Customer Reviews:
received faster than expected.......2007-10-10
I found out from a local bookstore that this particular edition of Lou Costello's life was out of print and that their supplier unable to procure. The bookstore reminded me to check with Amazon and there it was. You had one copy which I quickly scooped up. Delivery was even a day earlier than stated. Very pleased as always with Amazon website, products and delivery
A loving honest bio.......2007-10-10
It seems as though a lot of bios written by the children of famous parents run to the two extremes of villifying the parent or sugarcoating the parent. This book does neither, and fits nicely in between. Though Ms. Costello was only eleven years old when her dad passed on, and therefore didn't know or remember him in the same way as if he had passed on when she was an adult, she does still manage to be both loving and honest in her treatment of him. The Lou Costello who comes to life in these pages is largely a really nice generous guy, who was absolutely devoted to his parents, children, siblings, wife (even if he didn't show much physical affection around others, since that wasn't part of his upbringing), and friends, and who was also very generous and kind to the other performers he worked with, particularly the ones who were just getting started in the business and needed someone to look out for them and show them the ropes. And while it is true that some people really are so uniformly good, Ms. Costello does not paint her father as an utter saint either. There's not a lot of dirt to dig up, but not everything about him was perfect. Among the character/personal flaws she discusses are his habit of stealing stuff from Universal's movie sets, how he was quite the McCarthyist, and his bad gambling habits.
The book seems like much more of a personal bio than a career bio. It focuses on Lou and his family and friends, instead of rehashing a lot of stories most fans have heard already. Most of his movies aren't discussed in any detail at all, many of them just mentioned in passing, and while this might frustrate people who are looking for more in-depth information on that rather important side of his life, you can always find more thorough discussions of the movies in another book. This book is to tell the personal side of his life, as remembered and researched through the eyes of a daughter who loved him. I really enjoyed reading about things such as his early family life, the beautiful lavish mansion he had in Sherman Oaks, his family's life on the ranch they moved to after his problems with the IRS, his relationship with his parents, siblings, wife, and children, and his solo acting at the end of his career. With obvious notable exceptions such as the tragic loss of his only son days before his first birthday, the start of his movie career, and the version of "Who's on First" that he and Bud Abbott used on their debut radio performance of it, most of the stories and anecdotes in this book aren't to be found anywhere else. It goes beyond and doesn't dwell on oft-repeated statements such as "He was never the same after the loss of his son" and "He and Bud Abbott didn't get along off-camera." The truth is so much more interesting. Overall, it's the complete and personal picture of a very talented, funny, giving, sweet man, delving beyond simplistic stereotypes and myths.
SAD STORY OF 1/2 OF ABBOTT & COSTELLO.......2007-07-25
Starts with his early years.
The beginning of Abbott & Costello.
21 years later , the break-up of Abbott & Costello.
They were two opposites.
One didn't drink, one drank heavily.
Offstage: one loud jokster, one quiet & reserved.
Both gambled heavily.
Lou's long illness.
Death of Lou's son. Plus More.
Lou the Saint......?.......2007-07-22
As a book written by his daughter it is very selective in its memory of Lou Costello...second hand memory mostly since she is Lou's youngest child and only witnessed his final 10 years in a somewhat lucid manner.
Nevertheless there is a lot of love that comes out of her description of Lou's complex life. A love that she obviously gets from an idolizing and idealised image she has formed of her parents...losing both of them at a very early age and not being on the best of terms with a lot of the rest of the family(a somewhat glossed-over fact, only tentatively described in the very last pages of the book)she writes in a rather simple somewhat scattered and disjointed manner(even though helped by a ghost writer who obviously can't do much better)about the life of her famous parent. Totally uncritical, Lou comes over in these pages as somewhat of a saint, so good it is hard to believe...somehow I feel there is another book that can be written about this elusive character..but that was obviously not the goal of Chris Costello. She does tackle the strains on the family relations, particularly the problems between Lou's overbearing italian clan and her mother and the latter's alcoholism.
Still, it is a labour of love, and for all its faults and glossing-over it is in the end a catartic book for the author who hints at a paradise lost she all too briefly inhabited in the confines of the luxurious pleasure dome her troubled and much lamented parents provided for her....
