2. Long review:
2.1. What I liked: Anne Hathaway's stunning performance of "I Dreamed a Dream." Others have sung it better, but no one has performed it better.
2.4.
Is the movie appropriate for children to see? Yes. There is death, filth, cruelty, violence, and suicide but no on-screen sex.
2.5. On the basis of viewing this movie, will I pay to see the sequel? I cannot imagine a sequel to Les Miserables.
2.6. Rating and the plot in a nutshell:
2.6.1. How I rate movies: -- I want my money back. -- Worth a rental, not more. -- Worth first-run theater price once. -- I will pay first-run theater price to see it again. <-- Les Miserables
Running time: 158 minutes.
2.6.2. The plot in a nutshell:
The earliest we could get tickets was the day after Christmas. The theater sold us advance tickets for a matinee show on the 26th. As it happened, I caught the 1998 version starring Liam Neeson on cable Christmas night. There are major differences between that version and this, but I knew the plot going into the theater. Thus, it was easy for me to follow the action, and I could enjoy the music. Les Miserables is an opera. It is billed as a musical because Americans consider opera high-brow entertainment and avoid it, but they will pay to see a musical.
I gave a link to the plot of the novel above (and here again) and here is the plot of the new movie. I have nothing to add.
2.7. Other:
Anne Hathaway's portrayal of Fantine is outstanding. Others have sung "I Dreamed a Dream" better -- including Susan Boyle on Britain's Got Talent -- but no one has performed it better. If this performance does not win Anne Hathaway an Oscar, TANJ.
Universal gives a taste of the audio in this trailer:
As strong as the audio is, with the video it is stronger.
A couple of notes: Anne Hathaway campaigned for the role of Fantine. Skinny to start with, she lost 25 pounds to better project herself into the role of Fantine.
The sequence in which she sings "I Dreamed a Dream" was shot in one take.
Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars (6 customer reviews)
Price: $0.00 (FREE)
1. Short review: (Amazon rating: 1 out of 5 stars -- I hate it. If I could give it 0 stars, I would.)
2. Long review:
2.1. What I liked: Nothing.
Roller-coaster or walk-in-the-park? Should be a walk in the park but it is a mugging in an alley.
2.2. What I did not like: The lack of illustrations. The original had illustrations. In place of each is now a barren statement of [Figure].
The terrible formatting. The formatting was so bad that it made the book unreadable.
2.3. Who I think is the audience: For the original, the audience is esoteric historians and homeschoolers. For this version, only masochists need download it.
2.4. Is the book appropriate for children to read? No. A thousand times "NO!"
2.5. On the basis of reading this book, will I buy the author's next book? No.
2.6. The plot in a nutshell:
There is no plot. McGuffey's Eclectic Spelling Book was used as a grammar school textbook in the 19th century in the US.
2.9. Buy the book: I shall not give you a link to McGuffey's Eclectic Spelling Book on Amazon. You deserve better. Use the Gutenberg Project links above.
Still recovering from the disasters of September.
I installed Ubuntu 9.10 from a CD. As part of the installation, it partitioned my harddrive, left Windows XP in the lower partition, and installed Ubuntu Linux (UbLinux) in the upper partition.
I immediately upgraded to Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx. I chose not to upgrade to Ubuntu 12.04 Precise Pangolin. (What is a pangolin, anyway? Some kind of anteater? Who is the short-bus genius who came up with that name?)
Why did I not choose 12.04?
Because I had chosen it before and did not like it. Let me tell you why.
The most important thing about any computer program is not what it does. The most important thing about any computer program is the user interface. That is, can you navigate to and use what it does?*
Here is a screenshot of 10.04:
It has a task bar at the top. From left to right, the first three
positions are drop-down menus. The Sound & Video menu is open.
Next comes a group of shortcuts to fire off applications like Firefox. You can unlock any of these from the Task Bar and move it to another place on the bar.
On the far right is the date-time display and the off switch.
In the bottom bar, displays tell you what is running. At the far right is Trash.
