Boston

I thought the book was excellent. It artfully combines historical content with practical advice that any African American male can use. I always thought it took a lot of money to look great. But using this book as a guide definitely helped.

This book is NOT a fashion book as the understated subtitle suggests. Instead, I am looking at a GALLERY of fine Black men throughout the ages with their "fashions" being very secondary.

This book is filled with WONDERFUL color and black and white photos of Black men -- famous and unknown, past and present. This book is monumentally political for it demonstrates why the Black man is loved, hated, feared, hunted, and reverenced throughout the world! This book is a job well-done.

After reading and reading and reading Lloyd Boston's book "Men of Color: Fashion, Historyi, Fundamentals", I can honestly say that I LOVE THIS BOOK! It is a source of reference to me when I buy gifts for the special men in my life or when they are unsure of how to buy for themselves. It is a conversation piece with all who enter my home. We reminisce about the pictures and ooh and ahh over beauty held within the pictures. My favorite interview is when Mr. Boston speaks with Jesse Jackson on youth culture and fashion. Thanks to Mr.Boston for the picture of Tyson Beckford and the other fine men!

Two things caught my attention when I first picked up this book: First that it seemed to be a standard espionage thriller, treading a well-worn path; Second that it obviously isn't.

The difference is the sci-fi slant that the novel takes, whereby the hero (Ben Ellison) acquires the ability to read minds. It introduces a welcome break from the standard fare and gives the book an interesting twist, without which it might not have been quite the entertaining read it turned out to be.

If I have one critisism of Finder, it's the annoyingly explicit detail he goes to in describing a scene or event. You are bombarded with line after line of irrelevant detail that seems to do little to build characters or locations.

This aside, 'Extraordinary Powers' is an exciting read, with the pace and plot building up steam as the story progresses. As you near the end of the book you'll find it becomes irresistable, demanding that you finish it to iron out all of the plot's wrinkles.

An enthralling, captivating read with a clever plot and engaging characters. Highly recommended

I thought his first book was just great so I had high hopes for this one. I would say that it is a bit of a let down but still a very good work. It delivers just a fun read that keeps a real good pace through out. There are a fair number of course changes and sub plots that keep it interesting. As he did in Moscow Club, he writes very smart characters that keep you involved. I also am very pleased with the political detail he places in the books and the tension that tends to bring. Overall a good effort and a book well worth the price.

High Crimes is the latest (last?) in Finder's collection of four (to date) outstanding novels which, upon investigation, reveal some of the most enlightening political info and predictions of our time. His first book, Moscow Club, accurately predicted the Soviet coup just before its occurrence. His second, Extraordinary Powers, accurately predicted the exposure of a high ranking CIA mole. His third, Zero Hour, explains the pitiful security of the world's finance system (and thank God it hasnt come true yet!), and his latest High Crimes pre-dates by three years a remarkably similar tale as the one recently uncovered concerning former Senator Bob Kerrey's command in Vietnam. A truly informative and knowledgeable man with a knack for fantastic presentation, Finder's books are some of the finest around. Pick them up, and you won't ever want to put them down.

It was a great book! I would have given it 5 stars based on story alone, but there are some editing problems. Not the author's fault of course, but it can possibly make it a bit harder to read than his other book "A Taste for Money." this book really gives you something to think about. While Mars' second book is about a good cop gone bad, this book makes it much harder to judge the cops either way. True, they are taking the law into their own hands, but when the law stops working as it should, is this really bad......?

It definitly is a "must read" much as I dislike cliche terms. I am not much of a "true crime" or mystery fan, but these were wonderful. Captivating, thought provoking. A good story and a question all in one. Everything a really good book should be!

