Alfred North

The Medium Is the Message: Where We’ve Been, Where We’re Going

Revisado: 04-11-25

This is a Janus-like overview of the transformation occurring in our media. Fast-paced, detailed and highly entertaining, O’Connor lets us follow and appreciate the enormous significance of why and how the new (streaming, Internet-based) media is supplanting the traditional forms of print and broadcast for delivery of news and content. In particular, he shows just how the old personalities did it to themselves, and skewers them again and again with their own words.

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A great collection for Wimsey fans

Revisado: 07-22-24

This has the short stories plus four of the novels. It’s missing Five Red Herrings and Busman’s Honeymoon. The performance is generally very good, although the reader’s French is not always accurate.

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A Bit Heavy on the Sentiment — but Still Charming

Revisado: 12-03-23

Third-person narration is not the best vehicle for carrying the burden of all the sentiment with which the author invests this story. The characters, however, are strong and attractive, and all comes out well in the end.

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An Early Klavan Spellbinder

Revisado: 02-03-23

The story will keep you on edge, but the almost casual narration sometimes gets in the way, as words are sometimes not fully pronounced. I have to concede this to the narrator: his repeated cries as a kidnapped and terrified little girl get so on your nerves that you can understand how she managed to drive her kidnapper mad with rage.

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For All Lovers of Irish Tales

Revisado: 01-03-23

In a very engaging performance, this novel presents a pleasing variation on the rags-to-riches fairy tale. The characters are very likable because they are depicted with their human shortcomings, yet they learn that love and forgiveness triumphs in the end — if you can manage to endure their vicissitudes to that point.

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A Worthy Successor

Revisado: 10-30-22

Andrew Klavan demonstrates in this book everything that makes him an author well worth reading. The prose is succinct, and the literary references are all on point, so as constantly to advance the story. The plot moves forward inexorably, guided by the author’s moral principles (good eventually prevails over evil), which in today’s world stand out against the popular tendency to belittle and denigrate them in the name of moral relativism.

The author’s earlier work (When Christmas Comes) was an intriguing tale that served to introduce the protagonist of this series, a complex character named Cameron Winter. With this second installment, Winter becomes even more real, and through a secondary plot unveils deeply embedded psychological depths that heretofore had added to his character’s mystery.

The entirety of the work still leaves us with more to ponder about whether Cameron Winter will be able to satisfy his restless heart, despite his inner resistance (after a Christian upbringing) to acknowledging the sovereignty of God over the secular, cruel, and seemingly alien world in which he (for the time, at least) deems himself at home. Doubtless there are more sequels envisioned in this author’s schema which will prove as equally satisfying as are these highly entertaining beginnings of an ongoing saga about a quest for the truth hidden behind transitory appearances.

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Wonderful stories; excellently presented

Revisado: 06-27-22

Those who want their Christie in smaller bites will not be disappointed with these stories — so skillfully characterized by Hugh Fraser. A multi varied treat!

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One of her best

Revisado: 06-07-22

This mystery has it all: a plot that never stops unspooling till the last page, with double and even triple clues; the skillfully developed cast of characters, each capable of being a suspect; and steady through it all, the imperturbable stolidity of Superintendent Battle, like a bloodhound staying on the track of the killer until he has succeeded in eliminating all the alternatives. Highly satisfying, and highly recommended!

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Classic mystery; unsatisfactory motive

Revisado: 06-02-22

This is one the better Agatha Christie mysteries in terms of plotting and characters (though the principal romance is wooden and a little inhuman), and it is convincingly performed. What leaves one short is the motivation of the perpetrator, but its want of substance is redeemed by a noble sacrifice.

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Not up to P. G.’s usual form

Revisado: 10-30-21

Wodehouse’s character Galahad Threepwood is the one who binds together the diverse threads and vignettes of this book, but the cloth the author weaves is pretty weak pile. All the usual Wodehouse gags and gimmicks are here: they just don’t work the same magic, as the characters (other than Galahad) don’t earn our affection.

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