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Cora Felton is the kind of dame your father might have called "a firecracker": a not-so-upstanding lady of a certain age who drinks her martinis by the shaker and delights in scandalizing not only the staid denizens of her cozy Connecticut village but also her niece Sherry, who's the private "ghost" behind Cora's public image as the Puzzle Lady. Even People Magazine, which has lined up an interview with Cora, believes the brazen old broad is the brains behind her phenomenally successful syndicated crossword puzzle column. Only Sherry and the ambitious young newspaper reporter who loves her know that Cora hasn't got a clue. Certainly, Emma Hurley didn't, which may explain why she left Cora in charge of sorting out her will, a puzzle wrapped in a 40-year-old enigma whose solution will earn one of Emma's heirs a vast fortune. The relatives are a motley lot, greedy and unappealing, but would any of them stoop to murder? When the bodies start piling up, it certainly looks that way, especially to Cora, who's better at judging human nature than word contests. While the answers to the crossword lead everyone else to the wrong conclusions, they point Cora and Sherry to the right ones and target a murderer in the process. The pace rollicks along nicely, the crossword's deceptively transparent, and this is a slight but charming little treat for the puzzle mavens on your Christmas list, especially those who've encountered Cora and Sherry in their first adventure, (A Clue for the Puzzle Lady). --Jane Adams
Book Description
It’s no mystery why readers love the Puzzle Lady, Miss Cora Felton, the eccentric amateur detective who keeps everyone guessing as she keeps herself in the thick of trouble. Find out why critics agree that “Cora is emerging as a lovable and unique sleuth” (Chicago Sun-Times) in “a fun series for mystery fans and cruciverbalists” (USA Today).
Wealthy widow Emma Hurley died with only her servants at her side — but after she passes away, her greedy heirs crawl out of the woodwork to stake a claim in Emma’s fortune. To their surprise, Emma was not content to leave behind a simple will. Instead, her final testament includes a clever puzzle ... one to be given only to her living heirs.
The first one to solve the puzzle will inherit Emma’s entire estate; everyone else will be left with a pittance. The will also stipulates that Cora Felton — local celebrity and famed author of a popular syndicated crossword puzzle column — must referee the contest.
Unfortunately, it’s Cora’s niece, Sherry Carter, who is the brains behind Cora’s “Puzzle Lady” persona. And it’s up to Sherry to unravel the bizarre riddle Emma Hurley engineered before her death. For soon it’s plain that Emma’s game is one without a clear winner ... and that the players could lose far more than they ever imagined!
Customer Reviews:
The Puzzle is Solved. I'm a Fan.......2005-10-26
Emma Hurley was the eccentric rich old maid in town before she died of old age. Now her relatives are gathering to hear her last will. And it's a doozy. The first one to solve a puzzle will inherit ten million dollars; the rest will walk away with ten thousand each. Not a bad conciliation prize, but for the greedy family, second place is not good enough. To win, there will be a race to solve a puzzle.
Called on to judge the contest is famed "Puzzle Lady" Cora Felton. Which only makes sense when the puzzle turns out to be a crossword grid with a quarter of the clues. The catch, of course, is the Cora knows nothing about cross word puzzles, so her niece Sherry must work behind the scenes to keep her aunt's public image intact.
Racing to stay ahead of the heirs would be bad enough if it weren't for the murders. First it's the town drunk. But then one of the heirs is found dead. Is the competition getting to be too much? And where will the crossword puzzle lead?
Not being a crossword puzzle fan, I put this series off for way too long. While there is a puzzle the reader is invited to solve from the clues in the book, ignoring the grid doesn't dampen the enjoyment one bit. This is a fast paced story that keeps the reader engaged and guessing from the start to the surprising climax. Honestly, I don't think I'd want to take time out to work the puzzle on my own even if I liked them.
The first book seemed to have four main characters as the reader got the story from multiple viewpoints fairly consistently. This time around, the focus has definitely shifted to Cora, even though the other three characters still play important parts of the book and we occasionally see the action from their eyes. Cora is still a drunk alcoholic at the beginning, but once the story gets going, she sobers up. I must say I prefer watching a sober Cora in action. The word play between characters is cut down a little, too, which is a disappointment to me, although what is in the books is still great. The author does use a lot of dialog and a writing style that flows well, so the book is a surprisingly fast read.
After reading the first in the series, I decided I'd wait and read another before I decided for sure if I liked the series or not. I'd say it's official. I'm already looking forward to reading the third in this entertaining and original series.
