Involuntary Detention and Therapeutic Jurisprudence: International Perspectives on Civil Commitment

Book Description

A nine-year-old boy is found murdered at the bottom of a well near a beach resort in southern Italy. In what looks like a hopeless case for Guido Guerrieri, counsel for the defence, a Senegalese peddler is accused of the crime. More than a perfectly paced legal thriller, this relentless suspense novel transcends the genre. A powerful attack on racism, and a fascinating insight into the Italian judicial process, it is also an affectionate portrait of a deeply humane hero.

Gianrico Carofiglio is an anti-Mafia judge in Italy. This is his first novel, a bestseller in Italy and now the subject of a television series. It has won a number of prizes, including the Marisa Rusconi award.

Customer Reviews:

Unusual murder mystery.......2006-01-03

Rather more information on the procedures of Italian justice than I wanted, but a great narrator, and the emotional content of his relationships - to his (ex)wife, his new lover, and to the accused - were well developed. The book has a satisfying although not unexpected ending.

It's clear you don't want to be Sengalese and a transient vendor in Italy when a child disappears, but it's a story that could probably happen anywhere. An interesting book. Had it been an American/British murder mystery, we probably would have found out "who dun it" - if you need that, it's not here.

A very good book.......2005-12-13

The author is a working criminal lawyer (an investigating magistrate, sort of like a cross between a DA and a judge, if I understand correctly).

In any event, it's clear that he knows of what he speaks in this marvellous Italian trial procedural. Carofiglio has an acid wit, and the book is very amusing.

I found the character development and the romance less interesting, as it was not captured as well as the criminal case. But that's not why one reads this sort of book, anyway.

Strategies for Work with Involuntary Clients

Average customer rating:

Strategies for Work with Involuntary Clients
Ronald H. Rooney
Manufacturer: Columbia University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Social Work | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

Look Inside Nonfiction Books | Trip | Specialty Stores | Books

All Titles | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books
Similar Items:

The Life Model of Social Work Practice
Human Behavior and the Social Environment: Macro Level: Groups, Communities, and Organizations
The New Structural Social Work: Ideology, Theory, Practice
Social Work Macro Practice, Third Edition
Motivational Interviewing, Second Edition: Preparing People for Change

ASIN: 0231067690

Book Description

Involuntary clients who are legally mandated to find counseling or who are strongly pressured by friends or family members to "seek help" create unique situations that social workers and other professional counselors have tended to ignore or overlook. The first comprehensive and practical methodology for work with involuntary clients.

Better for All the World: The Secret History of Forced Sterilization and America's Quest for Racial Purity

Average customer rating:

Eugenics was a protestant, jewish, left & feminist's business
A Very Interesting Read
Wait for Lombardo's book
best book on eugenics
Important History In Regards To Today's Eugenics Push

Better for All the World: The Secret History of Forced Sterilization and America's Quest for Racial Purity
Harry Bruinius
Manufacturer: Knopf
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Discrimination & Racism | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

Social Policy | Government | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

General | Politics | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

Look Inside History Books | Trip | Specialty Stores | Books

Look Inside Nonfiction Books | Trip | Specialty Stores | Books
Similar Items:

War Against the Weak: Eugenics and America's Campaign to Create a Master Race
Preaching Eugenics: Religious Leaders and the American Eugenics Movement
In the Name of Eugenics: Genetics and the Uses of Human Heredity
Eugenics and Other Evils : An Argument Against the Scientifically Organized State
Eugenic Nation: Faults and Frontiers of Better Breeding in Modern America (American Crossroads)

ASIN: 0375413715
Release Date: 2006-02-21

Book Description

In Better for All the World, Harry Bruinius charts the little-known history of eugenics in America—a movement that began in the early twentieth century and resulted in the forced sterilization of more than 65,000 Americans.

Bruinius tells the stories of Emma and Carrie Buck, two women trapped in poverty and caught up in a new scientific quest for racial purity. Buck v. Bell became a test case brought before the Supreme Court, which voted 8–1 to make sterilization a constitutionally valid way for the state to prevent anyone deemed “unfit” from having children.