Lou's On First.......2006-02-25
I loved reading this book. Very insightful. Book came in great condition and in a very timely fashion. I tried finding this book elsewhere, but everyone else had it as out of print.
Average customer rating:
- Solid tale all the way.
- An engrossing account of intrigue
- well written . . . but . . . .
- America--The Final Victim?
- Fast, Furious and Hard to Put Down
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FIRST VICTIM, THE (Lou Boldt/Daphne Matthews)
Ridley Pearson
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ASIN: 140130818X
Release Date: 2005-04-20 |
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Lieutenant Lou Boldt, the Seattle cop who stars in Ridley Pearson's deservedly popular series, is a sharp and touching figure--perhaps the most believable police officer in current fiction. Early in this ninth book about his public and private life, Lou has to put on a bullet-resistant vest to lead a raid against some dangerous criminals. "The vest was not physically heavy, but its presence was," Pearson tells us.
It meant battle; it meant risk. For Boldt a vest was a symbol of youth. It had been well over a year since he had worn one. Ironically, as he approached the hangar's north door at a light run behind his own four heavily armored ERT personnel, he caught himself worrying about his hands, not his life. He didn't want to smash up his piano hands in some close quarters skirmish...
Boldt plays jazz piano one night a week in a local bar, and despite his concern for his hands, he takes every opportunity he can to get away from his desk and into the streets. But money pressures, caused by his wife's recent illness, also make him think about the possibility of a better-paying job in the private sector. Meanwhile, some extremely ruthless people are murdering illegal Chinese immigrant women and leaving their bodies buried in newly dug graves. An ambitious local TV journalist named Stevie McNeal and the young Chinese woman she thinks of as her "Little Sister" risk their lives to investigate the killings, while Boldt and his team round up a most unusual array of suspects. This combination of hard-edged realism and softer sentiment has become Pearson's trademark, and once again it works smoothly. --Dick Adler
Book Description
Lieutenant Lou Boldt, the Seattle cop who stars in Ridley Pearson'sdeservedly popular series, is a sharp and touching figure--perhaps the most believable police officer in current fiction. Early in this ninth book about his public and private life, Lou has to put on a bullet-resistant vest to lead a raid against some dangerous criminals. "The vest was notphysically heavy, but its presence was," Pearson tells us.It meant battle; it meant risk. For Boldt a vest was a symbol of youth. It had been well over a year since he had worn one. Ironically, as he approached the hangar's north door at a light run behind his own four heavily armored ERT personnel, he caught himself worrying about his hands, not his life. He didn't want to smash up his piano hands in some close quarters skirmish...Boldt plays jazz piano one night a week in a local bar, and despite his concern for his hands, he takes every opportunity he can to get away from his desk and into the streets. But money pressures, caused by his wife's recent illness, also make him think about the possibility of a better-paying job in the private sector. Meanwhile, some extremely ruthless people are murdering illegal Chinese immigrant women and leaving their bodiesburied in newly dug graves. An ambitious local TV journalist named Stevie McNeal and the young Chinese woman she thinks of as her "Little Sister" risk their lives to investigate the killings, while Boldt and his team round up a most unusual array of suspects. This combination of hard-edged realism and softer sentiment has become Pearson's trademark, and once again it works smoothly.--Dick Adler
Download Description
Pearson returns with another Lou Boldt suspense novel. A shipping container washed ashore leads Seattle television news anchor Stevie McNeal and her reporter friend, Melissa, on the trail of a scam involving the importation of illegal aliens. A career stepping-stone for McNeal, the investigation puts her at cross-purposes with the Seattle Police Department's Lou Boldt and Seargeant John LaMoia. When Melissa disappears, McNeal turns from foe to ally and teams up with the detectives on an investigation that takes them from Seattle's docklands to far more dangerous territory.
Customer Reviews:
Solid tale all the way........2007-09-01
Lou Boldt and John LaMoia of the Crimes Against Person squad of the Seattle PD are the leads in Ridley Peason's "The First Victim."
A container filled will illegal Chinese aliens goes overboard in Puget Sound, resulting in three deaths. The illegals are headed for either sweatshops or prostitution.
A Chinese/American TV investigative reporter goes undercover to locate the sweatshop. When she is captured, the station's anchor (Stevie McNeal, the reporter's sister by adoption), takes a personal interest.
