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Book reviews for "Shannon,_John" sorted by average review score:

The Orange Curtain: A Jack Liffey Mystery
Published in Hardcover by Carroll & Graf (09 April, 2001)
Author: John Shannon
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I've discovered Jack Liffey!
This is the first of John Shannon's Jack Liffey mysteries I've read, though I see it's the fourth book in the series. It gave me a fascinating glimpse into the Vietnamese community of Orange County, LA, as well as introducing me to a central character I immediately want to more about. Jack Liffey is no super-hero, but a decent sort of guy trying to do his best in a crazy world (and some aspects of Liffey's LA are definitely crazy!). John Shannon is a great writer who keeps the reader interested throughout, and I can't understand why he isn't much better known. 'The Orange Curtain' is highly recommended.

Wow!
The Orange Curtain was my introduction to John Shannon. I am now going to read the previous titles. Here is a writer with remarkable skills, both in narrative and in characterization. As well, his hero Jack Liffey is a man of such thoughtful intelligence that he stands well above the usual macho-jock types who play leading roles in so many series. The creation of Billy Gudger is something rare: a fully rounded view of loneliness personified and of how cruelty and isolation can shape a killer. Unlike the two-dimensional bad guys with incoherent rationales who kill people from some warped sense of personal satisfaction, Shannon has, in Gudger, drawn a portrait of a sad, even forgivable, young man with no social skills, and a deep and terrible thirst for knowledge and for friendship. It is to the author's credit that the exchanges between Liffey and Gudger are sadly revealing of the souls of both men; and the final section of the book is a fine example of how tension can be tightened, then tightened some more, then more, before something finally snaps.

Here is an author to watch; he is an extraordinary writer, with insight, wisdom, and great feeling for his characters.

Excellent novel. Great characters
Jack Liffey finds missing children and, in THE ORANGE CURTAIN, he must look into the strange (to him at least) culture of Orange County (formerly a bedroom community to Los Angeles but now a major center in its own right). The Orange County culture he investigates includes the ultra-rich, Vietnamese merchants and gangs, and an insane young man who flirts with genius.

It is the characters that make THE ORANGE CURTAIN stand out although certainly author John Shannon handles adventure well enough (with both physical and psychological challenges to Liffey). Both Liffey and insane Billy Gudger have their own challenges in dealing with others, rendering Liffey the one man who may be able to communicate effectively with Billy.

Shannon's touch for characters also applies to minor characters. Liffey's daughter Maeve, for example, is a delightful 13 going on 30.

THE ORANGE CURTAIN is less a mystery to be solved than it is a set of observations into human nature, the intermingled but distinct societies of Southern California, and the challenges a man must face to stand himself in the morning. Does that sound heavy? In this case, it isn't. The novel is a fast read with several great a-ha moments.

Highly Recommended.


City of Strangers: A Jack Liffey Mystery
Published in Hardcover by Carroll & Graf (2003)
Author: John Shannon
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Ya Gotta Love Jack Liffey!
Here's another great book from John Shannon! It's full of contempory issues such as dirty bombs and Arab Islamic terrorists. As well as covering Los Angeles scenes, which Shannon does better than anyone else I've read, he takes us across the border for a danger-filled visit to Mexico, complete with a vicious drug lord. Jack Liffey gets pretty beaten up this time, but he encounters a couple of interesting new women to ease the pain. He survives it all with courage and integrity intact and with a little help from his daughter Maeve, who seems to be more involved in keeping him alive as the books go on. It was such an engaging story that I could hardly put it down! I'm eager for the next book so I can find out which little corners of L.A., ethnic groups, and social issues, the multi-dimensional Jack Liffey will deal with as he and "Sancho Panza" Maeve drift around my city.

Life as usual in Apocalypse Central
What is notable about John Shannon's Jack Liffey series is the author's depth of feeling and respect for young people. What is also of signal importance is the author's talent for creating thoroughly believable characters--even the villains. Take, for example, the fat man so immense that he requires two chairs to accommodate his width. In anyone else's hands, this creature would be a blob of amorphous evil--intent purely on doing his motiveless bad deeds. But with Shannon at the helm, we're presented with a history that makes the character so real that his behavior is genuinely shocking because we don't want to think that someone thoughtful and articulate can, given his intimate first-hand acquaintanceship with pain, proceed to inflict that same pain (literally) on someone else. Yet he does. And it feels very real; the reader shares Liffey's injuries--both physical and psychic. The same skill is at work in defining the young people in City of Strangers, especially the exquisitely drawn Fariborz who is a living, breathing portrait of internal conflict--a good soul on a crusade to awaken people to the wrongness all around them.

