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Written by Our Reviewer
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Wednesday, 21 May 2008 |
Lifetime Loser: Satire and Suspense on the LinksReviewed By Stuart Nachbar
James Ross’ Lifetime Loser is the story of a multi-million dollar estate real swindle by a humorous cast of con artists, and one unsuspecting golf pro who tries to make things right.
If you enjoy Carl Hiassen or Harlan Coben stories, and you’re deeply into golf, you will enjoy Lifetime Loser. The con artists are similarly developed: they have their slick moments, and their clumsy ones as well. They are just vulnerable and stupid enough, and full enough of themselves to get caught—and they do. It just takes 15 years to solve the crime, an extremely long time period for a story of this type.
 Lifetime Loser
J Dub is a likeable and gullible fool; everyone around the man knows that Lew is cheating him, but he does nothing about it. He gets plenty of good advice from regular patrons to Prairie Winds, Julie his bookkeeper and office manager, his wife Marcia and, his brother Curt, but it takes years for that advice to finally sink into his head—and when it does, it’s almost too late and even an aggressive U.S. Attorney and the Internal Revenue Service are unable to help. He’s allowed the statute of limitations to compromise any case he has. |
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Last Updated ( Wednesday, 21 May 2008 )
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Saturday, 26 April 2008 |
Review By Stuart Nachbar
Susan Walerstein’s Dancing Above the Waves could have been named Dancing Above the Quicksand, for the way the main character, Boston publisher Jack “Scooter” McCalister tries to dig himself out of travesties, only to find himself sinking into deeper trouble instead.
 Dancing Above the Waves
McCalister is not the only self-absorbed character in Dancing; he has an equally self-absorbed wife, Sherry whom he shares a business and a taste for finer things, but their tastes are independent of each other. They jointly run a high-society magazine and put on the public image of a happy and successful couple, but in real life they don’t want to be together much longer and their magazine desperately needs new money to survive. I was left to wonder if Jack wanted to leave Sherry because he sees things that he doesn’t like about himself in the way he conducts his business and in his marriage. |
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Last Updated ( Saturday, 26 April 2008 )
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Written by Editor
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Monday, 10 September 2007 |
Speaking with Marilyn Meredith  Judgement Fire Marilyn Meredith: Judgment Fire is about Deputy Tempe Crabtree investigating the death of a battered wife, trying to help her troubled son, dealing with a man with mental issues, taking part in a starlight ceremony, and regaining memories of her painful high school years. Lauren Smith: What prompted you to write on this subject? Marilyn Meredith: Every time I start a new Tempe book, something has popped into my mind as a kernel of an idea and the more I think about it, the more it begins to grow. There are several subjects entwined in this book, but one I really wanted to bring out was the reason Tempe hadn't found out more about her Native American heritage earlier in her life. Lauren Smith: What brought you to write about a Native American law enforcement officer? |
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Last Updated ( Tuesday, 06 November 2007 )
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Written by Editor
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Monday, 20 August 2007 |
An Interview with Magdalena Ball
 Sleep Before Evening
Maggie Ball: I think with all first novels, there's a grab-bag of almost inchoate experiences, sensations, and notions which are fermenting and floating around for a long time, so that the book is a kind of culmination of years of wanting to write a novel. But the specific point at which I started working on Sleep as a cohesive structure I had been reviewing quite a number of writing books, and was particularly charged to pull the short stories and ideas together by Dan Poynter's The Self Publishing Manual -- which talked about the process of constructing a book before writing it. I like to really test drive the books I review, so I actually did exactly what he suggested -- got a loose-leaf binder and created a pretty cover with my working title (which was "Broken Words" at the time) and my name nice and bold. Then I did a back cover with fake glowing blurbs (from people like Rushdie, Barnes, and Carey -- laugh) and even a pretend bar code, and began creating chapters with rough descriptions in each of what happened. The funny thing was that once I did that, I started to yearn to create it, and with a clear and workable structure before me, I started writing. I gave Dan's book a positive review (it was a good book which I continue to recommend), but had no idea at the time that the binder would keep growing and growing (I did eventually ditch it, but that visualization was very powerful for me) until it really was a novel.
Lauren Smith: Where did you get your inspiration for writing this? Where did this story come from? |
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Last Updated ( Friday, 02 November 2007 )
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Tuesday, 14 August 2007 |
Eye Contact - A Conversation with Cammie McGovern  Eye Contact
Penny Sansevieri: Tell us a little bit about your background. Eye Contact is definitely not your first book.
Cammie McGovern: No it’s my second.
Penny Sansevieri: What was your first book?
Cammie McGovern: Called the Art of Seeing and it came out maybe four years ago and that is a story about sisters one of whom is an actress who gets into movies at a relatively young age as my own sister did who is Elizabeth McGovern.
Penny Sansevieri: Okay. Wonderful. Now Eye Contact though is very different. It’s very different from the Art of Seeing.
Cammie McGovern: Yes, I’d say so. It’s much more of a mystery and Art of Seeing was more of a literary novel if you put these things into types.
Penny Sansevieri: Right, right exactly. But Eye Contact especially now it seems like you like to write about things that you’re passionate about. Eye Contact especially which is a story of an autistic child who witnesses a murder. Where did the inspiration for this book come from?
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