Product Description
Fitz is furious with his wife; annoyed by his dropout son; attracted to his sometime partner at the copshop, Jane Panhaligon; and troubled by a new case: a missing youth has turned up dead. Fitz, a freelance police psychologist, is a genius at cross-questioning witnesses and suspects alike, looking into their very souls and learning truths that they never even knew about themselves.He's always on the mark--unless his own vices and addictions trip him up.But this is no time for mistakes: a ruthless killer is on the prowl and he grows more elusive with each tick of the clock. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

A Series of Novelizations That Improve on the Source
I HATE novelizations. But these done for the great British TV mystery series starring Robbie Coltrane actually improve upon the teleplays, adding rich details and psychological insight to the already intense plots. These books could easily stand alone as a great series of psychological crime novels, unified in tone despite the fact that half a dozen different authors have been involved in their creation. Leave it to the Brits to once again do the impossible. First The Battle of Britain, now this...

good stuff
Very intriguing book. A bit long at times; somewhat predictable at other times. However, the main character, Fitz is presented as a complex and fascinating person who really makes this novel very enjoyable. I've never seen the actual television series, but the book was definitely interesting.

Fun read
The English police admire psychiatristEdward Fitzgerald for his help in solving difficult cases, but most members of the force abhor the doctor's personal lifestyle. Fitz loves to gamble, drink and smoke cigarettes to excess, and cannot resist the women. Though he has returned to his beleaguered spouse, Fitz still finds himself attracted to police inspector Jane Penhaligon.

The police have asked for Fitz to help them on the investigation of the murder of a school boy.The circumstantial evidence points towards the lad's teacher as the killer. Even Fitz is convinced that the man is guilty.Still, to the credit of both the psychiatrist and the police, they continue their inquiries to insure the right person is charged with the murder.

Fans of the BBC series that this novel is extracted from will enjoy this novel that emphasizes Fitz's personal problems to include an interesting self analysis.However, the story line seems less than the plot of a novel and morelike a script of an on-going TV series. Anyone who loves the TV series will want to read CRACKER: ONE DAY A LEMMING WILL FLY to learn more about the psychiatrist with numerous addictions and problems.

Harriet Klausner ... Read more

Product Description
Chapters: Tom Maguire, Martin White, Dan Keating, Charles Macklin, Bridget Dirrane, Jimmy Coffey, Gearóid O'sullivan, George Harman, Seán Clancy, Mary Guiney. Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 41. Not illustrated. Free updates online. Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Excerpt: Martin White (born 31 July 1909) is a retired Irish sportsperson. He played hurling at various times with his local clubs Tullaroan in Kilkenny and Blackrock in Cork and was a member of the Kilkenny senior inter-county team from 1931 until 1938. White holds the distinction of being one of the oldest living senior All-Ireland medal winners. White was born in Lacken near Tullaroan, County Kilkenny in 1909. One of a family of fourteen he was educated locally at Bonnettstown national school before later attending St. James's CBS and St. Kieran's College, a famous hurling nursery for young talent. It was at the former institition that White first tasted success on the hurling field, winning his first medal following a victory over a Paddy Larkin captained St. Patrick's. Following his secondary education White began working for Clover Meats in Waterford in 1929. After ten years as a butcher in the city he later moved to Cork. White spent nearly a decade in the southern capital before moving to Dublin in 1948 where he became a baker. White married his wife Peg in 1947 and together they had seven children. He currently lives in Glasnevin in Dublin and maintains a keen interest in hurling affairs. White played his club hurling with the famous Tullaroan club and enjoyed much success. As a sixteen year-old he played hurling with the club's junior team until he was promoted to senior status in 1929. In his second season on the club's senior team, Tullaroan qualified for the final of the county senior championship, with Urlingford providing the opposition. That game was a h...http://booksllc.net/?id=14603820 ... Read more

Product Description
The story of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor is one of the most romantic of all time: Edward VIII abdicated his throne and gave up an empire so that he could marry the woman he loved, American divorcee Wallis Simpson.Very few people suspected, and even fewer actually knew, that the Duchess cuckolded him—and almost gave him up—for a gay playboy twenty years her junior.

Blond and slender, Jimmy Donahue was the archetypal post-war playboy.He could fly a plane, speak several languages, play the piano, and tell marvelous jokes.People loved him for his wit, charm and personality. The grandson of millionaire Frank W. Woolworth, Jimmy knew he would never need to work.Instead, he set about carving for himself a career of mischief.Some said evil.

