Book Description
Bestselling author Mary Daheim turns up the volume in her latest Bed-and-Breakfast mystery when indomitable heroine Judith McMonigle Flynn tries to extend a helping hand to a pesky new neighbor -- and ends up with a corpse underfoot while she and cousin Renie cope with . . .
Hard times and sour notes have hit the cousins in both the B&B and the graphic design business. To make matters worse, Renie's up to her latest eyebrow wax in debt, due to overzealous spending on clothes on their recent trip to San Francisco. And in the house that Herself -- Judith's nemesis and hubby Joe's ex-wife -- has rented out, there dwells a symphony violinist whose practice of outdoor practicing au naturel is driving the neighbors out of the cozy cul-de-sac and into sound-proof rooms. In fact, they swear they'd like to kill the nude, rude Rudi.
No such luck. The only buffer zone from the in-the-buff violinist is the Rankerses' hedge. Instead of Rudi taking a final bow with his damnable bow, it's his larger-than-life mentor, Dolph Kluger, who meets death, not by getting entangled in the lethal laurel, but from ingesting ruthless rhubarb.
To add to the musical mess, Rudi's valuable violin bow goes missing, Renie's useless credit cards are stolen, a headless horseman rides through somebody's past, and several suspects seem to be on the brink of bonkersville. Judith has to be extra careful with these lyrical loonies or somebody will be playing her funeral march before the killer bows out.
Customer Reviews:
Saks & Violins.......2007-09-15
I really like this series of books and did enjoy the plot for this one , but by half way through, I was so sick of comments on her artificial hip! I have friends who have them and never hear "I have to be so careful because of the hip replacement", much less every other sentence.Mention it once or twice, but I bet it was at least 20 or 30 times through the book. If you can ignore that, the book was pretty good otherwise.
Hip surgery.......2007-08-07
Really am angered about the way the author protrays people with artifical hips. I suppose there are some who may have post op problems, but the majority of us can do perfectly normal everyday things after hip surgery. I walk well, play golf, garden,do aqua aerobics and also can get down on the floor and back up again without help. Her references to her inability to perform everyday tasks in this book I find quite irritating. It gives the impression that if you have hip surgery, you are going to be crippled. Not a good image to give to someone who is contemplating such surgery. This book really isn't as good as some she has done before.
Complicated and confusing.......2006-09-26
Bed-and-breakfast owner Judith Flynn and her husband Joe are tired of hearing their neighbor Rudi practice his violin in their cul-de-sac. When Rudi's mentor, Dolph, comes to town, he chooses to stay at the B & B. Things get hectic soon as dead bodies begin to appear and a priceless violin bow and cousin Renie's credit cards begin to disappear. The relationships between characters are complicated and confusing and by the time the book ends, it's hard to tell who did what to whom. I agree with some of the other reviewers who wrote that Judith's mother is too mean-spirited to be funny and cousin Renie is pretty far out with her nasty temper and devotion to a stuffed monkey whom she treats as a human being.
Perhaps it is time to retire this series.
Hitting A Sour Note.......2006-09-22
If you've been reading the Bed & Breakfast series from the beginning it is obvious that the quality of the stories has decreased. Dead Man Docking, her last book was ok, but this one is definitely the worst of the series.
I'd describe the storyline but it's so convuluted with multiple stories, including a murder, a missing violin bow worth a fortune. An old murder. Possible illegetimate child, Nutty people. Ex-wives, stepchildren, drug addicts, alcoholics mysterious strangers and a partridge in a pear tree.
It never comes together into a coherant story. Not only don't I care who committed the murder, I'm just sorry more of these loser characters didn't bite the dust.
I think Mary Daheim should consider starting a new book series with fresh characters and leave Judith and Renie alone for a while. I would rather wait a couple of years and get a tight, exciting mystery where you can't put down the book (as many of the earlier books are)instead of a book every year or so that just doesn't seem worth the effort to read.
Highlights:
No matter how bad the book, Judith has always been a great character. Very loving and very funny. I love her romance with her husband Joe, although he has almost disappeared from the storyline for the last few books.
Humor. Not as funny as they used to be, but I still find Renie's obcession with her stuffed Ape and live bunny to be very funny.
Lowlights:
Bad and boring mystery.
Cousin Renie: There is a small line between eccentric and nutty. Renie has now crossed the line. What used to be funny about her messy, aggressive manner has become annoying. I would be embarrassed to ever be in a public place with her as her behavior has become so annoying.
Gertrude: Her nasty behavior has increased as the series continues and is no longer funny, just because she's old doesn't make it any less abusive.
