Product Description

As the city sizzles under the early summer sun, New York chief assistant D.A. Butch Karp and his family are happily vacationing on Long Island's north shore. Their reverie changes to horror when they learn that their beachfront neighbors, Rose and Ralph "Red" Heeney -- a coal miners' union leader -- have been brutally murdered back home in tiny McCullensburg, West Virginia. Irresistible force meets immovable object when the governor appoints Karp special prosecutor to bring justice to the corrupt rural town, its ruthless union boss, and his band of violent henchmen. Now, Karp finds himself not only searching for the killers, but fighting to protect his own family from an evil that runs as deep as the mines that fuel it. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (16)

Refreshing change in great series
I have read most of Tannenbaum's series with Karp/Ciampi and this was a refreshing change of pace in that he gets them out of New York City.The book starts with the family at the farm Marlene bought at the shore where she is now raising and training dogs.Lucy is at Boston College and Karp is still prosecuting in the city.But events lead the entire family to West Virginia to help solve a crime involving persons Marlene had met at the beach.I really enjoyed the change of scenery and the action remained fast paced and interesting.I suggest to readers that you start with the earlier books first because you are going to miss alot if you pick this series up when Lucy is in college and the twins are ten years old.But they are all good and I highly recommend them.

Helped to explain things...
This book, for me, being my 4th Tanenbaum (having read "Hoax" and "Fury" first even though they come later in the series) explained a few things and helped to fill out some of the gaps in the characters.I find the on-going "Do I want to be a mom or a killer" internal debate for Marlene a little annoying at times.She's one of those characters who almost never has a nice thing to say, and that bothers me...and she wonders why Zak is the way he is...

Anyway, Lucy was more than a little annoying in this book.She is so prim and proper, devout and, well, almost perfect, in settings involving Dan, and yet, she's helping Tran to get high...seems like a little bit of a mixed message to me.While the scene with Tran helped to reduce some of the alienation and piety that I've come to expect from Lucy, I just can't seem to wrap my head around why she, little miss perfect, would do something like that...and evidently sees no problem.

I have enjoyed Giancarlo and Zak since my first Tanenbaum...their dynamic with one another is always a joy to read because they are so completely different.All of the sets of twins I know are very different from one another, but Giancarlo and Zak have a very unique difference...Zak is more into whatever is "hot" while GC tends to do his own thing.

Butch and Marlene annoy me a little.Frankly, Butch is almost too perfect, almost too good at his job to be believable.Although he frequently says he does not condone Marlene's actions, it almost seems as if he must on some level.I realize he loves her, but does he honestly think that nobody knows what she's up to?If it were reality, he'd be in a whole world of hurt because of her...particularly once you get into "Hoax" and "Fury"...if you haven't read them, I won't give anything away.If you have, you know to what I am referring.

Overall, I enjoyed this book.Being a Marylander, though, I had to wonder how many West Virginians read the book and cringed over the stereotyping.Sure, there are some serious hillbillies in WVA, as well as Arkansas and probably a plethora of other places, but I had to laugh while reading this book, because there was really nothing to indicate that Tanenbaum doesn't believe that the entire state behaves in such a way.

I did like the book, there were just a few things about it that make it impossible for me to give it a 5.Marlene's solution to her son's injuries bothered me to a point that I can't even begin to explain.I'd love to know the psychology behind such a decision.I still enjoyed the book, so here it is...4 stars.

A little crazy, but still good
I've been so disappointed in the latest Tanenbaum offerings that I've gone back and read the older books.

I was immediately struck by the fact that, despite its several flaws, "Absolute Rage" is light-years beyond "Hoax" and "Fury" in the quality of the writing. Yes, the plot is a bit over the top, particularly the denouement, but the the characters are so skillfully drawn, and their stories are so well developed that as it builds to the climactic battle, we can believe it, at least in the world of the novel.

"Absolute Rage" follows "Enemy Within" which seems to mark the beginning of the shift in this series; Marlene's surprising decent into drunkeness combined with the fantastical Mole People. But in "Absolute Rage" Marlene is in (for her) recovery, and I actually appreciate the added dimension this brings to the characters and situations - from the finely drawn minor characters like the recovering drug-addicts she hires at the dog farm, to the character of Ernie Poole, who rediscovers his humanity through his interaction with Marlene.

