Book Description
Giants. We must face them. Yet, we need not face them alone.
This profound look at the life of David digs deeply into the defeats he suffered, and the victories he won, as he faced the giants in his life. When David focused on God, giants tumbled. But when David focused on giants…
he stumbled.
Goliaths still roam in our world. Debt. Disaster. Dialysis. Divorce. Deceit. Disease. Depression. These super-sized challenges swagger and strut into our lives, pilfering our sleep, embezzling our peace and robbing us of our joy. And while these giants try to dominate our lives, we know what to do! We've learned what David learned, and we do what David did. We become God focused. We pick up five stones. We make five decisions. And we take a swing.
Customer Reviews:
Overcoming circumstances.......2007-09-29
I was given this book, it was a good read, but the information wasn't anything new, nor was it very impressive. It was a smooth reader, but almost to the point of beating a dead horse. Now, I am not putting down the work of the Cross or Jesus or the Holy Spirit or even King David. It's just the same ole story with a different author. I did find some of Max's antedotes and case histories of his own family interesting and the view of the Rainbow, that was most interesting.
Would I buy the book, no. Would I recommend someone else to buy the book? Not really. There are better books for the money.
Here are some examples: They Smell Like Sheep by Dr. Lynn Anderson
True Discipleship by Kossler, The Holiest of All by Andrew Murray, Power Filled Living by R.A. Torrey. These are just a few.
I've found when we are facing the giants, if we focus on God, Center ourself on Him, in Him and then look outside the box, so-to-speak and allow the Spirit of God to lead us to someone else that is hurting more than ourselves, God will work out our problems usually by the interaction of our neighbors.
In Christ we pray. Amen.
Learning from David's Triumphs and Mistakes.......2007-09-21
Max Lucado is known for his encouraging books, and this book is no exception. Here, he studies King David, both the good and the bad, to show us how to face the giants in our lives.
The ultimate lesson is simple, when your focus is on God, giants fall. Yet he uses stories from first and second Samuel, both the good and the bad, to show us how this played out in David's life.
The book works as a biography, showing us the events in David's life as they happened. While most chapters are a self contained lesson, it does allow us to see how one event often led to another.
Obviously, we see David fighting Goliath. But we also see him hiding from Saul, his friendship with Jonathan, hiding with the enemy, keeping his promises, falling into adultery and murder with Bathsheba, and watching his own children spin out of control. From this we learn the importance of friends and family, but ultimately the importance of putting our focus on God.
Max Lucado very rarely brings anything new to the table. That's certainly the case here. There is very little I haven't heard before. But he always puts such a fresh, encouraging spin on things, I always see things in a new light. And even when admonishing us, he still does it gently.
I set this book down reluctantly when I finished. My heart was encouraged, and my focus was where it needed to be, God. If you need some help remembering where your focus needs to be, this book is for you.
Max's Best .......2007-09-17
This is absolutely the most enlightening and funny book I've ever read from a Christian author.
This wonderful book is deep enough for an elephant to swim in, yet shallow enough for a child to wade in.
That describes Facing Your Giants to a T.
Like all Lucado books, awesome.......2007-09-06
An insightful tie to old testament events around Davids life and life for us today.
Wonderful book!.......2007-08-26
Story of King David's successes and failures confronting the giants in his life, and how we can learn from them. Many challenging question in study guide at the end of book.
Book Description
Beth Moore wants readers to know if God could lift her out of the pit, He can get ANYONE out! She admits she wasn't just a visitor; this former pit-dweller had to be delivered from acres of life-accumulated dirt, bone-chilling darkness, spirit-deadening anger, heart-breaking desperation and mind-numbing confusion. The permanent lessons she learned in her desperation-shared in this very personal book-are lessons of hope for all of us. While she deeply empathizes with the hows and whys of life in the "pit," she continually points readers to the deliverance that awaits. Deliverance is for everyone, she proclaims-no matter how you got stuck, no matter how long you've been down, whether you think you deserve it or not. And in her straight-talking but loving style, she reminds readers that deliverance can begin for them this very day.
Customer Reviews:
First Beth Moore Book? It was mine..........2007-09-27
Before reading this book, I had never read anything by Beth Moore. Although talented and driven in her call, her style of writing is conversational and, at times, confrontational. As I was reading this book as a member of a club, I did not put it back on the shelf and suffered through becoming comfortable with a one-sided conversation. I am quite happy that I did.
