Split Images

Book Description

Quintessential Elmore Leonard, Split Images stars Palm Beach playboy Robbie Daniels. He's the kind of guy who gets away with everything -- even murder -- until a vacationing Motown cop, Bryan Hurd, starts asking questions. When this millionaire reptile reveals the psychopath beneath his slippery skin, Hurd finds out this is one helluva way for an out-of-town lawman to spend his vacation.

Download Description

E-book extras: "Martin Amis Interviews 'The Dickens of Detroit'"; Elmore Leonard's "If It Sounds Like Writing, Rewrite It"; "All By Elmore: The Crime Novels

Customer Reviews:

Fun and Games with Elmore Leonard.......2007-06-13

Split Images was fun to read! Elmore Leonard's books are fast, chocked full of interesting characters and punchy dialogue. A Detroit policeman, Bryan Hurd, must prove that a local millionaire, Robbie Daniels, is a serial killer. The book moves from Detroit to Palm Beach, FL, following the charming Robbie as he plans his ultimate thrill kill. The characters are alive and the plot has a few excellent twists. Pick this book up and have a good read.

Fun Quick Read.......2007-05-18

Reading Split Images was a good way to pass the day at my otherwise boring job. It reminded me of watching an old TV mystery of the week. Nice love story, interesting bad guys, and a bit of suspense here and there.

Tragic Police Procedures.......2007-01-17

Detective Bryan Hurd finally finds his true love in Elmore Leonard's SPLIT IMAGES. He's a hard-working homicide detective on a vacation from all the various ways people can kill each other in Detroit City. And, believe or not, he falls in love at first sight with the beautiful and talented writer, Angela Nolan. Problem is, the detective can't escape his Detroit roots even while he's in Florida.

We can almost see a tragedy coming his way as he hunts down the two Detroit killers, one a dashing movie star type, the other a jaded, disillusioned cop from the Polish neighborhood of Hamtramck, smack dab in the middle of rust-belt Detroit. These boys play rough and murder has become their game.

These characters are all strongly back-storied, so we feel we know them well. And when the murders occur, we wouldn't blame Detective Hurd at all for taking his full revenge.

by Larry Rochelle, author of the Kansas City thrillers: BLUE ICE, CRACKED CRYSTALS and DEATH AND DEVOTION.

Excitement At The End.......2006-11-25

Robbie Daniels, a wealthy businessman who has homes in Detroit and Palm Beach. He has an impressive gun collection that he enjoys using to eliminate bad guys. Walter Kouza is an experienced,quick acting detective from Detroit who has moved to Florida. Daniels hires him an a body guard and driver. He also has other services in mind. Bryan Hurd, is another key character. A fair,honest detective from Detroit. Angela Nolan is an attractive free lance journalist who is interviewing Mr. Daniels for an article about the rich and famous. Along the way she is attracted to and quickly falls for Hurd. Unfortunately, she is in the wrong place at the wrong time and is murdered. Hurd, as one might imagine, is the hero who solves the case. I found this book a reasonably good read along the way that picked up intensity at the end.

good ending.......2006-08-14

a very good detective novel. This one, like many of his novels, has great dialogue. I liked the get even, feel good, ending. This book is worth the time and effort to read.

Elmore Leonard: La Brava; Cat Chaser; Split Images

Average customer rating:

Hard-hitting, sneaky success

Elmore Leonard: La Brava; Cat Chaser; Split Images
Elmore Leonard
Manufacturer: Wings
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Hard-Boiled | Mystery | Mystery & Thrillers | Subjects | Books

Elmore Leonard's Dutch Treat: Three Novels, the Hunted, Swag, Mr. Majestyk
Killshot
Forty Lashes Less One
The Complete Western Stories Of Elmore Leonard
52 Pickup

ASIN: 0517064928
Release Date: 1992-06-13

Book Description

Three Complete Novels
From "the best American writer of crime fiction alive" (Newsweek), three thrilling, bestselling mysteries in one hardcover volume. La Brava, Cat Chaser, and Split Images received rave reviews and make it clear why this New York Times bestselling author has been hailed coast to coast as the hottest thriller writer of our time.

Customer Reviews:

Hard-hitting, sneaky success.......1997-06-25

I'd only read Get Shorty before this compendium,
and I wanted to further explore Leonard's work (I
saw the movie before I read Get Shorty, so I felt
I'd tainted the experience). This collection turned out to
be just what I needed.