Although Lucy and Dan Heeney's budding romance is a little fatuous, and Lucy's piety is really annoying, it's written so that they come across as real people rather than cardboard characters. Lucy's combined spirituality and sexuality is complicated, and the author does a good job depicting it.

The villians are not cartoon evil characters; they are simply weak, greedy, venal, cruel, human beings that sometimes behave out of fear - kind of like real people. I particularly like the drawing of the character of Bo Cade, the bad guy who doesn't really want to be a bad guy.

The book is more contemplative and full of wonderful little scenes, such as Karp's observation of the dog trainers; the picture of family life chez Heeney; Dan Heeney's visual assessment of Lucy as they ride the train, and the depiction of Mose Welch and his family. There are great minor characters, like the offensive brain surgeon who nevertheless performs wonders, and Hendricks, the state trooper. This book doesn't move like a thriller until the violence starts to pick up at the end.

The plot, for a Tanenbaum, is really simple - there are no double lines that intersect with unlikely coincidence as in previous novels; just a simple case of murder and small town corruption. But it moves swiftly, and lets us see the Karp family stymied a little by a culture unlike their own, which is refreshing.

"Resolved" follows this book, and it is the last of the books where the characters are recognizable. After that, they morph into stereotypes.

A Mediocre Read
The author is overdoing what was initially a good thing. The characters are poorly developed other than their now being older. There are quite a few chapters that appear to be merely fluff and to little to aid in the progression of the story. The plot line is all too familiar as Marlene gets into trouble, Lucy stays funky, Zak and Giancarlo get into their usual boyish
pranks and Fearless Butch, like Mighty Mouse, arrives to save the day. The story just plods along without the direction that is usually expected in a really good read. The proofreading is not well done and the story travels far from would pass for reality.

Absolutely fascinating
This is the first Tanenbaum book I have read, and halfway through found myself wishing that the author had written a series with the same main characters.To my delight, I discovered that there are 14 books in the Karp/Cianni series, and tonight I ordered the first 5- I am looking forward to reading all of them!What fun to discover a "new" author! ... Read more

Product Description
Chapters: Mike Sweeney, Johnny Damon, Carlos Beltrán, Robin Roberts, Dan Cortes, Ángel Berroa, Alexis Gómez, Curt Simmons, Paul Mildren, Jack Sanford, Mike Macdougal, Jeremy Affeldt, Jon Lieber, Wade Miller, Lance Carter, Matt Tupman, Leon Riley, Andrés Blanco, Mel Stocker, José Santiago, Ryan Bukvich, Edgar Martínez, Jonah Bayliss, Steve Bray, Raúl González, Orber Moreno, Bobby Wilkins, Chris George, Shawn Sedlacek, Jorge Vásquez, Marc Maddox, Travis Chapman, Mario Lisson, Chad Santos, Jeff Bianchi, Henry Barrera. Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 134. 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: Michael "Mike" Sweeney (born July 22, 1973 in Orange, California) is a Major League baseball player for the Seattle Mariners. Sweeney played his first 13 seasons in the majors with the Kansas City Royals, originally as a catcher and then moving to first base. Since then, Sweeney played one season with the Oakland Athletics and is entering his 2nd year with the Seattle Mariners. After sustaining injuries to both his knees, Sweeney plays sparingly at first base, but mostly at designated hitter. Sweeney made his major league debut on September 14, 1995 as a catcher. He got his first major league base hit against Cleveland Indians' pitcher Paul Assenmacher at Jacobs Field in the final game of the season. While his ability with the bat impressed the Royals, they were less than enamored with his skills behind the plate. He hit his first home run off Seattle Mariners' pitcher Jamie Moyer on August 12, 1996. It was a three-run shot. Sweeney split catching duties with Mike Macfarlane in 1997. He belted a two-run ninth inning game-winning home run off then Detroit Tigers's pitcher Doug Brocail on May 15, 1997. In 1998, Sweeney played in his first Opening Day game. He tied a club record with two hits in an innin...More: http://booksllc.net/?id=161397 ... Read more

Product Description
In Brooklyn, a female jogger is brutally raped; the assailants are convicted and later exonerated by the Kings County DA. Now the guilty are filing a multimillion-dollar lawsuit against the city of New York, the police, and the two Brooklyn Assistant DAs who tried the case. Caught in the glare of the media-frenzy, Butch Karp may be blinded to the lethal maneuverings of a terrorist cell plotting to bring the city to its knees by striking Times Square on New Year's Eve. But the destruction begins far below ground, in the subway system -- where Karp's family may become their first victims....

