No comments about The Death of Billy the Kid (Southwest Heritage Series).

3 comments about Codename: Octopus: A True Biography.

1. Everything written in this book is all true. Every word. The information was taken from daily memos while on this job or jobs working undercover for the president. Real names, address, phone numbers and situations.
   The author - Thomas A. Phelan



2. This is a complete work of fiction. Some of the names and events are real, however the story is a complete fabrication and has little if anything to do with reality. Save your money.



3. This book will shock you! The contents of this book reveals the reasons why some of the major problems in this country and the world are still ongoing from the late 1970's; why Saddam Hussein is still in power, why we invaded Granada, and probably what may have happened to Jimmy Hoffa. This book is very revealing with names of famous political personages and where they got their money. The author wrote this while a contract was out on him to maim or to kill. All the people in the investigative end of the book are dead except the author. I would highly recommend reading this book to get up-to-date on what's going on in the world and in this country.

No comments about Lone Wolf: Eric Rudolph and the Legacy of American Terror.

5 comments about Rock Hard: Autobiography of Former Alcatraz Inmate Leon "Whitey" Thompson.

1. I bought the last train to alcatraz when my Wife and I were on our honeymoon. The author was on the island signing copies so I bought one.
   I have been a big prison movie fan for years, shawshank did it....
   
   I wish I had read the book before we went there so I could have had a chat with the author for longer than I did.
   
   I see he re issued it with a new name, but had the decency to put on the cover "formerly known as The last train to alcatraz" which saves people forking out twice for the same book.
   
   I just wish Norman Parker had done that when he reissued the parkhurst tales books. I bought tales 2 as well as more tales and very nearly fell for it again with life in the goldfish bowl/living with killers/in the company of killers which is the same book.........
   
   My wife has just got me a copy of the alcatraz merry go round for xmas and having just had a look on google I see Whitey has passed away, so there is no chance I will be able to get this one signed.
   
   It is a shame, he wrote a good book.



2. Leon "Whitey" Thompson shares his experiences serving time in what is undoubtedly one of America's most (in)famous prisons, Alcatraz aka The Rock. To better put his time and personality changes there in a clear perspective, Thompson also tells of his tortured childhood at the hands of an abusive alcoholic father and the criminal exploits it led him to and which subsequently got him into prison. Using the third person narrative, Thompson paints himself as a dangerously volatile man prone to violent outbursts of temper. It is these outbursts that landed him on The Rock, but it is there that he overcame those troubles and attempted to turn his life around. Sadly it was not to be, Whitey returned to prison one more time...

   Rock Hard is an engrossing read that is a tad melodramatic. At times it reads more like a dimestore pulp novel than a true to life account, but the old cliche 'life is stranger than fiction' should be kept in mind. Thompson details how life in prison can be a maddening repetition of the same boring routine, one that can drain the sanity from you. Yet it can also contain moments of humanity and humor. After reading the book I can feel nothing but respect for Thompson and what he has managed to accomplish in his reformed life. Highly recommended to True Crime buffs and those interested in studies of prison life.




3. This book is a page turner and it offers an unique insight in the life of a convict on Alcatraz. I found it fascinating and hard to put down. The book is also exceptionally well written, I really enjoyed reading it.



4. All I can say is that it is amazing!!! I first read this book like 6 or 7 years ago when I was 15 or 16. It was the first real book(not assigned for school)I read all the way through without losing interest. I love Alcatraz and this book gives a very revealing account of what life was like. Thanks Leon, if it wasn't for you I may have never found the joy of reading!!!



5. I am still shocked that it took me 11 years to finally open the pages to this book, but when I did I never put it down, Why you might ask? Whitey is cold, hard and calculating throughout the book, never giving into anything and showing the reader into the mind of a hardened criminal. I for one have a better knowledge of what life was truly like in Alcatraz, if just for a period of five years. If you want to read a book cover to cover in one day, pick this book up, and i know you will want to buy Merry go Round, which is the conclusion of Whiteys life in and out of prison until now. By the way, Whitey has really turned his life around, and I am proud to have met him.

5 comments about Zarqawi: The New Face of Al-Qaeda.