Very disappointing, I agree with another reviewer, if you're just starting the series, don't begin with this book. Go back to the beginning for some really great reads.
Far From Her Best.......2006-08-30
I have read all of Mary Daheim's bed and breakfast novels and have enjoyed most of them. I won't go into the story details, which the other reviewers have already nicely done. From the beginning I felt Ms. Danheim's heart was not into this novel. Even Judith protesting that she was through with sleuthing a number of times...well, I had to agree with her that as many characters and twists and double twist that this book had, I would have given up also. Too many extra mysteries thrown in making it difficult to concentrate on the main one. I found too many parts of the book annoying in content and so I would skip quickly, which I don't like to do! Gertrude use to be funny, but now she is more annoying and if Ms. Danheim had a heart, she would give her a nice burial. Judith is a slave to solving a mystery but has to stop to get her mother's lunch or dinner because the old women brow beats her until she does by calling her insulting names. Not funny anymore. That scene has been played out too many times and has lost its humor. Cousin Renie is the only one with a backbone.....Judith could take a lesson. Joe, Judith's husband, is once again off somewhere NOT being involved, but even when he is home he is no help. Phyliss, the housekeeper and Sweetums, the cat, keep the whole thing going. If you are new to Mary Daheim's B&B's......please do not read this one first. You won't want to pick up another. If you are a fan you will want to read it because we are hooked, bad or good.
Book Description
Between December 1941 and May 1942, the British Empire suffered a series of humiliating defeats in the Far East. Three years later the Japanese were defeated by British and Commonwealth forces at Kohima and Imphal and in the battles for Burma. This transformation in the fortunes was in large part due to the development of jungle warfare doctrine and the resulting improvements in training, tactics and equipment. This book examines British Army conventional forces that fought in the Far East, showing how the dissemination of doctrine improved training, and helped 14th Army's infantry divisions secure victory.
Customer Reviews:
A Bit of a Disappointment...........2005-10-11
When I picked up this volume on the British Army in the Far East in 1941-45 and saw that Alan Jeffreys, a curator at the Imperial War Museum, had written it, I expected a first-class product. Alas, I was a bit disappointed by this volume due to the sparse coverage of the first two years of the war in Asia and the inadequate amount of detail on unit tables of organization and equipment (TOE). While the writing style and information that is presented are decent enough, it seems that the author only wanted to primarily focus on the last year of the war, i.e, the phase that the Commonwealth troops were winning. While one certainly does not expect an encyclopedic coverage in an Osprey title, this volume does not appear to present the type and amount of detail found in other Battle Orders titles (indeed, this seems more like an effort for the campaign series). Even the author's conclusion that the British adoption of a jungle warfare doctrine was a major element in reversing the Commonwealth's fortunes in South Asia seems to ignore the fact that US air and sea operations had virtually isolated the Japanese forces in the Burma-India theater from receiving further reinforcements after mid-1944.
The introductory section of this volume follows the series format, with a brief discussion of the combat mission of British forces in the Far East, which notes that the defense of the naval base at Singapore was the main operational focus. The section on training is lengthy, including noting that the British had one unit in Malaya - the 2nd Battalion Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders -that was fairly well trained in jungle warfare tactics. Unfortunately, the author's overly brief coverage of the Malayan campaign presents only a few tactical snippets of that unit's activities, making it difficult to assess what value this unit had. The section on division organization provides a short history of each British, Australian and Indian division in theater, but only a few of the line and block charts go below division level and none go below brigade level. Unlike other Osprey Battle Order volumes, there are almost no charts listing personnel or equipment holdings, except for one chart that shows artillery holdings across the four different types of Commonwealth divisions. Armored units - beyond a simple table listing numbers of tanks in theater in 1944 - are virtually absent from these pages. Given that Indian and Australian units often had non-standard TOEs, the author should have made greater effort to clarify unit structures - as is expected in this series.
The volume includes eleven 2-D maps: Japanese strategic plans in the Far East; Training sites in Southeast Asia; dispositions of Commonwealth forces in Malaya, December 1941; the Battle of Slim River; Commonwealth dispositions on Singapore; 1st Arakan campaign; the capture of Mandalay; the Japanese offensive at Imphal-Kohima; opening moves at Kohima; the British counterattack at Kohima; the British counteroffensive in June 1944. Unfortunately, the author does not provide anything like a theater order of battle for Commonwealth forces at any particular date, so trying to determine "the big picture" is futile with this volume. The author does provide a 2-page bibliography and a campaign chronology.