If you have not read Beth Moore before, give her a chance. Let her "Talk at you", and respond with prayer - He is the one you are looking for a conversation with!
A Bit of a Disappointment.......2007-09-12
I was hoping this book would have some solid answers for me to get out of my own personal pit but all it did was describe many different types of pits without alot of specific sure fire help and ways to be free. I think it's great that so many of you found help with Beth's book, but if "I" had to do it over again, I wouldn't buy it.
What a blessing!.......2007-09-09
Whether you are currently in a pit of your own making or have been tossed in a pit via the wrongs of someone else or just difficult life circumstances, this book is such a wonderful tool to help keep your eyes on God through it all and to "get out of that pit". This is the third Beth Moore book I have read (the first was When Godly People do Ungodly Things and I am ongoingly reading Praying God's Word Day by Day)and she is such a blessing--accessible and solid.
Beth is at her best!.......2007-09-05
I read this book when I was in a pit, myself. Beth's bubbly personality came shining through in this book and made me laugh when I didn't especially feel like laughing. She has the ability to make you feel as if she's talking to you like a true girlfriend and you come away with the feeling that, "Yeah, she's been in a pit too and came out victorious." I highly recommend this book to anyone who needs a good pick-me-up and a catalyst to turning to God for guidance in those times in your life when things seem overwhelming.
Becky Hester (Eastman, Ga)
Former Pit Dweller.......2007-09-02
This book helped me to change my life for the better. If things don't seem "quite right" in your life, you need to read this book. It can help you too! I have heard that Beth Moore is a good writer and speaker, now I can agree.
Book Description
As entertaining as it is illuminating, THE LITERARY ENEAGRAM offers a fresh version of the standard "Great Books" course, using characters from literature to show the inner dynamics of the nine Enneagram styles and their variations. This books is:
For Students of Literature: THE LITERARY ENNEAGRAM demonstrates offers an exciting new key to Western literature through clarifying the basic psychological patterns of characters in classic and contemporary novels, stories, and plays.
For Psychologists: THE LITERARY ENNEAGRAM demostrates simply and eloquently that the true basis of human psychological differences lies in inner experiences rather than outer behavior. Judith Searle's work validates the Enneagram as a universal template for human psychology by showing how characters created by authors unfamiliar with the Enneagram conform to the character arc the system predicts.
For Writers: THE LITERARY ENNEAGRAM offers screenwriters, fiction writers and playwrights a powerful tool for character development, a template for creating character grids, and a basis for devising character-driven plot twists that seem both inevitable and surprising.
For Actors: THE LITERARY ENNEAGRAM offers guidelines for creating characters that live and breathe on stage and screen as well as on the page. Performers who understand their own Enneagram style can make the "type casting" that is so prevalent in the entertainment industry work for them.
And For Readers of Fiction: THE LITERARY ENNEAGRAM offers a richer understanding of literary characters and valuable insights into ways their psychology relates to the reader's own personality patterns and relationships with others.
Customer Reviews:
Great Literature and Enneagram made Easy!.......2001-09-05
I have two bones to pick with most Enneagram books, training programs and articles, and it’s the same trouble I have with most poetry and fiction. The first bone is that they try to rouse me from my complacency chair by describing a type instead of showing them. I don’t budge, for the most part, because I don’t often care what others are said to be, when I have no context in which to put them.
They want to explore what is felt without letting me get involved. For instance, all Enneagram books say that a Seven will make boring things less boring, and Sevens have a propensity for multi-tasking. All panels of Sevens say the same and that Sevens don’t finish what they start. Yawn, this Seven, who finishes every single thing I start, says. Not one describes a scene of a garage lit by one light at pre-dawn with me doing the rumba as I trod the treadmill listening to a Gypsy Kings CD as I practice flamenco hand movements. So when I read Bridget Jones’s Diary describing my Seven personality in The Literary Enneagram I discover that perhaps my own relentless pursuit of activity is indeed a way to allay my anxieties. And my fear of missing out on things keeps me from fully enjoying the fun as I have it.
