Book Description
Meet the unconventional Aggie Sloan-Wilcox, a minister's wife with her own calling: helping troubled souls in need of justice.
When the naked body of a murdered woman turns up on Aggie's front porch--and suspicion falls on Aggie's husband--she doesn't have a prayer of clearing his name unless she can uncover the truth in a town not known for confessing its sins.
Customer Reviews:
Murder in a small town.......2007-05-05
Emile Richards has written a great first book in this new series. The protanganist is Aggie (short for Agate), the wife of a Unitarian minister who lives in a small college town in Ohio along with their two young daughters. Life as a minister's wife is not always easy, Aggie and her family are always on display, but they are liking small town living except for the fact that a wealthy, despotic member of the congregation has taken a dislike to Aggie's husband Ed and wants him gone. A young woman is murdered and left naked on the front doorstep of the parsanage and the body is discovered by the Ladies Society on the way to inspect the parsonage. Ed had been counseling the young woman, new to the town, but he can't reveal what she told him. Aggie is very worried that Ed may be the prime murder suspect and decides to investigate the murder. The plot involves Aggie's attempts to solve the mystery of who killed this young woman and why, and she presists in her investigations even though the handsome Greek detective, Roussos, keeps telling her to stay out of it. Aggie is assisted by her best friend Lucy, a realtor, who has access to information that Aggie can use in her investigation.
The author does a great job with the dialog, the characters' descriptions, and the ambiance of small town life and the secrets of the people who live there. The mystery is well written and the plot is slowly revealed until the complex yet satisfying ending. I look forward to reading more books about Aggie and her family and the mysteries she solves.
Good Beginning to Series.......2007-03-20
After working in a church in Boston and another in Washington, D.C., minister Ed Wilcox and his family have transferred to the Consolidated Community Church in Emerald Springs, Ohio. His wife, Aggie, initially has her doubts about settling down in a small town, but eventually she, Ed, and their two young children find themselves making friends, except for elderly parishioner Gelsey Falowell who despises Ed and wants to get rid of him. Gelsey's wish may come true when the naked body of a murder victim is left on the Wilcox's front porch and Ed, who had been counseling the dead woman, is the chief suspect. Aggie knows that Ed is innocent but wonders why Ed is keeping secrets from her especially when her daughter Teddy tells her she saw her father fighting with the dead woman. When a second murder is committed and detective Kirkor Roussos seems to suspect Ed committed both crimes, Aggie, with the help of her friend, real estate agent Lucy Jacobs, begins investigating the murders. The more Aggie looks into the crimes the more she realizes that people, especially Gelsey, have secrets that have been buried for years and some people will kill to have them remain secret.
"Blessed is the Busybody" is a good beginning to what looks to be a good mystery series. The characters are well written and well defined. The mystery is written from the view point of Aggie, revealing various bits of her unconventional childhood, plus her struggles to raise her children especially oldest daughter Deena, who at eleven is just starting to rebel a little bit. Both Teddy and Deena are well written and come across as real children. Aggie's friend Lucy is so well written that I could picture here while reading the book. Ed comes across as a bit bland, but I suspect that will change in future books. Author Emilie Richards does a good job describing small town life and the secrets hidden there and the town itself was like a character in the book. The mystery is well written with plenty of surprising secrets slowly revealed as the book goes on. The mystery is complex yet satisfying, if a bit sad. But there's a nice gentle humor throughout the book that takes the edge off the sadder elements.
"Blessed is the Busybody" is well worth reading.
Nice cozy mystery.......2006-11-28
Aggie Sloan-Wilcox isn't like other minister's wives you might know. Raised by her free-spirited mother, Junie, it's logical that some of her unconventional ways have rubbed off on Aggie. Sometimes that's not a good thing when your husband is the pastor of the local Unitarian church.
But then, finding the naked body of a woman on her front porch isn't the way to win friends and supporters in the congregation. As the body count begins to rise in Emerald Springs, Ohio, Aggie must find the murderer, or her husband, Ed might take the fall. What could be worse than that? Well, Aggie could become the murderer's next victim.
Emilie Richards, first in the new Aggie Sloan-Wilcox series, is a fast-paced and fun romp with dead bodies littering the parish landscape in Emerald Springs. Aggie is smart, quirky, fearless and 'nice' even when others' behavior is nasty.
