Ice Age Mammals of North America

Product Description

The time is the Pleistocene epoch, about 2 million to 10,000 years ago. Continent-size ice sheets cover 30 percent of the earth's landmass, and strange creatures rove the landscape. Ice Age Mammals of North America transports you to the world of saber-tooth cats, woolly mammoths, four-hundred-pound beavers, and twenty-foot-tall ground sloths. Illustrated descriptions of the animals form the heart of the book and the final chapter explores why so many of these animals were extinct by the end of Pleistocene time.

Customer Reviews:

great information!.......2005-07-19

This is a well-written book with excellent explanations of the ice age and a wonderful descriptions of the ice age mammals. I have used to book extensively in designing programming for a state park.

A wonderful little book.......2004-11-27

I picked up this book while browsing the gift shop at the La Brea tar pits in Los Angeles. I was looking for something to serve as a memento for out family trip, something that would serve as evening reading material, and something that would be interesting and educational for the kids. This book seemed like just the ticket. It's nicely presented with rich, glossy pages, and it's chock full of interesting/relevant photographs, black-and-white drawings, and color illustrations.

Lange opens his book with a tantalizing summary of some of the exotic animals that lived during the Pleistocene, and a very short description of a changed world, covered with glaciers. He follows this with a short but very interesting and well-written discussion about continental drift and the interchange of animals between the American and Eurasian continents. I particularly liked his discussion of the discovery of the ice ages, and how he highlights some of the critical evidence such as oxygen-isotope shifts that make it possible for scientists to understand much of the detail of these aspects of earth's history. This section has some exciting discussions regarding earth geology that is sure to excite the young reader and amateur geologist alike.

This introductory material, consisting largely of the geological evidence of ice ages, takes up roughly the first 65 pages of the book. With the groundwork laid, Lange begins introducing the reader to the vast array of fascinating animals that lived, geologically speaking, just a moment ago. In many ways these animals were as amazing as the dinosaurs, but while dinosaurs lived millions of years before humans evolved, the remarkable animals of the Pleistocene lived contemporaneously with our ancestors, hunted them, and were hunted by them.

The majority of the book's middle section consists of case-by-case descriptions of some of the more interesting (at least in terms of size and ferocity) animals from that period. These include the American lion, glyptodont, mammoth ground sloth, yesterday's camel, titanis bird, long-horned giant bison, wooly mammoth Nebraska camel, American mastodon, dire wolf, Florida cave bear, giant short-faced bear, and of course, Smilodon fatalis - the saber-toothed cat.

Lange doesn't just describe these animals; he helps the reader understand how they fit within the context of evolution, the evidence surrounding their discovery, and how they compare and contrast with similar modern-day animals. It's amazing to read of these ancient animals and realize how similar America was to Africa just 12,000 years ago. This leads Lange to his concluding ideas about extinction and the growing sense that early humans were largely responsible for the die-off of large animals in America.

Over all this is a wonderful little book that packs a lot of information into relatively few pages. It's not overly simplistic. Quite the opposite, it describes conclusions and results from cutting-edge research. But the book is also very approachable. Its language, presentation, pictures and photographs make this an entertaining as well as informative story, and one that any grown or budding geologist/paleontologist is bound to enjoy.

Entertaining and Educational.......2004-11-19

Ice Age Mammals is a very enjoyable book. I highly enjoyed reading this work and found it to be more entertaining than I would have imagined. The author obviously wrote this book as the result of wanting to read a similar work, but never having found such a book, thus wrote his own here.

The book breaks down all the ice-age mammals into species and talks about each in turn. There are some beautiful illustrations contained in the book as well as some maps and other useful diagrams.

None of the material is over the head of the average reader and I would recommend this book for children age 12 and up to adult.

These extinct animals are simply fascinating, and this book peaks the imagination like few others on the topic. We can only speculate on the many wonderous beasts that once roamed our earth and terrified our ancestors for milennia, but thanks to works like "Ice Age Mammals" by Ian Lange, we can speculate with just a little bit more accuracy and a whole lot more amazement!

