"This ain't the city of the angels, it's the city of angles, where everybody's looking for an edge."
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In his waning years of productivity, the author who so beautifully portrayed the real story of the LAPD in The New Centurions, The Choirboys and The Onion Field, is keeping his hand in a strange brew of bureaucracy, politics and modern police work in this follow-up to Hollywood Station. Sprinkling the cast with some of the same eccentrics, denizens of Hollywood and connecting areas, this novel makes a half-hearted stab at the cop humor sustaining a profession that deals daily with unsavory conditions and the human suffering that attends poverty, petty criminal enterprise and a city struggling to survive a hostile environment. The Hollywood Crows are a special team assigned to the Community Relations Office, sometimes referred to as "the sissy patrol" or "the teddy bears in blue" because the risk in this work is much lower than regular tours of duty.

Granted, the streets are just as crazy, regardless of police presence: the "Characters" who inhabit Hollywood's Walk of Fame, charging tourists for photographs, making surreptitious drug deals to pad their meager profits, a breeding ground for pickpockets and other scam artists; the walk-in tanning salons that front a vigorous trade in "human services"; the ubiquitous strip clubs; the fast food venues (another place to score); and the helpless frustrations of lower income working people forced to live among the fringe-dwellers. Some of these cops mix in well, particularly Flotsam and Jestsam, muscular, tanned surfers who live for the waves, an unpopular supervisor known as "chicken lips" and "Hollywood Nate" Weiss, who proudly carries his new SAG card with his police identification. Newly assigned to the CROWS, Veronica Sinclair is paired with veteran Bix Ramstead, who may be the only monogamous cop left in LA.

Two by two, training officers and rookies and the street-smart regulars ride the streets for their daily portion of law enforcement. There are really no stars in this novel, only a  wide cast of personalities, cops and citizens and the events that bring them all to one tragic moment of reckoning of shock and grief, before moving on to the next shift in a fantasy landscape that promises more than it ever delivers. Hollywood is, after all, only a city like many others, crime and problem infested, riddled with cons and criminals, everyone looking for a break. No better or worse than Las Vegas or Miami. But these are Wambaugh's people, albeit a bit frayed around the edges (Dare I say "long in the tooth?"). Clinging to what he knows best, the author's forced humor fails to disguise a weary cynicism, a tacit acknowledgment of the infinite ways people can devise to harm one another and those around them. Luan Gaines/ 2008.
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Ghettoside is a compelling story of South LA, the LAPD, the victims and the assailants, and the detectives who work murders there.  Having lived in Los Angeles for forty-six years, and watched the LAPD through many incarnations, what stands out for me in this haunting work is that there are fewer heroes than villains among those who protect and serve.  The bureaucrats, the brass, the boys in blue (who disdain the City that employs them and the people they police) care less about protecting and serving, and more about statistics, rousting, "prevention" and surges.  The detectives in the South Bureau are the true embodiment of what the LAPD should be in each and every neighborhood.  Jill Leovy has written a haunting, powerful book that should be read by every Angeleno, and all those who care about their cities.
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Published to coincide with the city's centenary celebrations in 2009, this collection of short stories by English-speaking residents has something for everyone, and like all anthologies, some stories you love and others that leave you cold. The stories mostly reflect universal themes, such as  the so-called perfect couple discovering mid-life in they are better off apart,  the mother who won't let go, a young man falling prey to an older woman, a middle-aged man taken for a ride by a young woman. Then there are some with a definite Tel Aviv twist - a young American trying to recapture the mystical city of his childhood; the wedding by the sea that anticipated everything except a fluke sandstorm,  foreign workers living precariously in a land not their own, a religious man's  chance encounter with S&M in Jaffa. And although the city is a backdrop, not the focus, the stories reflect the city's hedonistic, eclectic, multi-cultural vibe. In short, an enjoyable, thoughtful read.
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Lorraine Adams won a Pulitzer prize as an investigative journalist for the Washington Post some seven years before she stumbled upon the newspaper story that would eventually inspire her 2004 debut novel. That novel, Harbor, would also prove to be a prize winner by being named "Book of the Year" by both the Washington Post and Entertainment Weekly and being awarded with the Los Angeles Times 2004 book prize for first fiction.

Although most of its action takes place in Boston, Harbor is really a story about the breakdown of society in modern Algeria, a country that for too many years suffered the slaughter of its population at the hands of several Muslim extremists groups, the army charged with protecting the population, and the corrupt government that, at times, seemed to welcome the carnage. It is said that over 100,000 people died in those few years, most of them butchered, and many thousands of them decapitated for the purpose of terrorizing those who might fight back.