The court’s majority opinion was written by Oliver Wendell Holmes: “It is better for all the world,” Holmes wrote, “if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime, or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind. The principle that sustains compulsory vaccination is broad enough to cover cutting the Fallopian tubes. . . . Three generations of imbeciles are enough.”

Eugenicists believed that the human race must begin to take control not just of human reproduction, but of ethnic intermingling. With the natural and objective methods of science they hoped to breed only the biologically best of the races and prevent the propagation of the worst. The result: marriage restriction, anti-miscegenation, and immigration laws.

In Better for All the World, Harry Bruinius shows how reformers across the nation transformed haphazard, locally run systems of charity and welfare—mostly church handouts and town asylums—into government-run systems of welfare that aspired to make America a place where social and moral purity could reign, free from the “hereditary defectives” of the past.

Those who supported the programs included Theodore Roosevelt; Margaret Sanger; Alexander Graham Bell; the heads of the Harriman, Carnegie, and Rockefeller foundations; and scholars from Harvard, Yale, and Stanford.

Bruinius writes how many of the leaders of the eugenics movement were New England Protestants who used an evangelical tone that harked back to their Puritan forebears, and who proclaimed their goal to keep the “American stock” pure by excising the causes of immoral behavior.

Drawing on personal letters, diaries, and documents never before used, the author writes of the three scientists who developed the theories and practices of eugenics: Francis Galton, cousin of Charles Darwin, who coined the word “eugenics” to describe the science of better breeding; Charles Davenport, the first influential eugenic thinker in America, professor at Harvard University and the University of Chicago, direct descendant of Reverend John Davenport, the founder of the city of New Haven; and Harry Laughlin, Davenport’s protégé, the nation’s foremost expert in eugenic sterilization and also a leader in the movement to stop the tide of immigrants coming to this country.

The author makes clear how America’s quest for racial purity influenced Nazi Germany: one of its first laws, the Prevention of Genetically Diseased Offspring, followed the work of California’s Human Betterment Foundation and Harry Laughlin’s Model Law. In less than two years, more than 150,000 German citizens were sterilized, preparing the way for the genocide to come. In 1936, the Nazi regime awarded Laughlin an honorary doctorate from Heidelberg University for his contributions to “racial hygiene.” During the Nuremberg Trials, the Allied prosecutors were doubtful they could convict Nazi doctors of “crimes against humanity”—since those accused had carried out acts based on theories of eugenics that had been practiced for decades in the United States.

Customer Reviews:

Eugenics was a protestant, jewish, left & feminist's business.......2007-07-10

I read this book, here in Brazil.This book is easy to read.Compared to "War against the weak" by Edwin Black, this book is smaller and a little better.
To example, while "War against the weak" didn't told that the famous american eugenicist Charles B. Davenport hadn't any grandson, this book shows that even having two daughters, both of his daughters had no child.
Even so, this book repeats many of the same mistakes made by Edwin Black's book "War against the weak".Some examples of these same mistakes are:
1-Even showing , about eugenics,the right way of catholics and the wrong way by protestants and jews, this book doesn't tells why among eugenics, religion decided so many.Support of eugenics was almost universal among famous jews and protestants in USA; at least until when Hitler came to power, in 1933.At the same times, Roman Catholic Church was eugenics' number one foe in USA.This book didn't tells that while Roman Catholicism had (and has) a Pope, protestants and jews were "following the bible", when they supported the eugenics.Such as happened during witch-hunting and slavery's times, many famous and powerfull people found on bible, support for eugenics.At the same times, there was not just one eugenics, even in USA there was hundreds of eugenics, while having tens of judaisms and hundreds of protestantisms.Jews and protestants saw on eugenics, such as a a mirror of his own religious believes.Only the opposition from Pope, priests and bishops didn't explained why eugenics was ever a failure, among catholic countries.Divorce existed in France and Italy, since XIX Century (both more than 90% catholics at eugenics's time).Eugenics was a godless religion, having many sects, even in USA.
2-Such as on Edwin Black's book, this book has too many space, about both Dr. Laughlin and Charles B. Davenport.They were both neurothic and crooks, but they were following orders from rich and powerfull americans; many of them jews.When in Hitler's times(1933-1945), they became useless both went to fame to nothing in a few years.About Laughlin's family, on page 180, this book writes:"Kirksville was the home of Andrew Taylor Still the visionary healer whose eccentric treatment methods physical manipulations to improve the body's natural functions." on same page 180:"Earl attended the osteopathic college".Well, osteopathy wasn't a type of medicine , but only quackery.Harry Laughlin's family was linked to quackery, but this book forgets this thing.
3-Too many american doctors of both sexes, were among eugenics's leaders.This same happended in every country where eugenics existed.Well, why this happened in USA and all the world?Because medicine was next to useless in eugenics' times.Even so, some decades before eugenics' creation, the doctors had replaced the pastors and religious leaders as God's preachers among people's minds.They were maily useless, but the people wanted something to believe.Having no medicine for the desiases, they told that eugenics was the solution, for medical and social problems in USA and many other protestants countries.
4-The same rich and powerfull americans who gave money, to Lenin, Russian Revolution and Hitler were also famous eugenicists.This book forgets this fact.
5-Feminism in America was deeply linked to eugenics.There's almost nothing about feminism in this book.
6-After World War II, eugneics became "population control" or neo-malthusianism in USA.Just one line of this book is about this very important fact.