Welcome to the Ice Age!.......2004-03-18

North America, more than 10,000 years ago, was a very interesting place. Gaint ground sloths, dwarf wolly mommoths, Nebrasks camels (weighing about a ton) and saber-toothed cats are just some of the bizarre animals you will find within the covers of this book. Ice Age Mammals of North America tries to give you a very balanced look at not just the big and hairy, but the more common creatures. Lions, wolves, bears, seals, porcupines, goats, beavers and deer to name just a few.
The book begins with what North America was like, why we think ice ages are triggered, goes into detail about the many different animals (which takes up much of the book) and then tells us about the extinction of the megamammals (plus the debates about WHY extinctions happen at all).
There are lots of photos and colorful illustrations, sidebars full of fact, lots of humor, a list of museums, fossil sites and websites you can visit. It also has a detailed glossary, bibliography and index. Great for adults and kids.
Ian M. Lange really enjoyed doing this work, you can tell, and Dorothy S. Norton's work really helped bring many of the animals to life.

The latest understanding modern-day science has.......2003-09-12

Ice Age Mammals Of North America by Ian M. Lange informatively presents the latest understanding modern-day science has of the North American mammals that thrived during the Ice Age. Diagrams, color illustrations by Dorothy S. Norton, and a wealth of knowledge of species both extinct and enduring fill the pages of this educational resource, written for young adults, and very highly recommended as a fascinating introduction to wildlife of thousands of years gone by for readers of all ages.

Average customer rating:

Ice age coloring book
Nancy D Moncrief
Manufacturer: Virginia Museum of Natural History
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

Ice Age Mammals of North America: a Guide To the Big, the Hairy, and the Bizarre

Average customer rating:

Ice Age Mammals of North America: a Guide To the Big, the Hairy, and the Bizarre
Ian Lange
Manufacturer: Mountain Press Publishing Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000N77JSG

Customer Reviews:

An Inspirational Read.......2006-07-31

The Walls Came Tumbling Down is the true story of a group of men who changed the face of sport. Coach Adolph Rupp defied the status quo and changed the face of basketball by drafting five black players onto the 1965-66 Texas Western Miners, and then led that team to a championship.

It's a story of the turbulent times and the social upheaval that inspired these men to take on the culture for the sake of the thing that mattered to them most-winning.

Talk about playing the race card for $$$$$$$$- Exploitation!.......2005-03-18

This was two groups of young men playing for their love of the game not some social agenda. Their biggest concern was basketball, chicks, food and cars and not necessarily in that order. The author is playing into the hands of todays political agenda and totally left out that the fact the Pat Riley, a very reliable and respected source, said that Lattin called him a honky during the game. That is just part of the game on both sides to get into other players'heads and that does not make Lattin a black racist and the history of the game in retrospect does not make Rupp a racist. Rupp gets vilified unfairly just as the Texas Western kids gets glorified too much. Loyola won the title with 4 blacks years earlier yet they get no respect for being instrumental in using black players because they happened to have one white player. Nobody buys that nonsense that people thought you needed one white- 4 blacks and your star is black was the real major breakthrough. Like some white roll player really made all the difference- nobody was that nieve. And what about San Francisco, and Cincinnati who's superstars were black? They were ther true pioneers. Bill Russell was the man!!

Interesting topic, but not a quick read.......2003-10-20

The author has researched well this game in 1966, but the writing leaves a little to be desired. I felt the author could have done a better job of caputring the players as charachters in the book rather than just topics of a history paper.

Why the dunk was outlawed.......2001-01-13

This is the best book available on the monumental historic 1966 NCAA men's basketball championship of Texas Western, the first team to start 5 blacks in the Final Four. It is very well researched, with an extensive bibliography. The civil rights impact is well dealt with, as are the racial attitudes of several of the major players. The Kentucky coach, Adolph Rupp, is treated fairly and the reader is left to make his own decision about his character. This is tricky to handle, because his attitudes had to be presented on a backdrop of his times and environment.

I have two minor criticisms of the book, which prevent me from awarding it 5 stars. The first is that the racial attitudes of Don Haskins, the Texas Western coach, were not clearly portrayed. We are left with the impression that he cared about the game more than anything, and we know that he was a little bit country, but we never really find out whether he harbored any prejudices.