She arouses the ire of the criminals and interferes with the police work. When things get very sticky, she joins the SPD effort.
The Chinese Triad, slimy INS agents, ships, containers, rendezvous, fake ID's, graveyards, brothels and sweatshops, the media, agency turf wars, SPD politics and an information leak all conspire in the SPD's mission to out think the villains.
The characters, both good guys and bad guys are credible throughout, the pace is resolute and determined (mirroring the police procedures), local color drops you into the Puget Sound area and the dialogue is realistic.
Good plot, sturdy story telling and absorbing character studies.
Maybe a little too much time spent on Boldt and McNeal's introspections on their family lives that fail to advance the plot---but that is a small objection.
An engrossing account of intrigue.......2007-06-10
Ridley Pearson's THE FIRST VICTIM tells of a shipping container and the discovery of a scam involving illegal aliens. Scott Rosema provides an engrossing account of intrigue, discovery and an investigation that involves Melissa in a dangerous confrontation.
well written . . . but . . . ........2006-09-29
THE FIRST VICTIM is very well written; however, I can only hope that readers will not come away with the impression that immigration officers are the venal, corrupt cardboard characters portrayed in this book -- i.e., the "bad guys." The customs officers are portrayed, as they should be, as the "good guys."
This book was published in 1999, four years before the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, in which the functions and officers of the former Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) and the former Customs Service (USCS) were placed in three new agencies: Citizenship and Immigration Services (CIS), retaining the benefits mission of the old INS; Customs and Border Protection (CBP), retaining the trade, border inspections, and Border Patrol functions of INS and USCS; and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), retaining the investigative functions of INS and USCS, and the detention/removal functions of INS.
I am no apologist for the old-and-now-abolished INS. It was a flawed and dysfunctional agency. It needed to be torn down and rebuilt.
Great respect should be accorded/given to the agents and officers of the former Customs Service. Even though their skill sets and expertise(s) were different from those of immigration agents, officers, and Border Patrol, they did their job quite well. Repeat: the agents and officers of the former Customs Service were and are deserving of praise, accolades, and recognition.
It is also useful to remember that Customs dealt with "things," while Immigration dealt with "people."
Both agencies dealt with integrity problems over the years of their existence, and both agencies fielded officers who served with dedication and valor. As long as organized law enforcement agencies have existed, their leaders have had to deal with both integrity issues AND with acts of bravery and valor.
Before the reader comes away with the view of "immigration officers as bad guys," it is worthwhile to learn a bit more.
It is now largely forgotten that a large number of the deputized U.S. Marshals involved in the effort to register James Meredith at the University of Mississippi were, in fact, officers from the border patrol component of the INS. It is also largely forgotten that well over a hundred officers of the INS died in line of duty while enforcing federal law.
One of the final, unclassified, public record staff reports of the 9/11 Commission, 9/11 AND TERRORIST TRAVEL, also sold here on Amazon.com, noted:
"Neither the White House, the Congress, the Department of Justice, nor the INS leadership ever provided the support need for INS enforcement agents to find, detain, and remove illegal aliens, including those with terrorist associations. Throughout the 1990s, about 2,000 immigration special agents were responsible for dealing with the millions of illegal aliens and related immigration crimes in the United States." (page 102)
The unclassified, public record report also stated:
" . . . the agency never received adequate support from its parent department, Justice, the Congress, the White House, or the intelligence community. It is therefore not surprising that INS entered the 1990s as a badly organized agency with a poor self-image and a troubled public reputation. Despite its mandate to secure America's borders, it was not held in high enough regard to be given an active role in counterterrorism efforts. Thus a few creative INS employees struggled to keep our borders safe from terrorists while the rest of the agency, and the government in general, remained mostly oblivious to this mission." (page 90)
Of course, merging INS and Customs, with their investigative and detention/removal functions retained by the ICE bureau, under the direction of former Customs managers, was to be a prescription for "fixing" these problems. Well, if we look at immigration enforcement statistics in the old INS and the new ICE, we can see an actual decrease in productivity from the 1980s and early 1990s to date. A public record 2006 Immigration Policy Center monograph [Jimmy Gomez and Walter Ewing, "Learning from IRCA: Lessons for Comprehensive Immigration Reform," Immigration Policy Center of the American Immigration Law Foundation, 2006] states that, since 1997, arrests of undocumented workers fell from 17552 to 445, cases completed from 7537 to 2194, and notices of intent to fine issued to employers from 862 to 3. A recent public record Congressional Research Service report [CRS on Immigration Enforcement in the U.S., a presentation before the House Committee on the Judiciary, April 27, 2006] also shows a remarkable decrease in completed immigration fraud cases from the mid-1980s to the near-present. Gee, increase the size of the investigative component, and see a decrease in the productivity. It is ironic that the old dysfunctional INS Investigations Division, back in the 1980s and early to mid-1990s, actually outperformed the better funded, larger ICE bureau. Go figure.
