I was with the 9th Infantry Division approximately the same time. In fact, I know many of the same places Mr. Tripp refers to in his book. Who knows, maybe he and I shared C-rations at some point. I also know that Mr. Tripp's description of the 9th Division and the Division Snipers in particular, although written from his perspective and with literary license, and meant to be compelling, is also unfair and plays into the hands of those who called us 'baby killers' and 'killing machines'.

We were young men, 18 years old and in combat for the first time. For most of us, it was not about proving one's self, or fighting the internal war with families and other bagage. It was about getting through the day without getting killed. Mr. Tripp has provided us with some gutsy descriptions of that emotion, I only wish it was not at the expense of other GI's who shared the same battleground, we were not all automatons nor were we without our own feelings of guilt, regardless of origin.

Forensic photographer Alexandra Rafferty buries herself in her gruesome work for the Miami police department as a means of forgetting the time she was raped as an eleven-year old. Recently, her father, a retired cop and the only person besides his daughter and the culprit who knows about that rape, is becoming forgetful due to Alzheimer's. Her spouse, a Brinks driver, is an idiot who robs an armored car.

As her personal life spins out of orbit, her professional life becomes more intense when a serial rapist-murderer takes front and center stage in Southern Florida. Before Alexandra realizes what is happening, she is on the lam with her father and the loot he stole from her spouse. Her husband, other crooks, and a vicious killer give chase as Alexandra heads to Seaside. Anyone of them is willing to eliminate Alexandra as a threat.

BODY LANGUAGE is as crazy as a tale gets without losing its sense of direction (from Miami north to the Panhandle). James W. Hall shows why he is one of the leading lights of the zany Southern Florida mysteries with a frenzied, yet exciting and detailed tale. The characters clearly make the show as all are fully motivated and a bit off-centered. Especially of note is three of the prime men in Alexandra's life: her father (his comments are dark comic relief), her spouse (using chaos theory to pull off his heist), and the killer (as bloody a rapist as one will read about). Mr. Hall continues to be one of the best mystery writers of non-stop thrillers.

Harriet Klausner

Donna

Sometimes I feel like Nathan, not a split personality or anything, just always wondering why things fall like they do, and when it's time for me to come up to bat, for some reason I do it. The neutral stuff, what seems to get past us, because it has no color, what we don't believe is, or could be real. I said I am not a writer.

When we wonder so much where we came from, and how we got here, and why things are so mixed up, ARCANGEL (or Archangel, I believe) is so right on time. In awe, absolutely. We are blessed. I haven't cried in a long time; my father brought us up that men suck it up. The story is moving. Man! I read all these reviews, and some really get it, but it's unspeakable. This is a man, with morals that are unheard of today. Thank God for the author, he's puttin it down. And, I mean it.

My Dad and I don't ever see eye to eye, I don't have a real review, but, you brought us closer together with this stuff, and I know it is fiction, but I got the feeling that something great was behind the story, and that's what I see. Thanks again.

Peace,
Matt

Although this book was very enjoyable, I am afraid that Starbuck is nothing but Sharpe in the American Civil War. It appears that Sergeant Truslow is the Confederate version of Sergeant Harper. Even the plot appears to some extent to be merely a re-working of "Sharpe's Eagle." Just as Sharpe and Harper killed the obnoxious Lt. Gibbons in battle in "Sharpe's Eagle," so Starbuck kills the obnoxious Captain Ridley during the heat of the First Battle of Bull Run.

Mr. Cornwell's command of 19th century military history is excellent except for one error which irritated me and hindered, to some extent, my enjoyment of the book. At several points in the novel Cornwell refers to General P.G.T. Beauregard's army at Manassas as "The Army of Northern Virginia." In reality, this force was called, at this early point in the war, "The Army of the Potomac," which, of course, later became the name for the principle Union Army in the East. (The Southern forces under the command of General J.E. Johnston which arrived in the nick of time at the Battle of First Bull Run was styled "The Army of the Shenandoah.") The Confederate Army in Virginia is not properly known as the "Army of Northern Virginia" until after Robert E. Lee took command of the force in June, 1862. Mr. Cornwell does not usually make errors of this magnitude in his works, and I wonder if this error was merely an oversight or was it intentional?

In closing, although "Rebel" is not "great literature" by any stretch of the imag! ination, it is great entertainment and, like the Sharpe novels, a painless history lesson.