Second, while the race issue is well dealt with by Fitzpatrick, he does not deal in depth with the problem with gentlemen's agreements. This refers, for example, to the rule of thumb "2 at home, 3 on the road, 4 when behind" that apparently many coaches used to define their quota for black players. A discussion of this, including who knew about these agreements and how widespread was their impact, would definitely have been in order in this book which is trying to place that basketball game in its spot in history.

And the Walls Came Tumbling Down: Kentucky, Texas Western, and the Game That Changed American Sports
Average customer rating:

1966 NCAA Title Game: Texas Western 72, Kentucky 65

The Walls crashed

Well researched

This book is one-sided and misleading.

Excellent book on how sports integration came to the S.E.C.

And the Walls Came Tumbling Down: Kentucky, Texas Western, and the Game That Changed American Sports
Frank Fitzpatrick
Manufacturer: Amazon Remainders Account
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Amazon.com

Fitzpatrick wastes no time making his point in this fertile and compelling story of perhaps the most important college basketball game ever played: "What a piece of history," Arkansas basketball coach Nolan Richardson exclaims in an opening quote. "If basketball ever took a turn, that was it."

Richardson may be underestimating. The 1966 NCAA championship final between the heavily favored, all-white University of Kentucky, and the "No Names from Nowhere" all-black starting five of upstart Texas Western (now the University of Texas-El Paso) was a sporting insurrection in a time of social chaos and upheaval. Played out in black and white, everything about this David-and-Goliath confrontation was washed in complex and layered shades of gray.

Through strong interviews and contemporary accounts, Fitzpatrick builds toward the ineffable climax, recreated in spirited detail, on a Saturday night in Maryland. He lays his foundation with a contextual chronicle of the turbulent times, emphasizing the importance of white basketball to Kentucky's image of itself. He lays up strong profiles of the universities, their hoop traditions, the players, and the two extraordinary coaches who led them--the Miners' rumpled tactician, Don Haskins, and the Kentucky squire, Adolph Rupp, whose legend is sadly choked by his racist roots.

"No one has ever studied the effect Texas Western's victory had on integration, nor would such a thing be entirely measurable," Fitzpatrick observes, but it was nevertheless unmistakable. "The number of black athletes at major colleges surged immediately afterward ... and basketball, which had always been linked with sweet-shooting country boys from places like Indiana and Kentucky, became the 'City Game.'" And for young blacks in America, the accomplishment provided something beyond a national title; it held out a hint of hope. Walls' ultimate achievement--by no means a small one--is not letting us forget that. --Jeff Silverman

Book Description

I remember sitting in Mr. Grillo's high school English class one Friday afternoon in 1966 when the subject of that weekend's NCAA basketball tournament arose.

As basketball fanatics, my friends and I argued the merits of the Final Four participants. No one mentioned Texas Western except to disparage the stunning racial makeup of their starting five.

Five blacks! It was one thing for an inner-city high school to start five blacks, but for a college team at the Final Four, it was unprecedented.

"All you have to do is get ahead," said one of my friends. "They give up when they're behind."

"Kentucky is too smart," said another. "I'll bet all Texas Western can do is run-and-gun."

The sad part was I believed it too.

So when Kentucky was upset by Texas Western, with their tenacious defense, disciplined play, and marvelously named players like Big Daddy Lattin and Willie Cager, we were all stunned. My beliefs were shaken as severely as they would be in religion class that same junior year. Maybe I was wrong about the capabilities of black basketball players. About Catholicism. About a lot of things.

So begins Frank Fitzpatrick's stunning account of the 1966 NCAA championship game.

Late on the night of March 19, 1966, in the University of Maryland's Cole Field House, five unassuming black men from Texas Western stepped onto the court to face five white men from the University of Kentucky. On the surface, this was just another basketball game. But there were hidden forces at work. Kentucky's legendary coach, Adolph Rupp, had resisted the pleadings of his president to recruit his first black player in thirty-six years. Meanwhile, Texas Western administrators were concerned that coach Don Haskins was playing too many blacks. Almost everyone believed the game's result was a foregone conclusion: There was no way Texas Western's unheralded blacks could beat Rupp's mighty Kentucky Wildcats, featuring All-America Pat Riley. Yet Texas Western did win and American sports embarked on a new era.