As always, when Liffey ultimately makes contact with the young people he's been hired to find, there are deeply thoughtful exchanges. Never condescending, never patronizing, always self-deprecating, yet always sensitive to their struggles--whether real or imagined--Liffey enters into their lives offering his battered heart and body as support for their sorrows. No one I've read has such a profound grasp on the issues that are central to the lives of youngsters approaching the treacherous border of adulthood. Liffey is a good man whose empathy is a poultice for the injured young, drawing out their pain and taking it into himself--like the archetypal sin eater.

Then, gleefully, there are the apocalyptic views that are sprinkled throughout every Liffey adventure. This time out, sadly, there are no little rat-like dogs to be hated. But there is a billboard advertising Drive-Through Hi-Colonics. Relief Without Waiting. (Hilarious!) And there are a couple of bemasked individuals on the street, holding up a banner that says, "Open Up Area 51, Display the Alien Remains."

Finally, happily, Jack has connected with the redoubtable Miss Rebecca Plumkill. And there are bits of a shredded foam pillow littering the bedroom. Now how, we have to wonder with amusement, did that happen? And aren't we glad that some warm light has managed to filter through the gloom of Jack's sorrows!
My highest recommendation.

More attention should be paid
For several years now, John Shannon's series of Jack Liffey mysteries has provided us not only great reads but a social history of Los Angeles, one neighborhood at a time. "City of Strangers" explores Southern California's Iranian community against a backdrop of drug dealing and terrorist plots. At the heart of it is a nightmare journey through the slums of Tijuana and across the border that viscerally recalls scenes in Richard Ford's "The Ultimate Good Luck." This comparison isn't forced; Shannon is a thoroughly literary writer, and Liffey, his detective, isn't a crime-solving automaton but a human being, weary but dogged, flawed but admirable, a religious unbeliever who can't stop grappling with the fundamental questions.
"City of Strangers" has a thriller ending, in which Islamic extremists plan to detonate a "dirty bomb" over that capital of hedonism and excess, West L.A. It's important to note, though, that Shannon's attitude toward the Iranian teen-agers caught up in the plot is a sympathetic one; he's trying to use the scariness of the genre to open our eyes, not harden our hearts.
In time, surely, the Liffey novels will get their due and become national best-sellers. For readers new to them, however, "City of Strangers" is a good place to start.


The Cracked Earth
Published in Paperback by Prime Crime (1999)
Author: John Shannon
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The view from the epicenter
Shannon's Jack Liffey is an extraordinary creation. This is the third of the four books in the series that I've read (I'm saving the fourth one as a treat for a gray day) and I'm coming to know Liffey as a classically conflicted fellow who likes women a little too much, who hates little rat-like dogs but treasures children (even respects them) and whose view of the Los Angeles lifescape is apocalyptic. Liffey is an unlikely, even reluctant hero who does the right thing because it's the only way he knows how to proceed. His dealings with young people demonstrate great sympathy for their posturings, their inner turmoil, their desire for independence and status, and for their fears.

His search for film star Lori Bright's daughter has him crossing paths with some truly fascinating characters: the Jamaican, Terror, who has a use for ginger beer that I will remember every time I open a bottle for the rest of my life; the computer geeks, both abled and disabled, who snake through the bowels of cyberspace in a state of glee; and the everpresent Marlena whose love is a warm, swampy place where Liffey periodically seeks comfort.

The world of Los Angeles, according to Liffey, is in perpetual chaos. Each book in the series shows random acts of natural or human mayhem (a man painted purple being taken into custody); shocks and aftershocks heaving cars and their passengers into terror and states of diminishing reason. The metaphor, in Shannon's hands, is a powerful tool. His books are never merely sequential, connect-the-dots mysteries but are broader, larger comments on how people have come to accept the bizarre as the norm. Shannon is the philosopher king of the mystery forum. And long may he reign.

Much More than a Whodunnit!
John Shannon has proven to be a master at crime fiction, as he develops his characters with sympathy and understanding. Those who are interested primarily in chases and mayhem may not find this book worthwhile, but those who appreciate character development, humor and intelligence in a novel will very much enjoy it. I'm looking forward to reading other books by John Shannon.