Leonard's characters sneak up on you from the edge of the
page. It's quite a feeling to realize that your
preconceptions about character development are
being ground under Leonard's bootheel. I guess my
next step is buying three more Leonard tales and
supergluing them together to regain that
back-to-back, slug-in-the-gut feeling. Thanks,
Elmore, from a fellow Michigander

Split Image: The Life of Anthony Perkins
Average customer rating:

This is NOT the latest edition of this book!

Great book!

Here we go again

Too Much Special Pleading, Too Much Graphic Detail

Tough love

Split Image: The Life of Anthony Perkins
Charles Winecoff
Manufacturer: Dutton Adult
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0525940642

Amazon.com

Though Anthony Perkins played roles as diverse as a lawman of the old West in The Tin Star and Eugene Grant in the play Look Homeward Angel, he is best remembered for his performance as the maniacal son of a monstrous mother in Psycho. In Split Image, Charles Winecoff explains how Psycho pigeon-holed Perkins into similar roles and stagnated his professional life. His private life was equally vexatious--his father died when he was 5 and his mother controlled his finances until she died. He was married for 19 years but remained an active homosexual, engaging in a lifestyle that ultimately led to his death from AIDS in 1992.

Book Description

He was being groomed to replace the late James Dean. Then, in 1960, his portrayal of the murderous Norman Bates in Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho destroyed Anthony Perkins' burgeoning career as a romantic leading man. His performance became a landmark in motion picture history—creating an image that eerily paralleled an offscreen life equally as secretive, conflicted, and fractured.

The son of a legendary stage actor, Perkins showed great promise as a Broadway star. But his constant struggle with his homosexuality resulted in a desperate search for acceptance that led from New York to Hollywood to Europe. His later attempts to create a new image for himself as a conventional family man were tragically cut short by his death from AIDS in 1992. Including interviews with more than 300 of Perkins' friends, co-stars, relatives, and lovers, filled with revealing anecdotes about Orson Welles, Audrey Hepburn, Rock Hudson, and many others, this intimate biography separates fact from fiction as it explores the complex life of this enigmatic, tortured man. Meticulously researched, written with rare candor and compassion, Split Image is both a harrowing look at life in the Hollywood closet and a poignant human drama that will change your vision of Anthony Perkins forever.

Customer Reviews:

This is NOT the latest edition of this book!.......2006-05-31

I don't know why Amazon has not corrected this - when you type in "ANTHONY PERKINS" you get "SPLIT IMAGE" - not "ANTHONY PERKINS." I don't get it.

Plus this edition is out of print - and out-of-date.

There is a NEW 10th ANNIVERSARY EDITION, revised and updated, that just came out in May 2006 - titled "ANTHONY PERKINS: SPLIT IMAGE."
That is the best edition of this book.

Do not buy this old edition.

Sincerely,
Charles Winecoff, the author

Great book!.......2005-11-26

I truely enjoyed this book. It was well written and very informative! This author did Anthony Perkins justice!

Here we go again.......2005-05-29

Beginning to wonder if any 50s male icons happened to be hetero. The subject matter was so temptingly juicy that the author could not resist, no doubt in the pursuit of honesty, to shine his light on the sordid side of this life. But an objectively equal amount of time was devoted to explanations and Perkins' attempts to balance his frustrating existence. In short, the book probably is no different in outcome than the life it chronicles and as such is effective biography.

Too Much Special Pleading, Too Much Graphic Detail.......2004-11-17

This is a very readable biography, and focuses upon a very interesting (if sad) story of a great (but partially wasted) talent. With that said, however--

The author harps too much on how terrible and pernicious it was to live in the closet, and how awful and repressive America was in the 50s.

At times the author lets his distaste for the bad career and personal choices Perkins made seep through. (No biography is totally objective, of course, but still . . .)

The author goes into too much graphic detail about Perkins's somewhat kinky sexual life. Perhaps one or two details about this subject would have "spiced up" the biography, but honestly, we don't need to "get into bed" with Perkins even once, let alone multiple times.

And one gap that really isn't the author's fault--Perkins's widow and children didn't cooperate with him. As a result, there is a huge gap in the latter part of the book.