It bears repeating: even operating at a disadvantage in terms of agent numbers and funding, it appears that the immigration officers of the abolished INS performed well when compared to today's new-and-improved enforcement component.
Jack Shaw, retired Assistant Commissioner, INS Investigations, in public record testimony before the U.S. Congress, said that the beleaguered special agents of the INS were a "special class" deserving of "recognition."
Maybe those immigration officers weren't so bad after all. :-)
Someday we may see a book that portrays immigration officers -- many of whom have served with valor and dedication in their Nation's interest, and paid the ultimate price -- in a better light than THE FIRST VICTIM does. Hope springs eternal!
America--The Final Victim?.......2005-01-02
Screams are coming from a shipping container being fished out of Puget Sound, a container filled with illegal immigrants, Asian women bound for sweatshops and prostitution. The container had slipped off its transfer cable and plunged into a stormy sea, but even before that some had died.
This is the attention-grabbing scene early in another of Pearson's Lou Boldt hardboiled detective series. A good read, and since written by a "New York Times best-selling author," it provides an excellent example of how today's novelist handles the issue of US mass immigration, legal and illegal.
As is true of almost all fictional attempts to deal with this topic, the book condemns the exploitation of illegals without condemning illegal immigration itself--that which makes such exploitation inevitable.
Commenting to his wife on the ship-container deaths, Boldt reflects on immigration: "We all crossed the ocean at some point. Your people came in the early 1800s. Mine during the Great War. You think our people would make it now? All the qualifications and requirements?"
How odd. Since we are now living in the longest sustained period of mass immigration in US history, how is it that "All the qualifications and requirements" are making things so much more restrictive? Or maybe Boldt is making an oblique reference to the anti-European stacked deck of US immigration policy, largely due to so much "chain migration" chaining back to Third World people who first came here illegally. Yes, maybe that's it--and maybe my cat Molly will develop a stand-up routine and start touring dog kennel charity shows.
No, more likely it is the familiar practice of lumping all immigrants, legal, illegal, past, present, into the same moral category. And part of the standard defense that illegals as coming here [cue inspirational music] "seeking a better life"--apparently impossible outside of the United States, and a rationale that would excuse almost any invasion in history. Open-border apologists also frequently argue that illegals are "unstoppable," so it is futile to even try--and, besides, it's unsavory to even bring it up, because it shows, you know, "intolerance" and stuff.
Back to the Boldts. Lou's wife: "If your grandfather had never made the crossing, we would not be here." Wow, this woman is deep.
Lou: "That's what's bugging me, I think. If those women had lived ... at least for awhile they would have a legitimate chance at freedom." "Legitimate" illegals?
Ironically, elsewhere in the book, when it comes to things like police lawbreaking, Boldt is said to be "sentry at the gate." But aren't our nation's borders the ultimate "gate"? Protecting us from terrorists, murderers, rapists, robbers, and the like? Some sentry.
After Boldt, the book's featured character is television news anchor Stevie McNeal, whose half-Asian, half-sister reporter, Mi Chow/Melissa, is captured by the illegal smuggling gang while she is covering the container-death story.
The anchorwoman conducts an interview with INS official Adam Talmadge, during which she keeps referring to all Seattle illegals as "political refugees," apparently because many are from a repressive China. Well, let's see, following that criterion, how many hundreds of millions of the world's billions could move here tomorrow?
The official disputes her, saying in the agency's defense, "Congress has enacted one of the most far-reaching, sweeping overhauls to the Immigration Act this century, making our borders more welcoming that they have been in our seventy years." Welcoming borders? The more you repeat this phrase, the more hilariously Orwellian it becomes--and so very true!
