Richard Paul Evans is a gifted and talented author of inspirational and insightful tales. This book fulfills those goals. This is a story of two people in need of trust, faith, hope and love. A man who has lost so much in his life discovers a young woman who never had much to loose. Hunter is a preacher turned gambler. He has turned his back on God due to the death of his wife and child. Hunter is accused of a murder that he didn't commit. Quaye is a young girl from a starving Irish family, whose father "sold" her to a man, Jack, on his way to America. The husband turns out to be an extremely abusive man interested only in gold and money. Quaye accepts her life as the only possibility, no matter how horrible. hunter and Quaye are thrown together in a blizzard. They learn and discover things about themselves when viewed through the others eyes. The story was well written. The details of place and time were wonderful. The only disappointment was... this was the first novel of Richard Paul Evans that did not move me tears with it's lessons on life.

I have read every one of Mr. Evans' books, and find that he only gets better! The Looking Glass, as well as The Locket and the Christmas Box trilogy have helped me to heal differences between myself and my children and mother. I know that each book will require at least 3 hankies or 1 box of tissues, but that is okay, because tears heal. I believe that part of the message he is trying to send is that "it is okay to cry", and cry I do, when I read his books.

This is the first book I have read by Richard Paul Evans and can not wait to get my hands on his other books. You can feel deep down in your heart the agony and then love between Quaye and Hunter as described by R.P.Evans. I would love to see this come out as a movie and plan on buying the audio version of this book!

Charles Black, a former investment banker and a tough-nut chairman of the Fed quits his job in a struggle with the White House over rising interest rates. But he's persuaded to stay on for a while as a special envoy to represent the Fed at the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), the Swiss-based institution that serves as the industrialized world's clearinghouse for payments and monetary information.

So imagine Black's rude surprise when he arrives in Basel, Switzerland for one of the BIS's regular monthly meetings. Instead of the warm welcome he had been receiving for the past four years as a Fed chief, he is arrested, jailed, and charged with using his exclusive knowledge of U.S. interest-rate moves to mastermind the most audacious insider-trading scheme ever.

Intrigued yet?

As the conspiracy begins to unfold, Black finds himself no more than a fall guy for a shadowy Sardinian financier, a conniving Swiss lawyer with a desk full of secret bank accounts, and the real inside trader--a corrupt president of the Swiss National Bank. In this mix of characters lies the potential for a Hitchcockian drama of a victim mixing it up with his tormentors as he tries to clear his name. The Set-Up journeys from San Francisco and Washington to Switzerland, Sardinia, and the wilds of Alaska, where the plot against Black falls apart.

On the good side, Erdman keeps things moving with his descriptions of shady Swiss dealings, and prison life. Big Swiss heads come off as men of impeccable social standing but a flexible moral character. That's an all-too-common shortcoming among the Swiss big-money set that Erdman seems to have studied closely during his life as a doctoral student and banker in Basel.

But this is also my minor grouse with the book that is supposed to be more of a thriller than a treatise on global finance. Expect a fair bit of digressions into the minutiae of international banking including an introduction to the innards of derivatives markets. Which was great for me personally, but these are in fact slightly piquing in terms of the novel's flow.

Nonetheless this is all worth the ride if you are in the market for a financially inclined thriller. Recommended.

I love financial thrillers and have read most of Paul Erdman's fiction, but this is by far the best. Not only does he expertly take the reader through the world of derivatives investing and international banking, he paints a picture of Switzerland from Zurich's Bahnhofstrasse to the most remote parts of the Alps that makes you long to get on a plane and go there (and I have been there--it's worth it). The plot moves fast, from the point of view of every character; his knowledge of German, Swiss-German and Italian is impeccable, and the story culminates in an around-the-world chase that keeps you from putting the book down. I can't wait for his next one.