These books are best approached as works of pure fiction that are set against approximations of history. People who read them either as an introduction to or as an adjunct to a study of actual history need to be wary here. Cornwell is a novelist, not an historian. Usually he gets the facts right; sometimes he does not. He freely invents major characters and events, and there are places where he alters established historical fact to suit his fiction. The result can be confusing.

For example, in _Copperhead_, Cornwell has Johnston hatching the battle plan for the Seven Pines offensive all on his own. That's not the way it happened. What's known about what did happen is far more interesting than Cornwell's altered and simplified version of events.

The second bone I have to pick with Cornwell's Civil War books, is that people who have read his previous novels (the Sharpe series) will find the many of the same characters and themes recurring in these. The characters here are somewhat less one-dimensional, but they're still transparent and predictable. The dialog is better.

As an historical novelist, I would spot Cornwell somewhere between Patrick O'Brian and the Shaaras (Michael and Jeff). He's not as good a novelist as O'Brian; he's not as good an historian as the Shaaras. On the other hand, he's almost as good as all of them combined. Not quite, but almost.

For those looking for the best Civil War novels, I would read these only after first reading the Shaaras' trilogy and The Red Badge of Courage. If at all possible, I would then read them alongside more carefully written accounts of the historical backgrounds.

That said, this is an excellent series of books. It will hold your attention and give you a fairly accurate impression of the sorts of things that really did go on back then. The facts are somewhat loose, but the final impression you'll get will not be.

The first-person narrator of this story is Miles Coverdale, a man difficult to come to terms with. He joins with the pioneers behind the utopian farming community of Blithedale and truly takes heart in the possibility of this new kind of communitarian life offering mankind a chance to live lives of purpose and fulfillment, yet at times he steps outside of events and seems to view the whole experience as a study in human character and a learning experience to which his heart-strings are only loosely bound. The drama that unfolds is told in his perspective only, and one can never know how much he failed to discern or the degree to which his own conjectures are correct. His eventual castigation of Hollingsworth cannot be doubted, however. This rather unfeeling man joins the community on the hidden pretext of acquiring the means for fulfilling his overriding utopian dream of creating an edifice for the reformation of criminals. This dream takes over his life, Coverdale observes, and his once-noble philanthropic passion morphs him into an overzealous, unfeeling man who brings ruin upon those who were once his friends. It is really Zenobia, though, upon which the novel feeds. She is a fascinating woman of means who makes the Blithedale dream a reality, a bold reformer seeking a new equality for women in the world who ultimately, at Hawthorne's bidding, suffers the ignominious fate of the fragile spirit she seemed to have overcome.

This is not a novel that will immediately enthrall you in its clutches. The first half of the novel is sometimes rather slow going, but I would urge you not to cast this book aside carelessly. The final chapters sparkle with drama and human passion, and you find yourself suddenly immersed in this strange community of tragic friends-turned-foes. You care deeply what happens to such once-noble spirits, and while you may not find joy in the tragic conclusion of the ill-fated social experiment of Blithedale, you will certainly find your soul stirred by the tragedy of unfolding events.

However, as another reviewer (amazon3131) pointed out, there are a number of problems with this book. I won't duplicate what that reader said. Instead, let me point out a few more problems, out of many that could be cited.

On page 21, Altman writes, "The depletion of the ozone layer by the use of chloroflorocarbons (CFCs)--released into the atmosphere by refrigerators, air conditioners, and aerosol containers--has become a grave concern to scientists and physicians the world over. The dangerous ultraviolet light that would ordinarily be blocked by the ozone layer has been linked to a wide variety of human health problems, including skin cancer and immunosuppression. Ultraviolet radiation has also been a factor in poor growth of certain species of grains. After many years of study and much procrastination by industry and government, efforts are finally being made to phase out CFCs completely within the next few decades."

The main problem with the previous statement is that it is a political statement, not a scientific statement. In fact, ultraviolet light has been shown scientifically to be excellent for boosting immune systems, rather than immunosuppression. Dr. William Campbell Douglass's book, _Into The Light_, documents the overwhelming evidence about how powerful the application of ultraviolet light is directly to small samples of human blood, which is then re-injected back into the body. The list of diseases that have been successfully treated by UV light is even longer than that of hydrogen peroxide. Dr. Douglass is also an advocate of hydrogen peroxide therapy and advocates combining those therapies as "photox" therapy. Yet, Altman is conspicuously silent about this exciting treatment, and his blanket indictment of UV is therefore suspect.