Later in the book, the admired anchorwoman darkly refers to the real image of the INS as being "gatekeepers" and "border guards." Apparently US law enforcement officers risking their lives daily at our borders belong to one of the ickiest occupations imaginable. Since this is obviously presented as the common view of enlightened people, it is, once again, predictably Orwellian, since the real public image of the INS, if public opinion polls mean anything, is that of an agency did not provide ENOUGH support to the Border Patrol.
Although the book's lead characters are obviously meant to be open-minded and intelligent, they seem oblivious or confused on the connection between never-ending mass immigration and its inescapable consequences--such as growing crime. Although Boldt believes that his job now "implicitly requires fundamental knowledge of and contact with elements of organized crime, whether the Chinese Triad, the Russian Mafia ...," he still thinks immigration is just too darn restrictive. So what's the next requirement for Seattle's overworked police detectives, intimate knowledge of the crime lords of Katmandu?
Another familiar aspect of immigration's fictional treatment is that everything is personal. Bolt thinks of illegal immigration in terms of his (legal!) immigrant grandfather. The anchorwoman is motivated by memories of her father's valiant "efforts to smuggle [her half-sister] out of China alive." Sheer numbers of immigrants, and descendants, never enters into it--the effects on the environment, crime, you name it. However, the equally personal stories of those who are victims of crimes committed BY illegal immigrants--keeping in mind that about one in five of all those in American jails and prisons are illegals, for crimes other than their immigration status--never get mentioned. Apparently fictional characters who can think rationally about cumulative immigration NUMBERS would be just too embarrassingly uncool.
In the meantime, the dedicated lieutenant will go on solving his intriguingly gruesome murders, while the stunning anchorwoman will continue enjoying her "contract that includes a Town Car and driver to shuttle her to and from her all-expense-paid five-bedroom co-op apartment." Neither, we can be sure, will ever experience fifteen illegals encamped next door, nor lose their job to one.
On the other side of the issue, we have average un-PC Americans who are burdened by their ability to perform basic math, and are increasingly viewing never-ending mass legal and illegal immigration as leading to a non-nation nation, a teeming collapsed anthill of alien and warring cultures. Good luck Lou.
Not that this book isn't skillfully written. More's the pity.
Fast, Furious and Hard to Put Down.......2003-10-10
A shipping container washes ashore in Seattle carrying a handful of scared and hungry Chinese women, three dead from the hard voyage across the Pacific. TV news anchor Stevie McNeal and her Chinese reporter friend and adopted sister Melissa chase after what seems to be a large scale scheme involving illegal aliens. Melissa decides to go undercover as an illegal but when Stevie doesn't hear from her she fears the worst.Seattle police Detective Lou Boldt is also on the case and now, all of a sudden, Stevie sees him as friend and ally, rather than foe.
This was a fun read as are all Pearson's novels. It was fast, furious and impossible to put down.
Reviewed by Vesta Irene
Customer Reviews:
Who's on first?.......2006-10-27
First published in 1990 as THE OFFICIAL ABBOTT & COSTELLO SCRAPBOOK, this 1997 release of THE ABBOTT & COSTELLO STORY by Stephen Cox and John Lofflin is an affectionate and nostalgic journey through the career of these two comedians. It's everything the Abbott and Costello fan would want to know, and then some.
A majority of the book's thirteen chapters comprise a narrative history of the team's progression through burlesque, radio, film, television, and animation. Additionally, there's one chapter summarizing each of their 36 films (production facts, cast members, plot, and sidelights), plus the one film that Costello did solo, from 1940 to 1959, and one chapter summarizing each of the 52 installments (cast and plot) of their TV show , which aired in 1952-53. Finally, and perhaps over the top for the reader satisfied with less rather than more, there's a chapter of one-paragraph program synopses for the 156 Abbott & Costello cartoons produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions in the late 60s, by which time Lou was dead, though Bud, by then in declining health, managed to provide the voice for his character.
THE ABBOTT & COSTELLO STORY includes lots of sidebar stories, the most significant of which is perhaps daughter Chris Costello's defense of her father as he was depicted in the 1978 NBC-TV docudrama "Bud and Lou", a production she loathes to this day.