Not terrible, but no classic--perhaps even an object lesson in what not to do in a biography.

Tough love.......2004-05-18

Yes, this biography of a sometimes talented actor - limited by his own hand - is often hard to read, even harsh. But in the end, this reader anyway was left feeling strangely wistful, as if the time had come to say goodbye to an old, difficult, contentious friend. In that respect, I feel the book is quite honest and ultimately empathetic. Perkins' life was certainly controversial, and he clearly dropped friends along the way as it suited his changing needs. But the author conveys the goodness and strength of Perkins' final years with his family, despite his illness and his myriad secrets. I knew several people who knew Perkins, and this book comes about as close as their accounts while illuminating more. A very complex puzzle.

Average customer rating:

Interiors and Exteriors
Look for Laura
Moving story
Split Image
Review

Split Image
Mel Glenn
Manufacturer: HarperTeen
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Literature | Children's Books | Subjects | Books

Being a Teen | Social Issues | Teens | Subjects | Books
Similar Items:

Who Killed Mr. Chippendale?: A Mystery in Poems
Jump Ball: A Basketball Season in Poems
The Taking of Room 114: A Hostage Drama in Poems
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Stargirl (Readers Circle)

ASIN: 0060004819
Release Date: 2002-05-28

Amazon.com

Laura Li seems perfect in every way--beautiful, kind, smart. At her job in the school library she is smiling and helpful to everyone, and at home she cares for her ailing brother like a dutiful Asian daughter. But after midnight a very different Laura Li secretly sneaks out to wild dance clubs--desperate to escape from the pressures exerted by her cold, demanding mother and her absent father. Her teachers and the other kids reveal themselves in these short poems as they wonder about Laura, and two boys even write her love poetry, but a few people are beginning to suspect she may be on a collision course with herself. "It is time, perhaps," Laura thinks bitterly, "to dance without stopping at the bar of heaven's gate."

Mel Glenn adds another tale from Tower High to his growing list of verse novels: Who Killed Mr. Chippendale?, Jump Ball, The Taking of Room 114, and Foreign Exchange. A veteran high-school English teacher, Glenn draws on his own experiences with thousands of students to produce these collections of short poems told in many different multiracial and multiethnic voices. With just a few lines of verse, he is able to create unique characters whose lives extend beyond the page, characters in which teens will recognize themselves and their friends. (Age 11 and older) --Patty Campbell

Book Description

Everyone has an image of Laura Li, the most popular girl in school: "stone hearted", "warmhearted", "conceited deceiver", "humble achiever", "a virgin", "the hottest girl in the world".

Award-winning poet Mel Glenn weaves a brilliant web of authentic voices in this riveting story, told in poetry, about what happens when one teenage girl is denied the freedom to determine her own identity.

2001 Best Books for Young Adults (ALA) and Books for the Teen Age 2001 (NYPL)

Customer Reviews:

Interiors and Exteriors.......2007-07-01

Laura Li came over from China when she was little with her parents and her older brother, who is disabled. Since then her life has been difficult. Her father travels all of the time and Laura wishes with all of her heart that he would take her with him. She can't seem to do anything to please her mother, who thinks she's become too Americanized. And she is expected to devote her entire life to her brother, to plan her future around being nearby to take over his care when her parents get too old. There is a lot of pressure on Laura.

At school nobody really knows Laura very well, partly because she is always too embarrassed to invite anyone home with her. And her mother doesn't let her date or even talk to boys on the phone. Laura is very desirable, though, flirting with the boys who come to the library where she works, and breaking hearts left and right. Sometimes on weekends she sneaks out of her house and goes to a dance club to break even more hearts.

On the surface Laura's life seems to be okay to most people. But no one ever asks her what is going on in her mind, and so no one is able to see the pressure building up inside of her and threatening to boil over.

I liked that there were so many characters, each with a story to tell and a different point of view of Laura. I would have liked more insight into the functioning of Laura's family, though. It would have been nice to know what, exactly, was wrong with Laura's brother and why he couldn't communicate with her. I also would have liked to have seen what Laura's father was thinking about his family.