Peter Mars has taken the reader through a series of scenarios that if real would shock any Bostonian! Having worked in Cambridge and knowing the surrounding towns that encompass to plot, one wonders what is potentailly real or not real in this shocker! Mars'30 years and experience in Police work in Boston shines in the graphic description of real life police experiences. You just know that he was there for some of this fiction! The creativeness of the expository in the various scenes as well as the main character's "first person" descriptions of a cop's feasible day to day routine puts the reader in the driver's seat of the patrol car. The two part sectioning of the book was intriguing and became a late "hook" for me. The first "hook" was one third into the book.. drama in the tunnel. Not knowing that remnant caverns of Boston's subway (the oldest in the US- the MTA, before the MBTA) existed, the author has created for the reader his imagination of what might be going on below the streets of Boston today. A must read for people that who like police action and envision justice prevailing when the legal system loopholes allow for repeat offenders to end up back on the street to prey on the public...

Was this one... GREAT story! Grips you from the start, and won't let go untill you are finished. Mr. Mars writes for everyone, not only for the book snobs, but for real people! Like Mikey "Try it you WILL like it"!

Ripped from headlines that have been contemporary for more than a year, "Betrayal ..." is the Boston Globe newspaper's investigative staff product of the problem of pedophiles and molesters (and there's a significant distinction between the two) in the Catholic priesthood. What may sound like editorializing seems to be verified by supporting documentation of priests who victimize boys of all from adolesence to young adulthood, and the book reads more like an elongated newspaper article, not that that's bad. But, at its heart, "Betrayal ..." maps out what a convincing argument that an inordinate number of child molesters seem to be in the clergy. If you can get past the sheer devastation of divine trust shattered and totally destroyed and the childhoods literally decimated, "Betrayal ..." also posits the question of why the child abuse crisis exists. One plausible theory, though certainly not justification for sex with children, is that the celibate nature of the priesthood perverts sexual desire to the expression of child molesting. That one sounds, and one would hope, more plausible than the terrifying other possibility that the priesthood attracts what "Betrayal ..." classifies as homosexuals. With that theory, however, the unfair and inaccurate implication that homosexuals are also child molesters isn't satisfactorily explored and dismissed. On this count, "Betrayal ..." might be serving the hopefully unintended fears that fuel homophobia. More fully, though, the book states clearly what is indeed a crisis by any standard. The non-Catholic whose church is not under fire may not be as moved by the sense of betrayal that the Catholic faithful may inevitably suffer. However, "Betrayal ..." and the priests who offer their commentary are barely spared from coming off as a crisis of faith and, instead, must be read as a crisis of man and not the God of worship. In the end, the Catholics among us cannot help but feel betrayed by the men in whom we have entrusted our children. And by remembering the crisis is man-made, we don't have to lose our faith in the God of our worship. In the end, those of us who are Catholic may conclude that our church's heirarchy has to be dismantled, accountability institutionally implemented and the demons of our children prosecuted along with being treated.

[Let my put my conflicts of interests right up front. I am a Catholic who converted from Methodist six years ago. Since that time I have worked actively in my parish in Fort Worth, Texas and now am the director of the RCIA program (the program for adults who want to join the church) in my parish. In addition, althouth I am not aware of any abuse by priests in my parish or diocese, the liturgy director at my parish, a lay person, was convicted this year of sexual conduct with a minor that occured about ten years ago.]

In my opinion, the most fascinating person in a true crime story is not the person who is obviously sick and evil, but the one who aids and abbets in the crime. For instance, several years ago in Chicago there was a young woman who was desparate to have a child. She hatched a plan to steal a child by cutting the child out of another woman's womb. If the story ended there, it would only be one of an obviously sick woman who needed alot of help, but it didn't. She convinced a man she new to actually carry out this plan. How does that happen? How does the man listen to the ravings of this deranged woman and say, "Yeah. That sounds like a good idea. I'll do it."?

I have the same questions about the crisis in the Catholic Church. I have no problem with understanding that the likes of John Geoghan, Joseph Birmingham, Paul Shanley, and Robert Trupia are sick and evil men. They each have molested scores of young boys and seem to have no comprehension of the impact of their actions. What I don't understand is why did the bishops they worked for and knew of accusations of molestation against them think it was a good idea to move them to a new set of victims? Why do some men of God become complicit in evil?