Simple. Elegant. Intuitive.
Here is a screenshot for 12.04:
Note the absence of drop-down menus. Instead 12.04 gives me a side-bar filled with icons. I recognize the Firefox icon but no others. The top task bar is bare of shortcuts. The only things on it that I recognize are the date-time display and the off button.
12.04 seems to be driven by a tie-in to Ubuntu One, some kind of Linux Cloud. I have heard about Cloud computing. As I understand it, the Cloud lets me store my files off my computer on someone else's drive space. Where the sheriff does not need a warrant to access them.
No thanks. But leaving Ubuntu One to one side -- and I shall -- everything I want to use, everything I want to navigate to is now hidden. 12.04 forces me to play Hide-and-Seek with all the applications, files, and games I want to access. Not gonna do it.
I come from Texas. We have a saying: If it ain't broke, don't fix it. 10.04 was not broke. 12.04 does not fix it.
Okay, geeks -- yeah, you guys who designed 12.04. IMO Ubuntu 12.04 is a monstrous
FAIL.
Go back to the basement. Throw out the 12.04 screen design. Return to the 10.04 screen design. And next time you short-bus geniuses decide to change the Ubuntu interface, ask me for permission first.
__________
* Who am I to make such statements? Well, I am a writer now, but I used to be a computer systems analyst specializing in the man-machine interface. That is, I have some experience with interface design and layout. There may be something to 12.04 that I don't get, but if I have to use that verfluchte interface to get to it, it is effectively not there.
I keep thinking of this, wondering what I missed. I conclude that if I missed anything, it is not my fault. It is the designer's fault for cobbling together an interface that diverged so radically from Ubuntu's historical interface as to render all users' previous experience with the Ubuntu interface obsolete and thus make the interface unusable. I stand by my statement. 12.04 is a FAIL. Shoot the designers pour encourager les autres.
This is the tale of my experience with Shareaza. September was not a good month for computers in my home. My Compaq Presario C500 died. The soup I spilled across the touchpad likely had something to do with that. The replacement SONY VAIO lasted 5 days before its internet connection failed, just enough time for me to order a replacement through eBay. I bought a refurbed hp 6730 from heyheyca, and I recommend him: 5 stars in all four categories. The 6730 arrived Tuesday morning, and I spent the afternoon connecting to the internet. heyheyca gave me a choice of operating system -- Microsoft's Windows XP or Vista -- and I chose XP. I once had Vista. Can't say enough bad things about it. For the first time in more than a year, I am running a Windows operating system. When I run Windows, I feel anxious. (I plan to install Ubuntu Linux (UbLinux) tomorrow.) Shareaza is an example of why I feel anxious when I run Windows. I spent most of yesterday clearing out my inboxes, but I had one other task that caused me to delay the installation of UbLinux. My wife commanded me to burn a music CD for a neighbor boy. (Guys, when your wife asks you to do something, that's a command.) Just one track. The problem was that I did not have the track. So, to purchase a download, I googled it. The first item to come up in my Google search was Shareaza. 'Free!' it said. 'Legal!' it said. I was skeptical of those claims, but I decided to try it. The only way I could try it was to install it. So I did. Big mistake. Huge. I installed Shareaza and searched its listings for the track I wanted. Shareaza had many videos of performances of the song. It seemed to have many audio tracks, too, but I sampled them all and found them all to be the same hip-hop remix. Disappointed, I googled again, linked to another site, and soon had the track I wanted. I burned the CD for the kiddie, tested it, and went back to clearing out my inboxes. I work with both Firefox and Chrome browsers running and switch between the two. The first time I switched to Chrome after I installed Shareaza, I noticed a new tab open: Shareaza. I did not open it. Shareaza did. I closed the tab and switched back to Firefox. There I noticed that Shareaza had changed my default search engine from Google to Shareaza. I had other things to do, so I went back to