Searle digs deepest to find the accurate Seven, getting me involved with perceptive and contextual introductions. The title of the book did intimidate me. I missed out on having great literature forced into my education, if you can call what I had an education. I have tried to make up for the gaps by trying to tackle Hardy, Shakespeare and D.H. Lawrence on my own so I won’t be such an .... I’m happy to report that after reading the first chapter, I understood Les Miserables without a hitch and even understood the inner critic of old Javert without referring to any Cliff Note.
The second bone I have with most fiction and poetry, Enneagram books is that there’s hardly any fun involved. No pizzazz, sensuality, hot fudge sundaes. Why do I have to know about all that pain? Some of it is okay, but hey! I just don’t buy into the approach that for full understanding to take place, I must suffer. So I’m happy that Searle includes fun and sexy examples of exploring the psyche.
As in “The Taming of the Shrew” where a Six, Kate is tamed by an Eight, Petruchio. Following the arrows of stress and comfort, Katharina was forced to let appearances (type three) be damned, be publically humiliated (a 6's worst fear) in order to merge (the nine position) with her husband and find peace for her troubled and belligerent station (six). Petruchio’s arc, i.e. transformation of character, is seen as his desires to get a rich wife (typical low-down eight behavior) uses an irritating know-it-all obnoxiousness (five stress point activated), but he gets his heart opened in the process, (the eight’s heart opens at the two) He actually falls in love with Katharina.
This may sound complicated, as I refer to Enneagram numbers the way an astrologer refers to asteroids and quincunxes. But reading the first chapter is to have the basics under one’s belt. There’s history reaching back to Pythagorus, description of the nine types, concepts of wings, the Hornevian Triads, Stress and Security Points, and much more.
The setting of literary examples is a concept someone had to develop, and I’m glad it was Judith Searle, because her compassion for people’s struggles is so wonderful. It could have easily been a book that showed characters’ hateful sides, which lends itself to richer adverbs and adjectives. Throughout the book, the reader is simply placed in a character’s world through their hearts and through their challenges.
Finding literary examples to describe one’s own type would be enough. But to proceed to the other types is to find gold. I had the enthralling discovery that Shakespeare is as accessible as Gary Larson’s “The Far Side.” But seriously, when we speak of Enneagram types in these dramatic ways, ways that reveal the inner dialogue, we speak of healing, cleaning up the past and loving those whom we once feared.
Authors who could have had no exposure to the Enneagram, “validate the system.” The intricacy of one personality type expressed in one great piece of literature would be coincidence, but Searle brings up dozens of books where the characters follow not only their own number’s path, but bring in the side number, expresses stress points and one of the three different subtypes. The Literary Enneagram is elegant in its delivery of humanity.
Searle does for the Enneagram what, dare I say, Dr. Frankenstein did for the monster. Not that animating dead body parts is my point - she just enlivens them. There is no end to studying Enneagram with this approach. To see the shadow monster in a character who has our Enneagram DNA is thorough and satisfying. To see Dr. Frankenstein’s bully (8) and know that his heart point is the Nurturer (2), then that scene where he nestles a kitten is not far-fetched.
We are allowed to enter the mystery of each point through the heart of the characters Searle selects. Freed from having to learn about the types by being told about them, we enter through their fears, self-esteem and anger. We’re talking lower chakras - the way we humans express ourselves in this lifetime on earth.
The set-ups are compassionate, as in democratic, “to suffer with” compassion. We enter through the heart of each literary stranger with empathy. We understand them, and in turn understand and love ourselves. As we develop Ennea-eyes, our awareness, perception and of the fragile and X-rayed character becomes closer. To read this book was to have my heart opened, broken and remain open still.
Book Description
This study will help you recognize and cooperate with God's transforming influence in your life. You'll learn proven ways of responding to God's guidance that will keep you growing closer to Him.. 6 SESSIONS
Book Description
Georgia Nicolson is now the girlfriend of the Sex God (aka Robbie), and things are wonderful. Except her loony parents are dragging her off to Och Aye land (aka Scotland), and the Sex God's band's chance at a record contract has left her something of a "pop widow."
Then up rears temptation in the form of old flame Dave the Laugh. Is Georgia about to become a shameless vixen?