Unfortunately this book has no answer for those questions. It is written by the group of reporters from the Boston Globe who pried the story from the secretive Boston diocese. As such, it primarialy answers who, what, when, and where, but not why. The gory details of the molestors' activities are given and the pain and anger of many of the victims, too. But in one unforgetable story, the Christlike actions of one victim is told. A victim of Birmingham confronted him after many years of pain and suffering and said, "I've come here to ask you to forgive me for the hatred and resentment that I heve felt toward you for the last twenty-five years."

Much of the book is devoted to the problems in and around Boston, as may be expected. However, the reporters do touch on similar cases in other areas. Although the full extent of the crisis is not known, and may not be known without many more reporters in other dioceses investigating their local church, these reporters note that almost 200 sitting priests have been removed around the country and many more have been removed around the world. The problem of failing to respond to evil in the midst of the Catholic Church is definately not specific to Cardinal Law or even to the United States.

1. This book is an excellent investigation into what occured in Boston involving the Catholic church and sex abuse.

2. It is also an excellent book in explaining the power of the Catholic Church in the culture and politics of Boston. This power may explain why Cardinal Law and others were able to get away with such abuses of power.

3. This is an extremely painful read as it details exactly what occurred to these children while they were being abused.

4. With that said, THIS BOOK IS A MUST READ FOR ALL CATHOLICS!

Willett's debut work is as fast a page-turner as any Grisham book. I found myself not only entrenched within the story but the Bostonian environs as well. Lively characters and descriptive settings, The Deal is well worth a read. I look forward to Willett's sophmore corpus

This is a fast-paced Boston legal intrigue. There is a mega-deal with an apparent typo - that hands $830,000,000 back to the buyer. No one knows who was responsible at the law firm for the (?)misprint in the deal. Then the senior partner on the deal is found murdered, and his associate is (?falsely) accused. He appeals to his buddy to defend him with only 13 days to build a case... It is superbly written - with suspense and excellent dramatic timing that leaves you hanging on the edge of your seat. It has a wonderful Boston feel, a background love story - I loved it.

C'mon Hollywood? What are you waiting for? Money, love, romance, intrigue, suspense, a mind-twisting puzzle that leaves you wondering at the end whether it's really over...come on...This is a great book, a great story, and characters who are truly REAL and not ... ....Sabin Willett needs to resurrect these characters for another round...

Ed Mulcahy, the newest partner at the tony Boston law firm of Freer Motley, has agreed to defend the man who may have murdered the firm's recently deposed managing director. To do so, he won't get paid, he will lose his job, and will have to face his own personal demons to find the footing he needs to bring this case not only to trial but to a verdict that you may still question even after you've finished the last page.

Man those tyrants were really smart making up this Constitution,I mean look how much power it has given them. PEOPLE, TYRANNY ALWAYS GROWS IN ANY GOVERNMENT. THE FOUNDING FATHERS KNEW THAT THE CONSTITUTION WOULD ONLY DELAY THE GROWTH OF TYRANNY. So hey lets all just go over to Washington D.C. and burn the Constitution because you believe this great document is a FRUAD!!!!!!!Wow lets see how long you would last after you did that.lol

