"Dark Dreams" by Roy Hazelwood & Stephen G. Michaud

Book Details:

Title- Dark Dreams: Sexual Violence, Homicide, and the Criminal Mind
Author- Roy Hazelwood & Stephen G. Michaud
Published- 2001- St. Martin's Press
ISBN- 0-312-25342-7
Genre- Non-fiction - Crime - Forensics
Pages- 275 pages
Rating- 5 of 5


My Review:

Dark Dreams offers an in-depth and often troubling look into the minds of some of the most dangerous sexual predators and serial killers of our time. Criminal profiler Roy Hazelwood has dedicated his career to perfect criminal profiling in an effort to create the most accurate picture of potential offenders. Profiling has been used to both discover the warning signs of violent behavior before they become a real threat and to point investigators towards likely suspects in murder cases. Leaving out none of the gruesome details, the authors paint a truly vivid image of these crimes, the extents the killers go to in the throes of passion - whether sexual or rage, or even just for the rush of adrenaline.

Readers of forensics or psychology and fans of true crime novels should definitely put Dark Dreams on their reading list. I found every chapter captivating, many times anxious myself to discover the killer's identity, in awe of the crimes they've committed. The information provided about the human brain and psyche shows the experience and dedication Hazelwood puts into his work as a criminal profiler, as the descriptions he provides in many of his cases turn out to be very true-to-life once the offender is finally identified. The author's credentials in this field of study are quite numerous, with many advances in profiling to his name, along with a natural propensity to understand and isolate factors that may trigger these violent criminals to act out.

I highly recommed this book and give it a full five stars. The authors provide a healthy balance of what makes a work of non-fiction successful: information, entertainment, and readability.

"Good Omens" by Terry Prachett & Neil Gaiman

Book Details:

Title- Good Omens
Author- Terry Prachett & Neil Gaiman
Published- 2006- HarperCollins Publishers (orig. 1990)
ISBN- 978-0-06-085398-3
Genre- Humor
Pages- 412 pages
Rating- 5 of 5


My Review:

The Day of Judgement is upon planet Earth. Everything foretold in the Bible, from frogs falling from the sky to the ride of the Four Horsemen, is going according to plan. At ten years old, the Antichrist, affectionately named Warlock, has spent his short time on Earth being pushed and pulled by the influences of divine entities from either side of the moral spectrum, grooming him for his ultimate destiny to ring in Armageddon. Except there's one small problem. Warlock, lazy and spoiled rotten, is showing no particular interest in either faction and time is running out. Unknown to all involved, the infant Antichrist had been accidently switched at birth at the incapable hands of a rather chatty, devil-worshipping nun. The mistake is completely unknown to anyone until a hellhound, specially released to search out and serve only his true Antichrist master, and the plan for the end of the world begins to unravel. Dog, as the hellhound becomes known by his young master Adam, experiences life as a true pet and enjoys the attention from his diplomatic, if a little eccentric, Antichrist and his small following of three fiercely loyal friends.

Meanwhile, centuries-long rivals and occasional "friends", the angel Aziraphale and demon Crowley, sent to Earth on the day of its creation to spread their respective values and behaviors and sway the impressionable humans to their side. However, after thousands of years on Earth, both have become accustomed to, and very fond of, the freedom and pleasures of our world and aren't ready to give up their current lifestyles. When each is ordered back "home" to prepare for the ultimate battle, they make the drastic decision to go rogue and stop the Apocalypse from destroying their comfortable living.

One hilarious side story in the novel is that of the "witch" Anathema Device and her companion Newt. Guided by a book of obscure prophecies made in 1655 by a witch named Agnes Nutter, this strange duo also sets out to stop Judgement Day from occurring. Originally skeptical about Nutters' ability to actually tell the future, Newt blows it off as the bizarre hobby of a potentially unstable old woman. As their adventure takes off and their relationship begins to grow, so does Newt's faith in the extraordinarily accurate book.

To further complicate matters, self-proclaimed witch hunter extrordinaire Shadwell, a life-long bachelor and a war veteran, hears wind of Anathema's reputation as a witch and sets off on a good, old-fashioned witch hunt. Also among the cast of highly unusual and entertaining characters are the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (whose "horses" are actually motorcycles), and a crochety old man constantly on the lookout for material for his next "Letter to the Editor" rant.