Gay at a time when the homosexual act was still illegal, Jimmy was notorious within America’s upper class, and loved to shock.Though press agents arranged for him to be seen with female escorts, his pursuits, until he met the Duchess of Windsor, were exclusively homosexual.He was thirty-five when he was befriended by the Duke and Duchess of Windsor in 1950.The Duchess was fifty-four, and despite the difference in age, there was an instant attraction. A burgeoning sexual relationship – a perverse sort of love – was formed between Jimmy and the Duchess.Together with the Duke, they became an inseparable trio, the closest of friends.As Jimmy had planned, the royal couple became obsessed with him.

With information from surviving contemporaries, Dancing with the Devil is the extraordinary tale of three remarkable people and their unique and twisted relationship.
Amazon.com Review
It shouldn't be a fascinating read, this book--it really shouldn't. It's just higher gossip about how Wallis Simpson took a younger lover after her marriage to Edward, and how she and said lover enjoyed nights of "nonpenetrative and principally oral sex." I mean, who cares? Shouldn't our minds be on higher things?

The trouble is, it's all absolutely fascinating. The lover was the mad, bad, and dangerous-to-know Jimmy Donahue: grandson of Woolworth's founder Frank W. Woolworth, heir to millions, and considered to be dashingly good-looking. (From the photos in the book, he looks a bit like a baby-faced bore, but maybe having those millions in the bank skewed perceptions of him, somewhat.) Donahue could fly a plane, could speak several languages, was a marvelous raconteur, and, on top of all this, was a promiscuous homosexual. That didn't stop him from forming a passionate friendship with Wallis, however, that soon turned into more than mere friendship. Wilson suggests that this constituted, on Wallis's part, perhaps "the greatest betrayal in history." Edward gave up his throne and kingdom for the woman he loved, only to have her take off with another man. However, it was never quite so simple as this. Edward didn't want a normal sexual relationship with Wallis, really--he got all of the satisfaction he wanted from playing with her feet--while she evidently continued to adore him, even if she found that the need for sexual satisfaction drove her into Donahue's arms. It might even have been that Edward knew, but didn't mind. The whole thing reads like some kind of royal soap opera, and, as such, it's absolutely riveting. --Christopher Hart, Amazon.co.uk ... Read more

Customer Reviews (8)

Rocks for Jocks
I read all the reviews of this when it came out a few years ago, and am only mildly disappointed to find that the full copy (obtained at The Strand: hard cover, last copy) tells me nothing new other than that Jimmy Donahue didn't much apply himself at Choate.

This is biography lite, highly entertaining, scantily referenced and hence easy to capsule into a 500-word review. Not a great book or a good book, but a fun book. The sort of book you or I could write over a long weekend simply by Googling a few names and following sources referenced in Wikipedia. In fact, I suspect that is how Christopher Wilson wrote it. He's not big on apparatus. There is a bibliography, true, but it consists mostly of books by names on the order of Charles Higham (you know, the guy who claimed Errol Flynn was both homosexual AND a Nazi spy!). Almost no footnotes, of course. Wilson has a slim grasp on history altogether. He thinks King Charles II was executed (he wasn't). He passes on, as accepted fact, the posthumous tale about how Cardinal Spellman of New York was a notorious homosexual and cruised for new partners to "deflower" after the noon Mass at St. Patrick's Cathedral. On one page Wilson tells you that the Duchess of Windsor underwent a hysterectomy, on the next he relates the old camp rumor that she was a genetic male with AIS; apparently he doesn't know enough to note a contradiction.

The book seems to have originated in an earlier biography of Barbara Hutton, Jimmy's first cousin and fellow heir to the F. W. Woolworth fortune. There was almost as much information about Jimmy in that book as there is here. The juiciest bit, which Wilson repeats and expands upon before discrediting, is about the sailor whom Jimmy picked up at Cerutti's in 1945. During a drunken party, someone decided to shave the sailor's body hair and accidentally emasculated him. The Woolworth millions hushed up the story. That is the tale as related by that reliable source Truman Capote. Of course it is not true. (It wasn't a sailor, it was a salesman. Sailor, salesman, what's the difference? Oh, and he may have had a bite out of his ear. But $200,000 was the Woolworth payoff, according to Wilson, and the salesman never had to work again.)

Wilson does not have much of a handle on the exact relationship between Donahue and the Duchess, but speculates there was some sort of emotional bonding and maybe some oral sex. He spends many pages speculating why this may have been so. In addition, Donahue and his mother gave the Windsors a lot of money, and that no doubt lubricated the friendship. But then Jimmy was generous with the New York Foundling Hospital and other charitable enterprises as well, so the Windsors weren't the only beneficiaries of this degenerate scamp. Possibly Jimmy just felt sorry for the abandoned and downtrodden.