Armchair Interviews says: Richard's cozy amateur sleuth series is one you'll want to start from the beginning.
light reading.......2006-05-17
I enjoy a book that is described well. I found this book easy to imagine what Emerald Springs looks like. The church, parsonage and even the bar are all described in detail. Aggie is a honest straight forward person. However, I found myself more interested in the secondary characters Lucy and Roussos. A good mystery worth reccomending and looking forward to the second book.
Great fun, likeable characters, good plotting.......2006-04-16
This is the first book I've read by this author and the first book she's written in this series. The hero/detective is Aggie (short for Agate), the wife of a Unitarian minister who is living in a small Ohio college town with their two school-aged daughters. Aggie and family life are very much the center of this cozy story. ALthough life as a minister's wife is not easy -- and more difficult because a wealthy and strong-willed member of the congregation has taken a dislike to husband Ed and wants him gone -- you like the family and enjoy reading about them. The plot involves Aggie's amateur attempts to solve the mystery of who killed a young woman who is left naked on their doorstep, to be discovered by the Ladies Society on the way to inspect the parsonage grounds. It turns out husband Ed has been counseling this stranger to town, but he can't reveal what she told him. Aggie is worried about why this woman's body was left on her doorstep and uses that as a reason for investigating the murder herself, although the good-looking Greek detective investigating on behalf of the police keeps telling her to stay out of it. Aggie is assisted by her best friend Lucy (whose mother actually named her Lucille Ball).
Is this the best mystery I've read this year? No, and I had the killer pegged about 2/3 of the way through, but it's quite good and enjoyable reading. It's the kind of book you can safely give your grandmother or someone who is fairly traditional in taste and dosn't want explicit sex, strong violence, or bad language in their reading, and who wants likeable characters. I will definitely be reading more as they are published. The author has published quite a bit in other genres and series, so I suspect we'll hear more about Aggie and her family.
Amazon.com
Starship Titanic is a science-fiction adventure set aboard a colossal spaceship (which is named after a fairly well-known cruise ship from the planet Earth). It seems that something has gone horribly wrong aboard the Starship Titanic--a fact that becomes evident as the vessel slams into the cozy confines of your living room. Now, at the request of the ship's robotic crew, you must go aboard, figure out what went wrong, and fix it.
The game uses impressively rendered graphics to depict Starship Titanic's opulent interior. For the most part, you can make your way through the ship and the game using the mouse as you would in Myst. For conversations with the robot attendants, you use the keyboard and the game's text parser. This combination of contemporary adventure-game graphics and classic-style text conversations works well.
As with any adventure game, this one has a lot of puzzles for you to solve. And like everything else Douglas Adams comes up with, the puzzles in this game are complex, challenging, and often downright silly. You'll have to disarm a bomb, for example, that has a 20-digit "combination" and that constantly taunts you. (Monty Python's John Cleese plays the voice of the bomb.) You'll also have to deal with an annoying, chicken-eating parrot (played by Terry Jones, another Python veteran and author of the Starship Titanic novel).One thing to keep in mind as you play Starship Titanic is that the puzzles will leave you frustrated at times. That's OK--in fact, that's probably what Adams had in mind from the start--because most of the solutions to these puzzles are incredibly bizarre and unusual. If you get really stuck, the DoorBot and BellBot can usually be of some assistance.
Even with a little help from these automated assistants, however, Starship Titanic will have you puzzling for hours and hours. --Michael Ryan
Book Description
Arguably the greatest collaboration in the whole history of comedy!
Bestselling author Douglas Adams wrote the storyline based on his CD-ROM game of the same name (as this novel, not as him, obviously).
Terry Jones of Monty Python wrote the book. In the nude! Parents be warned! Most of the words in this book were written by a naked man!
So. You want to argue with that? All right, we give in.
Starship Titanic is the greatest, most fabulous, most technologically advanced interstellar cruise line ever built. It is like a cross between the Queen Mary, the Chrysler Building, Tutankhamen's tomb, and Venice. Furthermore, it cannot possibly go wrong. . . .
Sadly, however, seconds after its launch it undergoes SMEF, or Spontaneous Massive Existence Failure. And disappears.
Except, everything's got to be somewhere.
Coming home that night, on a little known planet called Earth, Dan and Lucy Gibson find something very large and very, very shiny sticking into their house. . .
Customer Reviews:
Save your money.......2007-06-23
Weak writing, unfunny, uninteresting, and one of the few books I may actually put down before I finish. I'm halfway through now and it's a struggle to force myself to read further. Don't waste your dough on this one, folks.
