This is an unusual entry in the series because instead of being the solitary big city investigator, Tanner returns to his family and small town roots.

The book was worth 5 stars until the end where Greenleaf committed the cardinal sin of murder mysteries by introducing the killer in the last chapter.

I grew up in this town! It was amazing to picture the settings of my youth as the story unfolded.I look forward to Greenleaf's next Tanner book.

Most interesting of the John Tanner series. Interesting plot twists and turns inter-woven with period settings. Great book to read as escapism. Kept my attention throughout and such that I didn't want to quit reading and looked for excuses to interrupt other activites to finish reading.

I used this book whilst studying my Diploma in Sales and Marketing and found it invaluable. It goes through the fundamental steps of selling and gives you great examples of companies different approaches to the selling environment. A must for all sales people who want to learn the basics of selling or those who want to brush up on their skills.

A FRIEND OF MINE WHO IS A PROFESSOR IN ZIMBABWE (UNIVERSITY OF ZIMBABWE) WOULD LIKR TO KNOW IF YOU HAVE A TEACHERS RESOURCE BOOK, OR ANY SUPPLEMENTS TO THIS BOOK (SELLING - BUILDING PATNERSHIP)

I feel quite strange presuming to give a numerical rating to a book by one of American literature's greatest authors.

It's important for readers to realize that White-Jacket is not what would, in the modern day, be considered a novel. There is essentially no plot structure. It's a melange of events, descriptive passages and polemic, narrated by the eponymous White-Jacket, whom I suspect of being Melville himself. At times the book is entertainingly humorous - as when the narrator tries to get rid of his famous jacket. And much of the description of life aboard a man-of-war is fascinating -- the book would make a helpful companion for people reading modern novels such as O'Brian's series. (And, of course, White-Jacket probably was one of the sources used by O'Brian and other aquatic novelists.) The polemic -- Melville's rants against flogging and his pacifist pleas -- I found tiresome, as I always find polemic, regardless of its aims.

If you find yourself in a position where the individuals in authority over you are, in the actual state of affairs, your moral inferiors, then on this level alone you will be able to appreciate this book.

Fascinating, entertaining account of life on a man-of-war. Hilarious in parts; always subversive. Melville's mock glorification of the U.S. Navy and its officers is brilliant.

The Blithedale Romance is a somewhat dark, depressing tale of idealism gone awry and of friendship and love torn asunder by private ambitions. The romance of these pages is not what many modern readers may expect to find here; there is no penultimate consummation of love among these characters, nor is there much happiness indeed to be discerned from the complexity of their relations one with another. Much has been made of Hawthorne's own temporary residence at the utopian-minded Brook Farm a decade previous to the publication of this work; it is true that some of the experiences derive from his own memories, but Hawthorne went to great pains to make clear that this is a romance first and foremost and bears no direct relation to the experiences of his own life. Those who would read this novel in an attempt to get at Hawthorne's true feelings about the utopian socialism he flirted with and watched from afar during his pivotal creative years may well miss out on the thought-provoking treatment of such wonderfully literary, fascinating characters as Hollingsworth the idealistic philanthropist, Zenobia the modern feminist reformer with a fatal flaw inimical to her self-realization, and the sweet and frail Priscilla.

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.

vintage is always a pleasure, presuming of course that we're talking about the real thing. there's a regal pace about hawthorne's prose that is undeniably hawthorne and no one else. there's that rigid, regimental quality uniquely hawthornian, a sense of iron discipline, utterly lacking in modern american prose. if vintage is what you seek, check out the blithedale romance: it'll set you straight.

This is not only a book with which any Hawthorne fan should be familiar, it is a necessity to anyone who is studying the Romantic Tradition. This text is an elegant commentary on the ideals that the Romantics held dear, such as the authenticity of a life close to the earth, the superiority of existence outside of common society rather than within it, and our innate ability, with enough well-directed effort, to transcend our own humanity. Like a breath of fresh air after Wordsworth, Thoreau, Keats, and both Shelleys, Hawthorne's cynicism and pessimism on these topics shine clearly through this work. Though admittedly he has failed in his announced effort to make the text cheerful and lighthearted, this is not such a complete failure as one may initially suppose, when this novel is contrasted with his others. Much of the humor that is in the book is centered around the narrator, Coverdale, whose nature forces him to fit in with his surroundings in a way which is a bit askew, precipitating enjoyable scenes which the reader can appreciate, if he or she has refrained from judging this main character. The treasure in this book, however, is not mainly in its humor, but rather (for me at least - each person presumably takes from it something different) in the elegance with which so many universal truths are exposed (often only partially, so that the reader can feel a sense of triumph when they wholly uncover them) to our conscious awareness. As you have no doubt already surmised, I highly recommend this novel.