Customer Reviews:
Knocked Out!!.......2007-04-05
"Knocked out by my Nunga-Nungas" is a histerical book about girls, guys, teenagers in gerneral, gossip, Georgia's, the main character's, family, and her cat, Angus. Georgia Nicholson is a normal teenage girl who has a "sex god", Robbie, as a boyfriend and she has a hard time being faithful to him even though she is totally obsessed with him. Georgia's red botomosity keeps her ending up locking lips with Dave the Laugh, her ex-boyfriend, who never fully got over Georgia. Also, her cat, Angus, fallsin love with the kitten Naomi from across the stree, and has to get his trouser snake removed, which Georgia doesn't agree with.
My favotirte part of this book is when Georgia goes to one of the Stiff Dylans conert anddances in front of Dom's dad because she thought he was a talent scout. This is also the first time Georgia gets mad at Robbie for blowing her off for wet Lindsey. Shortly after that, Georgia kisses Dave the Laugh. This is my favorite part because the author describes what happens, like Georgia's dancing so well that I feel lke I was there.
I deffinetely recommend this book, but mostly to girls because it's about girl sistuations and gossip. Also, if you have read other books in the Geogia Nicholson series I recommend reading this book "Knocked out by My Nunga-Nungas" has been my favorite book in the series yet! If you like girly, funny books, then this is the book for you. In conclusion, I really hope I persuaded you to read this great book full of hilariosity.
Tiresome.......2005-11-27
The first book was refreshing and funny, soured only by continous lesbian bashing. The second book was decidedly less so, and by this third installment, I am personally quite sick of listening to materialistic, shallow and self-centered Brit Georgia Nicholson whine about her parents, friends, and school. Even the subplot - Angus' courting of the neighbors' cat is so out of control Georgia's dad threatens to have him spayed - is not funny.
In Knocked Out, Georgia, having recently hooked up with an older Sex God, is abducted by her parents on a family vacation to Scotland, which she refers to as Och Aye land and insults with her usual brand of dramatic sarcasm. Upon her return, she cheats on her new boyfriend by snogging the guy she used as bait to make the first boyfriend jealous, and debates her decision to date a hot but unavailable older guy versus a funny available boy who obviously likes her IN SPITE of the fact she blatantly used him in the last book. When Dave the Laugh tells her she has to choose, she is in a quandary for all of a DAY before deciding she will find a way to have both. UGH. She is a thoroughly despicable character. Still, the Printz award stamp on book one and the fact that the prequels were popular will make this a likely choice for most libraries.
........2005-10-31
This is the third book in the series, and it is just as good as the others. :)
knocked out by my..........2005-08-11
Georgia is back!!!! In this fabulous installment of the GN series Georgia must decide if she can fight off he red botomosity and resist Dave the Laugh (see book in series before this for info on Dave). Also in the book Georgia has to go to Scotland (Och Aye land) and some odd things happen there. Wonderfully funny and is the kind of book to read to cheer yourself up!!
Just As Good!.......2005-07-04
Fourteen year old Georgia is with Robbie again, but as soon as they get back together her family wants to go on a trip to Scotland, and she must go too. Towards the end is a bit of a suprise, a conflict with Robbie is staying with him right or not?
Customer Reviews:
Somebody Understands!.......2007-03-05
This is a great book, and says what my wife and I have been feeling, and hearing from many, many people in the body of Christ. When I first started feeling this way I felt as though I was betraying God! Many people over the lasy few years have spoke to me about this vary issue! As I sought the Lord and listened to these people, I realized that they were genuine concerns. The saints who fely like I did were the people I knew (or came to know) to be what I call, "The real thing"! I mean REAL Christians, not just church attenders, or followers of men! These were people who sought hard after God! After some time, God showed me that it was not betraying Him to question the Religious Church, and has freed us to serve Him instead of the idols of men.
Book Description
Deposits and assets jumped from $5 million to $132 million in the first 3 years as Chuck Ripka, a Minnesota banker, started a faith-at-work movement in his hometown. What happens when we take God out of the box? In the marketplace, that answer is incomprehensible and the boundaries are limitless! When Chuck Ripka read the scripture that promised believers would do even greater things than Jesus, he signed on. And today it's happening. By simply doing faithfully what God tells him to do, he has experienced a stream of miracles that are transforming his hometown, Elk River, Minnesota and surrounding area. He has been interviewed in countries all around the world, and his story was on the cover of the New York Times Magazine in 2004. God Out of the Box persuades readers that miracles still happen and teaches them truths that will help them grow in faith and expect miracles in their own lives!