Starship Titanic: A bit more successful than the original.......2007-04-19
Douglas Adam's Starship Titanic by Terry Jones is a hilarious book. It starts out describing separately what goes on at the building of the magnificent Starship Titanic, and the couple, Dan and Lucy. [...]
[...]
I would recommend this book to anyone who likes Monty Python, who has nothing better to do, and can relate to many of the problems of the travel industry. There's no great meaning to this book, other than to have a few laughs. I would not recommend this book to anyone who is offended by Monty Python, or sexual references. To decide if you can handle the type of humor found in the book, just read the back cover. It will tell you all you need to judge it. Over all, this was a great and hilarious book that I would recommend to anyone.
Maybe my expectations were a little too high?.......2006-06-28
First I must state I am a huge Douglas Adams fan and enough of a Monty Python fan to know who Terry Jones is. So when I saw a book with the two names on the front, I was excited. I remembered hearing about the computer game of the same name, but had never gotten around to playing (still haven't) so I can't compare the two. Disclosures aside, I still can't believe I didn't enjoy this book.
In the beginning notes, Douglas Adams says this book is "altogether sillier and naughtier" than his would have been. That's not the half of it. This novel is Terry Jones' doing a poor imitation of Adams. It reminds me of what Adams may have written when he was 14, complete with disjointed plot, terrible dialogue and sophomoric sexual humor.
I actually found myself having to re-read passages because the editing was non-existant. This must have been a rush job, because I spotted quite a few spelling errors, and at least a dozen passages that were extremely confusing. Did I mention the dialogue was horrible?
I made it through the entire book only because I can't bear to leave a book unfinished. However, I would not recommend it to anyone. I hear the game is much better.
That sinking feeling --.......2006-06-14
-- and not just because of the starship itself. But let's look at that, first.
This isn't really a Douglas Adams book. It's an Adams video game, novelized by Monty Python's Terry Jones. The Starship Titanic, the hugest, most luxurious star cruiser ever, is set for its maiden voyage. Not just the biggest starship, it's also the biggest scam in history, one that shattered planetary economies even before its completion. And it's not really a starship, so much as a complex financial swindle and a barely-stable shell, about to be blown up for the insurance money. Peopled only by officious and arrogant robots, bewildered and unintentional stowaways, and by a ticking bomb, the story unfolds. Given Jones's writing and Adams's intellectual parentage, it's an amazing bit of comedy with a happy ending.
Jones's writing is good, but somehow lacks the sparkle of Adams's. It's also constrained by the video game that it emulates - face it, the video game isn't the richest of dramatic formats, so the book can't rise far above its origin. There's amusement to be had here, but it's a letdown after Adams's own writing.
//wiredweird
Whimsical Fun.......2006-05-31
It could be envisioned as another entertaining movie written, acted, and directed by the Monty Phyton's whole crew - skillful actors, writers, directors, cameramen, singers, dancers, jokers, complainers, etc. The amusement of wordplay, nuances of unthinkable actions, and basketfuls of basket case characters, make this screwy science fiction rather exciting. Mr. Jones's and Mr. Adams's sense of humor shines unadulterated on every page. The writing obeys the train of thoughts of a quirky story teller. Four earthlings find themselves swept up, up, and away into space on a magnificent spaceship full of robots. The reader would learn about the origin of the spaceship. Thus the humans embark on a short adventure but full of revelations. The ending is pretty exciting because for one, they practically race against time. Everything is tidied up pretty nicely as a conclusion by Mr. Jones. The language is easy and straightforward. The jokes are many and obvious. The dialogues are wholesome British humor, strictly Mr. Jones's way of making people laugh out loud.
Book Description
NO OTHER GUIDE HAS:
SOLUTIONS so complete we despise you for needing to use them!
HINTS so subtle you've got to be a bit of a smart-ass to understand them!
DESCRIPTIONS of natural language parsing engines and object-oriented
programming by people who ACTUALLY KNOW WHAT THEY'RE TALKING ABOUT!
UNCENSORED PHOTOS of DOUGLAS ADAMS in the VERY ACT OF WRITING!
ILLUSTRATIONS from people who've won REAL OSCARS!
INSIGHTS into the SECRET LIVES of PROGRAMMERS!
NO-HOLDS-BARRED back stories to all the CHARACTERS!
Customer Reviews:
Needed to get through it.......2003-07-06
If you have "Starship Titanic", Douglas Adams last CD-ROM game, this book will get you through it, plus there's some sly Adams wit sprinkled throughout.