Further, there is a substantial portion of the scientific and medical community which disagree with the assertion that CFCs are harmful, despite what Altman claims. As Ben Lieberman of the CATO Institute wrote in his article, "Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration Costs Heat Up" there is evidence that CFCs are not, in fact, destroying the ozone layer, and scientists who previously advocated that theory are now backing off it. He writes, "But now a growing number of scientists are saying that the severity and imminence of the environmental threat has been overstated. The extent of ozone depletion and its predicted impacts are considerably less than once thought. Even those scientists responsible for sounding the alarm have backed away from a number of their more apocalyptic claims. Most notably, on February 3, 1992, NASA called an 'emergency' press conference to announce that severe ozone depletion over the Arctic and much of North America was imminent. The announcement received extensive television coverage and made the front page of many newspapers. However, a few months later, NASA quietly admitted that their prediction was wrong, but the little-noticed retraction was too little, too late to undo the effect on the (anti-CFC) law."

This sequence of events came a full three years BEFORE Altman's book was published in 1995.

Altman also uses poor documentation techniques to back some of his conclusions. For instance, on page 15, he cites a New York Times Magazine article as his source for showing that "a recent German study evaluating the side effects of over five million medically administered ozone treatments found that the adverse side effects was only 0.000005 per application. This figure is far lower than in any other type of medical therapy." Chances are good that the information is correct. The problem with this form of documentation is that it doesn't demonstrate any actual research by the author of the original source material. Presumably (we hope), the author of the article he cites, Natalie Angier, did her homework and actually found that information herself from the German study in question. It's disappointing that Altman didn't double-check that research himself, especially since he bragged on page 3 that he had visited with numerous experts in Europe, Russia, Cuba and the United States. Clearly, he had plenty of opportunity to double-check this reference. So why didn't he? There are a lot more references like this that are equally questionable.

These kinds of sloppy scholarship lead to greater skepticism of what should be an exciting and hope-filled topic.

"I was going to skip this chapter," he said, "but the way in which it was written was SO irritating to me, that I decided to cover it anyway."

I feel a little like that at the moment.

This book covers an interesting and important area of alternative medical therapy. There's a lot of good in this area, and there's much less potential for harm than in many such areas.

But there's also some very bad science. For example -- and I choose this one because you can look it up in the sample pages -- the author wants to you believe that there is proportionally three times as much Oxygen in dirt than in the air.

The author further claims that approximately two-thirds of your body is Oxygen. (In fact, there are more than twice as many Hydrogen atoms in your body than Oxygen -- I did mention that I'm a biologist, didn't I?)

And did you know that all cancer cells are anaerobic? (NOBODY can make human cells of any kind live or grow without oxygen -- not even Nobel prize winners from the 1960s.)

And so on, throughout much of the book.

But that doesn't mean that every recommendation is wrong -- there are a few things that I wouldn't touch if you paid me, but there are others that are helpful and more that are at least harmless -- but the theoretical basis is really quite inaccurate.

So if you will promise not to believe the theoretical underpinnings, then you might get some useful information out of this book. In short, you should use your common sense with this book -- just like you would for anything else related to your health.

P.S. Ozone, by the way, is NOT "energized oxygen"; it's three Oxygen molecules unstably and briefly linked together (O3 for short). Your cells CAN NOT use O3 for metabolic purposes. You MUST have O2 (normal oxygen gas) for that purpose.

But don't worry: O3 readily degrades into normal/useful O2, plus a single Oxygen free radical (but not usually enough of it to do you any real harm before it reacts with something else into a stable state).

In this installment, Nate is drummed out of the "Faulconer Legion" by its commander, the vain, inept, and rich Gen. Faulconer, who hates him. This leads him to a Richmond prison cell, accused of being a Northern spy, all of which gets him enmeshed in the spycraft between the states. This rather conveniently dovetails with the activities of Adam Faulconer and Nate's own straight-laced brother. The spy material is rather interesting, with the appearance of real-life Alan Pinkerton as Union spymaster. The South's attempt to deceive the North as to its true manpower is particularly fascinating, and is portrayed by Cornwell as an element in their avoiding early defeat, along with Gen. McClelland's timidity.