I was really stunned that this volume has virtually no mention of the 11,000 Commonwealth troops (6 battalions) lost at Hong Kong in December 1941 and no mention of the Commonwealth OB in Burma in December 1941. Nor is there any significant mention of British troops who fought in the Dutch East Indies (where I believe several thousand were captured) or China. Even the author's skimpy coverage of the forces available to Percival in Malaya is difficult to follow (must read division thumb-nail sketches). The First Arakan offensive in 1943 is also covered very briefly and the Chindits are almost ignored. It is clear that this author wanted to skirt quickly past this string of disasters and get to Imphal-Kohima, where he can recount the jocks of 2nd British Infantry Division giving the Japanese Army a sound thrashing. The author concludes his campaign narrative with General Slim's boast that his forces had given the Japanese "the biggest defeat in their whole history." Given the catastrophic defeats suffered across the board by the Japanese after mid-1942, it seems rather a tad absurd to single out the defeat of only three of their divisions as "their greatest defeat ever."
Readers attempting to digest the changes in the Commonwealth forces in the Far East between 1941-45 will find this volume of little help, since so little information is provided on the initial force structure. The author's labored dissection of the evolution of British jungle warfare doctrine, while perhaps illuminating for some readers, seemed tedious and with little point. The Commonwealth forces won at Kohima-Imphal because they had vastly superior firepower and were close to their base of supply, while the Japanese troops were virtually out of supply. Jungle warfare doctrine didn't help the Chindits much - essentially a waste of three infantry brigades - and Slim's victories in '44-45 were due more to combined arms tactics than any "jungle tactics." Indeed, it was the ability of Commonwealth (and US C-47s, which the author ignores) logistic troops and engineers to build roads through jungles and over mountains and cross wide rivers that contributed most to victory in Burma.
Book Description
This Elibron Classics book is a facsimile reprint of a 1857 edition by J. W. Parker and Son, London.
Book Description
This is the first general social and political history of Malaya. Focusing on the years 1945 to 1957, the last years of British rule and the achievement of independence, it embraces a wealth of social, economic and cultural, as well as political themes. It contains new research on the impact of the Second World War in Malaya, the origins and course of the Communist Emergency, and the response of Malaya's various ethnic communities to nationalism and social change. A concluding chapter takes these themes forward into the 1990s to shed new light on the emergence of this important Southeast Asian nation.
Book Description
Surveying exciting modern developments in high-speed train travel not only in America but in Europe and the Far East, this is an entirely new updated version of a work originally published in 1978. Geoffrey Freeman Allen, an expert in contemporary railway development, lucidly explains for the lay person the technical and financial problems involved in the continual stepping up of the pace of the world's inter-city expresses. It is a unique reference book and an enthralling narrative, as well as a valuable contribution to the understanding of today's policy issues. Included are over 170 color and black and white photographs.
Book Description
Two Years in the Kingdom is a lighthearted yet informative look at life in Thailand, from the perspective of an American Peace Corps Volunteer. Part personal narrative and part essay, the book is a chronicle of the author's two years in Pakham, a rural village in the littlest-known part of the Thai Kingdom—the hot, Lao-speaking northeast known colloquially as Isaan. Written with the visiting foreigner in mind, Two Years provides a candidly honest and instructive look into rural Thai lifeways, foods, languages, and customs.
Customer Reviews:
Clarification to earlier review.......2004-06-28
Sorry, I should clarify the earlier review (from Anonymous, Melbourne, Australia) - you do find out what happens in the end with his girlfriend etc, but it is very much a summing up, you don't feel or see what happens. And this is hidden at the back of the book after the essays which don't fit into the story.
Okay, but needs an editor.......2004-06-27
As someone who has lived in Thailand, I can see what the author is trying to describe in this book, but am not sure that it always works. I didn't get a vivid picture of the place or food or smells. As I'm interested in the topic, I'd still pick it up to read it and certainly enjoyed parts of it, but I think it suffers from a lack of professional editing (being a self-published book).
I think the author made an error in deciding to not write about his first three months in the country (those familiar with the Peace Corps will know that the first three months is training and a homestay with a local family). He describes it as being a 'whole other story', but I think it would have been good for readers to see it - the first three months would have so many new experiences and impressions. The book has a number of pieces that aren't well integrated or linked to the rest of the book, including the section on the forest monk and the two 'essays' at the back of the book - the author admits he is not sure how to fit them in with the rest of the book. Also, there are a couple of places where the author makes lists (different kinds of Thai ghosts, different sorts of edible insects) and I didn't find it an interesting way of presenting the information.