Now THIS is a book you can sink your "mind's teeth" into! If you've ever wondered how we have come to suffer from a huge central government under a Constitution which was supposed to prevent such, then Hologram of Liberty is your book. I met Kenneth Royce (a.k.a. Boston T. Party) at an expo recently, and he confided that he considered Hologram his finest work. I agree. While I've greatly enjoyed his other more "how-to" titles (Good-Bye April 15th!, You & The Police!, Bulletproof Privacy, Boston on Guns & Courage, and Boston on Surviving Y2K), Hologram of Liberty is utterly unique and sweeping. He proves that the 1787 Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia was tantamount to a coup d'etat which created a leviathan state over time. He then outlines the classic political solutions to Big Government (e.g., elections, constitutional amendments, a 3rd party, a virtuous constitutional convention, and 10th Amendment assertions by the states/people) and proves them to be fruitless. His ingenious solutions to a government which regulates everything from aprons to xylophones are the most fascinating proposals I've ever read in the subject of political science. This is a thoroughly original work, and quite honestly one of the best books I've ever had the pleasure to read. I really can't say enough about Hologram of Liberty!

The belief that we are a free country and that the federalist papers are important reading are statements thought to be true by many people. In fact, Mr T. Party, points out that it's the anti-federalist papers we need to pay closer attention to because we can see the results of the federalist papers right in front of us, tyranny, blatant law breaking by government officials, etc. Hamilton was supposed to be president, this book says, and in reading history I've come to believe that is correct, but his ill fated duel caused his death and he didn't get to carry out his federalist vision, but the constitution he wrote did it for him. gradually. this is an excellent read.

This is a soul-stirring narrative of death,loss and grief.Malcolm is shot and killed on the way home from an awards'dinner.Sara,his wife and Harry,his son, witness the shooting.The story develops around their dealing with this tragedy. Deckard,who was Malcolm's best friend,tries to help Sara and Harry with their grieving. He is facing his own demons from Vietnam,and Malcolm's death has caused a resurgence of buried memories. Sara becomes lost in her own world of the pain of loss and is unable to help seven year old Harry,who becomes withdrawn as his way of facing his father's death.Deckard works with Harry, trying to be his surrogate father, but they all become sadly estranged, and each further escapes into their own world of suffering. There is finally a break-through that reunites them and breaks down the barriers of sorrow that caused the seperation. If you have ever experienced a loss, this book shows the variances of grief that you will well be familiar with. If you have not, you will learn that grief holds no patterns. Dennis McFarland has demonstrated this so well in this thoughtfully written book.

As his debut novel, The Music Room (1990), garnered both critical and popular acclaim, Dennis McFarland soon found himself named among America's premier wordsmiths. His next two novels, most notably School For The Blind (1994), ensured his standing.

Readers anticipate this author's supple, compelling prose. Such expectations are fulfilled with Singing Boy, a poignant exposition of grief in which Mr. McFarland again touches upon his recurring themes of death, forgiveness, and the mercy of time.

Following a dinner at which he has been honored, Malcolm Vaughn, with his wife, Sarah, and Harry, their eight-year-old son, is driving home through a quiet Massachusetts night. Malcolm's attention is caught by an old Corvair blocking their passage through an intersection. When he goes to investigate, he is shot and killed by the Corvair's driver, a stranger. Harry watches as his father is slain, and Sarah cradles her husband as he bleeds to death on the street.

Upon arriving at the hospital, Sarah calls Deckard Jones, a black Vietnam war veteran, who is Malcolm's best friend. Deck, as he is called, is approaching fifty. He has spent time in a detox unit, is haunted by the horrors of wartime carnage, and has recently lost his girlfriend. His life, it seems, is going fast but headed nowhere.

"Spontaneous murder," according to the police, is the classification for Malcolm's death. However, this is not the story of a crime but a powerful tale of how three bereaved souls respond to tragedy. Each retreats in a different way, unable to contemplate let alone cope with their shock and grief.

Sarah, a chemical engineer, is immobilized, incapable of decision making, unable to offer Harry parental affirmation, even a modicum of guidance.

Of Sarah Mr. McFarland writes, "No one will understand that her grief is what she has left of him, and if she were to lose that, she would have nothing at all."

Young Harry conceals his trauma behind a mask of normalcy - he doesn't cry, he speaks politely when spoken to, reiterating that he is fine.

In analyzing Harry's behavior, Deckard concludes, "There was something too smooth about it, too business-as-usual, too no-problem."

