This wasn't as good as The Best Of Enemies, but it was still high on the good reading shelf.
However the book starts out with everything in modern day (1979)
January when Grace Meade is found murdered in her home that is rapidly burning.
the primary suspect is her own daughter Jillian, because two women in Europe were murdered in the same fashion, not long after meeting with Jillian.(?!)
Ok so the heroine is the main suspect in a triple murder case
she tries to kill herself
she is put in the Psichiatric ward of a hospitial and given a journal to write in
this is when it starts to get confusing
every other chapter is told in her (Jillian's) perspective
so it's like this
chapter five ~ January 1979
Chapter six ~ Jillian's journal (This is where we learn all the deep, dark, and sometimes deadly secrets of Grace Meade's life as a forger during WWII).
Chapter Seven~ Januray 1979
Chapter eight ~ Jillian's Journal
The entire book goes on like that from chapter five to the postscript after chapter 34.
All in all a good read but a little confusing with all of the side stories going on
sometimes difficult to keep all the facts straight

....

Wheels within wheels. Political intrigue in highly entertaining, convoluted fashion. This
is Taylor Smith's sixth international thriller after a career in international diplomacy. The
novel is heavy with verisimilitude and authenticity. Indeed, it is overabundant with
details, telling incidents, puzzling events, murky trails and many interesting characters.

Shortly after the end of World War Two, a beautiful, even glamorous, English war bride
named Grace Meade brings her tiny daughter to America, to the small town Minnesota
home of her husband, killed in the war in Europe. Years later, that daughter, now a
degreed historical researcher for the Smithsonian, begins to develop an exhibit on the
war. What Jillian Meade realizes is that she knows only scraps of her mother's
background and very small scraps at that. Since she must go to England to examine some
newly released intelligence papers for the exhibit, she decides to include a little personal
research. Her inquiries soon turn up the fact that Grace Meade, her mother, worked for
British Intelligence and she finds some people who knew Grace Meade during and before
the war. The problem is, the arithmetic of dates seem to be askew. Why? At this point,
Jillian's troubles begin.

Meanwhile, back in the U.S. FBI agent Alex Cruz is assigned to look into Jillian Meade's
background. The request, strangely enough, comes from Scotland Yard. When an
obviously upset Jillian returns from Europe, she goes home, home to Havenwood,
Minnesota, to see her mother, to confront her with her questions. Alex Cruz, is pursuing
Jillian Meade to ask her some questions and soon finds himself emplaning for Minnesota.
Why? Because Grace Meade is suddenly, suspiciously, dead and Jillian appears to be
involved.

The novel is filled with historical references to behind the lines resistance activity in
France. Here are instances of thievery, betrayal, mass murder and very personal,
up-close, murder. Smith is a good writer who could use some judicious editing. There
are some great conversations and some fine clichés, as well as an abundance of telling
phrases. Frequently, when Smith writes, the air moves. Nevertheless, Smith's skill as a
writer more often than not infuses scenes with immediacy and power. An excellent if
long, novel.

good read. The plot device of switching back and forth between two narrators is sometimes jarring. But the writing is smooth, the characters mostly well sketched, and the plot carefully crafted. The WWII - Resistance plot is,of course, pretty old by now, but I still enjoy it.

I just received this book. One of the better "Pottery Collectors" books I've seen. The pictures are wonderful, for easy identification. The descriptions are very precise. Only a very small portion of this book is Lu-Ray Pastels. The rest is of all the other TS&T (Taylor, Smith and Taylor) pottery. The price guides are very comparable to what I've seen of pieces on the market.

The Meehan's book remains the "Bible" for all collectors of this fabulous pastel dinnerware of the late 1930's - early 1950's. Highly recommended!

I really enjoyed What Goes With What. My interest in home decorating drew my interests to the book and it delivered a quality, clear, creative approach to my hobby which brings me many hours of joy. I was very impressed with the books read. It was easy to follow and made great sense. Even my friends new to Home Decorating enjoyed the basics inside. I consider What Goes With What an essential manual in my Home Decorating Library! Thank you for your advice, help and creativity! What Goes With What has helped me take my creativity to the next level! I recommend it to all home decorators interested in sparking flames of creativity!

Not being very crafty,I'm afraid, when I decided to redecorate my house, this book was recommended to my by a friend.
To my surprise, the book gave lots of well explained ideas. I went from room to room, changing this wall here, this corner there, and new lights everywhere.
My house looks better than ever.
I am thankful to the authors, for sharing their ideas and talent with readers like me.

I highly recommend this book. It provides expert advice on home decorating presented in a very readable manner. The book is both useful and insightful. It can help you identify and enhance your decorating style.