I was a young GI in Germany in 1969 just learning to appreciate "the Trib." I remember one article that caught my eye: a young American banker working in Basel at the sub of a California bank was arrested for trying to corner the world cocoa market! He failed miserably, and in the process wiped out his employer's equity base. As if the young banker, named Paul Erdman, did not know enough about Switzerland already, he was to learn more, from many months inside a Swiss jail. I next noticed Erdman several years later. He had written a novel, "The Billion-Dollar Sure Thing." I read it and liked it, and later learned that he had begun his novelist's career in that Swiss jail. Erdman's subsequent novels have never disappointed. He is the master of the financial thriller, an unfortunately under-populated genre. "The Set Up," like all of Erdman's fiction, takes place largely in Switzerland. Charles Black, former Chairman of the U.S. Fed, is arrested at the Basel airport as he enters Switzerland. (Erdman reminds us, as he never fails to do, that Basel's airport straddles the Swiss/French border.) He finds himself in the maws of the Swiss power structure, comprised of a hundred or so rich and powerful Swiss men who are, in Erdman's eye, as amoral and as slimy as any in the world. No Swiss Heidi-types here. (Had Erdman been successful in cornering the cocoa market he would have been hailed, not jailed, by this group for furthering the cause of Swiss chocolate!) To divulge any more of the plot would be cheating. Suffice it to say, there is lots of (1)German- Swiss bashing,(2)Deus ex machina that stretches credibility, and (3)untranslated "Schwietzer dooch" and other languages. There is also a woman/mate of the male hero who is sharper than the hero himself. This theme is present in most Erdman novels. Erdman has produced eight novels in a quarter of a century, about one every three years. When I haven't seen one for a while, I start looking in book stores. This year I did something different: I searched for Erdman at amazon.com. Sure enough, he'd written a new book which I ordered immediately. The several days it took to arrive in the mail was an eternity as I anticipated reading a new Erdman. It arrived, and did not disappoint. Erdman remains at the top of his form!

As a resident of Bali year-round, the number one complaint by almost every lonely planet carrying visitor is how inaccurate and outdated the lonely planet guides are. Whether it is Thailand or Indonesia, information that is needed on a daily basis is history by the time the lonely books reach the traveling consumer. Bookstores throughout Asia are piled high with lonely planets discarded by weary travelers eager to lessen their load. Lonely planet books do offer historical perspectives that can also be found on the internet, but the insider's information the first time traveler needs to save money and sanity their first days in Asia is sorely lacking. Updated info on how to avoid being ripped off from lodging to transportation to moneychanging is of primary concern to almost all visitors to Bali that we meet. Books as heavy as bricks with pretty pics are nice but hardly handy when you are in need of fast, accurate information. Try "The Beginners Guide to Bali" on cd-rom- it has weekly updated info and prepares the first time traveler to Bali for the unexpected.

I found this book quite informative and useful in its information about many different aspects of visiting Bali. The book provides wonderful cultural insights, historical background and detailed information.

The only major discrepancy we came across, for instance, was that the book said that Kuta has problems with tourists being hassled by street vendors, but when we went in April, we found that the main street in Kuta (where the Matahari Department Store is) quite the opposite. It turned out that the officials had just recently come down on the street vendors and put a stop to harassing tourists there. Instead, when we went to the center of town in Ubud, we were hassled a great deal by taxi/moped drivers to get us to hire them; this caught us off guard.

In response to concerns that the book isn't current on it's information, I feel that you shouldn't rely on a guidebook for prices, and that as a whole Lonely Planet Bali & Lombok gives the information that you need to know. It tells you in great detail about what there is to see and do, and where things are and how things work. I mean afterall, by the time any book reaches publication, isn't a lot of the information out-of-date? Otherwise, a book would never get published; it would be a newsletter.

I gave this a rating of 4 stars only because when we went to Bali, we didn't travel enough of the country (and we didn't get to Lombok) to give the book 5 stars.

We have just returned from Bali (October 2000) and strongly recommend taking this LP with you. I have been a bit skeptical about the info of some LP's (Mexico-we hardly used it!) but in Bali whoever put this one together knew their stuff. FORGET THE PRICES MENTIONED, they've at least doubled for meals accomodation etc , but then so has the amount of rupee you'll get!! One interesting note. We took a taxi to the Temple of Gudang Kawi, an 11th century temple. LP justifibly raves about it. The only other tourists there we saw were holding a LP. Local tour operaters didn't seem to think tourists would be interested in it and must take them to more boring temples!(and believe you me, they get boring!)