Cox and Lofflin manage not to be too slavish in their admiration of the pair. The authors don't hesitate to remind the reader of A&C's addiction to gambling, in which they lost vast sums at cards, Bud's alcoholism and cavalier attention to U.S. tax law, and Lou's borderline sadistic sense of humor when it came to playing on-set pranks on an old pal, Bobby Barber, whom Costello apparently hired for just that purpose. The most amusing negative aside is one noted as coming from character actress Mary Wickes, who appeared in two A&C films ("Who Done It?" and "Dance with Me, Henry"), and who said:
"I didn't care for them. But that's alright. They just had no taste. They were coarse."
THE ABBOTT & COSTELLO STORY is loaded with photos, which might make it a coffee-table book except that, in its paperback format, it wouldn't likely serve as such in a Martha Stewart home. On the other hand, because of its awkward size - 10" x 8" x 3/4" - it doesn't fit easily on a bookshelf nor is it amenable for inclusion in carry-on luggage for reading on a plane. Perhaps the best way to approach it is to leave it at the bedside, enjoy it immensely at your leisure, then pass it on to a friend when finished.
THE BOOK to read and own on Abbott & Costello!!!.......2001-11-26
I've read a lot of (good, medium and bad) books on Abbottt and Costello -- and this is the BEST e-v-e-r.
If you're just discovering Abbott and Costello (and a major movie is reportedly in the works so you will hear more about them) you'll discover in these lively, profusely illustrated pages why the team greatly inspired Jerry Seinfeld and others. If you're into comedy and want to learn about their techniques and routines, you'll get plenty of helpful analysis plus some superb transcripts of some of their most famous, classic routines. If you're a Baby Boomer and want to read THE ULTIMATE book to take you down a nostalgic path to your beloved childhood stars, this is all you need. Why? A few reasons:
1. It's filled with tons of bio material about their careers, long lively quotes, a complete listing of their movies, tv and other appearances.
2. It is not a fanzine book. It looks at the two, warts and all, dispells a few of the myths that grew up due to bad reporting and, in one case, apparently, a highly inaccurate Hollywood movie about them done nearly 30 years ago.
3. It traces their whole careers, their triumphs, the sad loss of Costello's drowned son (how he went on the radio nonetheless with his show), their split up, Costello going solo, his tragic untimetly death, Abbott's attempt to stay in show biz, Abbott's tax problems and final years.
4. It has the BEST interviews from people who worked with them and knew them.
5. It has the BEST photos, illustrations - even a full color section that is not available in any other book on them. We don't usually think about this team in color, even though they made two color flicks.
6. Its the BEST COLLECTION of info and the most UP TO DATE. This is basically a comprehensive rewrite (LOTS of new stuff) and expansion of an earlier book on them under a different title. I have both books now and will not part with either.
The biggest compliment of a show biz bio book is that you read it and you immediately want to re-examine the artists' work. You truly won't want to put this book down if you're a comedy fan, just discovering this team, or remember them. Save your money on the other books -- get, read and/or gift this. I'm an entertainer and I collect show biz bios...NO OTHER BOOK ON THIS COMEDY TEAM COMES CLOSE.
This Abbott and Costello story is a rerun.......2000-05-26
Abbott and Costello fans be warned: this book shamelessly recylces and abridges material from earlier books, including Jim Mulholland's "Abbott and Costello Book" (1975) and Furmanek and Palumbo's "Abbott and Costello in Hollywood" (1991) in an offhand attempt to cover all of Bud and Lou's work. As a result, it covers nothing well. Other detriments: no index; numerous errors; the corny "theme of baseball" approach; a gushy, juvenile writing style suitable for nine-year-olds. Pick up either of the other books, which are vastly superior.
This book is on First!.......2000-05-12
Any true fan of Bud and Lou will be delight and even overwhelmed by the amount of great things found within these pages. There is no other book on the market which features such great pictures, interviews, and rare tidbits on Abbott and Costello. This is the difinitive book about the comedy team and the only book you'll have to search for if you enjoy old comedy teams from the vintage era. The FULL COLOR photography inside the book is worth the price of the book itself, not to mention the superb photo reproduction and page quality. The design is bright and easy to access, although I wish it had an index. A few typos in the book. The coauthors did a marvelous job putting Bud and Lou's career into perspective and paying tribute to their unique blend of comedy which traveled the spectrum of stage, film, radio, tv, cartoons, you name it. This is THE book to have. Don't pass it up!