Aziz Arkoun, and hundreds more like him who could not find work that would allow them to marry and move from the home of their parents, would make their way illegally to the United States, willing to risk their lives and leave everything they knew behind in hope of a better life. After 52 days as a stowaway on a tanker, Aziz finds himself in a near frozen Boston harbor, jumps overboard, and barely survives his swim to shore. He speaks not a word of English, has no money, and no plan other than to contact another Algerian, the one person that might help him.

In what seems to him a miracle, Aziz overhears two people on the street speaking Arabic and, after throwing himself at their mercy, he is taken into the home of one of the men until he is well enough to contact his "cousin" who lives just a few miles away. Aziz finds himself living in a cramped apartment with other Algerian illegals, a little support group to which he would remain attached for several years while he and the others struggled to learn English and find work, no matter what it might pay.

Unfortunately for Aziz and his friends, his "cousin" is not one to work for anything as low as minimum wage and he makes his own living by smuggling everything from drugs, to designer clothes, to what the FBI believes might be explosive chemicals. The FBI, in its effort to prove that the Algerians are a threat to the country (a full year prior to 9-11), links bits and pieces of evidence together into what becomes a wider and wider net that threatens to haul in the innocent along with anyone that might be guilty.

Adams does not avoid the horrific truth of what was happening in Algeria in the early nineties and, in fact, describes one murder in such brutal detail that readers will be shocked, if not offended, by what they read. However, that incident forms the very core of Harbor, and without it, the book would not be nearly so strong or its message so true. As one who was evacuated from Algiers just as everything there was falling apart, I strongly commend Lorraine Adams for telling Algeria's story in such frank and believable terms despite the fact that I had dreams of that particular killing for two nights running. Let no one doubt that, in Harbor, Adams has captured the utter brutality of what Algeria suffered at the hands of its own.
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Forty-one years ago, V.S. Pritchett went looking for what makes London itself.  He wrote this before McDonald's arrived, just before the Beatles and 007 put it on the world's pop map, just as cranes were setting out the beams for glass and steel skyscrapers.  Much has happened in the interim, but what Pritchett found explains not only its past but its future.  He makes neat work of reconciling the many ironies in a place that reinvents itself every so often without much of a plan, but which also hangs onto traditions, ways of being and a passion for order.  This is a tour of neighborhoods, but also of centuries and the historical events and personages that have contributed to the city's enduring character.  It moves seamlessly between the concrete image and the abstract idea.  Pritchett's prose is crystalline, his insights spooky at times (he describes those new skyscrapers as having a "smashable impermanence" to them).  The photographs by Evelyn Hofer are haunting.  There will always be a London. This should be required reading for visitors to that city.
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Jarid Manos has done a provocative and often breathtaking job of writing the brutal and naked truth of his urban coming of age. The twist is, his coming of age as a gay hustler becomes and is the first stop on his path to an enlightened environmentalism. Where symbiosis may seem lacking, he shows how his hardships are his strengths as they somehow nourish his acceptance of nature's wisdom. Manos'message is one for our time. In the seemingly random and fast-paced chaos of urban living, nothing has changed per humanity's need for harmony with nature.
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Mary Cox Garner, author of Calling All Angels, has written an uplifting and inspiring book that centers around her very positive experiences with some taxi drivers.

The most important lessons you will take from this book is that the world looks the way you look at it.  Ms. Garner has chosen to look for the best in others, to always see things in the most positive light.  As a result, the world generally reflects what she is looking for.

While most people stereotype all taxi drivers in a somewhat negative light, Ms. Garner sees each taxi driver (and everyone for that matter) as an individual, with their own story, their own challenges and accomplishments.  By looking for the best in others, she has collected a number of very positive stories involving taxi drivers.

I am not sure that the title adequately describes what the reader is in store for.  First, the term angel is derived from the ancient Greek, angelos, meaning "messenger".  In a sense everyone is or can be an angel.  We all have a message.  But as Ms. Garner points out, too many of us are not listening or are simply too busy to hear the messengers all around us.

To further explain part of the title, Ms. Garner is searching for a New Eden.  Near the end of the book, she asks the question, "What does your New Eden look like?"  She then goes on to explain what a New Eden would look like to her.  "Let us choose to see the light of the New Eden shinning forth from within us as we envision a compassionate, less turbulent and more livable world."

Throughout the book, Ms. Garner is suggesting that we slow down, look at the messengers all around us, look for the good in everyone we come in contact with, be more empathetic to others, acknowledge that we are all humans, and learn to cooperate for the good of all.