clearing out my inboxes. There I was, minding my own business, when a little window popped up in the lower right-hand corner to tell me that vander1221 was visiting my hard-drive via Shareaza. "Hmmm," sez I. For a few minutes I tried to see what business vander1221 had with my hard-drive. Nothing bad seemed to happen, so I gave it up and returned to clearing my inboxes. Later, the same window popped up with another name in it. Someone else was visiting my hard-drive via Shareaza. "Hmmm," sez I again. I did some research. Turns out Shareaza is a peer-to-peer network. When you join, you invite others to share your files. How that makes for legal downloads I don't know, and I earned a law degree. Matters got worse. I switched back to Chrome and found -- wonder of wonders -- that the Shareaza tab had returned. Persistent little devil. I closed both browsers and restarted them. Chrome came up with an extra tab: Shareaza. Evidently the little devil had written itself into my 'Tabs at Start' list. Firefox came up without my regular tabs. Instead, there was only one: Shareaza. This devil was out of control. I made a decision: Shareaza delenda est. I looked for an uninstall.exe in the Shareaza folders without success. I turned to Google for 'uninstall Shareaza'. The first site listed was singularly unhelpful. The second site was a forum whereon a frustrated user wrote about his failures trying to uninstall Shareaza via the Control Panel. I gleaned enough from this to have a go at killing Shareaza on my computer. Here it comes:
How I uninstalled Shareaza. (How to uninstall Shareaza.)
1. I closed all applications, and I mean all. 2. I clicked the START button (aka the WINDOWS key). 3. From the START menu, I selected 'Control Panel'. 4. In the Control Panel window, I double-clicked the 'Add or Remove Programs' icon. . . . and I waited while 'the list was populated.' 5. I selected Shareaza and clicked the 'Remove' button in the lower right-hand corner of the 'Add or Remove Programs' window. 6. A warning popped up to tell me that Shareaza could not be removed because it was running or 'resident in memory'. (Note those last three words.) 7. I got a drink and mulled over the situation. This was the same problem the kid on the forum had. I decided. 8. I hit the START button. 9. I selected 'My Computer' and opened it. 10. I searched my C drive until I found the Shareaza folder. 11. I clicked on the Shareaza folder and hit the DELETE key. 12. When my operating system asked if I really wanted to delete the Shareaza folder and all its contents, I clicked 'YES'. 13. The operating system returned a warning that access was denied. This surprised me, because I was in administrator mode. I had access to everything. 14. I got a stiffer drink and mulled over the situation anew. I decided. 15. I hit ctrl-alt-delete keys. This brought up the Windows Task Manager. 16. In the Windows Task Manager, I clicked the 'Processes' tab. 17. I scrolled down until I found the Shareaza process. 18. I highlighted the Shareaza process. 19. I clicked the 'End Process' button in the lower right-hand corner of the Windows Task Manager window. 20. I clicked the START button. 21. From the START menu, I selected 'Control Panel'. 22. In the Control Panel window, I double-clicked the 'Add or Remove Programs' icon. . . . and I waited while 'the list was populated.' 23. I selected Shareaza and clicked the 'Remove' button in the lower right-hand corner. Success.Shareaza deleta est.
I hope you learned something from my pain. My father had a saying: Experience is not just the best teacher. It is the only teacher.My corollary: It does not have to be your experience.
I recommend against Shareaza. I found it to be a greedy devil that gave me nothing worthwhile, gave away files I paid for, threatened to give away work that I created (and thereby debase my copyright), and led a mutiny against me for control of my computer. If you read my tale and decide to install it anyway, good luck with that. At least you know how I killed Shareaza.
Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars (9 customer reviews)
Price: $2.99
1. Short review: (Amazon rating: 4 out of 5 stars -- I like it.)
2. Long review:
2.1. What I liked: The pictures. The first-hand account.
Roller-coaster or walk-in-the-park? Should be a roller coaster but it reads more like a walk in the park.