Hey Abbott [and Costello Fans] !.......1999-11-26
The Abbott and Costello Story is a must for Abbott and Costello fans. It is not only entertaining and informative, but it is also moving and emotion provoking. For Baby Boomers, it takes us back to to our innocent youth, and gives us a chance to relive those days of deriving pure joy from watching the Boys on TV. This book is a perfect compadium for those of us who have the TV shows [all 52 of them!] and movies of Abbott and Costello on videotape. Let us bring some of that innonence and wholesome family value with us as we head into the 21st Century. Thank You God for Abbott and Costello. This book helps us feel good about their comedy, ourselves, and our country.
Book Description
Life at Copper University in Michigan's Upper Peninsula has been good for Professor of Victorian literature Maddie Temple, but the school year is about to get off to a deadly start. Maddie's first day of school is marred by the death of a student who fell from the library's upper floors. First on the scene, she discovers that the student, Cheryl Crawford, was an English major. Meanwhile, Flo Andrews, the ambitious English Coordinator, makes the rest of the department's life hell with petty demands. The university has other problems as well: the elderly Chairman, Malcolm Driscoll, is incensed at the huge amounts of money channeled into SWINC, the new complex for the handicapped, when the rest of the university is pinching pennies. When Malcolm fails to arrive at school one morning, Maddie finds him at home in bed, blind and paralyzed. Although she summons help, he dies the next morning. Flo is arrested, having left prints on a wine glass at Malcolm's the night before. Traces of hemlock were found in his blood, and with her lust for his job, she seems a likely suspect. Maddie takes over the chairmanship temporarily, but when it is learned that Malcolm has left his fortune to SWINC, suspicions begin to rise. Did the managers of the center, furious about his lobbying, have a role in his murder? Is Flo involved as well? And what's with Grace Lwasa, Cheryl's former advisor, and the mysterious phone calls she keeps getting? Maddie turns amateur detective to figure out who is behind the strange happenings at Copper University, and uncover a killer - before she learns just how murderous a little learning can be.
Lou Allin is the author of the Belle Palmer amateur sleuth series set in Northern Ontario in Sudbury, the Nickel Capital. She did her doctoral dissertation on Tamburlaine and currently teaches criminal justice students at Cambrian College. With her GSD, Nikon, and her mini-poodle, Friday, she roams the bush searching for plots.
Customer Reviews:
interesting academic amateur sleuth mystery .......2005-05-25
Copper University Victorian Literature Professor Maddie Temple always looks forward to the start of a new school after the summer vacation. However, this year her enthusiasm is a bit tempered by the demands of Flo Andrews, the empty department coordinator, who prefers to administer discipline than teach and the rants and rage of the Chair Malcolm Driscoll over the money spent (and his mind wasted) on SWINC, designed to help the handicap.
However, the first day turns deadly when an "A" student falls from a library window in what looks like a suicide. Not long afterward, Maddie finds her boss dying in his home. While the police believe that Flo, coveting Malcolm's job, is the prime suspect in what turns out to be a deadly poisoning, Maddie thinks otherwise. Temporarily the chair, she makes her own inquires into both deaths wondering if a SWINC supporter decided to eliminate a vocal influential opponent and where the tie to the dead student lies.
This interesting academic amateur sleuth mystery hooks the audience once they see how frustrating teaching at a university can be even without murder. The story line moves forward at a fast pace when Maddie decides to prove that her despicable nitpicking peer Flo could not have killed the chair although she has a clear motive and opportunity. Lou Allin provides a fabulous look at university life in Upper Michigan inside a fine who-done-it.