A natural-born leader who continuously mesmerizes his modest preteen following, Adam knows something is pulling his focus to the nearby army base, leading his friends straight into the thick of the battle between Heaven and Hell. In a race to stop (or ensure the success of) the Apocalypse, mortals (along with an angel and a demon) take on the divine and discover that there's always an alternative to destroying the human race, and sometimes an old witch knows best.

Hilarious from start to finish and brimming with imagination that can only come from these acclaimed fantasy writers, Good Omens is an exciting read and a hilarious reread that all readers are bound to enjoy. With no particular religious undertones, this novel burrows straight to the funny bone and holds on tight. A definite must-read for any fan of fantasy literature and anyone looking for a good laugh with a plot.

"The Sins of the Father" by Jeffrey Archer

Book Details

Title- The Sins of the Father (The Clifton Chronicles, #2)
Author- Jeffery Archer
ISBN- 978-1-250-01040-7
Published- 2012- St. Martin's Press
Genre- Drama
Pages- 415 pages
Rating- 5 of 5


My Review

Abruptly beginning exactly where its prequel, Only Time Will Tell, left off. In the heat of World War II, Harry Clifton goes to extreme measures to maintain the rouse of his true identity, while Emma Barrington, unable to accept Harry died in the wreck of the Kansas Star and takes an extended leave to the United States to uncover the truth about her beloved, determined not to return to England without him.

A secondary character in the series' first installment, we get a much deeper, intimate knowledge of Giles Barrington, Harry's long-time friend and Emma's brother, who believes his friend has not survived the sinking ship and sets out to fulfill Harry's dream of joining the Royal Army and fighting in the war. Giles faces many of his own trials and tribulations as he rises quickly through the ranks, becoming more uncomfortable as he is given command of soldiers he once considered peers and equals.

The reader also meets a slew of new characters also, some minor and others causing major plot twists, such as ruthless, renowned New York lawyer Sefton Jelks.

The ever-present question of Harry's paternity is once again the key problem at hand, the one detail keeping the star-crossed lovers, Harry and Emma, from their dream of spending their lives together as husband and wife.

Obsessed with proving he did not father Harry, Hugo Barrington, destitute and running his family's company into the ground, draining the coffers just to survive. He hires a private investigator to keep tabs on Maisie Clifton's every move, bent on keeping the secret of Harry's survival a secret to ensure Giles will inherit the Barrington shipping company, if anything remains of the company as Hugo drains it dry of all funds.

Just as beautifully written and shockingly suspenseful, this dramatic sequel matches the high expectations I had set after Only Time Will Tell, and as in its predecesor, this novel begins by answering a few questions posed at the abrupt ending of the first novel, ending in the same manner- making one want to immediately go out for a copy of the third installment of The Clifton Chronicles. Well beyond worth the read, The Clifton Chronicles are fascinating novels set during a fascinating time in history. I give it five out of five stars and commend the author on his consistency and writing abilities.

"White Oleander" by Janet Fitch

Book Details:

Title- White Oleander
Author- Janet Fitch
Publisher- 1999: Little, Brown and Company
ISBN- 0-316-56932-1
Genre- Drama
Pages- 390 pages
Rating- 4 of 5


My Review:
When her mother is imprisoned for murdering her boyfriend, 12-year old Astrid Magnussen becomes a ward  of the state- a Los Angeles foster child. Coming from a dreamlike, care-free life of traveling and living in the most beautiful, exotic places around the world, and admiring her beautiful, secretive, and hard poet mother's exotic lovers. Ingrid Magnussen raised her daughter to be ruthless, tough, unattached from anyone else, and to certainly never weaken one's resolve. Thrown suddenly into the real world and bounced around from foster family to foster family, craving only the accepting, loving, family, complete with a father, that she has never had. Instead, she must learn to survive as everyone she grows to love along the way is eventually torn away from her.

Her time spent as a ward of the state create some extreme changes in Astrid, as she tries fitting in to each new environment she is forced into, while trying to figure out what she wants for her own life and the kind of person she wants to be herself. She unfortunately decides after these six years that completely walling off her heart to any other being is the only way to avoid the devastation she feels when they all eventually leave her. A personal re-read, White Oleander is a tragic, sometimes overly dramatic, yet real-to-life coming-of-age story that wrings every bit of sympathy out of the reader's heart.