Confronted with a grieving Sarah whom he is trying to nudge in a "back-to-normal direction" and a child who seems so extremely normal that it's worrisome, Deckard assumes the role of protector, repressing his mourning for a friend's death until personal crises threaten to pull him under.

Related with truthfulness and compassion the struggles of three people become a reflection of our own periods of loss. Many can relate to the words Harry utters as an adult: he remembers the summer of his father's death as a time when "he'd learned the word 'inconsolable,' and what a deep deep well of a word it was."

Mr. McFarland has said that in this story he wanted to honor Sarah's "right to be inconsolable, her right for claiming as much time for grieving as she needed......I wanted to show that it's impossible to shape and pace grief through an effort of will."

He has accomplished this with with grace and beauty. For this we are grateful.

"Singing Boy" is written with poetic sensibility and a master's touch. Beautifully depicting the pain and heartbreak that takes place when a spouse is violently murdered, and the sorrowful aftermath. The police have no leads, and the widow and her young son are left to wonder why...and to try to pick up the pieces of their lives and go on. Dennis McFarland handles this topic with grace and insight, giving us a wonderful novel. I recommend this book!

Great primer about all the little droppings one leaves around going about one's daily business. Pagers, computer, internet, your home, your groceries, your automobile, etc., all the aspects are covered, albeit some more in depth than others. You also get some real life stories about how some notorious fugitives got caught when they screwed up. If you were ever thinking of disappearing, get this book and go from there. If I was to say that the book had one over riding precept, it would be "That leaving a light trail is leaving the same thing as an obvious trail. Any trail at all will get you caught. Its an all or nothing game". Let the fugitive beware!

Get this book to learn how little privacy we have and how to regain some of it. The only reason I didn't give it five stars is that after 7 years, some of the information is becoming dated.

Fantastic book chock full of useful information for those concerned with privacy.

"Pastime" reintroduces a character first glimpsed in the book "Early Autumn" ,the dancer Paul Giacomo .In the early novel he had been taken in hand by Spenser and turned from an unprepossessing and gangly 15 year old slacker into an achiever .Now he re-enters Spensers life and asks for help in finding his mother who has gone missing.
Unfortunately she has absconded with a man named Beaumont who just happens to have fleeced the local mob and is being hunted down by Gerry ,the no good incompetent son of the local mob chief.There is every chance that Paul's mother is in harms way by virtue of her association with Beaumont
During the course of the book Spenser battles mobsters ,is sseriously wounded and eventually comes to an understanding with the mob.
There is a great deal too much back story in the book for my taste -the ever over inquisitive Susan probes Spenser for details of his past and his relationship with his sidekick Hawk while the conversation of Paul is saturated with psycobabble to a teeth clenchingly irritating extent
What has knocked the series off the rails for me has been the increasing space given to Spencers relationship with the shrink Susan -it has transformed what were sharp and almost over readable crime stories into "touchy-feely "exercises redolent of the self absorbtion I see as the ultimate sin of psychoanalysis
The action when it comes is crisp and sharp but there is too little of it and until Parker dumps Susan and the damnable dog they share this series will continue to be seen as the irrelevance it at present is
What a waste.

You will find this Spenser novel more entertaining if you read "Early Autumn" first since two of the characters are introduced in the earlier book.

Parent-son relationships are an important theme here. Paul's mother has come up missing and the youth contacts Spenser who in many ways has acted like a father to Paul in earlier books. In following her trail, Spenser again faces mobster Joe Broz and his son, Jerry. You get to know and understand the gangster a bit better here. That father-son relationship is also well explored.

Parker uses another element to add suspense. Susan has ended up with ex-husband's dog Pearl who accompanies Spenser and Paul. Well, we all know how high the animal mortality rate is in crime and suspense fiction, so dog lovers will be holding their breath everytime the dog goes out with Spenser.