Good guy, Jimmy. Deserves a decent biography.

Good writing...
But, the story is so tawdry & Jimmy Donahue so scurvy, it's a hard read.The author presents information about his upbringing that tries to make you feel a little sympathy for Donahue but it's hard to feel sympathy for such a loser.The Duke & Duchess of Windsor were wastes of human beings, too.The more you read about them the more discouraged you get.What wasted opportunities!They could have done so much good but were such selfish, self-centered & STUPID people.No wonder the Royal Family can't stand to hear their names mentioned.The book reads kind of like a prolonged Dominick Dunne article in Vanity Fair.

Take it to the beach...
OK, so the author isn't going to win the Nobel Prize for Literature for this book.But why should he? It's a book about an affair. A tawdry affair at that.

Initially, I payed attention to the other reviewers and didn't buy the book. But I have a fascination with Wallis and Edward (as vapid as they might have been...)and wanted to know more about Wallis' relationship with Jimmy Donohue.I must have read at least 10 to 15 books about the couple, and despite what the one of the reviewers said, I've only come across a few rare references to him.This book fills in the gaps.

So is it great literature? No.Is it an interesting book?Yes, if you like the subject matter, and know something about the Duke and Duchess of Windsor to begin with.I enjoyed the book.

I'd had hopes, but...
This book doesn't do much more than re-hash rumor, gossip and innuendo--and some facts--that I've already read in better-written, more thorough and scholarly biographies of the Windsors.I didn't notice any glaring inaccuracies; on the other hand, I didn't notice that the author broke any new ground.He seems to have relied heavily on previously published biographies of the Duke, the Duchess, and the British Royal Family in general, all of which a serious Windsorite will have already read.Also--let's face it--we read books like this one to be titillated, and the author fails utterly to titillate us.Save your money.

Juicy subject, Pedestrian treatment
You'd think an author couldn't go wrong with this cast of characters, ultra chic jet set locations, and deliciously lewd sex play. But Christopher Wilson took all this potential and and threw it away with the writing style of a schoolboy whose book report was carelessly dashed off before class. Repetitive adjectives, lackluster prose, andunintelligible chapter beginnings and ends - I was hollering for the editor the entire read. I kept saying aloud "OK, that's a start, but now let's unearth some real dish, and show me the proof!" Gossip CAN be transformed into history with proper scholarship. This promising biography of three fascinatingly spoiled and twisted people disappointed me. ... Read more

Product Description
Les achats comprennent une adhésion à l'essai gratuite au club de livres de l'éditeur, dans lequel vous pouvez choisir parmi plus d'un million d'ouvrages, sans frais. Le livre consiste d'articles Wikipedia sur : Jimmy Connors, Gigi Fernández, Bill Tilden, Michael Chang, Todd Martin, Renée Richards, Julie Anthony, Katie Schlukebir, Stan Smith, Tim Gullikson, Harold Solomon, Robert Walter Johnson, Nick Bollettieri, Paul Annacone, Brad Gilbert, Larry Stefanki, Jay Berger, Brian Macphie, Ray Casey, Robert Lansdorp. Non illustré. Mises à jour gratuites en ligne. Extrait : Jimmy Connors, de son nom de naissance James Scott Connors (surnommé « Jimbo ») (né le 2 septembre 1952 à East Saint Louis dans l'Illinois) est un joueur de tennis américain, numéro un mondial à l'ATP pendant 268 semaines, dont 160 consécutives entre 1974 et 1977. Au cours d'une carrière exceptionnellement longue (1970-1996), il a remporté huit tournois du Grand Chelem en simple, y compris l'US Open à cinq reprises et deux fois Wimbledon. Il compte aussi 149 titres à son palmarès, dont 107 recensés par l'ATP, ce qui constitue le record absolu sous l'ère Open. Gaucher au tempérament bien trempé, il a, parmi les premiers, fait un usage immodéré de son revers à deux mains qu'il aimait à frapper le plus fort possible du fond du court, dès le retour de service. Jugé par trop arrogant dans les années 1970, sa combatitivité sans faille lui a finalement valu, les années passant, de devenir l'un des joueurs les plus appréciés du public. Né en 1952 dans l'Illinois, Jimmy Connors peut être considéré comme l'un des plus grands joueurs de l'ère open. Sa carrière a été exceptionnellement longue : seuls chronologiquement Bill Tilden, Pancho Gonzales et Ken Rosewall, sa victime quadragénaire en finale de Wimbledon et de l'US Open 1974, ont fait mieux. Outre une intense combativité, le jeu de ce gaucher s'est construit autour de son formidable revers à deux mains, joué à plat, ain...http://booksllc.net/?l=fr ... Read more