Ms. Garner's writing is influenced by her strong spiritual beliefs.  Her kindness and love for nature and all mankind comes through in her writings.

I believe the book will be most valuable to those who are troubled by our current state of affairs and are looking for a path to a more civilized world.

I was provided a review copy of this book.
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Angels and Demons stalk the earth without the knowledge of mortal men.  Demons, in this time, hunt humans for food.  Most of them, least of all a very ancient and powerful demon named Rayner, have no idea why they do this and have no concept that they answer to a higher power.  Yet, this system has been in place for many thousands of years.  Angels watch over humans attempting to keep the activity of the demons under control.  But now it is time for the final showdown between demons and angels, between God and Satan, with the fate of humanity hanging in the balance.

God is raising an army from among carefully selected humans and He has chosen a handful to enter into battle alongside His Angels against the demons.  Although she does not understand this epic battle, Cassandra Graystone is such a soldier.  Her purpose under the leadership of an Angel named Manasseh is to gather other soldiers of God into a fighting force to do battle against demons wherever they find them.  The aggressiveness of the demons force her small army to fight while constantly moving.  Along the Way, Cassandra learns a great deal about herself and her motives, and a great deal about her brother Johnny and their friends that accompany her on the mission.  Feeling abandoned by God times.  Cassandra also learns that God has a plan, that He has a special way of His own of implementing His plan and that God will never leave her or forsake her.

Rayner begins to be curious about humans.  He has no concept of God or Satan, nor does he understand the behavior of his fellow demons.  He feels no common bond with them and the more he learns about humans, the less he relates to his fellow demons.  As a result, Rayner develops an odd respect Cassandra that has significant ramifications in the coming battle.

A Time of Angels and Demons is an action-packed edge of the seat thriller that keeps the reader wondering whether Cassandra will be able to endure and whether Rayner will ultimately decide to support his fellow demons or to help Cassandra and her band of God soldiers.  The characters are well-developed, each of the characters has its own personal challenges to overcome and include challenges of faith and of their relationships to others.  They all suffer losses, adjust to gains and meet overwhelming challenges of faith.

This book is a great read for anyone who loves fantasy, fights against good and evil, books in which faith is tried, and those who generally love adventures.
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Any baseball fan will recognize the town of San Pedro de Macoris as home of some of the major leagues' biggest stars, often touted by play-by-play men as DR's baseball factory. The rise of the town's (and the island's) pipeline to MLB is the subject of Kurlansky's book, and he does a passable job of chronicling how an obscure fishing and sugar town came to host the gaggle of major league scouts and the handful of MLB-funded developmental leagues that it boasts today.

Those are the subtitular "changes" that baseball has brought. But, almost in contradiction of his title, Kurlansky focuses on the many ways that the town remains unchanged. Specifically, it continues to be largely poor with an endemic lack of economic opportunity nearly as pervasive today as it has been throughout the Dominican history that Kurlansky painstakingly recounts. On that note, there is some heavier history -- especially in the early portions -- don't expect an early summer, back-to-baseball kind of read.

Kurlansky's book is more about what San Pedro de Macoris is, what forces formed it, and the stories of some of the stars who have "gotten out" than it is about any broad-based changes brought by baseball.

As above, his conclusion is that San Pedro is a poverty-stricken place. Fair enough, but he spends a lot of time on things like "kleptocracy" and meddling in domestic politics by the US and other developed countries. Paradoxically, it is these same forces -- specifically, the US professional leagues -- that offer Macorixeans the "way out" that Kurlansky seems to be touting, if not celebrating.

Likewise, there is little evidence of what the Dominican stars who have "escaped" have done to renivest in their hometown other than some passing references to one-off. Indeed, former players working as scouts are the only individuals who seem to take an interest in the town and its youth, although theirs is largely self-interest in service of the major league teams that pay them for finding and securing talent.

One of the more interesting angles Kurlansky takes is on the disparate impact that American racism has had on the rise of Dominicans in MLB. For example, he recounts that ways that Dominicans were able to ascend more quickly than American blacks in the majors because they were given a pass for being "Latin" instead of black. on the negative side for the Macorixeans, he also laments the labeling of players from DR - and around the Caribbean - as "hot heads" or "dandies," from the 1960s (with players like Marichal in the wake of his bat attack of Roseboro) to today and the well-publicized Alou comments about wild-swinging Latin players.