I just stumbled upon Taylor Smith while browsing the books section in my local wholesale club. I bought two books Jackie Collins and Taylor Smith.

Jackie Collins is my favorite author so I had an idea of what to expect. I had never heard of Taylor Smith but the sneak peek of the story on the back cover grabbed my attention quickly. It did not stop for a moment during the entire book.

Watching and rooting for Mariah as she searches for the answers as to what really happened in Vienna, was great reading! This book will grab your attention from page 1 and will not let go!

This was a deliciouly spellbinding read from start to finish. I highly recommend it!

The character of Mariah Bolt as a CIA Operative is exciting and interesting. The story of her involvement in trying to find out what happened to her husband and daughter takes her into a web of a variety of places and people. It was an exciting read.

Guilt by Silence is Taylor Smith's debut romantic mystery. Full of enough plot twists and turns to keep a reader guessing until the very end. I stayed up into the wee hours to finish it. I could not put it down. The story of a young mother Mariah Bolt, a CIA officer, trying to cope with the aftermath of an accident in Vienna which left her young daughter severely injured and her brilliant husband David Tardiff paralyzed from the neck down and mentally impaired.. Now back in the United States, she is approached by a Paul Chaney, a foreign correspondent who tells her the accident may not have been an accident at all. She brushes him off and tries to forget his suggestions until it becomes apparent that she is being followed and she and her daughter are being threatened. When she is notified of her husband's death she finds she doesn't know who to trust and Paul Chaney may be her only ally. I highly recommend this great romantic mystery.

I have enjoyed Taylor Smith's books. I think that her background allows her to bring a depth to espionage books that is sometimes lacking. In The Innocents Club, I felt like she did not develop her characters enough to explain certain actions. For example, in the end of Guilt by Silence, Mariah's daughter likes and enjoys Paul; however, in The Innocents Club she dislikes him with no real understanding of why. Even Paul's character changes more than the books explains. The ending reminded me of a soap opera that had five minutes to tie up all lose ends. We never see the main characters react to their changed status, but we are only told about it. Maybe she is trying to lead us to continue finding out in the next book, but what if she loses us instead?

i really enjoyed this book. the plot was well crafted, not so dumb as many thrillers these days. smith's books seem to be getting better. my one gripe (taylor smith, if you are reading this!) is: mariah should not get involved with a man old enough to be her father, just because she never had a real father. bring back paul chaney, and complexify the relationship a bit. a real relationship has good bits and bad bits, and mariah needs a little more depth.

Taylor Smith brings back CIA analyst Mariah Bolt in this new book, and what a thrilling, invigorating, twisted tale it is. And in hardcover too. Congratulations Taylor Smith!

Taylor Smith's "Random Acts" plays out like one of those made for USA-TV Movies. Here's some of the ingredients:
*A feisty determined female reporter who has recently divorced her no-good husband who has subsequently married her sister.
*A gorgeous but icy cold FBI criminal profiler who may have had something to do with her husband's (also an FBI undercover agent) murder. Her husband, COINCIDENTALLY, was having an affair with above mentioned reporter.
*A rough and rugged FBI agent, a former cop, whose partner was killed mysteriously, and the father happens to be the father of the aforementioned reporter.
*A sneaky, yet sexy, FBI agent, who may have been having an affair with above mentioned criminal profiler, and who also may have helped in killing her hunky husband.
*A serial killer who kidnaps and then murders little babies.
*A dog who you know will somehow play an important part in a climactic scene.
So, with all that above, what happens? Well, to Smith's credit, she pulls off an interesting narrative, some nice characterizations, and a somewhat surprising climax. We can forgive her for some of her really mundane dialogue, and the plot contrivances that border on incredible.
But, and here's the point, it's a good read and one that entertains. That's what it's all about.
RECOMMENDED FOR GUILTY PLEASURE.

Claire Gillespie was a top reporter on an overseas assignment when whe fell in love with an FBI agent, Michael Kazarian. When Claire accidentally broke his cover, Michael was murdered. During her next news assignment in California, she found out that Michael had been married! If just so happens that Michael's widow, Laurel Madden, was heading the case Claire was to cover about a serial killer targeting infants.

Claire was like a dog with a bone! She was out to prove Laurel a murderer. However, Michael's ex-partner, Dan Sprague, kept getting in the way.