There is little sense of why the author decided to join the Peace Corps and how he views his time in retrospect. Some story threads are just left hanging, we never find out what happened between him and his Thai girlfriend in the end.
A fellow PCV/PaKhamer..........2002-12-18
I read this book before it was published and for sale on the internet...back when I was living in PaKham myself. I found this book really entertaining from the perspective that I was living in the same town, meeting the same people, and having some of the same experiences.
PaKham is one of the littlest known places in Thailand, but to me it will always be home. The book is very honest and humorous. It's a nice perspective on living in Thailand in a rural village in the poorest region of the country. There are good sections on the political history of the area (which is briefly mentioned in Lonely Planet...we had the monk that ordained a forest in order to save it from being harvested), information on ghosts and superstition (a big part of life in Essan and a favorite chapter of mine), plus Thai idioms and language (that are always useful when trying to impress your Thai friends).
I recommend this book to anyone thinking of living in Thailand, especially doing the volunteer life, and anyone thinking of travelling there as well (for more than 2 days that is). Or if you're just interested in travel writing.
Average customer rating:
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The British Army, the Gurkhas and Cold War Strategy in the Far East, 1947-1954 (Studies in Military & Strategic History)
Raffi Gregorian
Manufacturer: Palgrave Macmillan
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
 General | Asia | History | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 0333801482 |
Book Description
This book argues that postwar Britain's "imperial over-extension" has been exaggerated. Britain developed and adjusted its defense strategy based upon the perceived Communist threat and available resources. It was especially successful at adapting to meet the strategic and resource challenges from the Far East from 1947-54. There British and Gurkha forces were deployed only in contingencies that threatened vital British interests, while the US and Commonwealth allies were persuaded to accept key wartime missions, thus preserving Britain's ability to fight in Western Europe.
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Thailand: The Worldly Kingdom
Maurizio Peleggi
Manufacturer: Reaktion Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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The King Never Smiles: A Biography of Thailand's Bhumibol Adulyadej
ASIN: 1861893140 |
Book Description
Tourist brochures and travel guides depict Thailand as an exotic country with a rich cultural heritage, strong religious traditions, and a popular monarchy. Historians also contribute to Thailand’s international allure with chronicles of its unique historical and cultural continuity in comparison to the other southeast Asian countries, whose histories are stained by colonialism and nationalist struggles for independence.
Thailand challenges these stereotypes with a reinterpretation as well as an introduction to the emergence of Thailand as a nation-state. The book argues that the development of Thai nationhood was a long-term process shaped by interactions with the outside world, its pursuit of civilization, and, more recently, globalization. Maurizio Peleggi’s original account investigates, among other issues, the evolution of the geographical and linguistic landscapes, changes in class and gender relations, the role of institutions and ideologies, modern cultural expressions, social memory, and the conception of the Thai national self as contrasted against the racial and cultural Others of Burmese, Chinese and Westerners.
Thailand is a concise and compelling introduction to the complexities that lie behind Thailand’s exotic facade.
Book Description
This title focuses on the experience, tactics, training and weapons of the British soldier from the Fall of Malaya and Singapore until the Reconquest of Burma. It takes a close look at jungle warfare training in India and the ensuing action in Burma, tracing the development of tactics and doctrine: this formed the basis for the victories in the Arakan and the battles of Kohima and Imphal. The soldier's view of India, the entertainment available on leave, food rationing and other supplies such as cigarettes, the introduction of the forces newspaper SEAC, and the medical problems of malaria are all explored in detail.
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Codebreaker in the Far East
Alan Stripp
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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Codebreakers' Victory: How the Allied Cryptogaphers Won World War II
ASIN: 0192803867 |
Book Description
Codebreaker in the Far East is the first book to describe how Bletchley Park and its Indian and Far Eastern outposts broke a series of Japanese codes and cipher systems of dazzling variety and complexity. Their achievements made a major contribution to the Allied victory in Burma, and probably helped to shorten and win the war, perhaps by two or three years. Alan Stripp gives his first-hand account of the excitement of reading the enemy's mind, of working against the clock, hampered by one of the world's most daunting languages and the knowledge that they were facing an unyielding and resourceful enemy who had never known defeat.
Customer Reviews:
Fine Narrative.......2001-09-19
The author was a cryptographer working out of Australia during WWW II. This is his personal narrative and an operational history combined. Not definitive because at the time of writing much documentation remained to be declassified. A worthwhile addition to a SIGINT collection.
Book Description
This Elibron Classics book is a facsimile reprint of a 1829 edition by John Murray, London.
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