This book is better than "War Against the weak" , but it remains a little weak many times.

A Very Interesting Read.......2007-04-10

From the first page of Bruinius' book you are transported into the past, to the chilly halls where history was made. The book is a great read. It goes beyond what many books on this subject does...it does not just tell the history but makes you feel it. The story of Lucille touches your heart and shows you just how deeply forced sterilization affected those who lived through it. It also gives you a haunting and fascinating insight into those who pushed for sterilization in order to create a "superior race" and the ironies and difficulties of their own lives. It delves deep into the history of this issue and with a compelling narrative, makes Better For All The World one of the best books on the subject.

I highly recommend it.

Wait for Lombardo's book.......2007-03-15

Paul Lombardo, a leading scholar on bioethics and eugenics, is working
on a book on this same topic. According to his bio page, the working
title is "Better for All the World: Eugenics, the Supreme Court and
Buck v. Bell." I'm guessing professor Lombardo will have to change the
title of the book now that Bruinius has published one with the same
name, but whatever he calls it, it will be worth the wait. Lombardo's
previous work on eugenics is brilliant and Bruinius' is, well,
anything but.

best book on eugenics.......2006-08-24

This book combines a remarkable insight into the background of the arrogant little gods who would have gladly become evolutions agents, sterilizing, segregating, and who know what else.
Its analysis of the weakness of the Nuremburg prosecution that couldn't face the "modernity" of the Nazi eugenicists. He makes the connections that needed to be made.
Davenport and Loughlin and their ilk were not at the fringe of progressive America they were at its heart.

Important History In Regards To Today's Eugenics Push.......2006-06-26

Book describes the loss of human dignity when creating a superior race and nation through better breeding concepts. The history of eugenics and its belief system shares startling similarities with the secular scientific views on biotechnology, genetics, and reproduction today.

The Retirement Nightmare: How to Save Yourself from Your Heirs and Protectors : Involuntary Conservatorships and Guardianships (Golden Age Series)

Average customer rating:

Finally the real truth about this national disgrace!
An uncoventional but effective planning guide.
Thankful for this work
An Invaluable Source
Be Informed...Be Prepared!