John Marshall Tanner is the likeable protagonist in this entertaining book. Tanner is a former lawyer who operates in a laid back fashion and is a private detective mostly by default.BOOK CASE is about fraud and murder. It also deals with the way in which some people can get ensnared by the lure of an elite private school.

I really liked the book. It is a great followup to False Conception. Greenleaf's focus character, John Marshall Tanner narrates the story, and it is fun to read a first person account by a guy tough enough to be a P.I who is also thoughtful and intelligent. I would even add that Tanner seems sensitive, but then you would think Tanner is another Spencer, which he isn't. Tanner is smart but not smart mouthed, nice to women but doesn't go around quoting love poetry. Tanner is world weary enough to be able to make great observations and asides on Seattle life and culture, which is the best part of the book

"Grave Error" is the first novel in Stephen Greenleaf's fine but underrated John Marshall Tanner private Detective series. Tanner is neither as quick with his wits as Phillip Marlowe nor as eccentric as Matthew Scudder, but this novel contains the kind of hard boiled elements both would be comfortable with. When an old friend and fellow detective is murdered while investigating a case, Tanner drops his own case only to find that the two are somehow connected. Ultimately, the story becomes an elaborate whodunnit with plenty of twists and turns along the way. They violence is fast and ferocious and the mood is appropriately somber. If there is a drawback, its that because the plot is so thick, Tanner's personality is not as well defined as it should be. Nevertheless, as P.I. novels go, this entry is very worthwhile.

This book contains a large amount of useful information and is clearly organized. However, the writing is very dry and a large amount of the information is repeated in numerous sections.

Set aboard a Mississippi side-wheel steamer in the 1850s, Melville's novel charts the progress of the American character at a time when the old frontier was giving way, albeit slowly, to a new, urban frontier.

"The Confidence-Man" works at so many different levels that it is no wonder Melville's readers weren't quite sure what to make of his ninth novel. It is a call-and-response of idealism suborned for the purposes of sheer humbuggery, material theft and moral sophistry.

I think readers would do well to always keep the word "confidence" in mind as they read the novel; it recurs time and again in different contexts throughout the book. Melville's purpose is to highlight the rift between what things seem to be and what they truly are. It is eerily existential in tone and readers familiar with Kierkegaard and Camus will be delighted by Melville's keen appreciation for the absurdity of the human condition.

The wretched reception of "The Confidence-Man" undermined what little was left of Melville's own self-confidence as a writer whose work could support his family. In one sense, this was a grievous shame, because Melville lived for nearly four more decades and, presumably, could have spent that time producing more great literature had his contemporaries simply recognized the intellectual genius of his work.

In another sense, though, "The Confidence-Man" is a fitting send-off to a literary career hobbled by critical inattention and plain bad luck. Melville's America is not an America where dreams come true (note how China Aster is destroyed by his) and where confidence -- optimism -- is rewarded or even warranted. Yet, it is an America recognizably closer to the one we live in than those crafted by Melville's contemporaries -- Emerson, Thoreau, Irving.

"The Confidence-Man" is a very complex novel of ideas. This particular edition is very useful because it provides fairly thorough annotation throughout the book. I would highly recommend it for use in a graduate course on American intellectual history, particularly juxtaposed against Emerson and Tocqueville's analyses of American society and culture.

With "The Confidence-Man," Melville offered a final novelistic expression of his hopes, doubts, and frustrations about the American nation on the verge of Civil War in the late 1850's.

Many critics and reviewers take a negative point of view on this novel, saying that the narrative instability and episodic nature of the novel represents Melville's anger with the increasingly poor reception of his later novels, including the brilliant "Moby-Dick".

Over the course of the novel's first half, we are presented with a string of characters who spout the virtues of charity and trust, all supposedly different manifestations of one Confidence-Man. The confidence-man engages passengers of the riverboat Fidele from St. Louis to New Orleans in philosophical, literary, personal, and business-related conversations. This is the heart of the novel, even in the second half, where only one confidence-man appears. As in Cervantes' "Don Quixote," you are able to tease out more about the ambiguous purposes of the novel through speeches rather than actions.

At points amusing, horrifying, and sad, "The Confidence-Man" is difficult, if not impossible to categorize in any simple fashion. An extremely worthwhile read, especially if you read it as a prophetic work of the American Civil War and try to figure out for yourself if Melville thought things would turn out alright, or if the US was due for an apocalyptic judgment.

Quite an Original

The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade
I am specifically reviewing the Northwestern University Press edition of Melville's "The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade."

There is a Norton Critical Edition of this novel edited by Hershel Parker, but it doesn't seem to be offered by Amazon.com. It is offered at at W.W. Norton's website... The Hendricks House edition edited by Elizabeth Foster is another good edition, but it seems to be out of print at the moment.

