I was hooked on "The Yeare's Midnight" before I had read a word. The idea that a contemporary thriller would share top billing with metaphysical poet and Dean of St. Paul's, John Donne (1572-1631) is a haughty premise I could not resist.

Mr. O'Connor delivered and then some. This highly original story provides seemingly ordinary characters with traits that send them into an orbit that can only be called bizarre. Our chief detective, John Underwood, is overworked, underpaid, and his marriage is disintegrating. Sound familiar? Not quite. John becomes so overwhelmed with his wife's leave-taking, he disintegrates before our eyes. While detecting, he becomes carried away by fantasies of revenge and mayhem. For one, I become highly nervous when serial killers are running about, and our protagonist has a complete mental and physical breakdown. When John is taken out of the picture, we are left to the mercies of his second in command Det. Sgt. Alison Dexter, an ambitious lady who has worked hard to come up in the ranks. Again, a familiar character in crime fiction except DS Dexter is so ambitious, she plots and connives against all who might take a shred of credit from her. Her assistants despise her in spite of her cleverness and bravery.

The strange killer who removes the left eye of his victims also leaves scraps of poetry written in blood at the scene of the crime. The killer clearly means this poetry to serve as a clue to his motive. He notifies a medieval expert at nearby Cambridge in case the obscurity is too much for the local police. Enter a rather annoying gorgeous lady who is a Donne expert. Many people (self included) enjoy Donne's poetry because it brawny, frank and robust. This is the man who gave us such lines as:

"Busy old fool, unruly Sun
Why dost thou thus,
Through windows, and through curtains call on
us?"

and "For God sake hold your tongue, and let me love."

In the author's hands, the "conceits" and kernels of Donne's love poems are so convoluted and ephemeral, I was lost. I had to have the professor who I didn't like very well lead me by the hand to all the clever conclusions.

However, the pace is good and the trip worthwhile if a little abrupt at the conclusion. I look forward to more books by the clever Mr. O'Connor.

Gamine Audrey Tautou is beautifully cast as the shy young waitress who can make everyone happy but herself. You see a gorgeous, primary colored, clean Paris through her eyes, and it is a sight to behold! Amelie, though a very empathetic character, is not saccharine. People who offend her are tricked. She is devious in her methods of bringing joy and settling scores.

I particularly liked the Frenchness (for lack of a better word) of the film. The French have a pragmatic, relaxed view of sex that is so at odds with the serious and rather frantic importance we Americans give to the subject. Now food, on the other hand, is a very serious business and not casual at all to the French. I noticed all kitchens, no matter how small, were fully equipped with every type of blender, beater and bowl (but not necessarily appliances.) When Amelie eats a solitary dinner, she sets the table, has a glass of wine and three carefully prepared courses.

When Amelie falls in love, her shyness about does her in. She is fearless at helping others, but almost paralyzed at helping herself. You really pull for her even while getting a little exasperated with her hide and seek methods. There is enough comedy throughout to keep the film from being oversweet.

The DVD: The color is excellent, the sound good and the images sharp and clear. The package is good and interesting. There are subtitles in English and Spanish, no dubbing. People who are slow readers may have problems with following the action and the subtitles, as it is the type of film that demands your visual attention.

Our guy, Sweeney, is so far over the top the only reason we believe him is because he's our narrator. Sweeney would make Hecht & McArthur's "Front Page" newspapermen look like weenies. Sweeney doesn't just occasionally drink too much; he binges out and spends weeks in the gutter, broke, filthy, and homeless. When Sweeney sobers up (just moderately), he is such a star reporter, his employer's leap to cater to his every whim. Like Wow!

In this 40's era Chicago-noir, Sweeney,while in a nearly comatose binge, witnesses a strange crime site through a plate glass door. A woman (is she dead?) is sprawled on the floor with a fearsome, slavering dog guarding her. No one can get by the dog to see what is wrong. The woman slowly rises, and drops her gown in a spectacular manner. Sweeney decides then and there 1) this is the most beautiful woman in the world and 2) he, Sweeney the Magnificent, will spend a night with her. And anything he wants badly enough, he gets.

Though Sweeney is a little uncertain if what he witnessed was an alcohol-induced hallucination, he finds out quickly it was the real thing. The police think The Ripper, who has terrorized Chicago with three victims, has made an abortive attack on the lady, but her dog saved her. She is an at-risk witness who might be in further danger. Sweeney intends to solve the crimes and get the girl.

Frederic Brown is an edgy writer with a razor sharp sense of humor. When Sweeney theorizes, we don't know if he is putting us on or himself. Mr. Brown is concise and sardonic with a crafty throwaway style. He leaves us always slightly off-balance, and then walks away. Take it, or leave it. Most readers will take it and line up for more.

----is the original title of this Jane Marple offering, a much better choice than "4:50 From Paddington" which is a little bit deceptive and a lot more lackluster. Miss McGillicuddy, while riding the entitled train, saw a woman being strangled on a train running parallel to her own.