The Retirement Nightmare: How to Save Yourself from Your Heirs and Protectors : Involuntary Conservatorships and Guardianships (Golden Age Series)
Diane G. Armstrong Ph.D.
Manufacturer: Prometheus Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Human Resources & Personnel Management | Industries & Professions | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

Industrial Relations | Industries & Professions | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

Retirement Planning | Personal Finance | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

General | Administrative Law | Law | Subjects | Books

General | Law | Subjects | Books

Reference | Law Practice | Law | Subjects | Books

Private Law | Law | Subjects | Books

Look Inside Reference Books | Trip | Specialty Stores | Books
Similar Items:

The Complete Eldercare Planner, Second Edition: Where to Start, Which Questions to Ask, and How to Find Help
The Medicaid Planning Handbook: A Guide to Protecting Your Family's Assets from Catastrophic Nursing Home Costs
The Complete Idiot's Guide to Long-Term Care Planning

ASIN: 1573927961

Book Description

After working hard to build your nest egg, you are finally making plans for your retirement years. But will you be free to make your own choices when those golden years finally arrive? Or will you fall victim to ruinously expensive involuntary conservatorship/guardianship proceedings and be stripped of your rights, your money, your independence -- for the rest of your life?

In an onimous trend that threatens America's successfully aging population, state judges are imposing an increasing number of unwanted conservators and guardians upon allegedly incompetent men and women to manage their property and personal affairs. The results are grim. In New York alone, judges appointed over 32,000 guardianships during 1997, up from 15,000 in 1992, and Michigan's guardianship petitions have more than quadrupled since 1981.

These little-known state laws were originally created to safeguard the rights of "infants and lunatics." Today, involuntary conservatorship and guardianship laws are being used by calculating heirs to seize control of their parents' assets and by protectors in the social welfare community to control the vulnerable elderly themselves. And who is "elderly"? To be declared incompetent on the basis of age you only have to be 62.

Drawing on sadly typical cases from courtrooms across America, Dr. Armstrong shows how competent elders can be victimized by arbitrary conservatorships and guardianships. She describes the historical roots of our codes and shows how they function in today's courts, highlighting concepts that are problematic and suggesting appropriate changes. Dr. Armstrong summarizes every state's conservatorship/guardianship statutes and provides contact numbers for national services, legal organizations, state offices of aging, and other resources for the elderly. Most importantly, her breakthrough book gives YOU the tools you will need to protect yourself or someone you love when your retirement years usher in the real threat of predatory litigation.

Customer Reviews:

Finally the real truth about this national disgrace!.......2004-08-27

This is a must read book about the truth of the rampant fraud and abuse of conservators and guardians. While this author writes about family members trying to get "Granny's dough", she does touch on another perverse type of guardian, that is a "court appointed" guardian. In Florida, and in many other states, they only require a high school education and a 40 hour course. But whether educated or not, from the lawyers/guardians in the recent New York case, to the high-school educated sociopaths here in Pinellas County, Florida, they are getting away with fraud and abuse.
To avoid a guardianship in the State of Florida should be of paramount importance. Find out how to protect yourself and your loved ones with alternatives: health care surrogate, durable power of attorney, mediation and more. Consider that if you leave your parents to fend for themselves, and ignore the deterioration associated with aging, a guardian can gain a guardianship over them and their assets, without informing you. That guardianship will nullify the most meticulous of plans. To really cover your aging parents, make sure they create a "Pre-need" guardianship and name someone they trust, this is the only way predators in the retirement homes will not be able to force guardianship on them. Also create an irrevocable trust.

An uncoventional but effective planning guide........2000-08-03

Retirement Nightmare isn't your typical retirement guide on how to save up enough money or make investments: its focus is on how to protect yourself from heirs, and chapters survey involuntary conservatorship and guardianships with an eye to revealing how incapacitated seniors fall victim to the statutes designed to help them in their old age. Advance planning is recommended as the key to avoiding situations such as the author's own experience and those described in courtroom cases.

Thankful for this work.......2000-06-21

Dr. Armstrong has produced a document vital to the safeguarding of personal dignity in today's world. In language accessible by anyone reading the book, she dissects complex legal matters and lays them out in plain view for all to understand. This book should be required reading for all people tasked with ensuring our personal rights within the framework of our various legal systems. It should also be recommended reading for anyone when the natural course of life puts them in a position of reliance on the ethics and goodwill of others...even those 'nearest and dearest' to them. When we are vulnerable... that's when we need help. This book gives us the ammunition to help ourselves. Everyone intends to survive the journey to the retirement years; this book exposes some of the ambushes that others have found there and lays out steps each of us should take to avoid those ambushes. As proof that fact can be scarier than fiction, this book will curl your hair quicker than anything King has ever put on paper.