That 1966 NCAA title game -- played at a turbulent moment in civil rights history -- marked the first major sporting championship in which an all-black starting team had played, let alone defeated, a white one. Not since Jackie Robinson broke baseball's color barrier in 1947 had such a cultural watershed occurred in American sports. Sociologically and historically it was the most significant game ever in college athletics.

In And the Walls Came Tumbling Down, veteran sportswriter Frank Fitzpatrick examines the game, the history that preceded it, and the sweeping changes that followed in its wake. In profiling the coaches, the players, and the administrators, he details the impact of that championship game and paints a nuanced portrait of the events that belied the easy black-and-white characterization. Through his close look at this rare moment when sports led rather than followed the forces for social change, Fitzpatrick takes readers on an unparalleled journey that brings the riveting story of this landmark season to life.

Customer Reviews:

1966 NCAA Title Game: Texas Western 72, Kentucky 65.......2002-04-01

Ironically, "And the Walls Came Tumbling Down: Kentucky, Texas Western, and the Game That Changed American Sports," preserves a stereotypical view of the game that presumably challenged a prevailing stereotype. The controversial figure in this story has always been Adolph Rupp, coach of the Kentucky Wildcats, whose "Rupp's Runts" were the last all-white team to play for the championship in the NCAA mens basketball title game. Fitzpatrick makes Rupp the iconic figure of white racism. Indeed, before the game, Rupp told the press that a team of five black players could not beat a team of five white players. However, certainly Rupp was not alone in that holding that stupid position. While it would not be surprising that Rupp, as a older Southern white man, would be a racist, his attempts to recruit future pros Wes Unseld and Butch Beard would seem to suggest he might have been something short of a card carrying member of the Klan. Yet Rupp is demonized throughout the book, while his players, most notably Pat Riley and Louie Dampier, are forced into the role of apologists. Unfortunately, Rupp's legacy pretty much ended with this game, while Riley and Dampier both got to prove their willingness to play not only against but with blacks in professional basketball.

I had spent years booing Don Haskins and the Miners in the Pit in Albuquerque for years before I found out that UTEP had once been Texas Western and how won the NCAA title in 1966. The final score was 72-65, but as they often say, the game was never really that close. Fitzpatrick does assemble all the stories and quotes needed to give you a sense for what happened and how it was seen as important. The collision course between the two teams, the programs, the two coaches, the two ways of thinking, is crystal clear from start to finish. However, despite its importance, primarily in opening up the SEC to black basketball players and other athletes, this game certainly did not impact on the national championships for the rest of the decade. After all, the argument could be made that the only reason Texas Western won in 1966 was because freshman were not eligible to play and two-time defending national champion U.C.L.A. had the best player in the country, Lew Alcindor, playing on their freshman team. U.C.L.A. would win the next seven NCAA titles and all of John Wooden's 10 title teams were won by integrated teams. I have to believe, that even if Texas Western had lost, that the value of black players would have been lost on the rest of the country.

As interesting as the story about this pivotal game happens to be, the story about the story is equally fascinating. While it was obvious to everyone who watched the game that a team of black players beat a team of white players, the sports media managed to cover the game without dealing with the racial aspects of the encounter. The aftermath of this story abounds with more irony. Kentucky did not recruit a black player until 1969, at which point Don Haskins was having trouble recruiting black players because of a Sports Illustrated story claiming he was exploiting black athletes by bringing them to Texas Western just to win the national championship (I know, think about it a bit and pretend it makes sense). When Rupp coached and lost his final game, it was again an instance of his five white players losing to a team of five black players. Ultimately, the picture of Rupp in this book makes him more of a pathetic figure than anything else. I guess when you have a larger than life figure like that it is impossible to put anything else in perspective because they overwhelm any story in which they are involved. But even though they are tearing down Cole Field House at Maryland, where this game took place, it is certainly a moment in sports history that needs to be recalled from time to time.