Another good puzzle.......2004-05-06
The second installment in Parnell Hall's Puzzle Lady series finds cruciverbalist Sherry Carter and her bibulous Aunt Cora caught up in another crossword-related crime spree in the small town of Bakerhaven, Connecticut. (Sherry writes a popular syndicated crossword puzzle column, but the puzzles are attributed to her aunt, who is the public face of the "Puzzle Lady.") It turns out that the recently deceased Emma Hurley has stipulated in her will that her prospective heirs undergo a sort of trial-by-puzzle to determine which of the lot will wind up with the largest share of her multi-million-dollar estate. Cora Felton, meanwhile, because of her reputed prowess as a puzzle solver, is named judge of the contest, a highly lucrative if unlikely assignment. As the various greedy and unpleasant heirs discover, Emma Hurley's millions seem to be riding on the successful completion of a crossword. The puzzle is relatively straightforward--suspiciously so, considering the sums involved--but the mystery surrounding the Hurley will is far more complex than any of the principals--the innocent ones, at least--suppose. Before the puzzle ladies can solve the mystery, two corpses, their murders somehow connected to the crossword contest, join Emma's in the local cemetery.
Parnell Hall's mysteries are complex enough to keep readers guessing and written with sufficient wit to keep them appreciative. ("Beasley's trip up the stairs was perilous at best. While he did not actually crawl, he did not actually walk, either.") The relationship between Cora and her niece in particular makes for pleasant reading. Hall might tone down Cora's self-destructive tendencies, however: that the grandmaternal "Puzzle Lady" is in reality so unlike her public persona is the principal joke of the series, but one worries about the effect of excessive smoking and drinking on her health. These are not charming or inherently amusing habits. One may note that Colin Dexter's Detective Morse likewise drinks to excess, but Morse's problems with alcohol are not, I think, milked for humor. Perhaps rather for pathos.
Crossword lovers and cozy fans--and readers of the Nero Blanc series of crossword mysteries in particular--will enjoy Hall's take on the amateur sleuth genre.
Reviewed by Debra Hamel, author of Trying Neaira: The True Story of a Courtesan's Scandalous Life in Ancient Greece
Cracklin!.......2003-09-17
This book was cracklin! Really great. It's been a long... LONG time since I've read a book that didn't sag at any point, was fun the whole the way through, and was an all around great read. Cora is really fun, the puzzles are fun. Fast, excellent fun. If you read the first one, stick with it, because it gets better and better.
One of my favorites.......2002-04-14
I loved this book! Cora Felton, drunk or sober, is absolutely hilarious! I enjoy reading books by this author as he draws the reader into the action which makes the book even more intersting and I could not put this book down for more than a few minutes.
I can't wait for the next book.
Mixed feelings.......2002-03-07
The plot and pace were great so I continued reading to the end but I was really turned off by the main character being a drunk and chain smoker. The author presents that as humorous - I don't get the joke! Certainly he could have found something else to make her "quirky"! I think the series would be far better off without glorifying alcohol and cigarettes!
Product Description
Book with puzzle to solve a mystery
Average customer rating:
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Confronting Critical Health Issues of Asian and Pacific Islander Americans
Manufacturer: Sage Publications, Inc
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
 Social Services & Welfare | Poverty | Current Events | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books
General | Race Relations | Sociology | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books
General | Special Groups | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books
Clinical Psychology | Psychology & Counseling | Health, Mind & Body | Subjects | Books
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Nursing | Medicine | New & Used Textbooks | Stores | Books
ASIN: 0803951132 |
Book Description
The Asian & Pacific Islander American Health Forum is a national advocacy organization dedicated to promoting policy, program, and research efforts for improving the health status of Asians and Pacific Islanders in the United States. This book was stimulated by the ideas and efforts of the Forum's National Research Advisory Council (NRAC). First convened in April 1989, the NRAC was formed in response to the poor quality of data, the paucity of health statistics, and the limited epidemiological and health services research on Asian and Pacific Islander Americans. With partial support from the Federal Office of Minority Health, the Asian & Pacific Islander American Health Forum selected three editors noted for their contributions and past compilations of scholarly work. The Forum also commissioned contributors with demonstrated experience and commitment to advancing the understanding of Asian and Pacific Islander American health in the service, research, and policy sectors. This book is a milestone effort reflecting the Forum's commitment to (a) community-based research; (b) building linkages and collaborations between academic researchers, service providers, and policy-makers; (c) advocating for institutional sanctions on improving data sources and research on Asian and Pacific Islander Americans; and (d) the dissemination of relevant information to diverse communities nationwide.
