"The Witches' Companion" is a very exhaustive encyclopedia of all the terms, characters, locations, and events in the Lives of the Mayfair Witches trilogy (The Witching Hour, Lasher, and Taltos). Everything's included in this mammoth 500+-paged book: maps, illustrations and photos, a Mayfair family tree, bits of Anne Rice information, a chronology of important dates, in-depth character biographies, European and American history--the list goes on.

If you're an Anne Rice fan--and especially if you enjoyed the Mayfair trilogy--, then I highly recommend this official reference guide to her popular witch series. It's definitely worth owning, since it answers every question you've ever had about this trilogy and then some.

Also recommended: Katherine Ramsland's "The Vampire Companion".

Unless you have an excellent photographic memory, you need this book. It straightens out and clarifies all of the family lineage, and gives you more background information on locations, people, and objects. It also gives some much needed info on the Talamasca, which is ever-present in Rice's novels. Buy this if you like reading the Mayfair trilogy.

These books are excellent.Anne Rice is a very believeable writer. The insight into the lives of Lasher and the other Mayfair Witches are spellbounding,I could not put the books down. If you would like to read a book that will keep you on the edge of your seat,and very hard to stop reading at bed time,read the Mayfair Witches chronicles. There needs to be more of them!

Writer's Digest Books' The Criminal Mind by Katherine Ramsland is an insightful tool for the serious crime writer. It is more intellectual than most self-help writing books and can provide interesting ideas for fleshing out characters. It is deeply rooted in psychological theory and that makes it an exceptionally interesting read. Complex topics are explained in layman's terms. It is nice to have a writing guide by such a talented writer.

The Criminal Mind: A Writer's Guide to Forensic Psychology is an excellent reference tool for any crime or fiction writer who wants to write a believable story involving elements of criminal behavior and those who investigate and treat individuals who display this behavior. Katherine Ramsland, Ph.D., is herself a forensic psychologist and the author of fourteen previous nonfiction books. She uses a mixture of fiction and fact to describe the fundamentals of forensic psychology. She stresses the importance of keeping characters and their behavior realistic to an extent. By knowing how your character would really behave, Ramsland suggests that the writer can add credibility to both characters and plot of the crime, mystery or suspense novel.

Ramsland includes the liberal use of notorious examples from pop culture and media to illustrate various aspects of forensic psychology. From brief descriptions of individual assessment tools, to court testimony and strategy, she gives the writer/researcher answers to her many questions. Ramsland uses numerous colorful examples to illustrate her points, from real-life serial killers Ted Bundy and Jeffrey Daumer, to popular TV shows like "Law and Order" and the novels of Patricia Cornwell (The Body Farm) and Thomas Harris (Silence of the Lambs, Hannibal).

The Criminal Mind is written in clear, informal language, even given the necessary legal, forensic and psychological jargon defined throughout the book. This book is a must-have guide to help writers create truly human "bad guys" as well as believable mental health professionals.

Using writing to empower youself. What more could anyone ask from a book? And this one delivers. Katherine Ramsland can write about far more than vampires. She has the keys to true internal relaxation and she shares them in Bliss.

This supplement to A.N. Roquelaure's erotica was very good. It gives insightful and resourceful information as to where the main characters come from.

Everytime I want to read a very wonderful biography, I go back and reread this one. Since I read my first book by Dean Koontz, and begun searching for information on him on the net, I was looking forwad to see a biography of him. Then, I discovered the best biography I've ever read some months later.

The book is very well developed. Dean's story is told since the day he was born, passing for the problems of his family with his father, until the day he met the woman who later became his wife until the day he started writing and more, much more, without forget his whole bibliography, the stories of his pen names and an excelent work was done as for telling all about his books.

The author, Katherine Ramsland, knew exactly how to do what she was meant to do. The language is easy and the research was perfect (she talked to Dean to write it, to people related to him, friends, ex-neighbors, etc), which obviously resulted in this wonderful book you now have the chance to read. And don't think twice before buying it. Take it now and dive in this unique world.

Marco Aurelio.