I have read the other reviews and based my purchase on them. I was greatly disappointed by several big "holes". First, there is no full alphabetical listing of vowels and consonants, upper and lowercase letters. Second, there is no phonetic pronuciation in either the English or Russian halves. You would have to be a second year student to know the pronunciations already OR have to try and write out each word letter-by-letter. Not useful at all for carrying along on a trip to the CIS or Russia.

Easily the best Russian dictionary I've ever used, and I've been using them for 50 years. There are so many examples of how the word is used that it's fun just as a casual read. You'll learn a lot more than just a simple definition.

This dictionary is the best one available for all anyone who is studying the Russian language. It is easy to use and has all the abreviations and everything else you could need.

This book is packed with information that you need to know about guitars and looking through the book is as good as being in your local guitar shop, absolutely fantastic showcase of guitars throughout the years. Paul Trynka did a nice work on the book . If you love guitar then this is the book for you.

It was quite informative for both the aspiring filmmaker and the seasoned professional. Two big thumbs up!

I have read this book cover to cover. This book is for little children who want to learn about medicine. If you have little kids, get them this book as a head start. They will become great doctors after reading it. You-won't! This book is not even close to a reality! How can they even publish this book! Please, if you have little children that are in kindergarten, and they would like to learn about medicine, please buy them this book. But please don't read this book for yourself for the Boards! This book won't even tell you the most common things that occur commonly! This book doesn't even have all syndromes and diseases that are definitely gonna be asked on the Boards! This book says nothing about Takaysu's arteritis, Temporal (Giant cell) Arteritis. This book won't even mention cytoplasmic antinuclear antibodies (c-ANCA)that are present in Wegener's granulomatosis! This book won't even mention ANA Ab against double stranded DNA in SLE for God's sake! How can they even publish this book? This book doesn't have a half what you need to know! This book is for little children who would like to learn very very basic things about little things in medicine.

This is an excellent book to put a baby to sleep.

I do have to agree that the CD-ROM, that comes with the book has a few good vignettes and questions that might be helpful to you, but please don't read this children's book.

If you ever study for the USMLE and you want to have a single book to give you the confidence that you are covering the basics, pick this one. I recommend it as a starter. There are many tables and high-yield diagrams. If you want to have the "synoptic" and "big picture" companion to the selected high yield topics in First Aid to the USMLE, then do pick this one. Big printed text and relaxed style makes reading a breeze. A confidence builder. Admittedly, not exhaustive but remember the maxim: Less is more.

OK, nerds don't like this book. It isn't for nerds. If you want to get bogged down in senseless details, go ahead. If you have a life an want some relevent info, get this and/or the First Aid series.

I am basically a Steve Martini fan. When he is at his best, there is none better. When he is not at the top of his form, you have a book like this: not bad, not that good. The storyline involving a missing nuclear device has been done before and better. While the book is a page turner, getting me to read the last 200 pages at one sitting, I still had no real sense of enjoyment after completing it. The characters were too stereotypical, especially Belden/Thorn and Joss, who never really came across as an appealing individual whom one could care about and really root for over the course of the novel. Maybe Martini got tired of Paul Madriani and the legal thrillers, but I hope he returns to them soon. The List was not up to his standards, neither is Critical Mass. Critical Mass was not terrible, but there is really nothing special about it. I read it, but it was just another book.

Martini was beginning to stretch his courtroom characters a little too thin in The Judge; I'm glad he went off in a new direction in this book. It's as full of unexpected turns as all his previous whodunits, but this time with domestic and international terrorists. Its basic plot is believable (even if there are a few too many miraculous escapes) and it'd make a great movie. Don't start this book at bedtime because you won't put it down. Martini is to be commended for having a strong woman as protagonist; I only regret she never got her "constitutional rights". In the end Martini kills off the wrong character, the character I had really bonded to and wanted to see in future books. (Or, did he really die? In this book you're never sure!) A great trash read for a beach day, an airplane flight, or a lazy Saturday.

Put the name Steve Martini or Nelson Demille or Dick Francis on a book and I'll read it. They all grab you on page one and don't let go until the end. Martini's THE JUDGE got me started on his books and he's never disappointed yet. In CRITICAL MASS Martini not only tells a stirring tale but also leaves the reader shaken by the possibility of what could come to pass in a nuclear world run amuck.