Customer Reviews:
Obedience Exemplified..........2007-09-06
We often put God in a box when we try to control our own situations or try to figure out what He is doing around and through us, forgetting His ways and thoughts are always higher than ours. Chuck Ripka in his book shows us through his God stories--true, heart-moving, personal testimonies--that the secret to "letting God out of the box" is our simple obedience; just doing what He tells us, nothing more nothing less. We experience so much more of Him, including miracles, when we let Him lead us. This book is awe-spiring and will prompt you to act out your faith. I highly recommend it!
Book Description
For everyone who has ever been in a pit-or is in one now-Beth Moore urges readers in her book
Get Out of That Pit not to believe for one second that God has forgotten them. It was a truth she could pass to them from her years of pit-dwelling. What she learned in being delivered from that muck and darkness-shared in that very personal book-are lessons for us all about the healing to be found in Jesus.
In this companion devotional journal, she continually points readers to the deliverance that awaits if they will lift their eyes, their voices, and their hands to the Power who can rescue them completely, as the psalmist did in Psalm 40. The scriptures, thought-provoking questions, prayers, and room for reflection within this lovely journal will assure fellow travelers that no matter how they got stuck, no matter how long they've been down, whether they think they deserve it or not, their Redeemer is waiting. And He has promised that they can begin this very day to
Get Out of That Pit once and for all.
Product Description
Buffy, the Vampire Slayer: Gatekeeper Omnibus of three novelizations (all 1999) in a trilogy based on the TV show based on the movie: Out of the Madhouse, Ghost Roads, and Sons of Entropy. This special SFBC edition has ISBN 0-7394-0582-9; it lacks a price and has the SFBC number on the back jacket. Copyrighted by Twentieth Century Fox.
Customer Reviews:
Still the best of the "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" novels.......2004-08-03
"Buffy the Vampire Slayer" is dead and gone and so is "Angel," so all we have left are comic books and novels continuing the adventures of Joss Whedon's characters. As we are about to finish our first decade of the "BtVS" universe in terms of novels "The Gatekeeper Trilogy" by Christopher Golden and Nancy Holder is still the standard by which such things are judged, especially if one is ambitious enough to attempt a "BtVS" and/or "Angel" trilogy.
"The Gatekeeper Trilogy" is an epic story that manages to get the Slayer and the Scoobies out of Sunnydale. Unbound by considerations of stage space and shooting budgets the first volume, "Out of the Madhouse" manages to get the Slayer and most of her cohorts to Boston. The plot has to do with the Sons of Entropy trying to unleash chaos on the world at the behest of Il Maestro, who works mainly behind the scenes in Book One. Suddenly all sorts of wicked things come to Sunnydale and it turns out that there have been released from the Gatehouse where the Gatekeeper is dying, leading up to an initial showdown in Boston. The other recurring concern throughout the book is more personal, dealing with what Buffy, Xander, Willow and the gang are going to do when they get finally graduate high school, so there is a concern for the entropy of the group along with the potential destruction of all human life on the planet. Implicit in their concerns is the unspoken knowledge that Buffy is fated to die young as a slayer and their realization that whatever hopes and aspirations they might have seem somewhat secondary to saving the world from big evil.
The middle volume, "The Ghost Roads," is the best in the trilogy. The Ghost Roads of the title are a network of inter-dimensional shortcuts that allow Buffy, Angel and Oz to travel quickly to Europe to search for the son of the dying Gatekeeper. What they do not know is that Spike and Drusilla have the boy and are looking to make a deal with the Sons of Entropy. Meanwhile, back in Sunnydale, the Flying Dutchman has appeared off shore causing problems for Giles and the rest of the Scooby Gang. Even worse, the Sons of Entropy have kidnapped Joyce Summers in an effort to force the Slayer to return so Buffy can be sacrificed by Il Maestro to the greater glory of his demon overlord and the end of the world as we know it. Golden and Holder are clearly working on that higher level in this book: Giles has to leave behind students to die during an escape, Angel tortures a wounded man to get vital information, and Joyce deals with the idea of sacrificing herself so that Buffy can save the world (Note: This is NOT a Buffy book for younger readers).