If you're looking for a reference work on Dean Koontz, look no further. Ms. Ramsland has written the biography that all others will be judged by. It is loaded with information, and is not a dry read like so many other biographies. It was a valuable tool for me when I was creating my Dean Koontz website as it contains contains chronological listings of all of Koontz's works, almost all of his pseudonyms, and a year-by-year breakdown of highlights in his career. Whether you're tracking down information for a school report or a newspaper article or just searching for more about the life of one of America's most prolific writers, then this book is for you.

Ramsland must have an incredible appetite and talent for research. She seems to have read everything Dean Koontz ever wrote. This is no mean feat. She skillfully weaves this bibliographical information into a story about Mr. Koontz that is fascinating, especially for Koontz fans who wonder, "Where ever did he get that ghastly, creative imagination?" I am a fan of biography and history, and have some aspirations in creative writing. For all these reasons the book was valuable to me. The only prerequisite for others might be at least a passing knowledge or interest in Koontz's works. Certainly I would recommend this book highly.

I bought this book having already read each of the vampire chronicles, as well as several of the "New Tales of the Vampires". It was probably a good thing too, as it's quite possible that if you haven't read all the books, the Companion will give away some very important plot twists.

However, the book is obviously meant as a guide and reference point for people who are already very familiar with Rice's vampires, and not for people who are too lazy to read the books. A mind-bendingly comprehensive "encyclopedia" of everything you could possibly want to know about anything to do with the first 5 vampire chronicles.

This book is made even stronger by the fact that it was written in conjunction with Anne Rice, and as such contains many asides and comments from her on the development of her characters, how she feels about them, and of course, the much-publicised parallels between the child vampire Claudia and her own daughter, who died of leukaemia at the age of 5.

While there are many people who think Rice is extremely long-winded and a trifle strange to boot, those of us who thoroughly enjoy her fantastic novels and seductive characters will wonder how we ever made do without the excellent Vampire Companion.

Being a fan of Anne Rice and having read a couple of her books I wanted to know more about the characters and other details in her novels. This book in question, i.e., The Vampire Companion: The Official Guide to Anne Rice's the Vampire Chronicles By Katherine Ramsland, Anne Vampire Chronicles Rice does fulfill this need. It starts out with a well-developed table of contents; however, it does lack an index which makes searching for a term quite arduous and therefore a bit time consuming. The acknowledgement and the introduction are very well written and are very easy to read. The entries themselves are also well written, e.g., that of the bio on Lestat.

"The Vampire Companion" is a very exhaustive encyclopedia of most of the terms, characters, locations, and events in the Vampire Chronicles series. It only covers the first five books in this series, though ("Interview With the Vampire", "The Vampire Lestat", "The Queen of the Damned", "The Tale of the Body Thief", and "Memnoch the Devil"), which may bother more die hard Vampire fans. Information on the other four books ("The Vampire Armand", "Merrick", "Blood and Gold", and "Blackwood Farm") is obviously missing since they were published after this book.

Just about everything's included in this mammoth 500+-paged book: maps, illustrations and photos, bits of Anne Rice information, a time line, in-depth character biographies, etc. Even the unpublished short story of "Interview With the Vampire" is included, which originated the novel one year later.

If you're an Anne Rice fan--and especially if you enjoyed the Vampire Chronicles--then I highly recommend this official reference guide to her popular vampire series, even though it only covers half the books in the series. (Hopefully, there will be another revised edition published soon.) But for what it does cover, "The Vampire Companion" is very thorough and worthwhile to Vampire fans. This is certainly a book worth owning, since it answers just about every question you've ever had about this series and then some.

Also recommended: Katherine Ramsland's "The Witches' Companion."

This book is good and bad. The reason is these writers write an essay based on Anne's books. It might be interesting to the reader or not. But the main problem is that in some essays, the essays is not really talking about the books but a particular subject. If you are want to read a book that has an in-depth look at the books, this book is not it. I did buy it for the history of Making of Interview with the Vampire. And two short stories Anne wrote. So try it out a little. Read a little and if it sparks your interest then buy it otherwise wait for it to come to the library

I think that this is an excellent book - I enjoyed it tremendously. An employee at the Garden District Book Shop in New Orleans recommended reading this book before I read Violin, and she was correct - I understood Violin much better. I think that this is a must read for any and all Anne Rice fans. And if you are not a fan, there is a good chance you will be after you have read this book. Wonderful!

