I love this book! I don't even have the right words to fully explain how wonderful this story is. I found myself laughing out loud and needing to read parts to my family. Just like a real family, there were sad parts too, and parts that made me examine my own life events and choices. The ending was masterfully done. It brought everything full circle around. As I read the last two lines, I gasped and my eyes filled up with tears....not because of some shocking end, but at how beautifully the author said it. I don't recall that ever happening to me before while reading. The book was SO well written.

This book is so true to life. It highlights the humor in the
everyday personalities and events of family life to the point you will be in tears with laughter. One of the best books I've ever read.

WOW...this was a great book. It was an easy read and simply delightful with the humorous situations that (working with children/families each day) I can only attest to being true to life.
It also captured the sad secrets of families and how difficult childhoods can make us who we are. I simply loved this book and am recommending it to everyone...great for a travel book, it offers enough to keep your attention while still being enjoyable and refeshing. Don't miss it! I would love to see it in a movie!!!

OUTSTANDING ILLASTRATIONS AND DESCRIPTIVE CONTENT

An excellent introductory book on the skills, techniques, and dangers of rock climbing. All the fundamentals are covered.

I own nearly all the newer rock climbing books. This one, by the Managing Editor of Climbing Magazine and veteran climber/writer Duane Raleigh, has to be one of the best. It has been recommended by Kurt Smith, Lynn Hill and Bobbi Bensman. I found it very well written and hard to put down. At $11.95, it's hard to go wrong with this one as your first choice

I really enjoyed this look at the Chicago that never is seen on E.R. He is a very talented writer. Sue

In 1946, former GI Ray Dudek has juts returned to Chicago after serving in the war. Instead of a hero's welcome, Ray is murdered during a holdup in the Riverview Amusement Park. His two closest friends, Joe Colleran and Mike Minogue leave town soon after that to open a bar in Florida. In 1985, Mike is murdered on a Chicago pier overlooking lake Michigan. When Margaret O'Mara reads about the death, she hires private investigator Paul Whelan to locate her brother, Joe, who she has not heard from since 1959. ..... Paul begins to investigate the case and quickly links the two murders that are four decades apart, especially since the deceased Mike loved to talk about his cronies who had a falling out just after the war. As Paul gets closer to the truth, he realizes that friends and lovers have kept a secret that if disclosed could lead to the deaths of the person revealing it and the recipient because someone wants the secret to remain hidden. ...... THE RIVERVIEW MURDERS is a fantastic who-done-it that brings alive the gritty North Side of Chicago. Paul, the low rent private investigator, is a great character who is for those readers who enjoy an old fashion hard boiled detective. The story line, like its four predecessors is fast-paced, action packed, and loaded with more twists than a street pretzel. Chicago is Michael Raleigh's kind of town as no one paints the town this well since Ferris's day off. .......Harriet Klausner

This books provides well known specialties of great local restaurants here in the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill area. These recipes are actually do-able and delicious.

This being his follow up book to "Death in Uptown." Raleigh doesn't fail to disappoint his fans. The story moves along very well. As your read the book you can picture everything in your mind perfectly as he describes the worlds and characters in the book very well.
I would definitely recommend this book if you've read "Death in Uptown"

If you like murder mysteries, you have to read Death in Uptown. The way Michael Raleigh makes his characters come to life, with rich depth and great description, makes you want to page deeper and deeper into the book. It's suspenseful, it keeps you thirsty for more, and it shocks you at the end with the suspenseful ending. Michael Raleigh is my favorite murder mystery author...I definately recommend reading this book...If you like this book, check out his other paul whelan mysteries.

It's the "Lonesome Dove"of circus novels - without the sweep and epic scope of similar tomes, this is a character driven story with all the dung and sweat and mildewed canvas that the turn of the century big top held.
This is a great and intimate read, a decent and noble story about art and challenge and caring and,above all, the magic of the circus. Buy it and read it.
A genuine treat.

In the hardscrabble world of the 20's, Lewis Tully opens circuses time after hardluck time because it's what he knows how to do. His small shows travel through Oklahoma, Wyoming and bordering states sometimes being blown away by the winds, sometimes flooding out but always being enjoyed not just by the audiences -- amazed to see this collection of fabulosity enter their dull lives -- but enjoyed by the performers as well. Not quite a family but certainly more than just a staff of performers; Harley the old magician (who has some wizardly scenes) as well as Sam Jeanette and Shelby Lewis are vividly drawn characters alive not only in their own designs but in the way they interact with Tully. But all characters from Helen the past flame to Lucy the bareback rider, none are bit players. In this novel's all-too brief 350-or-so pages author Michael Raleigh has generated more believable, alive, charismatic , well, people, then many another author in many of today's fat, unedited tomes.

Then a boy -- Charlie, a nine year-old orphan -- is sent to join up with the circus by Tully's sister. If you are thinking Toby Tyler you're not on the right track. Instead the way that Charlie's present life brings back Tully's past and allows Tully to reflect on and learn from his own life as it is lit by Charlie's candle makes for some of the most involving of scenes.

Oh, yes, there's a vilian named Hector Blaney who runs a circus that's as muddy as Tully's is clean. But even the setpiece's antagonist is painted with Raleigh's humanistic brush. Oh heck even Jupiter the pachyderm comes across as being more of a person than some of the central characters in today's best-sellers!

I hope that Raleigh gets the readership that this book deserves to bring him. If you are looking for a book that can take you out of yourself and make you feel the world might after all be a right enough place, pull up a chair and join The Blue Moon Circus. You'll come back for repeat performances.