The Walls crashed.......2001-05-05

This book was very inspirational to me. Before 1966 there was a myth that five African-American couldn't play on the basketball court together without having one white person on the court to keep things in order. This championship game of 1966 with five African-American's starting as well as winning the game busted integration wide open. If minorities as a whole can apply the same techniques to academics that they apply athletics, we as a race will be able to tear down many racial barriers whether we have affirmative action or not. Just look at the blacks that are in big time positions that are not athletes. Kenneth Chenault/CEO American Express, Frankie Raines/CEO of Fannie Mae, etc.

Well researched.......1999-12-25

This is a nice, easy read about a milestone game in college basketball history. It certainly dispelled some of the myths I had about the contest. Fitzpatrick talked to all sorts of people and checked many resources, leaving the reader impressed.

This book is one-sided and misleading........1999-04-28

This book is a huge disappointment. Frank Fitzpatrick buys into all the criticisms of Rupp while ignoring or dismissing out of hand much of the contradictory evidence (freely available to anyone who can use a search engine) which shoots holes through his basic premise. The author spends so much time villifying Rupp and covering for Texas Western coach Don Haskins that he loses all sense of perspective on the state of society during that time. The characters that Fitzpatrick presents are one-dimensional and overly simplistic. The result being that the readers are not provided with a complete picture of the complexities and hard decisions which were made by everyone during integration of college basketball in the South and nation in general. This prediliction towards blaming Rupp for just about everything is one result of a willful decision by Fitzpatrick to not understand the man, a flaw the author has basically admitted to. In an interview with Billy Reed, the author states "I still don't feel I have a real grasp of the guy. In a lot of ways, I think he was a simplistic figure." This basic flaw should, by itself, prevent anyone from wasting their time with this book.

Excellent book on how sports integration came to the S.E.C........1999-04-21

Frank Fitzpatrick has provided readers with a vibrant, well written book about the beginning of the end of intercollegiate athletic segregation at southeastern schools after the 1966 Kentucky/Texas Western NCAA championship basketball game. The two teams were complete contrasts in skin color, coaching, and recruiting.

As an Auburn University archivist and the athletic museum curator, I noted a few things written by Mr. Fitzpatrick about Auburn University which I do not find in our records. First, Auburn University is located in Auburn, Alabama, not Anniston, Alabama (pages 233 & 238). Nor did Auburn have, in Adolph Rupp's last game as coach in 1971-72, four blacks on the basketball team (page 222). Acccording to our basketball media guide from that year, Auburn had two blacks on the basketball team. One of them was Mr. Henry Harris, Jr.

But the most disturbing thing to me is the author quoting Mr. Perry Wallace, the first member of his race to play basketball in the SEC, to the effect that Henry Harris' experiences at Auburn as its first black basketball player may have directly or indirectly led to Mr. Harris' suicide in 1974 (page 238). Mr. Fitzpatrick offers no other sources to back up this hypothesis. None from Mr. Harris' family, his former teammates, the Auburn Athletic Department, or the Auburn University Archives, which houses records of this era from the Athletic Department, the President's Office, and University Relations. This is not the kind of research or reporting I would expect from Mr. Fitzpatrick. It does make me wonder about the accuracy of other parts of the book.

Book Description

In her fifteen years of teaching, Barbara DeMarco-Barrett has found that the biggest stumbling block for aspiring writers (especially women) is not fear of the blank page but frustration with the lack of time. What woman doesn't have too much to do and too little time? Finding an hour free of work, children, or obligations can seem impossible.

But anyone can find fifteen minutes, whether you're sitting in traffic, waiting at a child's soccer practice, or watching the coffee drip. DeMarco-Barrett has created a practical, inspirational guide for fitting serious writing into those stolen moments. She offers writing exercises and techniques for generating ideas, as well as pragmatic advice from the well-known authors who appear on her radio show. With fifteen minutes a day, she can help you to ignite your pen and become the writer you have always wanted to be.

Customer Reviews:

Just ok.......2007-09-03

This book offers run-of-the-mill exercises that fail to inspire one to write. If you struggle with the act of sitting down and putting pen to paper, this book will not change that. I would love to see a book out there that offers innovative exercises that not only inspire one to write, but also improves writing along the way. If anyone can recommend such a book, please message me.

This is the one!.......2007-08-01

Finally there's a book that entertains and motivates! I thought I was alone in my struggle to find time to write. Barbara DeMarco-Barrett left me crying, laughing, and most importantly writing! This book is a must for any woman who wants a writing life!