Liffey proves that Shannon has to be Chandler reincarnated

Former Hollywood star Lori Bright hires private investigator Jack Liffey to locate her missing fifteen year old daughter Lee Borowsky. Lori shows Jack a fax of a ransom note demanding $50,000 and no cops. Jack notices that Lori is not in the least bit concerned over her daughter's safety and in fact thinks Lee might have sent the note as a hoax.

Before he begins the investigation, two law enforcement officials follow Jack, who goes over to confront them. He learns little from them and continues his sleuthing at the Taunten School, attended by Lee. To his surprise, neither the students nor the faculty seem worried for Lee's health. Jack learns that Lee apparently is an expert synthesiac as she actually hears colors and sees sounds. As he gets closer to his prey, Jack finds himself trapped between the various layers of the underbelly of Los Angeles and if the money was not so good, he would walk out of this case.

The heir apparent to the Los Angeles scene of Raymond Chandler has finally arrived with the talent of John Shannon. His novels catch the beat of the city as he energizes his characters with a remarkable and gritty reality. The latest Jack Liffey novel is a great who-done-it because LA has rarely been seen in a more intriguing light. Anyone who tries THE CRACKED EARTH will relish the other works of Mr. Liffey, a rising star.

Harriet Klausner


Bruce Lee: The Celebrated Life of the Golden Dragon
Published in Paperback by Charles E Tuttle Co (2000)
Authors: John Little, Bruce Lee, and Shannon Lee Keasler
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a must
Bruce Lee was his own man.he had so much style&smoothness about him.this book highlights his world in front of the public&behind it.very detailed&very upfront.you get a very insightful look into his world&vision.a man who forever changed the world with his talent&craft.a man who was trying to make sense of his surroudings&the things that were in placed around him.He will never be forgotten.

Like looking through a family photo album
What an intimate look at the man behind the image! The book is highly visual--the text is very limited--but the photos are like none that I've ever seen in other books on Lee. I'm talking about the baby pictures of Bruce and Brandon, photos of Lee from behind the scenes in his movies (a kind of spooky one of him and Sharon Tate from what must have been just before she was killed), and pictures of he and his wife just sitting on the couch at home. It makes you realize that there's a man and father behind the superhero that appears in his films. I loved it.


Concrete River
Published in Paperback by John Brown Books (1996)
Author: John Shannon
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Brilliant!
There are writers in various genres (mystery, romance, westerns, etc.) and then there are Writers; they're the gifted people whose genre is scarcely relevant because their work always rises above the territory upon which they've staked their claim. John Shannon is a Writer.

This first of Shannon's Jack Liffey series is a work of lean, effective prose, spiced with startling dashes of outrageous humor (as was The Orange Curtain, my introduction to Shannon's work). Los Angeles, as portrayed through Liffey's eyes, is a series on ongoing atrocities and carnage that are so everyday as to be normal. Add to this mix a character with a tired, yet invincible, spirit who observes and accepts (but doesn't like) what he sees, and you have a hero unlike any other.

Liffy is the essential American of a certain age, (and a Viet Nam vet) possessed of heart and conscience, trying very hard to be honorable while he searches for missing children (in itself a profound metaphor for the lost innocence not only of the city, but of our entire society.)

It is a sad fact that talent is not its own reward; it does not guarantee success. But if anyone writing today deserves recognition on a large scale, it is John Shannon. His work is both insightful social commentary and an unflinching, wrenching look at the human heart. If you want to be entertained and informed, get this book! Go to out-of-print booksites if you must, or search your local library, but this is a writer who very much deserves to be widely read.

A great read:
Captures Los Angeles perfectly. Protagonist is believable, story is absorbing - I couldn't wait for the second of this series and bought it immediately when it came out (this is the first). Looking forward to the author's next book. If you like Michael Connelly, Abigail Padgett, and find Andrew Vacchs compelling (if not always palatable), give this author a try. You won't be disappointed.


More True Lies: 18 Tales for You to Judge
Published in Hardcover by Greenwillow (2001)
Authors: George Shannon and John O'Brien
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A different kind of word play
Normally, people take "word play" to mean puns. This 64-page book features 18 tales from far corners of the earth--Japan, and the Middle East, China, France and Serbia, India and Africa--offering a different kind of word play. In each one, a central character says something that is at once the truth and a lie.