1. There is obviously some factual controversy over Zarqawi, but I found this to be a very quick, accessible read. The overall facts of Zarqawi's life seem to indicate a drift from a listless life as a tattoo-laced drunkard to a radical and brutal Islamist. He was not a great brain, but he was an awful brute, and we can be thankful that he is dead. As to when Zarqawi pledged allegiance to Osama bin Laden, that may be debated. Brisard does illustrate will that the connections between Al Qaeda and Saddam's Iraq were virtually non-existent. I would recommend reading this book, and then deciding for yourself.



2. Very helpful in identifying the sort of man we were looking for in 2005. It establishes a very firm timeline for Zarqawi's involvement in al-Qaida and talks enough about his background to give you a "feel" for his mindset.
   
   It also gives you a very good idea of the sort of animal we put down for good in 2006.



3. I think Brisard should try his hand at spy thrillers. There is a market for them and they don't have to be true.
   
   Brisard has a problem with truth. He gets facts wrong and pushes his own agendas. I've read about the libel actions but this book sure shows why he has problems, he just can't deal with the idea of getting facts and presenting them clearly.
   
   I read his other book and this is more of the same, cut and paste with a bit of wild commentary thrown in.
   
   If he were freed from the need to even appear factual, this wild stuff would make for great novels or even films. Would be fun to see all of the terrorists conspiring with world leaders and rooms full of gold and jewels and so on. He could even throw in some sexy Russian girl spies to keep it interesting!
   
   But as a factual account of Zarqawi I have to say no way. Brisard has never met Zarqawi, apparently has never even met anyone who has met Zarqawi so where are the facts?



4. This is one of the few books I have ever returned.
   
   I do not have a lot to add to the other reviews. I really got upset when I learned that his Senate Testimony had been removed AND that he never really wrote a report for the UN.
   
   The writing is not good, and it is obvious that you can't trust anything he says.
   
   If you need to learn about Zarqawi, go to the BBC site and read their profile. It is not full of conspiracy theories like this book and they don't lie about what they have done.
   
   About the only good thing I can say about the author is that is blog is entertaining. Nothing to do with terrorist money but a lot to do with how much time he spends in court getting sued by rich Arabs.



5. This book is by a man who said he wrote a report for the United Nations. The United Nations said he gave them a report he already wrote.
   
   I get the idea he had his answer in mind when he wrote this book and made whatever facts he happened across fit this answer.
   
   This book is really pretty useless. The author is not reliable and the book reads like it was translated in about an hour. There are conspiracy websites with better information, and at least you know not to take them too seriously.

No comments about Il Dottore: The Double Life of a Mafia Doctor, Library Edition.

No comments about No Tears for Black Jack Ketchum.

2 comments about The Letters of Sacco and Vanzetti (Penguin Classics).