Review.......2002-10-23
I loved the book that's why I gave it the maximum rating. I think it's the best book (sorry strategy guide) ever! Thank God they're making a sequle to Starship Titanic! (I got the info about a sequle at the Starship Titanic website.)
The book has a few sections which are: A) Table Of Contents, B) The Blerontin Bugle, C) Meet The Bots, D) The PET, E) Hints, F) Solutions, G) Index, and finally H) website information (well actually it's some "thing" about the website.) I also like the front cover. It's pretty.
In the middle of the Hints section of the book (well not in the middle they're spread out over the section) are some articles and footnotes on the making of Starship Titanic (the footnotes are just little notes ont the interior spaces and the areas ot the Titanic.) The Blerinton Bugle section of the book gives some good back story clues. Meet the Bots is funny but they left two bots out they are Rowbot (the gondaliers) and Boppy Headcase the pianist in the music room [he is the one who bangs his head}.) ThePET section is annoyingly stupid. Hints is a little too spefic. And Soultions is too step-by-step informative.
All and all I loved the book because the Solutions aren't stupid "try this" and "try that" kind of solutions they're "do this" and "do that" solutions. I think the book is superb and I say: "Bravo Doug you've done it!"
Starship Titanic Startgey Guide Review.......2002-10-23
When I bought Starship Titanic Gold Edition I got the Starship Titanic Stragety Guide Included. When I browsed through it I noticed the book had interesting subjects from the Starship Titanic game the problem is that it has an anoying part where you can accidently open to a spolier or too good a hint. Even though I loved it! It was an excellent book. I like it because it has 3 main sections: I)Blerontin Bugle, II)Hints and III)Solutions. It also has some lesser important sections called:1)Table Of Contents, 2)The PET and 3)Index. It also has a page that gives the website address. I'll give you one hint read the book!
Interesting background material, but weak hint section.......2000-06-28
This guide to the adventure game "Starship Titanic" wants to do three things at once. First, it gives more background to the Starship and the characters in the game. Second, there are stories from behind the scenes, telling how the game came to be. Interesting stuff, but unfortunately all this leave too little room for what I consider the most important part: The hint section.
The cover promises "subtle hints" and "complete solutions". This made me expect gradually more obvious hints for each problem, each hint on a separate line to avoid reading too far. In the book, each overall problem has its own section, but the section itself is one long description of how to solve the problem. This makes it VERY easy to read too far. I recommend reading the hint section one line at a time, with the rest of the page covered by a piece of paper. The hints are in themselves good enough, but not always subtle enough. And the prose flows TOO WELL: You read on where you should pause and return to the game! At least the most outright spoilers are kept in a separate section of the book.
I enjoyed reading about Douglas Adams' visions of the game and I found the sections on the creation of the game very interesting. If this guide had been sold as a hint book but as background material I would have rated it 4 stars (but to tell the truth, I would probably not have bought it in the first place for just that - I am a Douglas Adams fan, but there are limits).
All in all: The book contains quite a bit of interesting material, but personally I would have preferred a plain hint book of better quality.
The Strategy Guide that could not possibly go wrong...........1998-09-20
In the genre of PC Game Strategy Guides, it may be difficult or impossible to consider the book without reference to the game. That said, Neil Richards' "Starship Titanic: the Official Strategy Guide" is an essential, albeit well-padded, guide to an underwhelming gaming experience.
The guide begins with forty pages of fluff, mostly unhelpful, unfunny introductions to the main, animate characters in the game: the "bots" - well-meaning, malfunctioning, robotic crew of the Starship.
This is followed by sixty-some pages of what the author curiously calls "hints". In the best of worlds, a player, frustrated by the mind-numbing pedantry of the game itself, would expect this section of the guide to offer subtle suggestions on clues that may have been overlooked. In fact, it consists of verbose solutions to the trite, often silly, puzzles aboard the Starship Titanic. Unlike Myst or Riven, Starship Titanic requires little more "strategy" than hit-or-miss bumbling about and rudimentary linking of tasks, so perhaps these type of "hints" are appropriate to the situation.
The next section, titled "Solutions", is merely a repeat of the previous section, minus the blather. It lists the step-by-step procedures for obtaining and assembling each of the pieces of the puzzle. Don't be tempted to use this section to speed up the boring part of the game to get to the "good stuff", or you'll quickly find yourself at the end of the game with nothing to look forward to except -- perish the thought!! -- a sequel.