Look for Laura.......2007-01-12

Ever wonder what everyone thought about you? This book collects the thoughts of Laura's classmates, teachers, and faculty members. Some love her, others loathe her. Laura struggles with how others perceive her. You as the reader are privvy to everyone's honest opinions of her; had Laura herself know what they truly thought, things may have gone differently for her. The ending may shock you, and the writing style will encourage readers to look at events from more than one perspective.

Also recommended for multiple perspectives: Leap Day by Wendy Mass and The Realm of Possibility by David Levithan.

Moving story.......2005-06-17

This book explores the life of one girl and the perceptions others have of her. The layout of the text gives the story more power and immediacy. The points of view change quickly from one character to the next. This book could be used as a springboard for some interesting discussions about duty, race, love, appearances, suicide, etc. A short read, but highly recommended.

Split Image.......2004-04-02

I thought that this book was very good, but also very interesting. It was neat how the book was written in poems, but I thought that there were too many characters. I would definately read this book again for a short read. I thought it was awsome.

Review.......2003-10-22

"Split Image" By Mel Glenn. Laura-Li is a romodel for all. Shes smart, funny, pretty and works at the library. Everyone looks up to her, some are even jealous of her, others admirer her. But after dark its another story. Laura-Li sneaks out at night to loud banging clubs and is introduced to the 'world of drugs'. Here she forgets all of her troubles at home, taking care of her brother, her strict mother, and her father being away. Laura-Li thinks that she has to solve her problems with taking her own life "It is time, perhaps to dance without stopping at the bar of heaven's gate". Shes not the perfect angel we all thought."Split Image" was really sad, but life changing.

Anthony Perkins: Split Image (Advocate Life Stories)

Average customer rating:

The Essential Anthony Perkins
Sensitive, layered portrait of a complicated man

Anthony Perkins: Split Image (Advocate Life Stories)
Charles Winecoff
Manufacturer: Advocate Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 1555839509

Book Description

Paramount groomed him to replace the late James Dean and become Hollywood's hottest heartthrob. But his landmark performance as Norman Bates in Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho killed that-and spawned an image of Anthony Perkins that eerily paralleled his conflicted, fractured off-screen life.

Anthony Perkins: Split Image insightfully and comprehensively documents the life of this great actor, who was forced to act the part of ladies' man while privately struggling with his own homosexuality, and chronicles his complicated search for acceptance.

Newly revised and updated for this tenth anniversary edition, Anthony Perkins: Split Image is both a harrowing look at life in the Hollywood closet and a poignant human drama that will change your vision of Anthony Perkins forever.

"Riveting...With his laser-beam of an eye, Winecoff lights up the hidden corners of Hollywood's golden age, as well as a dark age of homosexuality that needs to be understood by anyone who didn't live through it.â€¦It's a page-turner." -James Gavin, author of Deep in a Dream: The Long Night of Chet Baker

"Charles Winecoff is a clever biographer. With his inside, creepy examination of Anthony Perkins, I was mesmerized by a dude I never thought I'd be able to stomach for more than a paragraph. Well done." -E!'s Ted Casablanca

"Anthony Perkins: Split Image is one of the deepest, darkest Hollywood stories ever told." -Robert Hofler, author of The Man Who Invented Rock Hudson

"Told with empathy and a sagacious eye for detail, Winecoff's lively chronicle of one of the screen's more formidable, if underrated, leading men perhaps should have been called Brokeback Hollywood Hills."-Stephen M. Silverman, author of David Lean and Dancing on the Ceiling: Stanley Donen and His Movies

"An important chronicle of a time when gay was still the ultimate taboo, one that Hollywood had especially little use for as it aggressively sold illusion and lies."-Michael Musto, from his Foreword

Customer Reviews:

The Essential Anthony Perkins.......2007-04-20

As an actor, Anthony Perkins has always fascinated me. In every role that I ever saw him play, he had this quality about him that made you feel that if you didn't listen to every word he said and watch every movement that he made, you were going to miss something of major importance. It's called stage presence and he had it by the bucketfuls. He was of course most noted for his portrayal of Norman Bates in PSYCHO and he captured that character so well that it was both the blessing and the curse of his career. Already, before Hitchcock's masterpiece, the powers that be behind Perkins' acting career saw him as a replacement for James Dean or as the new Gary Cooper or someone like him. They wrongly saw him as a macho romantic lead but after PSYCHO, they and the movie public only wanted him to play variations of the Norman Bates character. Charles Winecoff, in his revised tenth anniversary edition of his Perkins biography, ANTHONY PERKINS: SPLIT IMAGE captures valiantly both the personal and professional life of a Hollywood icon.