In the end, Kurlansky does not do enough to demonstrate how "baseball changed the Dominican town of San Pedro de Macoris." I'm not even sure - after reading his book - that I would buy that it has. He also goes very heavy on politically-slanted history and I think it may grate on some. I can admit that could be a reflection on American defensiveness about some of his conclusions and interpretations of history. But, it is also a commentary on the author's discipline and his unwillingness to remain mostly on the track he sets out.

I would have liked to see Kurlansky focus on one or two players more closely. He winds up with an impressive compendium of Dominican talent and back stories, but they are mostly characterized by vignettes. If you change the sports and the town, you have Friday Night Lights, an example of a book that was able to grab ahold of sports and mine the larger social context without leaving the characters and story hooks that are required to keep a reader focused.
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This books is absolutely beauty. It shows us that world around us may seem like an immovable, implacable place. It is not. With the slightest pushin just the right placeit can be tipped. Tipping Points are a reaffirmation of the potential for change and the power of intelligent action.
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I was born in Chicago and went to college there, but that was a long time ago. In those days Chicago was a fascinating but somewhat rough city and in no way considered a major tourist destination except maybe by folks from Iowa or those who had heard about Al Capone. Recently I was in the Chicago Loop for a few days, and things are so different. Downtown Chicago today is thronged with visitors from all over the world, with miles of lakefront, museums, magnificent public spaces and world class shopping. It has always been a vibrant home to artists and architects and midwestern manufacturing and trade. Chicago has another unique quality; it is the most ethnically diverse immigrant city on earth. Within the enormous geographical footprint of the city and near suburbs are neighborhoods - some quite sizeable - each filled almost exclusively with immigrants from one country of origin, Poland or Korea or Bulgaria or Peru, with ethnic foods and signs in the home language.

This Frommer's is a good general manual, beautifully produced and printed, but is focussed on the obvious tourist things. There is little about the unique cultural resources which would require digging below the surface. The book does contain a few leads on the Chicago Blues music scene, but not nearly enough. And I was disappointed there is almost no information about the map of Ethnic Chicago, showing where one can go to be surrounded by several blocks of Native Americans for example. Fortunately there are other guidebooks to Chicago which specialize in blues or neighborhoods or art districts, etc.

One suggestion for visitors; Don't just stay downtown. It is well worth making a side trip to the South Side to the campus of the University of Chicago, with its magnificent gothic buildings inspired by Oxford in England, a Frank Lloyd Wright house, the Museum of Science and Industry, the Oriental Institute, and more.
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Las Vegas isn't quite all it seems.  As if being Sin City wasn't enough, it's the front for major battles between Dark and Light.

Heiress Joanna Archer is the Saggitarian (Archer) in Zodiac Troop 175.  It's only been a year since she discovered this superhero identity and lost her sister, Olivia, as well.

Right away, she discovers there's a doppelganger of her in an alternate dimension, first appearing as a creature of bubbles who plans on taking over Joanna's life.  Just as she's trying to deal with that, one of the Shadow agents is dating her former boyfriend, Ben.  Throw in that her father, the Tulpa who is head of the Dark Side, is working his utmost to recruit her, too.

Probably the one big issue with these novels is how interconnected they are.  You can read this third book without reading the first two, but you may struggle more than you have to.  The action's interesting and Ms. Pettersson knows how to throw you a curve.  These books are going to fascinate fans of urban fantasy, romance, and comic books.

<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/The-Scent-of-Shadows-Sign-of-the-Zodiac-Book-1/dp/0060898917/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">The Scent of Shadows (Sign of the Zodiac, Book 1)</a>

<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/The-Taste-of-Night-Sign-of-the-Zodiac-Book-2/dp/0060898925/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">The Taste of Night (Sign of the Zodiac, Book 2)</a>