2.2. What I did not like: Lack of detail for September and October 1918.
2.3. Who I think is the audience: Air combat buffs. History buffs.
2.4. Is the book appropriate for children to read? Yes. No worries.
2.5. On the basis of reading this book, will I buy the author's next book? Yes.
2.6. The plot in a nutshell:
There is no plot. Fighting the Flying Circus is an edited memoir. It was pieced together from Rickenbacker's (EVR) war diary and his letters.
EVR's story mirrors the story of the United States Air Service in WW1. He wrote of flying Nieuport 28s on patrol without guns; then with one gun to a plane because they had not enough to equip every plane with two; of many pilots shredding their top planes in dives.
EVR spent June, July, and August in the hospital recovering from an ear operation. He returned in September to find that his group had not downed many Boche during his absence and that the Nieuports had been replaced with Spad XIIIs.
EVR wrote of Frank Luke's comet-like fighting career. He ended with Luke's disappearance. When Fighting the Flying Circus was first printed in 1919, the USAS had not received the story of Luke's last fight nor the location of his grave. Fighting the Flying Circus contains details about guns jamming and using incendiary ammunition to ignite German balloons.
I was pleased with the photos in Fighting the Flying Circus. These included photos of EVR, his squadron mates, observation balloons, and the Hannover CLII that EVR brought down.
About a quarter way through the book, I said to myself, "I think this was ghostwritten." It was. The ghostwriter of Fighting the Flying Circus was Laurence La Tourette Driggs. The Aerodrome has a short piece about him. Search for the write-up by Ira Silverman.
In the appendices at the end of the book, there is a table of Rickenbacker's confirmed kills. The list in Wikipedia echoes this list. I found it better than EVR's list at the Aerodrome. Together, the two lists seem comprehensive.
YMMV.
2.7. Other:
This is a later edition. It includes appendices that detail EVR's accomplishments after the war, such as the fact that he was presented the CMoH by President Herbert Hoover in 1931.
My wife has discovered YouTube.
I am sure you think, "Yeah, welcome to the party. You're late." That's true, but it fails to take into account that my wife is a Luddite. That she visits YouTube is akin to finding Amish on Facebook.
She nagged me about the amount of time I spent on my computer. To distract her, last Christmas I bought her an iPad. About a week before Christmas, I brought it home all gift wrapped and presented it to her.
"What's this?" she asked.
"Your Christmas gift. Merry Christmas," I said.
"Oh, goody!" she squealed and tore into it. She's never been one for that open-your-gifts-on-Christmas-morning tradition.
Once she got her iPad unwrapped, she turned it over and inspected it from all angles. She looked at me and asked, "What is it?"
"It's an iPad."
"Oh." She had heard of iPad. Who hasn't? "What's it do?"
"Whatever you want."
"How does it work?"
"I dunno. It's your machine, not mine. If you need help, read the manual."
At the mention of 'the manual', she gave me that don't-be-stupid look. Husbands out there know what I mean. So I added, "Or you could go to the Apple store and ask one of their geniuses."
So she did.
To all appearances, the genius she talked to was the one who went to school in the short bus. When she came home, all she could do with her iPad was take photos and videos. But that was more than enough.
From Christmas to Saint Valentine's Day, her all-consuming hobby became using the iPad to make videos.
She never learned to record programs on TV (told ya she's a Luddite), so at first she tried to use her iPad to record the Doctor Oz Show while she was away at work. God be thanked, this failed.
Next she became a reality TV cinematographer and drafted me to the role of her subject. Everywhere I went, she followed with her iPad. Me at my computer. Me walking to the store. Me shaving. Me on the toilet. Everything I did, she videoed. She found these videos hilarious. Since she still had not cracked the code on how to use email or Facebook, she shared these videos with others by running around the neighborhood forcing friends to watch. Soon the neighbors grew wise, and she ran out of audience.
(On the bright side, she lost interest in that demon spawn of Oprah Winfrey, Oz. God be thanked again, Oz dropped out of my life.)