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Asian and Pacific Islander Migration to the United States: A Model of New Global Patterns (Contributions in Ethnic Studies)
Elliott Robert Barkan
Manufacturer: Greenwood Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
United States | Americas | History | Subjects | Books | 19th Century | 20th Century | 21st Century | African Americans | Civil War | Colonial Period | General | Revolution & Founding | State & Local
Civil Rights & Liberties | Current Events | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books
Demography | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books
Emigration & Immigration | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books
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All Titles | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books
Nonfiction | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books
ASIN: 0313275386 |
Book Description
This novel analysis of contemporary Asian and Pacific Islander immigration to the United States offers the most up-to-date synthesis of findings on global migration today. It presents a series of principles regarding new double-step patterns in population movements at the end of the twentieth century. This discussion of new paths and modes of world migration in a rimless world is intended for a broad, inter-disciplinary audience of students, teachers, and professionals in ethnic studies, U.S. history, Asian and Asian-American studies, studies relating to the Pacific Rim, sociology, demographics, and international relations. This study of multi-level and multi-directional global migration opens with an analysis of world migration theory, macro and micro factors in international migration, and a review of research about recent migration patterns. Next, this study offers twenty-seven propositions about factors that have affected decisions of peoples to move elsewhere, their adjustment to new countries, their return migrations, and the impact of international migration. Asian and Pacific Islander immigration to the United States is examined along with extensive data based on U.S. immigration records. This fourth wave of immigration to the United States is then analyzed in detail. Accompanying this data and analysis is a model of double stepwise international migration--extremely useful for those studying the intricacies of global patterns of migration. Barkan concludes with other data on mobility variables, an appendix, and an index.
Book Description
The Islander Sewing Systems is a sewing method using no pins or basting and emphasizes that the most important key to creativity comes from total understanding of materials and machines. Once you learn this system, your technical difficulties are over. Just imagine cutting your sewing time in half and producing truly professional results. With the information contained in this book you can accomplish a sewing project with greater precision and still save time. Now that's exciting!
Customer Reviews:
Islander's New Clothes.......2004-11-04
When I was little my mother's greatest ambition was that I would be a good reader. She saved hard to buy me serious books. However, even when I was a listener, not yet reading on my own, she would never invest in one of those children's books with a fancy picture and a few words on each page. To her getting her money's worth in a book meant getting lots of words on every page! This memory came to me as I eagerly unwrapped my long awaited copy of Islander Sewing Systems I: For Personal and Professional Sewing by Janet Pray. It is mostly a picture book, unfortunately a particularly repetitive one.
Having seen Margaret Islander demonstrate her innovative techniques on numerous videos, I had watched for this book's appearance ever since the first rumors of its creation. Anyone who has ever attempted to sew a quality shirt, only to be disappointed when comparing it to a commercial product, will appreciate Islander's researches. Her study of industrial techniques and their adaptation to home sewing dramatically increases the speed and the quality of the seamstress's work. Thus, I hastened, despite the expensive price, to add it to my collection.
Sadly, I found the book's elaborate presentation greatly outdistanced its actual content. Its 182 large pages are elaborately bound and profusely illustrated with gorgeous color photographs. The techniques are illustrated clearly and profusely. Each chapter contains one or more approaches to its subject. The chapters deal with ten issues: seam allowances, cutting, operating the sewing machine, curves, quick and accurate pocket sewing, darts and tucks, zippers and waistbands, lined bodice, flat felled seams, and mitering. However, there was no information on invisible zippers, now being used by many top designers. Nor was there any discussion of linings and inner linings. This information occupies 107 pages, although these pages are not all information. Numerous pages are simply full page announcements of the chapter headings or pages for "notes."
Even worse, however, is Chapter 11, "Practice Makes Perfect," pp108-152. These pages instruct the reader to practice the suggestions in the preceding chapters and unbelievably repeat for this 42 pages the exact same photographs, without the full text, that appear in Chapters 1 through 10. Pages 154-175 are patterns which can be copied for doing the exercises. 176-182 are a glossary, a short list of resources, and a list of other Islander products.
This book will not earn its keep. Although its information is good, there is far too little of it compared to the pages of slick graphics and photographs. One cannot help thinking of the parallel to the Emperor's New Clothes. Suggest it to your local library and check it out. It will be a fast read. My mother, a world class seamstress, would not have thought it worth her money.
Book Description
Islander brings the magic of her nationally recognized sewing system to Pants, Etc! This book shows you how to achieve a custom pant fit. By drafting your own pants pattern you'll no longer have to alter commercial patterns or ready-made pants. No special design or math skills are necessary. All you need are your personal measurements, a ruler, pen and paper.
Book Description
Teaching about Asian Pacific Americans was created for educators and other practitioners who want to use interactive activities, assignments, and strategies in their classrooms or workshops. Experts in the field of Asian American Studies will find powerful, innovative teaching activities that clearly convey established and new ideas. The activities in this book have been used effectively in workshops for staff and practitioners in student services programs, community-based organizations, teacher training programs, social service agencies, and diversity training.