One criticism, however. As one who reads every word, I was struck by the half dozen or so grammatical errors that pull you up short and that you would not expect from a carefully edited Putnam book. Just one will illustrate: "We'll can tell him later." That aside I plan to recommend CRITICAL MASS to my friends as a must read just like THE JUDGE.

There are some persons that you find very interesting the first time you talk with them, but during the succesive conversations their appeal does not increase, on the contrary, they become more boring and boring and boring.

Well this book follows the same pattern with each chapter you read. The line could be summarized as follows: A young Chinese girl is forced to become a prostitute for the officals of the Japanese Army during their invasion of Nanking. The father of girl finds out and kills her Japanese pimp.

On the other hand, the 300 pages of the books are just used by the author to show that he knows a lot of vocabulary. Sadly it is used most of the time to take the reader to the arms or Morpheus, not to develop a storyline. Now if you suffer from insomnia that might be a good reason to buy the book.

THE TENT OF ORANGE MIST is one of the current novels that attempt to describe the horrors visited on the Chinese remaining in Nanking, during the Japanese invasion of 1937. The arbitrary anarchy of the Japanese is visited on anyone in the way, as families are slaughtered, women raped, buildings burned. Scald Ibis is the daughter of an intellectual family who failed to escape. She finds herself alone in the house where she grew up, as the Japanese turn her home into a comfort house. Regardless of the atrocities visited upon her young body, Scald Ibis determines to survive. When she finds her father hiding behind a chimney, she resolves to save them both, using her feminine wiles to turn herself into a giesha. She also makes up stories for the other girls about a priest she had studied in school, Sandro Somatti, S.J. The chapters devoted to the adventures of Sandro seem to dilute the power of the story for me. But seen in context, these chapters do add to the sense of unreality that surrounds this comfort house. I found this book to be less of a satisfying read than some others on this topic.

The art of decadence, which reached its zenith in late nineteenth-century French literature consists in transforming artificiality and repugnance into the stuff of heady pleasure. In decadence, the whole must serve each, individual part. In this sense, decadence is just the opposite of classicism in which the opposite is true and each part must be pressed into service of the whole. The pleasures of decadence, however one wishes to view them, and, no matter how artificial they may be, can be extraordinarily exquisite. In The Tent of Orange Mist, Paul West shows that he is truly one of the masters of decadence.

The Tent of Orange Mist is set against the backdrop of the horrors of the rape of Nanking by the Japanese army during the winter of 1937. The protagonist is Scald Ibis, the very proper adolescent daughter of a Chinese scholar. Two other characters dominate this book: Colonel Hayashi, the man who orchestrates Scald Ibis's transformation from child into woman; and Hong, her enfant terrible father who undergoes a none-too-pleasant transformation of his own. As Scald Ibis becomes involved in a sado-masochistic pas de deux with Hayashi, her home is turned into a brothel and she, herself, is transformed from a stunned sex slave into and elegant geisha. Against a grotesque backdrop of luridly depicted atrocities, Scald Ibis, Hayashi and Hong play out a game of intense tragedy that includes domination, subversion and mutilation.

Hundreds of thousands of innocent Chinese civilians met a grisly death at the hands of the Japanese during the rape of Nanking. Most writers who have undertaken to portray this atrocity have combined stark realism with an epic narrative technique, hoping to engage the reader's attention and evoke a sense of righteous outrage. West, however, takes a very different approach.

The Tent of Orange Mist is a book about the seductive power of art and the temptations of artifice. In keeping with the theme of his story, West imposes on his extraordinarily artificial characters an intimate and rather claustrophobic view that is perfect. In West's extremely talented hands, this improbable trio becomes believable, even when indulging in the most bizarre of circumstances. After being gang-raped by Hayashi and his troops, Scald Ibis's first gesture is to compose an elegant poem in calligraphy to the man she considers her new master.