Perkins' acting career didn't begin on the movie screen; it began on the stage. His father was the famed actor, Osgood Perkins, who died during a perfomance at the age of thirty-seven when Anthony was only five. His mother was connected to theater people and saw that he learned his craft as a teenager in summer stock productions. Before his appearance in the movie PSYCHO, he had played the lead in at least two Broadway shows, one of which was as Eugene Gant in Ketti Frings' play LOOK HOMEWARD ANGEL based on the Thomas Wolfe novel of the same name. Eugene Gant's sensitive character was one that would have suited Perkins' personality well and if the movie mobuls could have seen that these kinds of roles rather than the romantic lead roles were who Anthony should play, his film career might have taken a happier, more successful turn.

Anthony hadn't been in Hollywood long when he met Tab Hunter and the tongues began to wag concerning both men's sexual preference. Homosexuality in the 1950's and 1960's was not something to be tolerated in an actor's personal life and Anthony was quickly persuaded to not be seen with Tab in public too frequently. (Tab's autobiography indicated as well that he too was told to avoid too much contact with Anthony.) At the time, to make your homosexuality too public would have been a sure-fire way to kill a career before it even got started. Before, and after Tab Hunter, Perkins was linked with other (secretly) gay men, but psycho-analysis was revered at the time, and Anthony yearned to be as straight as so many people wished him to be. Why wouldn't he in the poisonous atmosphere of the time. At around forty, he met and married Berry Berenson and fathered two sons and I think for the rest of his life was convinced that his newly found heterosexuality and his role as husband and father was his salvation; at least that is what he told people.

The many miscastings and the perception of those who handed out the movie roles to Anthony Perkins that America couldn't handle an alternate lifestyle, hurt Perkins' acting career and he tried his hand at directing both plays and films with limited success. One of the reasons pointed out in the book for that limited success was Anthony's lack of confidence in himself. I tend to agree because when you are told constantly that the core of who and what you are is insufficient, that would make you lack confidence in yourself. But, in spite of that, there are enough gems in the theater and film work of Anthony Perkins that has to apoligize to no one and I for one salute him as one of my Hollywood heros.

Sensitive, layered portrait of a complicated man.......2006-05-31

This is one of the best Hollywood bios around. While numerous authors rehash the tired stories of Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, and others (for the 10th or 11th time - and who cares) this book opens new, original territory by looking at the life and times of Tony Perkins. The author first published the book ten years ago and this is a great update - no one else has come along to do a better job either. Tony Perkins lived on the cusp of the social revolution, balancing between the uptight propriety of the 50s with the psycho/sexual upheaval of the 60s and 70s. Winecoff meticulously lays out this world, and Perkins difficult and often troubled, sometimes comical, walk through it. Tons of interviews and vivid descriptions of people and places makes Tony pop off the page in this "true Hollywood story" that is hard to out down. Winecoff's timing is impeccable - the book is a fast, fun read as well as an informative one. The reissue is more tightly woven (I read the first version when it came out ten years ago). The author has grown more sophisticated and observant with passing years, as all good writers should. The final scene, September 11th and all, is a fitting tribute to changing times and the end of an era.

Created in Our Image: The Miniature Body of the Doll As Subject and Object

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Created in Our Image: The Miniature Body of the Doll As Subject and Object
Kitti Carriker
Manufacturer: Lehigh University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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All Titles | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books
ASIN: 0934223548

Split Image: African Americans in the Mass Media

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Split Image: African Americans in the Mass Media

Manufacturer: Howard University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Media Studies | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

The Black Image in the White Mind: Media and Race in America (Harvard Univ. Kennedy School of Gov't Goldsmith Book Prize Winner; Amer. Political Science ... in Communication, Media, and Public Opinion)
Facing Difference: Race, Gender, and Mass Media (Journalism and Communication for a New Century Ser)
Primetime Blues: African Americans on Network Television
Racism, Sexism, and the Media: The Rise of Class Communication in Multicultural America
The Souls of Black Folk (Dover Thrift Editions)

ASIN: 0882580639

Average customer rating:

Split Image
Awful & Poorly Written
The Ariel Gold Series Heats Up
Guessing all the way . . .
Pleasant enough.