What this book IS: A good collection of anecdotes that guides the reader through the author's exploration of death, funerals, cemetaries, and folklore. Ramsland draws from many cultures and many time periods, thus building a canon of death-related lore. It is written in a very conversational manner, making it an easy and comfortable read. Someone completely new to the subject would find it a gentle introduction.

What this book IS NOT: 1)Clearly factual - though there is a substantial resources section, the book is written in a very anecdotal way, making it hard to tell if the information being given is fact or just a 'good story.' Sometimes it is unclear if the author is sure what she is writing is fact or fiction. 2)True to its title, which highlights "Haunted Graveyards, Embalming Secrets, and the Life of a Corpse After Death." There are only about 15 pages that deal with ghost stories, and most of them are painfully general - basically lumping together several stories into one generic paragraph.

Overall, it's a good read, but those looking for hard facts and detailed ghost stories will be disappointed. I was a little disturbed by the nonchalant way the subject of necrophilia was handled.

Though not a book for the squeamish, it is a nonetheless engrossing work on the business of death. Ms. Ramsland wanted to know about a subject that no one really likes to think about, so she went to the experts, from morticians to funeral directors to cemetery caretakers. She touched on everything from buying the "right" coffin, to whether or not to creamate, to tracing the writings on gravestones. Being a ghosthunter, I especially enjoyed her sharing the experience she had in a allegedly haunted cemetery, and I was touched as well by the story of how her and some friends celebrated the Day of The Dead in Mexico.
I'm sure there are people who would read this book with a cocked eyebrow, but those people would be finishing it perhaps a little more informed. I know I learned quite a bit from it!

This was a great wealth of information concerning the life of a corpse. Katherine Ramsland investigated things I would have never thought of otherwise and true some of the information gave me chills, it still didn't take away from the fact that it's a great book. She's a great author anyhow so my review of this book may be biased.

This book is really an episode guide to "CSI" with some forensic science information added. Episodes of the show are referenced by title, so someone who hasn't seen all of the show may be lost. If you want a little more information on forensics or a procedure seen on the show, or if you have no additional knowledge about forensics, then this book is adequate. Otherwise, pass on it; there are much better introductory forensics books for the general public available, such as Hidden Evidence by David Owen or The Casebook of Forensic Detection by Colin Evans.

While the overall book is good, the subject matter involving a brutle murder to harvest liver/organ parts for a porphyria victim was erroneous. The portrayal of a mentally deranged sicko demeans countless numbers of porphyria patients around the world. Had the author taken the time to learn about porphyria...and it's many types, and the treatment thereof, her bizarre tale would never have been aired. Shame on the author!
You owe apologies to thousands upon thousands who inherited this inherited metabolic disease and live in constant pain and misunderstanding.

"The Forensic Science of C.S.I." by Katherine Ramsland, ISBN 0-425-18359-9 (ppb), Berkly Blvd. Books 2001 - is a 242 page exposition by established writer (15 books plus masters in forensics) cleverly utilizing the characters, plots and forensics presented in the popular TV series "C.S.I."

It is helpful (but not essential) to have followed "CSI" on TV as Ramsland's reference to the TV shows' titles and characters is merely a ploy in her easy-to-read presentation of basic modern forensics. Indeed, she skillfully introduces and outlines, in a series of 11 chapters, the crime scene and the elements of crime scene reconstruction including criminal logic, deceptions, and forensic puzzles & methodology in up-to-date evidence collection. Indeed, the last chapter "Evidence Response" is especially well presented.

Aside from the oft encountered confusion in definition of "trace evidence", the book is excellent from the standpoint of crime scene coverage, categorization of forensic methodologies, and readability. It has an excellent glossary (13 p.), consequential references (4 p.), and helpful index (11 p.). The book is informative, well organized, priced fairly and is thusly recommended.