This is a story of rape, of rapture, of poetry and of atrocity, but West tells his tale in prose that is graceful and delicately ornate. Although this extremely intimate look at a world and characters who are often bizarre and tortured and perverted will be offensive to some readers, The Tent of Orange Mist is a book that, considering what it depicts, is exquisitely beautiful and elegantly wrought.

NUMA, the supposedly research-geared government-funded agenyc that has tackled such boring dilemmas as raising the Titanic or otherwise deterring the dreams of many would-be world concquerors, has its share of heroes. Until now, NUMA has been the home-base of adventurer Dirk Pitt, the legendary creation of real-life submarine archaeologist Clive Cussler. Author Paul Kaprecos tries to carry the franchise a little further by adding new heroes to NUMA's roster - Austin and Zavala, but the result is a pale rip-off of a formula that was getting old when handled by Cussler. In this story, as with many of the Pitt-novels, a modern day crisis has roots or some other connection to an age-old mystery. Here, a Mayan artifact, shipped across the Atlantic on the Andrea Doria, goes down when that ship collides with a Swedish luxury liner. Fast-forward a few decades later: an archeological expedition in North Africa is brutally massacred, leaving only one survivor, a supermodel-esque archeologist who barely escapes death when managing to reach a nearby NUMA research ship. Helping out, and then having to confront the assassins themselves on a follow-up raid, Austin and Zavala pick up the pieces and discover a shadowy cabal that stretches from the age of Christopher Columbus to a shadowy southwest American businessman named Halcon. When the trail leads to a ring that smuggles mayan relics out of South America, Zavala and Austin uncover further proof that America's first "discoverers" had crossed the Atlantic ages earlier than Columbus. Through it all, a band of assassins linked to Halcon follows NUMA, indicating that even these age-old relics are important. With its offbeat NUMA charachters (like the obese St. Julien Perlmutter), the heroes put together an impressive theory to account for the presence of non-Mayan relics in Mayan temples, clues that signal an even bigger pay-off down the line.

What kills the book is how thin a story it is, one that will be familiar to anybody who's read the other Cussler novels. The evil Halcon is in turns no more greedy, magalomaniacal and insane than the baddies faced by Dirk Pitt, so his master plan, when revealed, won't exactly come as a surprise. The mystery itself doesn't seem to offer that much appeal. Searching for buries treasure is less NUMA than "Little Rascals" - as say an exotic metal that will power an anti-missile defense ("Raise the Titanic"), a missing nuclear submarine ("Pacific Vortex"), the dommsday bug bacteria ("Vixen") or a treaty that gives Canada to the United States ("Night Probe"). Also, Cussler was better when he put his pieces together - usually a round-up session when the major charachters gather togather and tell what they know, only to have Dirk Pitt put the pieces together in a way that nobody expected. In "Serpent", the mystery involves a "talking stone" whose meaning escaped the Spanish exploerers. Somehow, the rock never becomes more than a mere slab in these pages. The new NUMA novels had an interesting idea - replacing the lone hero with some teamwork and camaraderie. Only, the payoff would have been a more expansive story. Instead, the charachters never become more than fragments of Dirk Pitt, accomplishing together what Pitt would have pulled off alone. Instead, opt for one of Cussler's own Pitt novels.

I don't give it a full five stars,mainly because there are better adventures. It is a hell of a read though!

I have read and loved all of Cussler's books. I was hesitant at first about reading this one. I was torn between loyalty to Dirk and Al, while at the same time realizing that after so many novels there had to be an infusion of new character blood. I was thrilled with this joint venture. There are similarities between the two action heros, but at the same time there are definite differences. The new team of Kurt and Joe have their moments. While this plot is not as complex, tension filled or as fast paced, as some of Cussler's other books, it is nonetheless in the true Cussler style. I was not disappointed with the new boys on the NUMA team nor with Nina, Kurt's apparent love interest. Cussler skillfully linked all four action characters and hopefully in a future novel the four will be able to share in a joint adventure. I am optimistic that Cussler will also rev the Kurt/Joe team up to the nail biting adventures that Dirk/Al seemed to constantly land in. I am excited that Mr Cussler would accept the challenge of bringing new characters into a well establish cult following of his. He not only accepted the challenge; he has won me over with them. Looking forward to more adventures of these new characters - soon I hope.