I highly recommend this book.