An Invaluable Source.......2000-06-19

As a lawyer, I found this book to be a tour de force compendium of the guardian and conservatorship laws in our country. For both lay readers and lawyers, it is an invaluable reference tool - comprehensive and clearly written. Full of actual stories of actual individuals, it also makes for eye-opening human interest drama.

Be Informed...Be Prepared!.......2000-06-16

If you are elderly, or even think you may someday become so... then...you need to read this book and keep it close at hand as one of your most valuable reference sources. Dr Armstrong draws on her tragic family experiences with involuntary guardianship litigation and combines that with excellent and scholarly research, to produce a book containing historical background, the law, a broad range of case studies covering most aspects of the subject, and many answers/recommendations concerning this potential problem that we might all someday face. The appendices covering the various state laws and hundreds of resources for the elderly, are alone worth the cost of admission! I found the book to be alarmingly informative and I feel much more knowledgeable and secure now that it is sitting on my research shelf.

Refusing Care: Forced Treatment and the Rights of the Mentally Ill

Average customer rating:

Refusing Care: Forced Treatment and the Rights of the Mentally Ill
Elyn R. Saks
Manufacturer: University Of Chicago Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Law | Subjects | Books

Jurisprudence | Perspectives on Law | Law | Subjects | Books

Mental Health | Family & Health Law | Law | Subjects | Books

Social Security & Welfare | English Law | Law | Subjects | Books

Clinical Psychology | Psychology & Counseling | Health, Mind & Body | Subjects | Books

Mental Illness | Psychology & Counseling | Health, Mind & Body | Subjects | Books

General | Mental Health | Health, Mind & Body | Subjects | Books

General | Physician & Patient | Medicine | Subjects | Books

Medical Ethics | Physician & Patient | Medicine | Subjects | Books

Look Inside Health Books | Trip | Specialty Stores | Books

All Titles | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books

Medicine | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books

Nonfiction | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books

Professional | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books
Similar Items:

The Center Cannot Hold: My Journey Through Madness
Rethinking Psychiatry: From Cultural Category to Personal Experience
Jekyll on Trial: Multiple Personality Disorder and Criminal Law
Recovered, Not Cured: A Journey Through Schizophrenia
Interpreting Interpretation: The Limits of Hermeneutic Psychoanalysis

ASIN: 0226733971

Book Description

It has been said that how a society treats its least well-off members speaks volumes about its humanity. If so, our treatment of the mentally ill suggests that American society is inhumane: swinging between overintervention and utter neglect, we sometimes force extreme treatments on those who do not want them, and at other times discharge mentally ill patients who do want treatment without providing adequate resources for their care in the community.

Focusing on overinterventionist approaches, Refusing Care explores when, if ever, the mentally ill should be treated against their will. Basing her analysis on case and empirical studies, Elyn R. Saks explores dilemmas raised by forced treatment in three contexts—civil commitment (forced hospitalization for noncriminals), medication, and seclusion and restraints. Saks argues that the best way to solve each of these dilemmas is, paradoxically, to be both more protective of individual autonomy and more paternalistic than current law calls for. For instance, while Saks advocates relaxing the standards for first commitment after a psychotic episode, she also would prohibit extreme mechanical restraints (such as tying someone spread-eagled to a bed). Finally, because of the often extreme prejudice against the mentally ill in American society, Saks proposes standards that, as much as possible, should apply equally to non-mentally ill and mentally ill people alike.

Mental health professionals, lawyers, disability rights activists, and anyone who wants to learn more about the way the mentally ill are treated—and ought to be treated—in the United States should read Refusing Care.