Split Image
Judy Mercer
Manufacturer: Pocket
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

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Suspense | Thrillers | Mystery & Thrillers | Subjects | Books
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Fast Forward

ASIN: 0671556037

Book Description

In Judy Mercer's acclaimed suspense novels one thing is certain: nothing is ever quite what it seems. This terrifying premise has entangled Mercer's memorable heroine, TV newsmagazine producer Ariel Gold, in two superb thrillers: Fast Forward, hailed as "one of the best suspense novels of the year" (Cleveland Plain Dealer), and Double Take. Now, in her eagerly awaited new novel, Judy Mercer ingeniously twists a sensational unsolved murder into a uniquely personal crisis for the determined but vulnerable Ariel....

First there was a phone call, then a chance encounter on a Brentwood street. He tells Ariel his name is Jack Spurling, and he seems astounded that she has forgotten him. But Ariel is a thirty-three-year-old woman with only one year of memory, the rest of her life erased by amnesia. Why should she remember Spurling in particular? Then she learns that he was at the center of one of the most notorious stories she ever covered -- the story of a man who many believe got away with the murder of his wife.

With her own missing history aching like a lost limb, Ariel is compelled to reconstruct the events leading up to the trial, which ended in a hung jury. And the closer she gets to Jack Spurling, the more she wants to believe in his innocence. A man of confident, intimate charm, he stirs long-dormant feelings in Ariel -- and her own attraction brings on a powerful compulsion to unearth the truth.

But when Ariel digs deeper into Spurting's past, she uncovers a sordid tale -- a party years ago that degenerated into a whirpool of adultery, jealousy, and violence. And the events set in motion that evening, on a yacht far out at sea, are only now coming to a climax...giving Ariel just one chance to decide between what she feels in her heart and what she knows in her gut.

A novel of electrifying suspense that snakes to a shocking conclusion, Split Image proves that Judy Mercer is a first-class writer at the pinnacle of her craft.

Customer Reviews:

Split Image.......2007-06-02

This is a good book. It's not quite as good as others in this series, but still has a good plot and the characters are well defined and likeable. Not exactly a mystery, but is in that genre.

Awful & Poorly Written.......2006-09-11

This book was terrible. I had no idea what was going on in the first 60+ pages. The main character has amnesia (hard to believe). The writing is choppy and hard to follow. Characters enter the story, and since Ariel , the main character doesn't "remember" them, I guess we are supposed to figure it out. The interactions and diaglogue are poorly written as well. I couldn't finish this book. Waste of time.

The Ariel Gold Series Heats Up.......2005-01-06

While the first two books (Double Take & Fast Forward) in the series left me a little cold- Split Image heats up!! And like a previous reviewer said, Mercer struck Gold!

Whenever we meet Ariel Gold (TV producer turned host) she is in the middle of solving a crime or two. This book is no different- only this time it seems she may have been taken in by the criminal- or not- was he wrongly accused? While friends & family can only sit by as Ariel seems to get more & more wrapped up at finding the killer. Only, it may not be who she thinks it is and her very life may be in danger.

I felt like Mercer really found her voice with this third book in the series and became a much better writer over-all. The story is very tight, easy to follow, characters developed and the suspense is enough to drive you crazy!! The only thing that disappointed me was that I'm still waiting to learn more about Ariel's amnesia & her life beforehand. I'm hoping the 4th book- Blind Spot- may deal with that.

Guessing all the way . . ........2001-09-04

"Split Image" is an apt title for a novel that sustains the hero-or-villain question throughout. As an investigative newswoman, one who's suffered more than her share of betrayal and violence, Ariel Gold seems a little quick to jump on the first emotional bandwagon that rolls by, even at the expense of one of her few stable relationships. Still it makes for a suspenseful story. Mercer is very good at sharp dialogue that propels the page-turning at a pace mystery lovers are bound to appreciate.

Pleasant enough........2000-04-17

Ariel Gold is a strong protagonist. One I have grown to like after two books. I enjoyed "Fast Forward" more. This one was too heavy in the romance department for my taste. Would have prefered more suspense. Ariel finds trouble coming at her head on and obliquely as she works towards solving a two year old murder. Ms. Mercer makes it easy to like the good guys in Ariel's circle, and I hope to hear more from her grandfather (B.F.) and his pal Sarge. I had a hard time accepting Ariel's new love interest and hope that coworker Henry again will become the object of her affection.