About this time, I considered buying an iPad to use for writing when away from my computer. I knew the keyboard on the iPad's screen would not suit me, so I got an iKeyboard. When it came, my wife videoed me opening the package. Curious little minx that she is, she asked what it was. Rather than tell her, I wrested her raison d'etre from her fists and attached the iKeyboard. I called up the notepad and demonstrated how it worked with the on-screen keyboard.
That was the last time I used the iKeyboard.
The iKeyboard became hers. Definitively hers. I did not have an iPad; she did. Ergo, I had no use for the iKeyboard; she did. Ergo, res ipsa loquitur, the iKeyboard belonged to her.
The iKeyboard phase lasted a long time. For months she wrote notes on her iPad. I don't mean she wrote a book or even a short story. No, she wrote notes. Shopping lists. To-do lists. Honey-do lists. Other lists that are to this day incomprehensible to me.
In late June, we ate at Carne do Brasil, the churrascaria owned by my friend, Ibo. I saw Michel Telo on a DVD there and downloaded his performances on YouTube when we got home.
My wife wanted in on this. I told her she needed to connect to the internet to get these videos on her iPad.
Her: "How do I do that?"
Me: "I don't know. It's your machine. Go ask the geniuses at the Apple store."
I inferred from the look on her face that her last dealing with the Apple geniuses had left her with less than a stellar appreciation of their abilities. Instead, she called my internet provider. Over the phone, my ISP talked her through the set-up and internet connection for her iPad. (Seems we have WiFi in home along with the coax cable that runs to my computer.)
I came home to find her gleefully playing Ai se eu te pego. The next day she downloaded other YouTube videos. She learned to stream American Idol and Britain's Got Talent and other singing videos. She drove me nuts playing one blues singer over and over and over again.
Then she found the dog videos on YouTube.
I'm not talking cute puppy videos. No. I'm talking dog-humps-cat videos. Interspecies sexual encounters. (No, I am not going to link you.) She finds these hilarious. ROTFLHAO hilarious.
I have told her that this is not a big deal. Dogs will hump anything. When I was a kid, we had a neighbor lady who kept a piss-ant furry lapdog. For the better part of a summer, he mistook my left leg for his long lost love. No matter, my wife still watches Dachshunds abusing Persians.
So for the nonce, my wife amuses herself with perverted YouTube doggie porn. Well, on the bright side, it ain't Oz.
Addendum: Gangnam Style
Perverted doggie porn is so yesterday.
My wife found the video Gangnam Style. ROTFL. No, really. She laughed so hard she could not stand up. Then she watched parodies of Gangnam Style. Then videos of people watching the video of Gangnam Style.
As I lay in bed clicking through the channels, she played Gangnam Style and insisted that I get up and dance to it. Much to my regret, I did. Her response? ROTFL.
How do I feel about Gangnam Style? Could be worse. Could be Oz.
Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars (158 customer reviews)
Price: $0.99
1. Short review: (Amazon rating: 3 out of 5 stars -- It's okay.)
2. Long review:
2.1. What I liked: Quotable remarks.
Roller-coaster or walk-in-the-park? Neither. It is a polemic.
2.2. What I did not like: Bastiat, like Marx, throws around theory without empirical basis. I prefer Bastiat to Marx, but I want historical references to back up the claims.
2.3. Who I think is the audience: Libertarians.
2.4. Is the book appropriate for children to read? Yes. No worries.
2.5. On the basis of reading this book, will I buy the author's next book? Yes.
2.6. The plot in a nutshell:
There is no plot. The Law is a polemic.
The gist of Bastiat's argument is 1) gov't's proper scope is limited and 2) the purpose of the law is justice; more precisely, the purpose of the law is the prevention of injustice.
Bastiat gives these as bald assertions. No matter how much you agree with them, they remain nothing more than hypotheses unsupported by empirical evidence.