Coercion as Cure: A Critical History of Psychiatry

Average customer rating:

Definitive History of Psychiatry for those who know Dr. Szasz

Coercion as Cure: A Critical History of Psychiatry
Thomas Szasz
Manufacturer: Transaction Publishers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Mental Illness | Psychology & Counseling | Health, Mind & Body | Subjects | Books

Pathologies | Psychology & Counseling | Health, Mind & Body | Subjects | Books

General | Medicine | Subjects | Books

History | Special Topics | Medicine | Subjects | Books

Social History | Historical Study | History | Subjects | Books

Look Inside Health Books | Trip | Specialty Stores | Books

Look Inside History Books | Trip | Specialty Stores | Books

All Titles | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books
Similar Items:

The Medicalization of Everyday Life: Selected Essays
The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable

ASIN: 0765803798

Book Description

In this provocative new study of the history of pschiatry, Szasz challenges conventional beliefs about it. He asserts that, in fact, psychiatrists are not concerned with the diagnosis and treatment of bona fide illnesses. He contends that the truth about psychiatry, its self-evident ends, and the means used to achieve them is sociallly unacceptable. Psychiatric tradition, social expectation, and the law make it clear that coercion is the profession's determining characteristic.

Psychiatrists may "diagnose" or "treat" people without their consent or even against their clearly expressed wishes. Voluntary and involuntary psychiatric interventions are as different as are sexual relations between consenting adults and the sexual violence we call "rape." Sometimes psychiatrists deal with voluntary patients. It is necessary, however, not merely to distinguish between coerced and consensual psychiatry, but to contrast them. The term "psychiatry" ought to be applied to one or the other, but not both.

The coercive character of psychiatry was more apparent in the past than it is now. The asylum inmate was incarcerated against his will. Insanity was synonymous with unfitness for liberty. Toward the end of the nineteenth century, a new type of psychiatric relationship developed, consisting of persons experiencing so-called "nervous symptoms," seeking help from the family physician or a specialist in "nervous disorders." This led psychiatrists to distinguish between two kinds of mental diseases: neuroses and psychoses. Persons who complained of their own behavior were classified as neurotic, whereas persons about whose behavior others complained were classified as psychotic. The legal, medical, psychiatric, and social denial of this simple distinction and its far-reaching implications undergirds the house of cards that is modern psychiatry.

Customer Reviews:

Definitive History of Psychiatry for those who know Dr. Szasz.......2007-09-22

Coercion as Cure is a history of psychiatry through the prism of Dr. Szasz' views, convictions, and moral arguments. The particular advantage of this book is the fact that Dr. Szasz has not only been observing the development of psychiatry for the last 60 years, but actively participated in the events.

The book is well researched and referenced, the writing style is gripping, and the material is organized reasonably well. There is a large amount of factual historical information, e.g., almost a page-long quotation from President Franklin Pierce's veto on p. 97 is truly remarkable, as well as Cerletti's descriptions of the ECT "discovery" on pp. 129-132.
Overall, I found the book to be well balanced between the presented facts and the author's polemic.

You will not find consistent logical explanations of Dr. Szasz' views on mental illness and modern psychiatry in Coercion as Cure (which would be clearly beyond the scope of the book), but the book is, naturally, based on those views. If you are new to Dr. Szasz' writing, it probably makes more sense for you to start with some of his earlier books, familiarize yourself with the main concepts, and then read Coercion as Cure.
If, on the other hand, you know Dr. Szasz' work and arguments, you will certainly enjoy reading this book.

Involuntary Vision: After Akira Kurosawa's Dreams

Average customer rating:

Involuntary Vision: After Akira Kurosawa's Dreams

Manufacturer: Avenue B
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Anthologies | Poetry | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

General | Poetry | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

General | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

General | Performing Arts | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0939691124

Book Description

An anthology of new writing that is both poetry and film studies by 11 "New Brutalist" poets, written in response to Akira Kurosawa's 1990 film Dreams. Edited with an Introduction by Michael Cross, who writes "To a certain extent, these poems are examples of our most popular contemporary art form — the remix; they rework and distill Kurosawa's originals so that certain elements are amplified, while others distort. And while these poets are painfully aware of the terrible in Kurosawa, they choose the monstrous, that irrepressible fact of our social condition.