Harriet Klausner
Customer Reviews:
the best abbott and costello book out there.......2001-07-10
this book is for all abbott and costello fans out there that love thier routines. With classic routins such as "sesquahana hat company' and "who's on first". The routines along with pictures are taken right from thier movies such as "Buck privates" "Hit the ice" "Keep 'em flyin" and many many more. The pictures bring just as much laughs as the routines.This book really captures thier personality in thier movies. I gladly give this book 5 stars
Book Description
Based on real-life case scenarios, this book is a reliable source of information of hands-on strategies, useful in planning literacy lessons that teach word recognition, vocabulary, comprehension, and writing to students in grades 1-6. All of the strategies presented address literacy strengths and/or learners' needs—many are adaptable for use with all learners, regardless of age, grade, or special needs. Using illustrative examples from authentic reading passages, this book comprehensive covers the following topics: creating successful literacy lessons; word recognition strategies; vocabulary strategies; comprehension strategies; and writing strategies. Appropriate for all educators of grammar school-age children, this book is also a useful resource for those who teach ESL, Continuing Education courses, and parents that wish to apply these strategies for successful home study.
Average customer rating:
- Life as a street racer
- Excellent read
- Don't Miss L.A. Breakdown
- Spellbinding Narrative
- LA Breakdown - worth a long look
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L. A. Breakdown (Great American First Novels)
Lou Mathews
Manufacturer: Malvern Publishing Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
Contemporary
| General
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
ASIN: 0947993800 |
Book Description
A riveting portrait of Los Angeles hot rod culture of the early 1960's and the effects it casts on the people caught up in it.
Customer Reviews:
Life as a street racer.......2001-04-23
Do you like racing? Do you cherish it, live for it, and would you die for it? Well if so you have something in common with this book. You crave speed. The great thing about this book is how Lou Mathews puts a spin on this racing story to relate it to a persons life. The story takes place in L.A in the late 1960's. The main character a man named Charlie is the one who loves drag racing. Charlie loves racing so much that he sets up street races around L.A. Not much for driving himself but handling bets starting off the cars ect... Well life for Charlie is not just a picnic though. Charlie has other important things in his life he must handle with, but will these events in his life effect the game he so desperately loves? Will Charlie half to choose between friends and racing? Read and see! Note: I would recommend this book for mature readers due to language and content.
Excellent read.......1999-12-31
Lou Mathews' work seems to function on the level of touch and smell, with an electric, atmospheric sense of what lies just beyond the skin. The writing is spare but fraught with a complexity of emotion all the more powerful because it is neither dissected nor explained away; it is simply there. The obsessions and irrational choices of these young working-class mechanics, their humor, the joy taken from careful, painstaking work ratcheting up their cars, their vicious infighting over rank, the adrenaline rush of the race, the bitterness of thwarted desire, the "fun" stubbornly snatched in the face of financial hardship, abuse, the dictates of family, Army and Church, all merge in a fleeting snapshot of the moment when youthful hope gives way to the grim uncertainties of adulthood.
Don't Miss L.A. Breakdown.......1999-12-26
As a voracious and serious reader of modern fiction--mostly by women--I would not normally pick up what looks like a "guy book" about cars. I would have missed a great treasure. L.A.Breakdown captures a time and place perfectly and is peopled by memorable characters. I recommend it to anyone who enjoys an engrossing story, superbly written.
Spellbinding Narrative.......1999-12-10
A poignant look at Los Angeles car culture in the 1960's, L.A.BREAKDOWN is imbued with a gorgeous sense of place. The story and its fascinating characters caused me to race through the book, but the language is so elegant and the descriptions so rich with nuance and detail that I can't wait to go back and read it again more slowly. I'm buying a copy for everyone on my Christmas list - the men will love it for the cover art alone, and everyone who reads it will be deeply affected by the story.
LA Breakdown - worth a long look.......1999-12-04
as found in lacar.com:
...L.A. Breakdown happens in a blur. It is written in simple English, reads fast and easy, and had me empathizing with several characters. The storyline translates into visual imagery well without becoming overly engaged in meaningless detail or clatter.
But what makes this such an easy novel to read is also its main drawback. I found myself wanting for more detail. In liking the characters, I wanted to know more about them and also wanted a good reason to slow my reading pace.
As Lou Mathews is a multiple award-winning author, it is my contention that he purposely chose this light style to make L.A. Breakdown read fast. In doing so, the book becomes its own metaphor for the story within. Teen summers are a breeding ground for tales beginning with "You guys should have been there when...," are all too brief, and end with a feeling of uncertainty.
L.A. Breakdown is worth a look. Especially if you've grown tired of working through the myriad of "definitive" hot rod books filled with facts, figures, and names that matter only to a select few (we know who we are).
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