In the concluding volume, "Sons of Entrophy," the truly tragic figure that emerges from this trilogy is Jacques Regnier, the young boy who has to become the Gatekeeper following the death of his father. His fate is different from that of Buffy as the Slayer, but he is also a Chosen One and there is a certain pathos to his having to grow up too quickly. The creation of the Gatekeeper and the Gatehouse are one of the best ideas to come out of the "BtVS" books. Ironically, Buffy has less to do that most of the other characters in the final volume, but it was definitely great to see that Xander have a bright shinning moment as the substitute Gatekeeper. His character had been the comic relief for the Scooby Gang for so long that you forget he brought Buffy back from the dead at the end of season one. They also do a nice job of getting to what Cordelia is thinking behind her tactless remarks, but Oz is back to quipping a bit too much as he was in Book One and Willow is much more the successful little wicca she ended up being in the series. However, the character who really shines in this volume is Joyce Summers, dealing with being the mother of the Slayer as best she can.
Golden and Holder were perfectly suited to the task of constructing a literary epic for Buffy, not only because they are far and away the best writers working on the Buffy books but also because they have researched the characters and the attendant mythos of the series, having worked on all of the official companion guides for the series. They have come up with a plot line well suited to a three volume tale and you only have to read a couple of chapters to acknowledge this book is so far above the vast majority of the Buffy books. Furthermore, they get beyond the surface level with all of the characters, although admittedly they are guilty of putting too many quips into dialogue. They get the important stuff right. It has been several years since "The Gatekeeper Trilogy" first came out and you still will not find a better Buffy the Vampire Slayer story (Golden's "The Lost Slayer" serial novels come closest).
Book Description
Which powerful mystery man killed the gay activist for outing him?
After an attempt is made on his life, Queer Nation activist John Rutka asks tough-as-nails gay private detective Don Strachey to provide him with protection. Why does someone want to kill him? The activist's efforts at outing closeted gay homophobes have earned him a multitude of enraged enemies who would just as soon see him dead. After Strachey refuses to help, the man's body is found savagely murdered in apparent retribution for his deeds. Now, because of this, the reluctant Strachey feels obligated to investigate. Third Man Out brings back one of the most popular gay heroes in mystery fiction, Don Strachey, a private investigator as hard-boiled as they come, along with his lover, Tim Callahan, in a topical and very entertaining mystery dealing with the ethical issues of outing.
The Don Strachey mysteries starring Chad Allen are now being filmed for here!, the first gay television network. Third Man Out starring Chad Allen as Don Strachey aired in September 2005.
An excerpt from Third Man Out
I almost asked John Rutka if somebody had shot him in the foot—I knew plenty of people who'd have loved to but before I could, he gave me a look of astonishment and said, "I've been shot. One of them actually shot me."
"Somebody shot you in the foot?"
"One of them tried to kill him," Eddie Sandifer said, "but they only got him in the foot."
Sandifer looked stunned too, and uncharacteristically shaky; ordinarily it was these two who inspired anger and fright, and Sandifer seemed unsure of what to make of this turn of events.
"It must have been somebody I outed," Rutka said, and looked down, appalled, at the bandaged foot. "God, they're even sicker than I thought. I knew some of them were pathetic, but this is something only a psychopath would do."
We all peered down at the foot as if it might add something on its own behalf. I'd walked over to Albany Med from Crow Street to visit yet another dying friend when I ran into Rutka and Sandifer, and we were in the parking lot outside the E.R., standing in vapors rising from the tarmac after an early evening thunderstorm. Everybody looked purple under the arc lamps, spooky in the urban miasma. Ambulances coasted in and out through the mist, the Tuesday night torn and traumatized delivered as swiftly and silently as Fed-Exed envelopes. Somebody was probably working on a way to fax them in.
Rutka's wound was to his right foot, which he lifted from the pavement a few inches, his right arm over Sandifer's shoulder for support, while he described the incident. As I listened, I tried to concentrate on the narrative and not become distracted by Rutka's wandering left eye, which, in his excitement, was now all over the place.
So Don Strachey must sift through Rutka's much sought-after files to root out the one suspect with the most to lose. Third Man Out revisits one of the wittiest, most magnetic private detectives in mystery literature, on a difficult case involving his lover Tim Callahan, murder, scandal, and the ethical issues of one of the more controversial aspects of gay activism.
Customer Reviews:
One More Time.......2007-04-09
Stevenson, Richard. "Third Man Out". The Haworth Pres, 2006.