Rebecca Kyle, June 2008
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This chapterless marathon through one mans isolated existance in modern Los Angeles is brimming with optimism and hope. Richard Novak is a wealthy day trader living in the Hollywood Hills with a sink hole in his back yard, and a famous actor next door. When he calls 911 while experiencing what he believes is a soon to be fatal heart attack, the course of his life radically begins to change. For me, the book was almost fable like in it's telling with events transpiring that are both fantastic and nearly unbelievable. Yet the underlying message of making a simple connection with your fellow man sustains successfully without slipping into Hallmark sentimentality. On a side note, being an Angelino, the book captures the city and it's inhabitants with razor sharp precision.
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Omar Yussef is the protagonist of Matt Rees's detective stories set in the Palestinian territories.  A school teacher and unwitting detective, he was used to Palestinian rioting and intrafighting.  He is an excellent observer of what is happening to his people.  Through him, we get a different perspective on what is going on and its causes than is reported in the mainstream media.  At the end, we are left with more understanding, sadness, and frustration.
 In DAMASCUS TRANCE during the Arab Spring, Yussef is attending a university reunion while there is rioting and gunfire outside his hotel.  His friend, the Bethlehem police chief Khamis Zehdan, explained to him, "When the ruler comes from a minority like the Alawwi, any other group is a threat.  Even if all they want to do is spin around in circles and recite poetry, like the Sufis."  Regarding the gun firing, Omar tells Laith al-Atrash, another university associate but who is also an informant, "The criminals are the ones opening fire on people who only want a better life."  As-Atrash recalls his earlier actions against Yussef explaining, "Since when does the truth have anything to do with Arab politics."
 Killing has a long history in this area.  Yussef, looking at Mount Qasioun, observed that Moslems believe that is where Cain slew Abel, the place where murder was invented.
 The Revolutionary Guards are everywhere.  Zeydan explained, "Either they think they're about to lose control or they're about to remind us that such a thing is impossible" and refers to Hama, where President Assad's father had killed twenty thousand Syrians to "discourage any further uprising."
 Amid the deaths and rioting, Yussef and his Zeydan decide to go to a dinner and dancing performance featuring twirling Sufi dancers.  He wonders how his companions can ignore what is happening outside and decides "I always expected something better from the world around me than these men did.  They're content to prosper amid the imperfection."  He realizes he's also closed his mind to the reality outside.  That may be what people have to do to survive and maintain their sanity but what is the long-term effect.
 I have read all of Matt Rees's books because they are so well-written and informative.  This short story is no exception.
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The year 1538 in Dinfoil, Germany. This is a dark time in history. It is a time when the Bible wasn't as available as it is today. There was no readily available translation of the Bible in a commoner's language. So most relied on whatever the church taught as truth. Most commoners couldn't read anyway.

It is a time when women were specifically banned from reading the Scripture. They were denied a voice in the church and persecuted for their distinct gender differences, so women frequently turned to folk magic for help.

Thus the book, Wolves Among Us by Ginger Garrett begins. We find ourselves in the small town of Dinfoil, Germany where we meet Stefan, the local priest of the church, who has a particular disdain for women. He truly believes all problems that befall a woman or her family is the result of her undisclosed sin. He insists that all of his people attend Mass daily and makes confession a requirement. He favors the men of the town and often overlooks their indiscretions once again blaming the women for men falling away in lust or getting drunk in town. The women must confess and repent.

Here we meet Mia who is the outcast of the town. She is the sheriff's wife and has no friends among the women. She is the only one who will not visit the "healer" on the outskirts of town in hopes of finding a cure for her daughter Alma who can't breathe most days and has a cough that will claim her life if Mia can't help her. The priest claims it's her sin of pride that is preventing her from getting well. However Mia will continue to pray as often as she can for God to heal her child. In addition, she cares for Marguerite, an ailing and deaf mother of her husband Bjorn.

The events in the story will lead to a crossroads of good and evil when two local townspeople are found murdered on the steps of the church. The priest believes that an unseen evil of witches has afflicted his town and sends for the Inquisitor who will reveal where the evil witches live and restore the town to holiness no matter what the cost.

I was captivated by this story that Ginger Garret has woven in the pages of Wolves Among Us using the details from the early days of church history to tell a heart pounding story of witch hunts in a small town and how the town will eventually turn against itself until Mia reveals the truth in her past. I received the book compliments of Christian Fiction Blog Alliance for my honest review. This one hands down scores a 5 out of 5 stars. This is the second book I've read of Ginger's and she truly has a master talent for weaving a story that will capture your attention and your heart.
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Azrael gained her wings and is now Queen of the angels. Things are never simple or easy for Azrael as she must find Gabriel and in doing so realizes that things are not as she anticipated. Not all is good and light here, and she holds the balance of good and evil. There are new characters introduced who add flavor to the mix, but what will their roles be? The story is building for a phenomenal book 3. I'm voluntarily reviewing a free copy of this book.
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If the city of this god never sleeps, neither does the mind that wanders it at the close of the twentieth, and possibly worst, century.  Its passion, erudition, its hunger to find connection[s], to shape experience with language and embue it with meaning are of biblical proportion. City of  God is a composition of strands and versions, of voices and forms, mediated  by a witty and loving and ultimately humane god of the page.  Readers  looking for linearity and closer won't find them here.  In this City, doubt  and hope survive, and lives go forth.