Discover How to Make Your Life and Your Writing, Work...........2007-06-25

This is the third book I read recently for busy women who want to write... and be successful at writing through publishing.

The main focus I found in this title was writing in 15 minute timed chunks - and practice at being proficient in writing in this sort of pace to build a writing career, something that will be beneficial for women with busy, appointment-family-career-and-"other-stuff" driven lives.

Demarco-Barret includes exercises and application alongside the content. Each chapter covers an important issue for writers and follows up with the practical.

The reader is given a full view of what to expect as a writer as the main chapter headings include before beginning, getting started, tools and rituals, mining your life, craft, overcoming obstacles and living the life. Reality isn't glossed over with exclamation points and hype, reading this title is like sitting down for coffee everyday with a friend who understands what you are going through as an aspiring writer - because she has been there and wants to share her wisdom with you freely and openly.

If you've ever thought, "I could write that".......2006-10-08

Have you read stories in O, The Oprah Magazine and thought, I could write that.

Do you have ideas that would make a good essay, novel, memoir, or magazine article?

Have you always wanted to get started on these projects but never had the time or just plain didn't know where to start?

If so, this is the book for you.

Forget complex writing theory...this book teaches you how to translate your ideas into writing AND shows you how to work writing into your busy life. (Not just for women by the way!)

This book taught me how to:

1. Get my ideas onto paper.
2. Accept that my first draft might be crappy - but that's OK.
3. Revise my drafts until I had a finished product that I would be proud to show to the world.

It's actually pretty easy if you just follow the author's advice. There's no magic here. You don't need to wait for your 'inspiration'. Like the subtitle says, you just need to ignite the writer within.

Enjoy the book. Let me know what you think.

Pen on Fire: A Busy Woman's Guide to Igniting the Writer Within.......2006-08-24

I kept putting this book down to go and write - which was the objective of course! A very readable, entertaining and inspiring guide which demystifies the writing process and makes it accessible to anyone who wants to try. It also contains some very practical tips for writing style and technique.

Average customer rating:

Pen on Fire: A Busy Woman's Guide to Igniting the Writer Within
Barbara DeMarco-Barrett
Manufacturer: Harvest Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OJOC1A

Death By Discount: A Mara Gilgannon Mystery (Mara Gilgannon Mysteries)
Average customer rating:

Murder and Walmart

Terrific Midwestern Mystery

Mystery With a Social Conscience

Murder, local economic survival and lesbian/gay themes

Death By Discount: A Mara Gilgannon Mystery (Mara Gilgannon Mysteries)
Mary Vermillion
Manufacturer: Alyson Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Book Description

Thirty-something Mara Gilgannon finds herself back in her dinky hometown of Aldoburg, Iowa, helping her Aunt Zee keep her struggling radio station alive while unraveling clues surrounding the murder of Glad, Zee's longtime partner. Mara begins to suspect that Glad's vocal opposition to a Wal-Mart opening in the town, an issue that has sharply divided Aldoburg, may have more to do with the murder than was originally supposed. But nothing is ever simple-especially when a beautiful police officer catches Mara's eye.

Mary Vermillion is an associate professor of English at Mount Mercy College in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. She is a member of Sisters in Crime, and her writing has appeared in Birthday Blessings and Testimonies.

Customer Reviews:

Murder and Walmart.......2006-07-24

Mary Vermillion's debut novel was very well written. Go figure, she an English professor.

This is our first look (of many, I hope) at Mara Gilgannon.

Murder doesn't have anything to do with Walmart, but they are a subplot and a big part of Iowa's economy.

Mara is revealed a a "real" person. She does stupid things. When she goes sleuthing and does something stupid sometimes the consequences are funny and other times they are dangerous.

I love her cohorts. What are friends for anyway?

Terrific Midwestern Mystery.......2005-11-22

I enjoyed this mystery for many reasons: Mara Gilgannon is a protagonist I could really root for, a believable blend of neurosis and pluck; the other characters are also well-drawn and completely believable--their quirks make them lovable but never go over the top; the town of Aldoburg became quite real for me, a place I feel I'd recognize if I stumbled upon it; and the mystery is well-plotted--when the actual murderer is revealed, it is a surprise but also seems exactly right. Plus the WalMart premise is timely, especially with the recent release of the documentary "WalMart: The High Cost of Low Prices." Although Vermillion's main characters are in the anti-WalMart column, she does a good job of showing the other side's reasons for wanting WalMart, so the novel never seems like a political tract.