For instance, Bastiat asserts that providing schools and education is not within the purview of gov't. I disagree. States have an interest in the education of children in order to produce loyal citizens. Texas discovered this the hard way during the Korean War: a disproportionate number of soldiers from Texas defected to the Chinese. In response, the Texas legislature mandated that all schools that receive state money -- and in Texas, that includes private schools -- must teach the history at every grade level. This teaching continues through the first four semesters of college. The Texas legislature has been pleased with the results.
As for the law producing justice, in my experience, even a good law can be perverted to bad ends. The solution is to select good men to govern; that is, to enact and to execute the law. The problems are 1) how do we select good men and 2) who defines 'good'.
In the end, Bastiat got me to think about my principles, but he gave me no new thoughts.
YMMV.
2.7. Other: The Law is a long pamphlet. It was published in 1850, the year Bastiat died.
The PDF download from the Foundation for Economic Education is free.
Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars (2 customer reviews)
Price: $0.00
1. Short review: (Amazon rating: 5 out of 5 stars -- I love it.)
2. Long review:
2.1. What I liked: The writing. Piper wrote well.
Roller-coaster or walk-in-the-park? An entertaining walk in the park.
2.2. What I did not like: Does not apply.
2.3. Who I think is the audience: Science-fiction fans. H Beam Piper fans.
2.4. Is the book appropriate for children to read? Yes. No worries.
2.5. On the basis of reading this book, will I buy the author's next book? Yes.
2.6. The plot in a nutshell:
There is no plot. There is an introduction, police reports and other letters describing a peculiar incident at a Prussian inn, and some correspondence between His Britannic Majesty's government officials and His Prussian Majesty's government officials.
The story is told of Benjamin Bathurst, a British diplomat posted to the court of Austria in 1808, who disappeared in the courtyard of a Prussian inn. Piper suggests that he slipped into an alternate universe and that his appearance with his dispatches in this alternate universe -- with its alternate history -- caused much consternation among the Prussian bureaucracy. The puzzle and their attempts to solve it are given in official reports and other letters. Later, when Bathurst is shot and killed trying to escape custody, the bureaucrats both Prussian and British happily agree to let the matter drop.
2.7. Other:
First published in 1948 in Astounding Science Fiction, the predecessor to Analog.
This is one of my favorite science fiction stories. I read it in print years ago. I read the Gutenberg version before I discovered it is also available from Amazon.
The Gutenberg version has one error: Location 230 -- gaol vice goal; the Amazon version contains the same error at Location 196.
The Gutenberg version has illustrations. The Amazon version does not.
2.7. Other:
This story was first serialized in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction in 1958. Scribner's & Sons released the hardback that same year.
This was the last Heinlein juvenile -- what we call YA today. Have Spacesuit Will Travel is included in the collection linked to. It is a bargain: six Heinlein novels for $6.
Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars (9 customer reviews)
Price: $0.00
1. Short review: (Amazon rating: 4 out of 5 stars -- I like it.)
2. Long review:
2.1. What I liked: The writing. Piper wrote well.
Roller-coaster or walk-in-the-park? A thoughtful roller coaster.
Free and worth the download.
2.2. What I did not like:
The formatting. There are no breaks between chapters; that is, chapters do not start on new pages. Chapter headings are sandwiched in with the text, thus:
with monotonous regularity. I've jeeped through a couple, myself, to interrogate the surviving ex-defenders. It's all in having the guns and armor to smash through with." CHAPTER 3
Humphrey Goode was sixty-ish, short and chunky, with a fringe of white hair around a bald crown. His brow was corrugated with wrinkles, and he peered suspiciously at Rand through a pair of thick-lensed glasses
The promotion for General Semantics stuffed in the middle. It broke the flow of the story and added nothing.
The confusion of characters. Piper gave Rand at least a dozen suspects and added a supporting cast. I lost track of who-was-who and who-knew-what and where-he-was-when. I just read through to find out whodunit.
2.3. Who I think is the audience: Hard-core mystery fans. H Beam Piper fans.
2.4. Is the book appropriate for children to read? Yes. The manner in which the murders were committed -- gunshot and bayonet -- are graphically described but no more so than you see on CSI, and the description is as clinically detached as one in CSI.