Product Description
A first in a series of mysteries based on the award-winning Cracker television series introduces Dr. Edward Fitzgerald, a British psychologist with a failing marriage, who starts to fall for a female police detective while he tracks two vicious cop-killers. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A Series of Novelizations That Improve On the Source
I HATE novelizations. But these done for the great British TV mystery series starring Robbie Coltrane actually improve upon the teleplays, adding rich details and psychological insight to the already intense plots. These books could easily stand alone as a great series of psychological crime novels, unified in tone despite the fact that half a dozen different authors have been involved in their creation. Leave it to the Brits to once again do the impossible. First The Battle of Britain, now this... ... Read more

Product Description
Dictionary definitions of Cracker include: "exceptionally excellent person or thing; crazy," an apt description of charismatic forensic psychologist Dr. Edward Fitzgerald(or "Fitz" as he's known). Cracker is also the name of the Edgar Award-winning television series on A&E that has garnered worldwide critical acclaim. Fitz, brilliantly portrayed in the series as Robbie Coltrane, has been widely hailed as the most charismatic protagonist in the fictional British crime lineup since Prime Suspect's Jane Tennison.

He is a lovable mass of contradictions: a gambling, chain-smoking man in a troubled marriage who still manages brilliant insights into the human condition. Despite his irascible nature, Fitz is used by the Manchester Police Department to profile criminals.

In To Be a Somebody Fitz is called on to solve what looks like an open-and-shut case. A brutal racial attack in Manchester has left an Asian shopkeeper dead. A skinhead was seen leaving the shop shortly after and was fingered as the one and only suspect. No one, except Fitz, is willing to look deeper and see that this may not be just an isolated incident, but rather just on e small piece of an enormous crime puzzle. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A Series of Novelizations That Improve on the Source
I HATE novelizations. But these done for the great British TV mystery series starring Robbie Coltrane actually improve upon the teleplays, adding rich details and psychological insight to the already intense plots. These books could easily stand alone as a great series of psychological crime novels, unified in tone despite the fact that half a dozen different suthors have been involved in their creation. Leave it to the Brits to once again do the impossible. First The Battle of Britain, now this... ... Read more

Product Description
This digital document is an article from Parameters, published by Thomson Gale on June 22, 2006. The length of the article is 1098 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Our Endangered Values: America's Moral Crisis.(Book review)
Author: Martin Cook
Publication: Parameters (Magazine/Journal)
Date: June 22, 2006
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 36Issue: 2Page: 124(3)

Article Type: Book review

Distributed by Thomson Gale ... Read more

Product Description
This digital document is an article from Dictionary of American History, brought to you by Gale®, a part of Cengage Learning, a world leader in e-research and educational publishing for libraries, schools and businesses.The length of the article is 17230 words.The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase.You can view it with any web browser.Focuses on cultures and countries around the world, specifically what is and is not shared culturally by the people who live in a particular country. Entries contain descriptive summaries of the country in question, including demographic, historical, cultural, economic, religious, and political information. ... Read more

Product Description
Chapters: Martin Luther King, Jr., Jerry Falwell, Francis Bellamy, Steve Chalke, Jimmy G. Tharpe, Robert Thieme, P. Surya Prakash, N. B. Hardeman, Kevin O'brien, Bouck White, Jack Coe, Govada Dyvasirvadam, D. L. Dykes, Jr., Max Lucado, Wilburn Snyder, Cline Paden, Georges Florovsky, Harry Emerson Fosdick, Grady Nutt, Barry Chant, Peter Foxhall, Herbert Dunnico, Donald Foster Hudson, Chuck Smith, George Macpherson Docherty, Hugh Ross, Barry Black, Henry Van Dyke, Theodore Austin-Sparks, James A. Dombrowski, Ray Stedman, Gwilym Davies, Griffith Griffith, Charles E. Fuller, Robert Jones Burdette, William Reed Huntington, Robert Ellis, Aurel Jivi, John Robert Hall, William Barclay, Thomas Spurgeon, James Reeb, Archibald G. Brown, Robert Mcafee Brown, Ken Chant, David Reindorp, Gerard Kennedy Tucker, John Baillie, Ira North, Robert Blair, John H. Dietrich, C. W. Melson, Robert S. Calderwood, John B. Cairns, Charles Rufus Brown, Bernard Judd, Stefan Ustvolsky, Charles Henry Vail, Donald Macpherson Baillie, Hyacinthe Loyson. Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 297. Not illustrated. Free updates online. Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Excerpt: Martin Luther King, Jr. (January 15, 1929 April 4, 1968) was an American clergyman, activist and prominent leader in the African American civil rights movement. His main legacy was to secure progress on civil rights in the United States, and he has become a human rights icon: King is recognized as a martyr by two Christian churches. A Baptist minister, King became a civil rights activist early in his career. He led the 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott and helped found the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in 1957, serving as its first president. King's efforts led to the 1963 March on Washington, where King delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech. There, he raised public consciousness of the civil r...More: http://booksllc.net/?id=20076 ... Read more