The last story, for example, tells of four boys in Suriname two of whom bragged that their respective fathers were the best traders in town. The third, however, smiled and said that his father had them beat and the fourth boy agreed: He had with one ear of corn purchased a cow, a horse and a donkey. The father had indeed started with one ear of corn, and had indeed purchased a cow, a horse and a donkey--but not all at once, as the other boys supposed. Rather, he had planted the corn ear, sold his crop, bought a cow, sold it and bought a horse and sold it and bought a donkey.

Similarly, another tale speaks of a poet named Mutanabbi who passed by Zubeida's house one day and decided to return that evening to propose that they be married. Halfway home, he encountered a handsome young man who was on his way to see Zubeida, "the most beautiful woman in the city," whom he also wanted to marry. Mutanabbi was afraid of losing his chance, so he told the young man that he had just moments ago seen Zubeida kissing a wealthy man. The young man left, feeling lost. After learning that Mutanabbi had married Zubeida, he accused the former of lying. After all, if Zubeida had really kissed a wealthy man, why would she have chosen Mutanabbi? Why, the wealthy man she kissed was her father, of course.

Another story features a Muslim holy man on the island of Celebes, who found a dark cave and crawled inside to escape from warring enemies. "If it hadn't been for the spider," he told his friends afterwards, "I surely would have been caught and killed." No one believed him, of course. But he had spoken the truth along with a lie. The spider had spun a web over the mouth of the cave, leading the holy man's enemies to believe that no one could possibly be inside. The man, however, had neglected to tell his friends was how the spider saved him.

(This particular tale reminds me of the Jewish tale of David, who as a boy had questioned why God made spiders. Unlike the Muslim tale, however, the Midrash explains that God gave even the smallest creature a purpose. When David was grown, King Saul became angry with David and tried to kill him. David fled and hid in a cave. A spider spun his web across the cave's mouth. That night, soldiers passed the save. King Saul reasoned that no man could hide there without tearing the web. And David thanked God for making spiders.)

From this book, children learn that different traditions are often similar. They also learn to carefully examine "facts." Things presented as truth may compose only part of the picture. Alyssa A. Lappen

Laughing Story
More True Lies has 18 awesome tales that will tingle you. Once you start reading, you will never want to stop. More True Lies is the best story I know. My favorite is number 5, because a person dresses like a bandit and it really was a girl. That's what made me laugh. I like the whole truth because it is kind of weird reading a lie. That's why you should read this book. It's fantastic. I hope Shannon makes another book!


The Coach's Guide to Real Winning: Teaching Life Lessons to Kids in Sports
Published in Paperback by Addicus Books (2001)
Author: John L. Shannon
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A must read for every youth athletic coach!
From the author...bestselling author Harvey Mackay just forwarded the following endorsement:
"A must read for every youth athletic coach! John's inspirational advice comes from working with kids for nearly 30 years, and he's right! The number one goal of every youth coach should be the development of the character of each player on his team. That's Real Winning!" - Harvey Mackay, America's #1 Business Coach and best-selling author of "Swimming With the Sharks Without Being Eaten Alive", and his new book "Pushing the Envelope: All the Way to the Top"


Inside the Minds: Internet Bigwigs-Leading Internet CEOs & Wall St. Analysts Forecast the Future of the Internet Economy After the Shakedown
Published in Paperback by Aspatore Books (2000)
Authors: Aspatore Books Staff, InsideTheMinds.com, Joe Krauss, Chris Vroom, Kyle Shannon, Jonathan Nelson, and John Segrich
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Very interesting...
Very good book.....very interesting insights into some of the "big" Internet players and their thoughts on the future. Most interesting was the chapter written by the CEO of Egghead....Definitely recommend the book.


Longus' Daphnis and Chloe (Wpc Classics)
Published in Paperback by Wimbledon Pub Co (2003)
Authors: Edmund Cueva, Shannon Byrne, and John Traupman
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Great text for beginning Greek
As a Greek student, I can't say enough about how great this text is. The running vocabulary is immensely helpful, as is the running commentary. As anybody who's gotten frustrated by constantly going back and forth between the text and various commentaries can understand, it's very helpful to have it write there, underneath the text. The commentary provides much needed help for a beginning Greek student. Edmund Cueva knew just when to nudge student readers in the right direction with his notes, and when to give them a harder shove. A superb text.


True Lies
Published in Paperback by Beech Tree Books (1998)
Authors: George Shannon and John O'Brien
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Wonderful teaching tool.
I started reading some of these tales to my 5th grade students as a way to get their attention at the end of the school day. To my amazement, they loved them and kept asking for more. They were so inspired, that they've even come up with some tales of their own and I've had to look for more folktale books.


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