Average customer rating:

I sometimes think of this book when I'm home alone...
Shocking
Deserving all the accolades
A big dissapointment
Quiet but powerful

Instruments of the Night
Thomas H. Cook
Manufacturer: Bantam
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Mystery | Mystery & Thrillers | Subjects | Books

General | Mystery & Thrillers | Subjects | Books
Similar Items:

Places in the Dark
Evidence of Blood
The Interrogation
The Chatham School Affair
Into the Web

ASIN: 055310554X
Release Date: 1998-11-03

Amazon.com

Paul Graves is a crime writer obsessed with a single crime--the murder of his own teenaged sister on their Southern farm almost 40 years before. To work out his guilt and fear, he has created a series of mysteries set at the turn of the century, in which a dedicated detective pursues a fiendish killer called Kessler--the real name of the man who slaughtered his sister. His obsession has made Graves a sad, lonely man, "living thinly, without connections," already preparing to kill himself when he can no longer write his books.

Keeping readers interested in a dark and brooding character like Graves is no easy task, and Thomas H. Cook--who won an Edgar for his superb The Chatham School Affair--needs all his narrative skills to avoid sinking us in a sea of gloom. Invited to Riverwood, a Hudson River Valley estate turned into a writers' retreat, to help solve a 50-year-old mystery involving the death of a young woman, Graves is assisted by a shrewd and sympathetic playwright, Eleanor Stern. Together, they sift through all the clues linking the dead girl to the wealthy family who owned the estate. Old-fashioned detective work plays a large part in discovering what really happened, as well as the too-convenient appearance of files and live witnesses from the period. As for Graves and his disconcerting habit of slipping back into the past at more and more frequent intervals ("You're always imagining things, aren't you? Terrible things," one character says to him), a final revelation about his personal demons turns out to be no surprise at all. Other, more satisfying Cook books available in paperback include Evidence of Blood and Breakheart Hill. --Dick Adler

Book Description

On a humid summer evening in 1963, following a hard day's work in the field, twelve-year-old Paul Graves came home to a nightmare. Snatched by a stranger, strapped to a chair in a sweltering farmhouse, he watched in horror as the man orchestrated the slow, deliberate, night-long brutalization and murder of his older sister....

Now, more than thirty years later, Graves is a marginally successful writer who has lost himself in the anonymity of Manhattan and in the mind-numbing world of his crime fiction. But still held captive by his memories, still haunted by this sister's agonized whispers, he writes chilling tales of cruelty and sadism, of evil triumphing over good. Stories so convincing, they have earned him an invitation to the Riverwood Estate. But not to practice his craft as a writer. Alison Davies, who runs the retreat, is convinced he's the one man capable of bringing closure to the mystery that has haunted her own family, asking him to investigate the fifty-year-old unsolved murder of 16-year-old Faye Harrision, Alison's best friend, who was tortured, strangled, and left to molder in the dark confines of a cave.

Graves, more than anyone, knows where to look for the truth, where the instruments of night are brought to bear: In the deep basements, the dark caves, the lonely farmhouses where cowardice bows before corruption, where love cannot withstand the intimidation and pain. Compelled to peer into the chaos of twisted motives and tainted passions, he will confront the ultimate atrocity. Not about who killed Faye Harrison, or who killed his sister. Not about what he has witnessed and could never reveal. But about what he is capable of...and what he has done.

Customer Reviews:

I sometimes think of this book when I'm home alone..........2007-10-10

This book is scary. I read it several years ago and I still think about it sometimes. Chilling read.

Shocking.......2007-01-14

As usual Mr. Cook's style of writing was superb. He continues to be my favorite read. The shocking ending caught me totally by suprise and left me shaking. Another great one!

Deserving all the accolades.......2006-03-20

For once, the reviews and praises boasted by the book are true. This is a great book; disturbing and emotionally evoking. The conclusion gutted me and lingered on. I re-read the last two chapters and savoured the impact. Thomas H. Cook - what an author! In the last two months, among other mystery novels, I have read Michael Connelly's 'The Black Echo' and Minette Walters' 'The Sculptress', both award-winning books and highly praised. And Thomas H. Cook's 'Instruments of Night' ranked above these, hands down.