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Chapters: Jimmy Carter, Albert Einstein, Bill Clinton, George H. W. Bush, Martin Luther King, Jr., Steven Spielberg, Salma Hayek, Joan Baez, George Marshall, Jon Bon Jovi, Cyndi Lauper, Ricky Martin, Melinda Gates, Clara Barton, W. E. B. Du Bois, Mary Baker Eddy, Bonnie Raitt, Chief Joseph, Mia Farrow, Bobby Shriver, Angelina Jolie, Norman Borlaug, Eleanor Roosevelt, Billy Graham, Dave Matthews, Christie Brinkley, Wyclef Jean, Mariska Hargitay, Woody Jenkins, Florence Jaffray Harriman, John Wood, Joaquin Phoenix, Josh Hartnett, Greg Mortenson, Sargent Shriver, Antonio José Martínez, Norris Wright Cuney, Bill Ritter, Gordon H. Sato, Rusty Staub, Andrew Baldwin, Lottie Moon, Vincent Colyer, Jonathan Littell, Manuel Rivera-Ortiz, James Lawson, Millard Fuller, Celeste Thorson, Norma Elizabeth Boyd, Wesley Pomeroy, Elizabeth Omilami, Danny Yamashiro, Marian Wright Edelman, Paul Polak, Albert O. Hirschman, Varian Fry, Taj Anwar, Wendie Jo Sperber, Agnes Baker Pilgrim, Carol Bellamy, Mary Frann, Hiram Bingham Iv, Rye Barcott, Maurice Pate, C. T. Vivian, Judith Ann Mayotte, Norm Green, Harry Frank Guggenheim, Franklin Graham, Chip Pitts, Tichi Wilkerson Kassel, James Martin, Dorian Gregory, Harry Lawton, Clara Hale, Eartha M. M. White, Zainab Salbi, Marla Ruzicka, Olga Murray, Jody Williams, Duy-Loan Le, Danny Siegel, Sam Dixon, Rick Ufford-Chase, Doris Ryer Nixon, Rita Pitka Blumenstein, Margaret Behan, Pee Wee Kirkland, Frederick Mayer, Wendy Chamberlin, Noble Threewitt, Douglas M. Johnston, Minnie Vautrin, Stedman Graham, Sam Childers, Frank Laubach, Eric Holt Giménez, James Goodnight, Ellsworth Culver, Debbie Rodriguez, Fred Cuny, Do Hoang Diem, Miriam Davenport, Maurice L. Albertson, Rhena Schweitzer Miller, Margaret Utinsky, George Ashmore Fitch, Maud Cuney Hare, Ashley Shuyler, Beatrice Long Visitor Holy Dance, Alfred Boeddeker, Clive Calver, Elizabeth Hirschboeck, William F. Schulz, Wil Horneff, Eliza Bryant, Rita Long Visito...More: http://booksllc.net/?id=20076 ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

The first and best guide to the Goons
Roger Wilmut is a great chronicler of 20th Century British comedy.All his books are worth reading, and this one-- a concise, well-written guide to the BBC's peerless Goon Show-- is no exception.Meticulous research andintelligent evaluation all in one package.

A bit dry, but an essential reference for fanatics
I first bought this as a spotty teenage goon fan in the late 1970s. It's still probably the best systematic guide to the show, carefully listing the shows by name, and providing the alternative names when they were not coherently announced. What I particularly enjoyed was his analysis of thecharacters - the tendency of them to pair up [with the notable execeptionof Bloodnok] and the decline of Moriarty as the shows progressed. He alsogives due regard to the importance of Secombe/Seagoon in the mix -something ofen overlooked by fans. Wilmut writes well, if a little dryly attimes. The book could have done with more anecdotes about the show - a lackwhich indicates an absence of input from the principal participants. It'snow about 20 years since it was first published, and the book probably doesneed an update. But this is still the most essential guide to a show thatrevolutionised comedy, even if the humour has now dated somewhat. ... Read more