All in all, a good and satisfying read.

This book provides closure to the door left open by Early Autumn. Paul returns to the forefront as he and Spenser seek his wayward mother. The theme of this novel is parenthood...Paul and Spenser...the Brozs...Spenser and his father (and the uncles)...even Spenser and Susan and their "baby" Pearl. The underlying quest/adventure is good but the real draw for Spenser fans is a look back into the detective's youth. The story of the young Spenser's encounter with the bear alone is worth the price of the book. My second favorite Spenser novel; I'll let the readers of this review guess what the first is.

The book: COMMON GROUND (c.1984) by J. Anthony Lukas, was poorly written, poorly researched, and is ponderous to read. It lacks footnotes, endnotes, and citations; a lot of its information cannot be verified by the historian; and has been refuted by some of the same families which the author supposedly interviewed.

If a reader has no idea about forced busing in Boston, they still won't have any idea after reading COMMON GROUND. I began my senior year at South Boston High on September 12, 1974, the first day of forced busing in Boston; and spent my entire life in the city of Boston, particularly in areas during the time period mentioned in this work, and after reading COMMON GROUND three times I regard it as a piece of historical fiction. You cannot 'de-segregate' something that was never segregated, and the Boston public schools were never segregated! Its winning of the Pulitzer Prize shows how: 1.) the Pulitzer Prize commission has lowered its standard; and, 2.) how the commission kowtows to tendentiously written pieces of liberal propaganda. The book: COMMON GROUND conforms to both of these categories.

The book operates on the presupposition of the infallibility of a court's decision, Morgan v. Hennigan, which was signed but not written or read by a federal judge. The author, like the judge, ignored contradictory evidence and the testimony of thousands of life-long neighborhood residents that there was no segregation, 'de facto' or 'de jure', in the Boston public schools. The author claimed to have spent six years in research yet all he can come up with is highly anecdotal information which would not hold up to critical inquiry; it contains unverifiable information which would make an intelligent reader question the veracity of the author's research; it is in error regarding riots since Boston has never had a single riot in its entire history (Martin Luther King's assassination in 1968 went virtually unnoticed in Boston - the Afro-American population had just reached only 6%); the author strangely or purposely ignored all other caucasian ethnic groups (Polish, Italian, Lithuanian, etc.) in Boston and focused primarily on the Irish American; and COMMON GROUND was made obsolete by its publication date (1984) when the Boston Public Schools achieved a reverse imbalance of 80-89% of Afro-American students attending mentioned schools due to white flight!! Yet forced busing is still happening in Boston to this very day.

Yet the greatest omission of all in COMMON GROUND is that the author virtually ignored the most segregated and insulated of all of Boston's neighborhoods - Chinatown! The Chinese American was spared both the collectivization process as well as the color coding process!

A book published in the same year which should be read in conjunction with J. Anthony Lukas is: THE BOSTON SCHOOL INTEGRATION DISPUTE: Social Change and Legal Manuevers(c.1984) by anthropologist J. Brian Sheehan, just to compare its information content, objectivity and superior historiographic handling of the same issues and events which shames COMMON GROUND.
The book COMMON GROUND, if one can get through it, should be read just for erudite readers to recognize the contrivance for which it is.

This is one of the finest books on anything I have ever read. Mr. Lukas captures the distinct qualities of three widely divergent families in Boston, illuminating their struggles to come to terms with the urban upheavals of the time and place. Local and national issues of family and race receive remarkably balanced treatment. A long book, but worth every word--absolutely magnificent

Though Common Ground is non-fiction it reads like great literature.So detailed and moving is the story of the families and individuals that Lukas traces, that while you read this involving and complex tale of idealistic politics and failed expectations, you end up caring deeply for all the people whose lives over two decades are being traced.If you were going to read one book to understand the state of race relations in the late 20th century this would be it.There are only a few books that I have read that made me want to meet the author and thank him for writing it.This is one of those.