While these semi-historical asides and speculations are interesting, the best part of the book is the walk-on cameo by a French Army observer Patrick Lésawn. Yes, he is the son of rifleman Richard Sharpe (hero of Cornwell's infinitely better Napoleonic series), and a vastly more compelling character than Starbuck. Indeed, one wishes Cornwell had decided to show the Civil War from within his eyes instead! Over the course of the book Starbuck displays a moral cowardice that makes him more and more unlikable, especially his pathetic treatment of his brother, when his brother reaches out to him. I'll continue the series in blind devotion to Cornwell, but these first two in the series are pretty weak.

During the Civil War a Copperhead was generally held to be a Northerner who sympathised with the Southern cause. Within the pages of this book, although he is the son of a Boston abolitionist minister, Nathaniel Starbuck fights for the South. If you know your Civil War history - and that is no way a requirement for this novel - the action depicted within the pages of 'Copperhead' takes us from Ball's Bluff near Leesburg in Virginia to Gaines Mill close to Richmond. However, the main part of the novel takes Starbuck away from the battlefield and into the arena of espionage and deceit. The book also gives us an insight into the insecurities of the Northern generals, in particular McClellan and his 'spymaster' Allan Pinkerton.

There is no doubt that in Nate Starbuck, Cornwell attempts to create the heroics of Richard Sharpe (for those who don't know, Cornwell has written a whole clutch of novels about English rifleman Richard Sharpe who served both in India and the Napoleonic Wars). To some extend he has succeeded in this, although at times 'Copperhead' lacks the pace of some of the Sharpe novels. Nevertheless, I enjoyed 'Copperhead', it is in the main well written and informative and is without a doubt an entertaining read.

As a point of interest, although I'd recommend the reader to work his/her way through the series in order, it is not vital that you do this as each novel is self-contained.

This is my favorite book in the serise. We are introduced to several new chacters
1. Gordon Swinyard(he grows on you)
2. Patrick Le'sawn(Richard Sharp's son)

I really enjoyed this book, you can always trust Cornwell to give you a good battle and to question your outlook on life as you are reading his books.

With respect to the latter, he makes several errors in _Battle Flag_. These seem not so much due to ignorance, carelessness, or convenience, as to a desire by Cornwell to re-characterize history to fit his own prejudices.

For example, he attributes to Jackson an active role in troop management during the battles at Cedar Mountain and Second Manassas. The truth is quite the opposite; Jackson remained largely passive during both of those battles. That was one of his few notable weak points during the entire campaign.

Cornwell's treatment here is odd, in that he supposedly based the historical portions of this novel largely on John Hennessy's fine history, _Return to Bull Run_, which details Jackson's passivity during those battles at some length, calling his performance "mediocre".

If a bit of gratuitous generosity on Jackson's behalf can be excused, the unnecessary swipe Cornwell takes at Longstreet in the Historical Notes section is not so easily forgiven. Cornwell makes the statement that "Lee's victory might have been more complete had Longstreet attacked [sooner]." Hennessy explicitly expresses the opposite opinion: Longstreet and Lee independently choose the exact same moment for the attack, and it was at that precise moment when the Union forces were at their most vulnerable.

Cornwell is, in essence, another Jackson/Lee groupie who thinks all faults belong to Longstreet -- and he's willing to re-write history in order to advance his prejuduces. Stuff like that is fine for arguing about over beers, but it's dishonest.

Corwell's books are fun to read though.

I cannot rate this book without talking about the brilliance of the whole series. Cornwell takes you from your reading room, and teleports you back to a simpler time. And you find out that it's not so simple. Set against the backdrop of the Eastern Theatre in the American Civil War, he portrays the massive carnage and greatest bravery in minute detail. You actually hear the cannons, and smell the rotting flesh of the wounded. Yet, the main plot does not take place amongst the gunfire outside. But, rather, within. It is a story of a soul, and his struggle with God, man, who he is, and what he stands for. Amidst the shouting, crying, blasting, and dieing...is a poor heart, searching for peace. I found Cornwell's protrayal of Nate Starbuck to be no less than perfect. I found myself rooting, questioning, hoping, and praying for this fictional character. For, I saw myself in Nate. The same questions, fears, and desires. When done, I walked away from this story with a different outlook on life, liberty, and what's truly important. As will you.