***EXCITING! No John Grisham or Patricia Cornwell here, but well worth your time and money to read. Some stores have put this under Fiction, others Thriller, and still others as Romance. Well, the first two make sense. The last does not. Romance is such a small portion of this story. It is all Thriller!***

I think that this book was really great. Once I started it I was not able to put the book down, because I was in suspense and always wanted to know what was going to happen next. I didn't expect the ending to happen the way that it did so that came to be a big suprise but that made the book all the more interesting to read. I would suggest this book to anyone who wants to read a great suspenseful book.

This book dragged on and on. There was too much detail about the FBI and not enough on the main characters. I have to admit the ending was good, but I had to skip through a lot of the pages because they were so boring. I got this book for free from the best of the best reader's club, so I didn't waste any money on it. I don't recommend it if you have to pay for it.

This is one of those books that USA or Lifetime would snarf up for a mini-series, and it has all the ingredients: a mysterious bombing that shocks by killing off a pregnant receptionist and a crusty old guard; international intrigue and espionage during the Beirut crisis; a thirty year old lovely English professor who once had five wonderful days with a mysterious stranger in Beirut; her crusty old father with all of his secrets; a college student who is the suspect along with her Palestinian boyfriend in the aforementioned bombing; ambitious and inadequate FBI men; a dedicated and tough but kindly FBI leader; a handsome young man scorned by the aforementioned girl; his lovely Mom who owns a restaurant and seems to be having a thing with the crusty old father also aforementioned. These people whirl though several close-calls, calamities, second guesses, second chances, and some rather suspenseful scenes. All in all, it's a good read for when you don't really want to be overburdened with complexity and intricacies. Smith is to be credited, however, for a good read, a little long in the tooth, but with a good, satisfying climax.
RECOMMENDED.

The Best of Enemies takes place in a small Massachusets town just outside of Boston. When A building gets blown up, all of the authoritative figures (Police, FBI, Secret Service...)point their fingers at a young Palestinian who had arrived at the building for a job interview and then leaves with his girl friend. Because she peels out of the parking lot like the hounds of hell on her wheels, she and the Palestinian are the immediate and most likely suspects. People find out that what they want to believe and what really happened are two completely different things.
The story then turns to the girl's teacher who is grieving for Peter VanAken, the man she met and fell in love with ten years ago in Beruit. One night, he shows up out of the blue, actually working on the case, and the relationship does, as expected, continue. Leya, the teacher, however knows of one person who will not be glad to know that her former lover is back and that is her father, Carter Nash.
When he finds out, that the 'evil man' who seduced his little girl is back in town, he is, to say the least, [...]off. As the plot of the book unfolds, we find out that the hatred between Leya's father and her lover is mutual. Both men workd for the CIA and Carter sent Peter on an assiginment to check out some 'Suspicious activity', only to later find out that the entire thing was a setup by Carter Nash. However, they find a way to put their differences behind them in a keep you on the edge of your seat climax, where they find out that not all Palestinians are the terrorists.

First of all, I don't know of a better book to use to try and identify that Knowles, Salem or Taylor, Smith & Taylor plate or bowl you've picked up at an estate or garage sale (and if you know of a better book, please email me as I'm always looking for one). Each manufacturer's designs are shown IN FULL COLOR (a definite plus) and you can even find examples of the same design on a different plate shape. Having said that, it isn't as complete as I'd hoped, although it IS the most complete book I've come across. There are some pieces I have which I still haven't been able to ID and many of the designs simply have numbers, rather than names, to ID them. Even with these flaws, this is a detailed, nicely done book. As most collectors of vintage dinnerware know, some information is simply hard to come by and it takes a great deal of research (and some luck) to get the information one would like. This book is a great aid along the way.

This book successfully communicated the new marketing approach in a very straight forward manner which added uniqueness to the content. It clearly probed into the new marketing communication trends with the simplest terminology ever yet through the most sophisticated issues.

Twelve Miles From a Lemon (Selected writings and sayings of author Sydney Smith) gives real meaning to the phrase "rapier wit". Smith adds a gentle touch to wit. I purchased this book in the name of my two year old grand-daughter, Sydney Smith who is herself a little "wit". My insights as to the similarities of the Sydneys proved to be both true and delightful. Reverend Sydney Smith was a walking wit. His spontaneous sayings are treasures. The one that led me to him via Amazon was printed on a teabag: "I am glad I was not born before tea." A true Englishman! Last June my daughter and I took our Sydney to London and then to Bath. This book described Reverend Smith's life and moves to various parts of England and France. His vacation spot was Bath! His close friend was Earl Grey (for you tea-drinkers). The book is delightful, even though it plods in parts. Reverend Smith was a visionary, compassionate and intelligent. This selection of writings portrays a true feeling of his times (early 1800s), as well as insights of humor within the church. It will definitely make any Anglophile chuckle!