Average customer rating:

Faust always delivers the goods
Daring, disturbing, different.
i really liked it. it kept my attention all the way though.

Split Image
Ron Faust
Manufacturer: Forge Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Mystery | Mystery & Thrillers | Subjects | Books

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Death Fires
Sea of Bones

ASIN: 0312877196

Book Description

When a petty argument with an arrogant stranger escalates to murder, playwright Andrew Nevilles life becomes a tangle of deceit and obsession. Neville attends the murdered mans funeral and meets his widow, as well as their son. Neville gradually insinuates himself into the widows confidence and plots to seize the victims life.

Customer Reviews:

Faust always delivers the goods.......2005-10-06

Spending a weekend in a friend's cabin in Wisconsin, frustrated playwright Andrew Neville decides to go bow hunting to pass the time. Neville manages to wound a deer and track it through the woods, only to find a stranger standing over his prey. Neville challenges the stranger, who calmly maintains it's a different deer. Neville continues to insist it is his kill, but the stranger dismisses his increasingly frantic assertions. This enrages Neville, who abruptly attacks the man with a hunting knife, slitting his throat. Composing himself, Neville leaves the woods after attempting to erase all signs of his presence there.

Watching the papers for news of the killing, Neville is surprised to discover his victim is actually John Dempsey, an old acquaintance from his early days in the theatre. Neville brazenly attends the funeral, and introduces himself to Dempsey's widow, Claudia. They are attracted to each other, and Claudia invites him to stay on for a few days. Neville agrees, and slowly insuates himself into Claudia's life. Neville gradually takes over his victim's very existence, even coming to resemble Dempsey physically. Neville's new life is threatened, however, by the presence of Roland Schiess, a private investigator hired by Dempsey's parents, who suspect Claudia and Neville conspired to kill their son. Scheiss plays an unsavory Porfiry to Neville's Raskolnikov, eventually forcing Neville to strike back.

Whether he's writing political thrillers like In the Forest of the Night (1992), suspense/comedy like Blue Moon (1994), or straight suspense like Split Image, Faust always delivers. In Neville, Faust has created a complex character whose first person narration will keep readers turning pages in sick fascination. Faust's exploration of duality is also fascinating, as Neville takes over not only Dempsey's life, but his work, a play which he subtly rewrites and passes off as his own (ironically, it brings him a measure of fame he never enjoyed on his own). Neville's calm acceptance of his murderous act and his usurpation of the trappings of his victim's existence are chilling. The cat and mouse game between him and Roland Scheiss is an added bonus, as it precipitates many of the macabre happenings that take place in the final third of the book.

Neville's understated narrative lulls readers, giving the later events of the book more power. Readers know Neville is laying the seeds of his own destruction, but will be surprised at how those seeds bloom -- Neville is undone in truly spectacular fashion by a force of nature he thought he had tamed. Give Split Image and the rest of Faust's canon a try -- you won't be disappointed.

Daring, disturbing, different........2004-10-29

Two deerhunters cross paths quite accidently. Acting on an impulse, one of them, Andrew Neville, inexplicably stabs the other to death. After commiting this horrendous act, Neville feels no remorse whatsoever. Remarkably enough, he then proceeds to take for himself everything the dead man had possessed. His beautiful wife, his child, his home and even his career.
The story is told from the point of view of the killer, making it that much more horrifying. Added in for good measure are a grubby private eye and a frighteningly creepy groundskeeper.
Author Ron Faust makes good use of an elegant brand of prose that works quite well. Particularly when it comes to describing nature and outdoor scenes in general.
Split Image is a daringly different type of book. Disturbing and captivating at the same time, it makes for a great reading experience.

i really liked it. it kept my attention all the way though........1999-04-27

i will definately read more of his books. this one could turn out to be a very interesting movie. ron faust definately has a gift.

3 PBs by Ron Faust: Fugitive Moon, Forest of the Night, Split Image

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3 PBs by Ron Faust: Fugitive Moon, Forest of the Night, Split Image
Ron Faust
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000VBW97U

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1 Med Sz PB, 2 Small PBs

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