A big dissapointment.......2005-02-17

"Instruments of the Night' is a big dissapointment, especially when one remember that its author, Thomas H. Cook, was the same writer who made the intelligent and sensible "Chattan School Affair, The".
Based on a interesting premise - a mystery writer is invited to investigate a murder commited fifty years ago in a little town called Riverwood - the book goes on in a peasant and unbelievable tone, with pointless angles of narration and exhausted recourses of writing. In fact, the book becomes even tedious, with the constant recollections scenes of Graves (the writer) about the gruesome murder of his sister Gwen. These scenes are not so violent as some readers pointed in some reviews. They are just innocous and acted as a point of contrivance for the main line of the story.
The solving of the mystery is completely far fetched. The relation made with Nazi experiments is ludicrous and completely out of tune with the rest of the story.
Don't lose your time. Mr Cook has not made a good job this time.

Quiet but powerful.......2004-05-24

This book is breathtaking. It is a quiet mystery - no car chases, captures, narrow escapes, etc, but the writing is beautiful and lyrical, and the mystery is powerful - the author deftly weaves the horrible events from Graves' childhood with the mystery he is exploring, and fills the book with intriguing suspects, twists and turns, and surprises. Underneath this is a powerful thread - Graves' guilt, which both destroyed his life and allowed his success as a writer, and the horrors of the Nazis, which crept into the quiet world of Ravenwood. ***WARNING - SPOILER AHEAD*** Graves tears at the reader's heart - he was a good, hardworking teenager who was confronted with horrors that were too large for him to handle and made a choice based upon these, but he cannot see that as a teenager he was not to blame for the choices, and should not carry a lifetime of guilt for them. At first I was very angry about the ending, but when I reread it carefully I realized I misunderstood it, and the ending is actually perfect - a chance for Graves' redemption and forgiveness. Overall, this book is dark and very moving.

Choice and Coercion: Birth Control, Sterilization, and Abortion in Public Health and Welfare (Gender and American Culture)

Average customer rating:

Choice and Coercion: Birth Control, Sterilization, and Abortion in Public Health and Welfare (Gender and American Culture)
Johanna Schoen
Manufacturer: The University of North Carolina Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Social Policy | Government | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

Demography | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

General | Women's Studies | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

Abortion & Birth Control | Women's Studies | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

Family Planning | Personal Health | Health, Mind & Body | Subjects | Books

All Titles | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books

Nonfiction | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books
Similar Items:

Pregnancy and Power: A Short History of Reproductive Politics in America
On Liberty and The Subjection of Women (Penguin Classics)
Eugenic Nation: Faults and Frontiers of Better Breeding in Modern America (American Crossroads)
Not a Suicide Pact: The Constitution in a Time of National Emergency (Inalienable Rights)
The Naked Crowd: Reclaiming Security and Freedom in an Anxious Age

ASIN: 0807855855
Release Date: 2005-02-16

Book Description

In August 2003, North Carolina became the first U.S. state to offer restitution to victims of state-ordered sterilizations carried out by its eugenics program between 1929 and 1975. The decision was prompted by newspaper stories based on the research of Johanna Schoen, who was granted unique access to summaries of 7,500 case histories and the papers of the North Carolina Eugenics Board.

In this book, Schoen situates the state's reproductive politics in a national and global context. Widening her focus to include birth control, sterilization, and abortion policies across the nation, she demonstrates how each method for limiting unwanted pregnancies had the potential both to expand and to limit women's reproductive choices. Such programs overwhelmingly targeted poor and nonwhite populations, yet they also extended a measure of reproductive control to poor women that was previously out of reach.

On an international level, the United States has influenced reproductive health policies by, for example, tying foreign aid to the recipients' compliance with U.S. notions about family planning. The availability of U.S.-funded family planning aid has proved to be a double-edged sword, offering unprecedented opportunities to poor women while subjecting foreign patients to medical experimentation that would be considered unacceptable at home.

Drawing on the voices of health and science professionals, civic benefactors, and the women themselves, Schoen's study allows deeper understandings of the modern welfare state and the lives of American women.

Books:

Books Index

Books Home

Recommended Books