... Read more

Customer Reviews (37)

Not bad, if you skim the middle section on terrorism
Maybe it's because I am from New York that I see the resemblance of the main plot here to the case of the Central Park jogger - a young woman who was running alone in the park and was attacked and brutally beaten.She, too, was terribly injured and was unable to go back to her career in finance or her hobby of piano-playing.She, too, was so traumatized (and in a lengthy coma) that she could not testify about her attackers.Nevertheless, a group of young African-American men were convicted and sent to prison, only to be released years later when some other man confessed to being the lone attacker.Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson and other leaders in the African-American community trumpeted loud and long about the innocence of the original group.Tannenbaum has used all of these facts in the book and given a twist to what was and wasn't made public at the time.

The author has taken just a few liberties with these cicrumstances and constructed a complex tale of vengeance, prison gangs and the lasting effects of crime.I liked the interweaving of the Russian mafia, the street gangs and the legal system's corruption.Very cleverly done, even if the lead characters (whom I didn't know since this was my first Butch and Marlene book) seemed rather flat.On the other hand, the investigative and courtroom action was well-done and moved quickly.

Unfortunately, the author decided to include two additional subplots: a sexual harassment suit against a college professor and a terrorist plot on Times Square.[Note: I am writing this a few weeks after the unsuccessful terrorist plot at Times Square.]While I am all for solid plots, these two elements really were not well-connected to the main plot and seemed to come out of nowhere. Plus, the characters introduced were, well, to put it kindly, unbelievable. I skimmed a great number of those pages in the middle of the book, with no loss to the exciting final scenes that resolved the main plot.

where to begin?
What to sub-terranial "mole people", Middle-Eastern terrorists, Cowboys and Indians from New Mexico, Russia mob bosses, convicted rapists and their victims, WMD, college profs and their students, Vietnamese war veterans (from Vietnam), and NY District Attorneys - all have in common?They are in this book.That's all.Sound Random?It is.Do not waste your time.

Too bad for the good parts
This story about Butch Karp and his wife Marlene and their brood, is a complete and total mess.What was a good story about NYC politics and back room dealings, that are based on a brutal rape, was a good premise.Then we have to have all of these subplots, including a Native American characters "dream" about a terrorist plot with a dirty bomby in Time Square.A visit to "underworld", as a tribute to HG Wells, and I wonder how drunk the author was when he wrote parts of this.I listened to the audio CD and Lee Sellars performance is very good, despite the subject matter. The fact that he takes this ridiculous story into a tease for the next book, makes me want to puke.Completely improbable situations compounded one upon another.

Color Coded
This book is color coded. If Tanenbaum says someone has blue eyes, they're good; "swarthy" means they're Middle Eastern, so they're clearly terrorists, aren't they all; black means evil, bad, but say some of those boys sure can play basketball. But don't be deceived. In this book you will learn that if an African American studies hard enough to become a high school valedictorian, he's actually just putting on a show for whitey, and his real goal is to rape and murder.

Street people are crazy, disgusting, and smelly, but some of them are so cute they can't enunciate: this is to show what a nice guy Tanenbaum is deep down.

This book is so full of mindless `patriotism' that even Russian gangsters love the US Constitution. I thought, Why does the author declaim such great love for the Constitution while he so obviously idolizes the very administration that is working so hard to trample that very same Constitution? Based on what I learned from the book, I quickly rebuked myself, What's wrong with you, thinking like that, don't think! what are you, some sort of bleeding heart liberal? A bleeding heart is better than no heart at all.

This book has very little heart or head to it. Once you figure out the outlines of the plot, there is little suspense beyond wondering who is going to play what role as the implausible melodrama unfolds. I have read a couple other Tanenbaum books, when nothing else was available, and felt that his writing is about as subtle, sophisticated, and believable as a Batman comic book. That observation in mind, I was amused to note several times in this book the author does indeed invoke the Dynamic Duo.