2.5. On the basis of reading this book, will I buy the author's next book? Yes, but this was Piper's only mystery; that is, there are no more.
2.6. The plot in a nutshell <<SPOILERS>>:
Detective Jefferson Davis Rand is retained by Gladys Fleming, the trophy wife of the late Lane Fleming, to inventory and liquidate her dead husband's extensive gun collection. He asks for and she agrees to a fee of $5,000, more than the median annual income at the time. After Fleming leaves his office, Rand confers first with his secretary and assistant and then his lawyer. These conversations exist just to let Rand bring up the known facts about Fleming's death and to show that Rand infers that Gladys Fleming paid him an exorbitant sum ostensibly to dispose of her late husband's gun collection but clandestinely to investigate his murder and catch the killer.
Allegedly Fleming mishandled an antique pistol and shot himself. Rand, an expert in antique firearms, quickly points out the inconsistencies in the official story.
To cover himself, Rand talks with 1) Humphrey Goode, Fleming's executor and neighbor, to get his authorization to do what Fleming's widow has hired him to do. After a lengthy discussion which gives more details, Goode authorizes Rand to inventory and sell the collection.
Rand stops to talk with 2) Stephen Gresham, another gun collector and the lawyer and negotiator for National Milling & Packaging, a corporation that is trying to take over Fleming's company, Premix. More details.
Rand moves to Rosemont, the Fleming estate, to inventory Fleming's collection. Along the way, he stops at the shop of 3) Arnold Rivers, an antique arms merchant who offered Gladys Fleming $10,000 for the entire collection. From Rivers's assistant -- Rivers is at lunch -- Rand buys a pistol like the one Fleming had in his hand when he died. Rivers comes in and tries to get the pistol back from Rand, but Rand keeps his purchase. When Rivers finds out that Rand is authorized to liquidate Fleming's gun collection, he raises his offer to $25,000. Rand refuses.
At Rosemont, Rand meets 4) Walters, Fleming's butler (Q: How are butlers in detective mysteries like Brazilian soccer stars? A: They have only one name.); 5) Geraldine Varcek, Fleming's dipsomanic daughter; and 6) Nelda Dunmore, Fleming's nymphomanic daughter. While perusing the collection in the gunroom, Rand meets 7) Carl Gwinnett, an antique arms dealer. Before dinner, Rand meets 8) Fred Dunmore, Nelda's husband and a Premix company VP. At breakfast, Rand meets 9) Anton Varcek, Geraldine's husband and another Premix VP.
Numbers 1 - 9 above all have reason(s) for wanting Fleming dead. Well, maybe the girls don't. Walters is a suspect, because the butler is always a suspect.
Rand goes sleuthing. Rivers gets ventilated by bayonet. Rand receives an incredible amount of cooperation from the police. Rand and the police bust Walters for stealing guns from the collection and selling them. Rand puts an assistant of his, Ritter, in Rosemont as the temporary replacement butler. Ritter's real purpose is to guard Rand's back. Rand sets a trap, and Rand and Ritter gun down Fred Dunmore when he tries to shoot Rand.
Long, long wrap-up in which all is explained.
2.7. Other:
This is a short novel (176 pages). Well, short by my standards.
Piper was a gun enthusiast. This book is thick with details about collectible firearms. Most of it went over my head, but Piper made the pertinent details stand out.
Piper wrote his protag, Rand, as a disciple of Korzybski's General Semantics. (I thought I had a copy of Korzybski seminal work Science and Sanity on my Kindle, but a quick check through Calibre did not discover one. Silly me. A quick check of Amazon shows it is available only in DTB.) In the middle of the book, Rand launches into a paean to General Semantics. This paean did not serve the story and did not advance the plot.
Jefferson Davis Rand. Ayn Rand. Get it?
-- I want my money back. 
-- Worth a rental, not more. 
-- Worth first-run theater price once. 