Product Description
3 Hardbacks, The More Than Complete Hitchhiker's Guide includes Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Restaurant at the End of the Universe, Life the Universe and Everything, So Long and Thanks for the Fish, Young Zaphod Plays it Safe.
Customer Reviews:
engrossing.......2007-04-25
I have read all three of Rowley's books in this series numerous times. Rowley uses great imagination in creating this possible future and the Vang remain one of the most frightening alien life forms in science fiction - much more lethal than the 'Alien' type in my opinion. While remaining in a brief time period for his story line Rowley can casually allude to events stretching over vast aeons or relatively recently which tie in to the current action and make it so much more interesting in that context. An example is the reference to the Laowan Grotto of Bones in the Battlemaster story. It is a great pity that he didn't develop the theme into further books and it is surprising that he is not better known in this field. I think that if any or all of these three books were adapted for cinema and taken up by the major studios with the best special effects they would be great hits.
I wish it weren't over!.......2006-03-08
I think that the story of this book is every bit as good as the previous two. I only gave it four stars because there were little things here and there that irked me; Nothing that ruined my enjoyment of the book, but they were like little burrs on an otherwise smooth surface.
Like others have said, you should read the first two books first. Then, you can get that old familiar feeling when you read this one. It won't ruin your enjoyment if you don't read them, but it will heighten your enjoyment if you do!
Vang returns!.......2000-08-16
Genre of hardcore horror/SF is Rowley's strongest point, although others prefer BattleDragons books. The Battlemaster make you think about scale of Universe, about ancient wars between stars and planets whose distant echo now threaten Humanity by mortal danger. All because of the Vang, protoevil alien species, battle demigods once created huge space empire, but now dethroned and dispersed.
Chris, are you sure that there're no more The Vang beings left around? I don't think so... Oh, god...
Too bad it's out of print........2000-02-25
I read it and the other 2 in the series.
I thought it was a good book with a interesting ending and believeable characters and the aliens were very interesting.
Read them all!.......1999-05-05
Make sure you start with Starhammer and The Vang:The military Form. It's an excellent series in my opinion. Hey Mr. Rowley, do you have another one for us?
Book Description
For sixty years the best food writers have been sending dispatches from Paris to Gourmet. At once unique and universal, these essays by Joseph Wechsberg, Naomi Barry, and Diane Johnson, among others, present tantalizing glimpses of culinary life in the world capital of love and food.
From unforgettable vignettes of resourceful chefs feeding hungry Parisians after World War II to the birth and rise of nouvelle cuisine–it’s all here: the old-time bourgeois dinners, the tastemakers, the hero-chefs, and, of course, Paris in all its charm, arrogance, and splendid refinement.
Customer Reviews:
Reading and Remembering Why I'm an Armchair Traveler.......2005-08-21
What a great opportunity to learn more about the Paris I love, and French food which I do not prepare at home. I wait for my trips. I am not intimidated with the snooty waiters, as I did my "homework." I'm prepared to ask questions about loaves and wine and anything else. The set-up of the chapters was easy reading, too. I trusted the writers. I discovered more secrets in Paris via their investigations and risky ventures. I didn't have to suffer the frustrations of getting lost on the metro nor the pains of tusseling with those Parisian cabbies. I especially enjoyed the trips to the new and modern Paris as described by Paul Goldberger. Do you want to loaf with a loaf, drink a bottle away from the bottlenecks? Read this book. Also, I will read other books in the Modern Library Food series based on my enjoyment of Ruth Reichl choices.
Books:
- Blind Descent:: An Anna Pigeon Mystery (Anna Pigeon Mysteries)
- Blood from a Stone (Commissario Guido Brunetti Mysteries)
- Blueberry Muffin Murder (Hannah Swensen Mysteries)
- Booked to Die (Cliff Janeway Novels)
- Breaker's Reef (Cape Refuge, No. 4)
- Cat Breaking Free: A Joe Grey Mystery (Joe Grey Mysteries)
- Chasing the Dime
- Chocolate Chip Cookie Murder (Hannah Swensen Mysteries)
- Chosen Prey
- Crisscross: A Repairman Jack Novel (Repairman Jack)
Books Index
Books Home
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- Women with Big Eyes
General
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Let There Be Suspects (Ministry Is Murder Mystery)
Lover's Knot (Shenandoah Album)
Wedding Ring (Shenandoah Album)
Endless Chain (Shenandoah Album)
Whiskey Island