A couple minor details I was curious about. One of the bad guys (didn't have blue eyes) is named Radinskaya; I thought an ~aya ending was a woman's name, but I'm not sure about this. Tran says "Em vui ve gap lai," but in Viet Namese, em is the pronoun used by young women.

Tanenbaum's not a bigot, oh no. One of the young men is described as "a brooding, dark-visaged throwback to man's primitive past." Tanenbaum should just come out and call him a gorilla and say he thinks black people are evil and inferior, instead of just insinuating. He does more than insinuate; he states clearly that the evil-doers were "Middle Eastern, Asian, or black. Not a Hispanic or a white among them." Hispanics are sort of white, I guess. I can't believe that any African-American or Muslim would enjoy reading this book. I didn't.

The funniest part of the book is near the beginning, where righteous Karp believes that the attorney should "seek justice, `not win at any cost.'" The back flap says Tanenbaum "has never lost a felony case." Hmmmm.

This is a bad one and is unworthy of Tannenbaum.
I've always enjoyed Tannenbaum's books, but this one is an exception.Simply put, it seems to be a rather amateurish rewrite of his earlier book ''Resolved''.The plots are very nearly identical, which is bad enough, but the writing is not up to Tannenbaum at all...the similes are contrived and unnecessary, the plot drags badly in spots and the antagonists are like the antagonists in a bad Clint Eastwood movie -- no redeeming features at all.

There is a terrorist plot to blow up half of NYC with ammonium nitrate and gasoline (Resolved) - a crooked DA (Resolved -- altho' this one is in Brooklyn, and in this case, a judge is also involved), a crooked attorney on his own staff (Resolved), Karp shoots down the crooked lawyer and a lying witness or two with skillful courtroom badinage and procedural manipulation (Resolved) -- there's a fight in the sewers of Manhattan and Lucy's homeless friends are involved (Resolved) .

One gets the feeling reading this book that Tannenbaum's publisher was pounding on his door demanding a new book NOW so the book was rushed....either that, or there's a new developmental editor at work here.In either case, ''Fury'' is not worth the paper it's written on (my opinion), and if you're expecting a typical Tannenbaum novel, you won't get it in this book. ... Read more

Product Description
Authored by one of the acknowledged leaders and preeminent teachers in musculoskeletal radiology, this innovative text is certain to become the new standard among orthopaedic diagnostic imaging references. The first volume in the new Diagnostic Imaging Series from Amirsys and Saunders, it features a templated, full-color format that makes finding information much easier. Each chapter presents all of the information readers need to pinpoint a diagnosis. Coverage of each entity addresses Clinical Presentation, Pathologic Features, Imaging Findings for the appropriate modalities, and Differential Diagnosis lists. In addition, each chapter has detailed anatomic drawings in full color, an extensive image case gallery, and a visual "thumbnail" differential diagnosis. Numerous surgical, gross and histologic pathology photographs are included. No other musculoskeletal imaging text is as comprehensive and user-friendly. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Excellent Musculoskeletal supplement.
This book is a great supplement for anyone interested in MRI of orthopedics. Good for practicing radiologists, MSK radiologists, orthopedic surgeons and radiology residents.

PRO:
1. The book is in an outline type format which makes finding what you need easier.
2. Wide variety of topics with differential diagnosis.
3. Excellent MRI pictures and color illustrations.

CON:

1. You need a primary textbook to go with this such as Resnick's Bone and Joint Imaging if you want in depth explanations. Kaplan's Musculoskeletal MRI is a better basic MRI book but much less comprehensive.

2. Expensive, but all medical books seem to be anyway.

Conclusion: Would strongly recommend this to anyone interested in Musculoskeletal MRI. Much better than other MSK books from Berquist or others.

Review of Diagnostic Imaging: Orthopaedics
Excellent color pictures/MRIs. Definitely not a beginner text- an advanced text. There is no guide to using the text. That would have been helpful. The pictures on the bottom of the page were almost too small to be of any good. For those of us who are not experts, it would have been nice to have some similar slices of normal anatomy next to the pathological anatomy.

Diagnostic Imaging:Orthopaedics
For MSK MRI, this is an excellent reference book.The computer-designed illustrations are helpful and the bullet-point outline form works well for MSK (I'm not so sure about other specialties).This is not a comprehensive book to cover the pathophysiology of bone disease and it is all MR modality.I use it to complement other texts such as Greenspan. ... Read more