On November 12, 1856 Herman Melville and Nathanial Hawthorne took a walk among the sandhills near Liverpool, England. They smoked cigars, and Hawthorne wrote about a week later that Melville spoke of Providence and futurity, and he, Melville, had pretty much made up his mind to be annilated.

"The Confidence-Man" is the last novel that Melville published during his lifetime. I agree with Newton Arvin, who called "The Confidence-Man" "one of the most infidel books ever written by an American; one of the most completely nihilistic, morally and metaphysically."

About 150 years after the book was first published, and about fifty since the book was first taken seriously by literary critics, The Confidence-Man is not a settled matter. In fact there remains excessive discord among readers and critics about the worth of this novel. Some compare it to Swift's "Tale of the Tub," others will tell you that this book is static and formless.

The idea is simple enough. On April 1 a devil in the guise of a deaf mute goes aboard a Mississippi river steamboat, and begs for charity. In rapid succession he transforms himself into a crippled Black man, a man with the weed, the man in the grey coat , the gentleman with the big book, the man with the plate and finally the Cosmopolitan. In these different guises he gulls and diddles people. He asks for trust. He is not always successful, but he can take solace in his failures. The reason for the devil's failures is the cyniscim, mistrust and mysandry of his marks. It is their human failings that accounts for his failures. And that's not so bad for the devil.

Melville's control of his material was never greater. I recommend the Northwestern Newberry edition because it contains draft fragments of chapter 14. You can see how carefullly Melville wrote this novel. The blandness of the prose is deliberate. If you read the surviving drafts you will see how Melville purposedly silenced and muted his message. Perhaps Melville was too successful for even close readers get lost sometimes.

At the end there is an increase of seriousness. An old man closes his Bible and asks for a life preserver. The Cosmopolitan hands the old man a chamberpot which appears to be full, and calls it a life preserver. The Cosmopolitan then extinguishes the lamp, and then leads the other into the darkness.

I was hoping to get some interesting insight into Doc Holliday by one of his ancestors and this book does provide information on his early life that you don't usually find. However, there was a little too much information about his family - parents, uncles, aunts - that I personally did not care about. There is also a section of Doc Holliday's genealogy that I felt could have been left out, although actually there was a tidbit of information there that was useful to me. I didn't feel that there was much detail brought in to certain events, but then, there are other books that provide practically second by second coverage of the Tombstone gunfight. His death was not written in detail and his famous last words were left out of the book. That said, I would still recommend this book to someone wanting to know more about the life of Doc Holliday away from Tombstone. It is also an easy, to the point read.

The first time I watched the movie Tombstone, I was heartbroken that it chose to focus on the Earp family, rather than Doc Holliday who seemed SO much more interesting! After the movie, I realized that I knew very little about this man other than his nickname. I started to search for factual information about "Doc" Holliday, and not much is available.

This is a FANTASTIC book. Forget your romantic notions about the gunslinger, and be prepared to meet the real man who is much more fascinating and WORTHY OF ADMIRATION than you would have believed previously.

The greatest weakness of this book is also it's greatest strength since the book is authored by a Holliday cousin. She has access to a wealth of information and photos that the publisher claims has never been available before its 1999 printing of this book. However, when it comes to certain scandals, you can easily see how she chooses to represent history in a favorable light. Probably best read in conjunction with other first hand but less biased sources.

Definately worth owning. A very easy read. Would make a great gift to interest a teenager in reading or in history.

THE TOMBSTONE EPITAPH, July 1998 -- Review by C. F. Eckhardt, Book Bag Editor.

From the publication of this book on, any work about or mentioning John Henry Holliday, DDS, which does not list this book as a source must be considered essentially the product of imagination.

Previous serious attempts at biography of Doc Holliday had their good points, but they lacked one thing: No one had any real information on the background of the young Georgia dentist who became Doc Holliday.

The Holliday Family, for over a century, refused to even discuss their notorious relative with anyone outside the family circle. As a result, the background information in those books was based upon rumor, gossip, and a few matters of public record, some of which was relatively accurate but much of which was pure moonshine.

At long last the Holliday's have broken the silence. Tanner writes, "Enough time has past so that there is no one left who feels either shame or guilt over the life ! of John Henry." Therefore, from the Holliday family Bibles, letters, unpublished family manuscripts, genealogical records, and the gathered memories of the family, she has given us the story of a shy, retiring, handicapped child whose life was turned upside down twice -- once by the War Between the States and Reconstruction, and again by the death of his beloved mother and his father's hasty remarriage to a woman only eight years the senior of his son -- who became the legend known across the American West as 'Doc Holliday.'

This is the single 'must have' book on the subject of Doc Holliday. Any of the other biographies are worth reading, but only if you read them in conjunction with DOC HOLLIDAY, A FAMILY PORTRAIT will you get the full picture of the man who became Doc Holliday.