One More Time
Amos Lassen and Literary Pride
Our gay detective, Donald Strachey, is back ahead in another thrilling detective story by Richard Stevenson," Third Man Out". Again we are kept guessing through a plot full of twists and turns as Stevenson takes a "whodunit" and breathes new life into an old formula by providing social commentary with timely action and lots of wit.
"Third Man Out" takes a look at the radical group, "Queer Nation". An attempt is made on the life of John Rutka, a gay activist and Rutka asks Strachey to give him protection. He does not understand why anyone would want to kill him but it seems that his past actions have earned him a great many enemies. Rutka outed closeted gay homophobes who would like to see him dead. Strachey refused to be his protector and Rutka turned up dead, apparently the cause of murder was retribution for his outings. Strachey felt guilty after the man's death and felt obliged to investigate the death. And we are off on another chase through the gay community to find out who was responsible for Rutka's death.
Of the three Donald Strachey novels I have read thus far, I find "Third Man Out" to be the most powerful and suspenseful. The subtlety of the humor and of the language provides a wonderful read. It is a carefully plotted thriller that like the other Strachey novels keeps you guessing until the last page. The book goes way beyond the edges of the genre of mystery and confronts those issues important to today's gay community. The questions that Strachey deals with are ethical and real and only with the suspense of the novel is a lot of good humor. The book is a winner on all fronts and if you are really into reading a good mystery story here is one you do not want to miss.
The Strachey novels are being filmed for television and will be shown on and produced by Here TV? "Third Man Out" was the first to be filmed and it is spectacular. "Shock to the System" has also been made into a wonderful film.
A Gay Mystery worth reading!.......2000-02-02
I've often looked for a gay murder mystery who done it. Finally I found something worth reading. It's not a dumbed down novel at all. It's full of plots twists and turns with characters who you really get to know. It's nice to see characters interacting with one another who are gay even if they do go for blackmale and the shady side of life sometime...okay most of the time. Very few women mentioned in the book, and I give it four stars because I was able to figure out who did it close to the end of the book and because the ending left me a bit speechless and upset.
"OUT, DAMNED SPOT! OUT, I SAY!".......1997-10-09
In THIRD MAN OUT, the fourth Donald Strachey caper, Stevenson deals with the touchy issue of the forced 'outing' of gays (and their little dogs too) by other gays. Reluctantly, P.I. Strachey agrees to act as body guard to Queer Nation activist John Rutka, who has inspired mucho death threats following a conscienceless campaign of outings. Strachey gets disgusted, quits, and somebody burns Rutka to a crisp.
As usual Stevenson agilely juggles a variety of themes: hypocrisy within the Catholic church, euthanasia, the AIDS crisis, the right to privacy of public figures. These are topics addressed by many gay mystery writers with varying degrees of insight and sensitivity. Stevenson, as ever, manages to be funny and rational at the same time.
The only thing that keeps this entry in the Strachey sweepstakes from being an across the board winner, is my own personal predilection for more pages devoted to the Strachey-Callahan partnership. Don and Timmy remain (for me) the most fascinating couple in gay mysterydom (second only to the enigma of Dave Brandstetter and his long-dead Rod Fleming). They represent (as Strachey himself once facetiously put it) "two healthy, relaxed gay men more or less at peace with themselves and each other, secure in their loving relationship and in the knowledge that its evident riches were a goal nearly all gay men could aspire to and achieve." Anything resulting in unbroken paragraphs of Don and Timmy rates a 10 out of me.
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- Film Art: An Introduction and Film Viewers Guide
- Film Noir: An Encyclopedic Reference to the American Style, Third Edition
- Film Posters of the Russian Avant-Garde (Jumbo)
- Filmmakers and Financing, Fifth Edition: Business Plans for Independents
- Filmmakers and Financing, Fifth Edition: Business Plans for Independents
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- From So Simple a Beginning: Darwin's Four Great Books (Voyage of the Beagle, The Origin of Species, The Descent of Man, The Expression of Emotions in Man and Animals)
Books Index
Books Home
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Study
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Facing Your Giants Study Guide
For These Tough Times: Reaching Toward Heaven for Hope and Healing
Cure for the Common Life: Living in Your Sweet Spot
Traveling Light Releasing The Burdens You Were Never Intended To Bear
Get Out of That Pit: Straight Talk about God's Deliverance