1. Polenberg of Cornell University The introduction to The Letters of Sacco and Vanzetti (Penguin Books 1997) by Professor Richard Polenberg is richly informative. The publication is timely and useful. Readers must ask whether these letters offer a clue to the moral character of convicted murderers Sacco and Vanzetti. John Nicholas Beffel, radical journalist who roomed with chief defense counsel Fred Moore during the Dedham trial, declared in “The New Republic,” December 29, 1920, that Vanzetti was a “philosophical anarchist.” In “The Case of Sacco and Vanzetti” (March 1927), Harvard Law School Professor Felix Frankfurter called Vanzetti “a dreamy fish peddler” (p. 101). Bruce Bliven, “managing editor of the liberal New Republic” (a phrase from American National Biography), wrote of Sacco and Vanzetti: “Their faith is philosophical anarchism.” See TNR: June 22, 1927, p. 121. When an unknown reviewer in the April 1929 issue of the anarchist journal “The Road to Freedom” argued that Upton Sinclair’s novel “Boston” was the work of an unfit historian, Sinclair replied angrily in the June issue: “It is a fact that Sacco was a ‘Militant Anarchist.’” Anarchist editor Hippolyte Havel agreed. In the August 1929 issue of “Lantern” Walter Lippmann wrote: “By every test that I know of for judging character, these are the letters [The Letters of Sacco and Vanzetti] of innocent men.” Note: The brackets are by Lippmann Frederick Allen (Only Yesterday, 1931) said Vanzetti was “clearly a remarkable man--an intellectual of noble character, a philosophical anarchist of a type which it seemed impossible to associate with a pay-roll murder.” Alfred Jules Ayer, Professor of Logic at Oxford, reviewing Francis Russell’s 1962 book on Sacco and Vanzetti, wrote: “Both men were active anarchists of an idealistic kind.” Ayer said the letters of Vanzetti revealed “a man of great swetnesss and nobility of character.” See New Statesman: 5 July 1963. Sacco-Vanzetti scholars who met at the Boston Public Library on October 26 and 27, 1979, reminded readers that time is a great corrective. Professor Nunzio Pernicone, on the second conference day said: “ . . . these men [Sacco and Vanzetti] were not philosophical anarchists; they were genuine, militant revolutionaries.” See “Sacco-Vanzetti: Developments and Reconsiderations--1979,” the 1982 publication by Trustees of the Public Library of the City of Boston. In “Sacco and Vanzetti: The Anarchist Background,” a 1991 publication by Princeton University Press, Professor Paul Avrich wrote: “Both [Sacco and Vanzetti] were ultra-militants, . . .” See p. 161 for Avrich’s citation to Sinclair’s letters that acknowledge the militancy of Sacco and Vanzetti. On page xxxix of his Introduction, Polenberg calls Edmund M. Morgan a historian. In fact, Morgan is called Royall Professor of Law at Harvard University on the back cover of the 1978 reprint of “The Legacy of Sacco and Vanzetti,” that 1948 book by Joughin and Morgan that Tom O’Connorr said had educated a generation of college students and professors. Polenberg’s assertion (p. xxxix) that Joughin and Morgan, . . .believed Sacco and Vanzetti innocent, . . .” must be severely qualified. Morgan said Ehrmann’s book, “The Untried Case: The Sacco-Vanzetti Case and the Morelli Gang,” failed to convince him that the Morelli gang, not Sacco and Vanzetti, had committed the crime at South Braintree. Morgan also said that if Sacco and Vanzetti “were alive today [1934] and were to be tried again, . . . and if a verdict were returned, it could not be set aside as contrary to the weight of evidence, at least against Sacco.” See Harvard Law Review, January 1934. Morgan has more telling concessions in the book he and Joughin published in 1948. On pp. 55-56 he calls Vanzetti’s Plymouth trial fair, the verdict just. On p. 46 Morgan writes: “ . . . this cross-examination, taken alone,

   tends strongly to show that a group of Italians had framed an alibi for Vanzetti and had coached this bright youngster [Beltrado Brini] to tell his story with details which would tie in with the incidents related by other witnesses.” On pages 48-49 Morgan says Vanzetti’s statements on the Plymouth trial are suspect. A handbook on the two disputed trials is “Kill Now, Talk Forever: Debating Sacco and Vanzetti,” an ebook by 1stBooks Library. Soft cover issue will be available before the end of summer....




2. This is the most important testament to a now largely forgotten tragedy of American politics. Sacco and Vanzetti were essentially convicted and executed for being unpatriotic foreigners, regardless of the crime they were accused of [for which no specific evidence was presented against them]. They waited for seven years in prison before their execution, during which time they wrote these letters. Their English, though it improved through the years, was never fully accomplished. But the results are extraordinary. The letters express ideas about life, society, faith, politics and human feelings, and the often clumsy and misused language actually makes the expression more lucid and more beautiful. The path of trial, appeal and final sentencing runs through clearly, and as the end approaches the letters are inexpressibly heartbreaking, as when Sacco asks his wife to tell his daughter "that I love her so much, and again, so much." This book has been in and out of print since the late 1920's, and is often unavailable in libraries because patrons steal it. It is a blessing that Penguin has brought it back.

No comments about La Reina del Pac-Fico y Otras Mujeres (Planeta).

2 comments about Girty.

1. Historical fiction written in a most literary manner. There are no gaps, no ramblings, just excellent writing about a significant figure in the early history of the Ohio Valley.



2. Brilliantly written...it was almost as though I were by Girty's side.
   
   If only...