"The Secret History" by Donna Tartt

Book Details:
Title- The Secret History
Author- Donna Tartt
Published- 2004: Random House, Inc. (Orig. 1994: Alfred A. Knopf)
ISBN- 1-4000-3170-2
Genre- Thriller
Pages- 559 pages
Rating 3 of 5

My Review:
Richard Papen gets more than he expected when he first arrives at tranquil (not to mention, elite) Hampden College and becomes one of only six Classics & Greek students, taught by the charismatic Julian Morrow. The accidental death of a local farmer forces the students to keep a constant eye on each other, afraid someone may buckle under the weight of this secret and go to the police to avoid their own jail time.

When Bunny (formally, Edmund), the most carefree of the group begins to crack under the pressure, Henry, the most meticulous and studious of the group suggests the only way to keep their secret is to keep Bunny quiet- permanently.

Now responsible for two deaths, the friends' relationships, along with each individual, begin to change as paranoia and distrust set in alongside the guilt of Bunny's death.

I found this novel to have a sizable amount of unnecessary "fluff," as well as being rather slow-moving between the monumental events, which take place quickly themselves, with much less detail and elaborations one would expect from the major scenes of the entire story line.

The excessive use of alliteration often seemed too much, unnecessary, to me. The references come mainly from ancient Greek philosophers, fitting for the students' area of expertise, but little-known to the common reader. The class discussions the author includes are long and in-depth, requiring a reread or two to understand their significance to the plot, and sometimes having no connection to the current situation the group faces, but to one so much farther ahead that I had forgotten completely about these references until I went back through to collect review material.

Tartt does present one of the most unique sets of characters I have seen. 'A strange group of outcasts at a prestigious New England college,' who have dedicated their college careers, and subsequently their lives, to pouring over long-forgotten texts written in Greek by long-forgotten authors, with a sprinkling of Latin and French. These become aids to transmit messages to each other in the presence of others. Written in second person, we can only learn of Richard's experiences, keeping the sense of intrigue and paranoia among the rest of the group.

My real frustration came at the very end of the novel. It is my belief that the resolution introduces more questions that it answers, denying the reader closure and making the book feel somehow unfinished.

Richard's words perfectly describes the novel while summing up  his roller coaster first year at Hampden College- this is a novel "...of sin unpunished, of innocence destroyed..." Full of surprises and rife with brain-bending twists, The Secret History is a worthwhile read for thriller fans.

"The Neverending Story" by Michael Ende

Book Details:
Title- The Neverending Story
Author- Michael Ende
Published- 1983: Doubleday & Company, Inc. (Orig. 1979: K. Thienemanns Verlag, Stuttgart)
ISBN- 0-385-17622-8
Genre- Young Adult - Fantasy
Pages- 396 pages
Rating- 5 of 5

My Review:
Ask any American child of the 80's who Atreyu is and they'll most likely be able to recall the hero in the movie adaptation of this highly imaginative fantasy novel that originated in Germany, caught fire and became a best-seller in 27 countries. The movie delighted children and adults alike across the U.S. as the tale of a lonely, bullied young boy named Bastian who discovers a mysterious book and delves into the tome, discovering its unusual qualities as he becomes entangled in the adventures of the character Atreyu, on his mission to save the Empress of Fantasia (Fantastica, in the novel). For those who have seen the movie, you've only experienced the first half of the novel (and a very condensed version of it, I might add). No cinematics could ever do justice to the extensive imagination Ende has put into this book, the many layers of plot, the fantastic, original creatures that inhabit Fantastica, and the full story that leads Bastian Balthazar Bux to take refuge in this world within a book. This piece of literature can only truly be appreciated when viewed through one's own imagination.