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The First Strange Place
Beth Bailey , and
David Farber
Manufacturer: Free Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
General | Europe | History | Subjects | Books
General | Military | History | Subjects | Books
General | World War II | Military | History | Subjects | Books
Home Front | World War II | Military | History | Subjects | Books
General | World | History | Subjects | Books
Hawaii | State & Local | United States | Americas | History | Subjects | Books
Social History | Historical Study | History | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0029012228 |
Book Description
The curriculum materials presented in this guide explore the legacy of the Spanish-American War from a distinct point of view: that of the island nations in the Caribbean and the Pacific, nations whose destiny has been framed for centuries by the tension between foreign domination and the quest for independence. For these peoples, the war lives on, underlying profound questions of culture, society, and language, as well as political and economic issues. Among the vanquished, history is not forgotten.
This guide opens with an introductory chapter, addressed mainly to teachers, that examines the events of 1898 and their aftermath. Student lessons at the end of the chapter explore general themes regarding the role of interpretation in history.
The remainder of the book is dedicated to chapters on each of the countries that came under U.S. rule in this period. Each of the country-specific chapters includes a brief historical overview followed by a series of lessons, including suggested activities and corresponding handouts for students. Both the overviews and the handouts are written to be accessible to students at the secondary level. Terms that may be unfamiliar are signaled in each chapter overview and in each lesson, and are defined in a glossary at the back of the guide.
Student readings include a wealth of primary sources: newspaper articles and political cartoons from the time of the Spanish-American War, historical documents, personal testimonies, and more. Also included are a broad range of contemporary pieces, both fiction and nonfiction. The overall approach is multidisciplinary; many of the materials and activities included here can be used for classes in history, social studies or English, the suggested activities include role plays, debates, writing exercises, classroom discussions, and the creation of stories, poems or cartoons, among others.
Many of the lessons included here engage students in developing their own critical readings, whether of historical narratives, media representations, or policy debates. By listening to the voices that have mainly been left out of the historical record, students can learn to understand how our vision of history and of the world we live in is reshaped according to who is looking and who is being seen.
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The Asian Databook
Manufacturer: Grey House Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
Directories | Catalogs & Directories | Reference | Subjects | Books
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All Titles | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books
ASIN: 1592370446 |
Book Description
The National Hockey League saw the birth of a new dynasty in 1980. The New York Islanders had been an expansion franchise in 1972 in the New York City suburbs of Long Island. For years they played in the long shadow of the big-city New York Rangers and were considered the league's laughingstock during their first season. Miraculously, eight years later, they were champions. Despite their mercurial rise in the 1970s--which included a first-place overall finish in the 1978-79 season--the Islanders were still considered chokers because of playoff failures. The most frustrating failure of all came at the hands of the rival Rangers, who beat them in 1979 to advance to the Stanley Cup Finals. A year later they stumbled through an injury-plagued and inconsistent regular season. When the playoffs arrived again, however, they were ready. Bolstered by the late-season addition of speedy center Butch Goring and the bitterness of the previous year's defeat, the Islanders overcame their past failures and put together an exhausting and dramatic run to their first-ever appearance in the Stanley Cup Finals. In the Finals they met the still-dominant Philadelphia Flyers, two-time champions in the 1970s. The ensuing battle demonstrated not only the promise with which the Islanders had always teased their fans, but also the maddening struggles that seemed to hold them back every year. That is, until Game 6, when Bob Nystrom, an everyman's everyman, scored the clinching goal at 7:11 of overtime to make history in both the NHL, and on Long Island. It is a moment that, 25 years later, still lives in the hearts of Islanders fans and in the annals of Long Island, as a region and a community. It is a moment thatspawned a run of four consecutive championships, the longest by any United States-based professional team and a run that has since gone unmatched. Birth of a Dynasty: The 1980 New York Islanders is the story of how it happened, how it came together, and what it felt like to be there.
Customer Reviews:
Back when hockey was played by real men........2005-08-02
This book is a must read for all current and former Islander fans. So many great memories were rehashed while reading this book. The only problem I had with this book was that it had to end. By the way, not only should fans read this book, it should be required reading material for all current islanders' players. The book will bring you back to a better time and place when there were no ads on the boards, no half naked 16 year old girls skating between whistles, no instigation penalties, and most importantly, when the NY Rangers did not have the means to buy a Stanley Cup. Too bad hockey turned into the traveling circus as it is today.
Lockout Relief.......2004-11-17
Really, really enjoyed reading this book. From the foreword to the last page, the story of how the 1980 New York Islanders captured the Stanley Cup really comes alive. I felt the goosebumps of a 10 year old kid all over again as I read this book. My only regret: it's a bit short.
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- McNally's Gamble (Archy McNally Novels)
- Michelangelo : The Complete Sculpture, Painting, Architecture
- Mistletoe Man
- Mistmantle Chronicles, The: Urchin and the Heartstone - Book #2 (Mistmantle Chronicles)
- Mrs. Jeffries Takes the Cake (Victorian Mystery)
- Murder in the Casbah and Other Mysteries: New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (The Original Radio Broadcasts)
- Murder on Nob Hill (Sarah Woolson Mysteries)
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