I'm looking forward to reading more mysteries by Mary Vermillion.

Mystery With a Social Conscience.......2005-02-18

Since another reviewer has outlined the story in, er, great depth, I'll just say that Mary Vermillion has written a terrific new mystery set in America's heartland. It's a pleasure to welcome Mara Gilgannon, a refreshingly unslick sleuth, to the lesbian detective literary scene. A Lambda Literary Award Finalist in two categories, Death by Discount is smart, funny, and entertaining. I recommend it highly.

Murder, local economic survival and lesbian/gay themes.......2004-10-07

At the highest level, this murder mystery follows one of the standard whodunit formulas. A woman (Glad) is murdered in a small Iowa town (Aldoburg) and there are many suspects, largely because there is no strong evidence against any particular person. A young man is arrested, but the evidence against him is so weak that it is clearly a case of a hapless small town cop feeling the need to do something. Few in the town really believe that the young man did it, so it is a case where the lack of evidence forces the heroine (Mara Gilgannon) to consider all possibilities.
There are two other major plot lines in the book. Aldoburg is currently in the throes of a major debate over a plan for a new Wal-Mart being built on the edge of town. There are those who believe that the new store will be an economic savior and there are others convinced that it will destroy the local businesses that have operated for generations. Glad and her domestic partner Zee operated the local radio station, and have been forcefully arguing against the new store. The arguments are passionate on both sides, with many long-term friendships at risk, so it certainly could provide the motivation for the murder. Vermillion has certainly done a great deal of research into the issues concerning Wal-Mart. The arguments over the consequences of a new Wal-Mart and their business practices could have been taken from local news stories in many areas of the country. At no time does she exceed the realistic bounds of argument on either side in order to embellish her story.
The second major theme is that of lesbian/gay personalities. Mara is a lesbian and her housemate (Vince) is a gay man. Glad and Zee are lesbian partners, a fact well known to the residents of Aldoburg. After Glad was killed, the murderer spray-painted "dyke" on the wall next to the body. This raises the possibility that the murder was a hate crime, and there are two young local men who recently beat up one of their gay classmates. Since the two beaters are the sons of prominent citizens, there is the potential for their fathers using their influence to protect them. The lesbian/gay theme recurs throughout the book. Mara's boss (Orchid) is also a lesbian and Mara's former partner moves in with Orchid. As she investigates the crime, Mara discovers a few other closet lesbian/gay people; one is a hot female cop that raises her sexual temperature. I found myself pondering something that I have never pondered before; "Will the girl get the girl?" It was also interesting and amusing to read the bits where a lesbian woman is sizing up another woman, noting her curves and rating her chances of getting to know her better. There is some lesbian/gay sex, but nothing one would rate as juicy.
With one exception, the strong focus on lesbian/gay themes did not distract me from the trail leading to the killer(s). That exception was the seeming need of the author to describe the attire of all individuals in more detail than was necessary. The colors of the clothes always seem to be mentioned, even when it had no bearing on the story. For example, Mara visits Zee and we read ". . . and her yellow T-shirt was wrinkled." Since there is no further reference to the shirt, knowing the color was unnecessary. Even though Mara's lesbian lifestyle has led to some estrangement with her parents, that is wisely kept very low key.
The climactic identification of the killer and the aftermath are well done. I certainly did not suspect the culprit and there are additional complicating factors due to some of the features of small town life. As a small town Iowa boy, I appreciated and understood many of the themes of Aldoburg life. My favorite small town situation in the entire book is when the heroine surreptitiously follows one of her prime suspects onto the darkened football practice field, hoping to witness a payoff. When she is breathless with excitement and exertion, she hears a steady stream and notes that there are "no bucolic creeks in the vicinity." Every man who grew up in a small town can relate to that situation. The murder aspects of the book kept my interest, and the story moves along with no large sections of unnecessary filler.

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