Ende blows all other fantasy writers out of the water with his creativity in both the characters he's created and the adventures he sends them on. The Neverending Story is nearly three stories in one. It begins in our world, following the fat, friendless Bastian, who feels unloved even by his own emotionally distant father. After stealing The Neverending Story from a book shop, he stows away in his school's attic and buries himself in the pages of this strangely magnetic book. Then we switch between the story of Bastian reading in the attic and Atreyu, a young boy in the book on a quest to find the cure for Fantastica's dying Empress. Little does Bastian know that once he began reading, he became part of this other realm, immortalized in the true "Neverending Story." Lastly, we follow Bastian into Fantastica, where he has become exalted as the Savior of Fantastica through his renaming of their Empress. Wielding AURYN, a medallion gifted to him by the Empress herself, which grants all of its bearer's deepest wishes, Bastian becomes drunk with power, wishing himself strong, handsome, and courageous, all the qualities he lacks in his real life, risking his relationships with Atreyu and the luckdragon Falkor, the only two real friends he has ever had. Far from the only risk he takes, Bastian must figure out what he truly wants more than anything, before he ruins the world he only recently saved and becomes unable to return home.

One of this novel's amazing features in the extensive amount of imagination and creativity with which the author fills every single page. Ende creates dozens on his own creatures, such as a "man-sized rooster in jackboots" and the Acharis, known as the saddest creatures in all of Fantastica, they resemble fat worms and cry a river of silver. Favorites from the movie are also given their due in the novel, like Pyornkrachzark, the rock chewer, and the night-hob Vooshvazool and his bat mount.

The format in which Ende presents his novel allows two of the separate story lines to coexist and flow seamlessly into each other. The author even goes as far as to print in two colors- red text for events taking place in the real world, and green text for the happenings of Fantastica, further separating the imagination from reality.

This multi-layer adventure carries the primary theme that friendship, and loving & being loved in return, are more important than the vain characteristics we humans are so often blinded by- power, looks, popularity. Indescribably imaginative, in my opinion, The Neverending Story was clearly well-planned and could only have come from the mind of a Grand Master of the fantasy genre.

"Houses of Horror" by Hans Holzer

Book Details:
Title- Houses of Horror
Author- Hans Holzer
Published- 2007: Barnes & Noble, Inc. (Orig. 1970: Aspera Ad Astra, Inc.)
ISBN- 978-0-7607-8384-9
Genre- Non-fiction - Occult
Pages- 359 pages
Rating- 3 of 5

My Review:
It saddens me to be disappointed by a book I was so eager to read. Houses of Horror is a compilation of some of the house hauntings studied by author and parapsychologist Hans Holzer. Each chapter spotlights a particular case, or multiple cases occurring in the same area, in Mr. Holzer's career of studying and releasing spirits trapped between worlds and unable to rest peacefully. This type of work appeals to me, as I've had a long-time interest in the occult.

After several chapters, my disappointment began to settle in as each chapter vaguely resembles every other. The author does not live up to the "horror" promised in the title and simply explains the same, repetitive spiritual behavior in each house, which rarely strays from phantom footsteps, "uneasy" feelings of an unseen presence, random figures in the dark that disappear when the lights go on, and other various noises. Nothing about Holzer's accounts inspired any feelings one expects when reading ghost stories. Rather, the stories should be more accurately marketed as various cases of a professional parapsychologist, and nothing more. An aggravating reoccurence is the lack of closure in many of the cases, while others are hardly more than snippets of cases that seem just thrown in at will, giving very little detail, background, or substance at at all. A paragraph or two of "fluff" from an unrelated case appear in many of the earlier chapters, becoming rarer as the book progresses.

The unnecessary "fluff" and lack of assumed horror can be easily overlooked as the author offers interesting insight into a lesser-known, sometimes taboo, profession and a greatly mysterious subject matter, however the excessive occurence of typographical errors shows a complete lack of proper editing. As the third edition (the first published in 1970),one would expect such obvious mistakes be corrected at some point. Nevertheless, my personal experience reading this book was marred by lack of proper spacing between words and numerous punctuation errors.

Finally, the repetitive nature in which the chapters are written dispelled some of the original curiosity I had for what each individual story would contain. Holzer gives the background of the case, summarizes his visit to the house (usually involving a trance medium), and after a short communication with the spirit, convincing them their work on earth is done so they can cross over. Many simply end with the author's hope that his visit ceased the disturbances, not offering any proper conclusion or follow-up. I found myself wondering if my copy was missing pages that satisfactorily closed a few of the chapters, but alas, mine is fully intact.

I really enjoyed the ride along in such a fascinating field, learning many new factoids and methods concerning the procedure for dispelling ghosts from a home, as well as insight into the various manifestations of ESP, and do so recommend to anyone particularly interested in such topics. But if a good scare is what you're looking for, Houses of Horror will not satisfy.