Miss McG. reports this shocking occurrence to her hostess Miss Marple, the police and the train authorities. No body is found, and the authorities chalk up the report to an elderly lady's vivid imagination. But Miss Marple knows that one thing rock-solid Elspeth McGillicuddy lacks is a "vivid imagination." If Miss McG says she saw a murder, Miss Marple is certain a murder did, in fact, take place. Her curiosity aroused, Miss Marple enlists the aid of young Lucy Eyelesbarrow. Lucy is a delightful character who combines fearsome organizational abilities with all consuming charm and tact. In a fine bit of sleuthing, Miss Marple ascertains the only area where the body could have been dumped from the train is on the Crackenthorpe (don't you just love these names?) estate, Rutherford Hall.

Lucy gets herself hired at Rutherford to find out about the people, and hopefully locate the body. The head Crackenthorpe is the old, miserly father who enjoys his poor health and depriving his grown children with equal enthusiasm. The family consists of his martyred spinster daughter, three sons, a son-in-law and a grandnephew schoolboy. Clever Lucy finds the body residing in a sarcophagus in a falling down barn on the property. The murderer would have to be very familiar with Rutherford Hall and its environs to have found such a resting place. None of the family has much of an alibi, but though they all have excellent motives for wanting to do away with their skinflint father, it appears none have any ties to the stranger hidden in their barn.

The author displays a great deal of sly humor in the book, and her descriptions of the days and ways at Rutherford Hall are fascinating. I had a little difficulty believing this class conscious family would immediately accept Lucy as an equal and confidante, but I never let the small things bother me in a Christie book. The plot was delightfully intricate. For once, I thought I had pegged the murderer, but Dame Agatha triumphed yet again, and I was foiled. That the motive was a bit thin and barely acceptable is my only complaint. It is a fine Christie effort, not her best, but very much up to her standard of excellence.

At 692 pages, "Nightmares & Dreamscapes" is a doorstopper of a book. I planned to read it a story at a time over a period of weeks, but as usual got hooked on King and read it straight through, right from his usual folksy introduction (each of which I am sure he writes solely for me!) to the charming little moral folktale tacked on at the end. The stories are to say the least, diverse. I would call this collection "King's Scrapbook."

"Dolan's Cadillac" highly regarded by most Amazon reviewers is very hard tech for King. Interestingly, he says in his notes that technical stuff bores him, but it had to be done for this story. I have no more interest than he does in the proper "arc of descent;" I would have been just as mindlessly satisfied if he had shot the Cadillac out of a cannon, so it's not one of my favorites.

"Clattery Teeth" I just know SK had a hoot of a time writing it. He lovingly sets the scene and characters and then puts them at the mercy of a set of not-so-funny joke teeth (that wear spats). It's 80 degrees more grotesque than the "Young Frankenstein," and I felt guilty for laughing.

"The Moving Finger" Mr. Mitla is the perfectly normal man living a perfectly normal life when one morning he goes into his bathroom, and a finger is emerging from his bathroom sink drain and tapping on the porcelain. No one can see this finger except Mr. Mitla, and he slowly goes bonkers and his entire life is in a shambles. Unlike "Clattery Teeth" this one is terrifying. See for yourself.

"My Pretty Pony" though highly acclaimed, didn't much interest me UNTIL I read in Notes that the exquisitely sensitive little boy, Clive Banning, grew up to be a hardened killer in an unpublished Richard Bachman novel. We leave Clive at 7-years old in the Pony story.

"The House on Maple Street" delighted me because children are empowered and the bad guy gets his just desserts in a most explosive fashion. I was all-around satisfied.

"Umley's Last Case" is my favorite. SK takes a spin in Raymond Chandler land. He sets the scene meticulously and the characters are perfect. I was reminded of Nathaniel West's "Day of the Locust." Then things start going askew in a very King-like way. What if the author of P.I. books decided he liked the detective's life better than his own, and decided to swap places? What would happen? Would it be too far out if the detective who has never lived outside a book set in the 1930's had to spend a week toilet training himself? (Characters in hard-boiled novels never have to go to the bathroom.)

There are 20 stories in "Nightmares & Dreamscapes." It is not as brilliantly crafted as "Everything's Eventual" nor is it as well organized as "Skeleton Crew" and "Night Shift." I don't think many readers will like ALL of the stories, but there are such a variety, that most of the readers will like SOME of the stories, and some will like MOST of the stories. Chances are everyone will find one or two that will stay with them forever.

Fanatical rebels of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) of Central Asia snatch four young American wall climbers for a six-day ordeal through the wilds of remote Kyrgyzstan in the summer of 2000. The area, formerly part of the USSR, is bordered by Pakistan, Afghanistan, China and Iran.

There are only a few areas of the world that meet the geologic criteria of having Great Walls and Kyrgyzstan is one of them, along with the U.S.'s Yosemite National Park. These kids were great climbers, but their awareness of world affairs was zero to none. True, State Department advisories were vague, and the fact they were not warned or stopped by either their on-site travel agency or the military is unbelievable.

The quartet, three boys and one girl, had a terrifying experience being under fire, under constant threat of execution, seeing a soldier executed before their eyes, and had almost no food or water during the nightmare ordeal. They finally escaped by one of them shoving their guard over a cliff, presumably to his death.

I was struck again and again by the almost total helplessness of these young people, particularly Beth Rodden. She is a very nice, well brought up young lady, but seemed to revert to a sobbing childlike state of overwhelming terror. The boys were very protective, but unable to plan coherently and missed many opportunities to escape. Two of the boys were full of braggadocio and talk, but ultimately were incapable of action. The other was almost catatonic, but at least had a very real awareness of the danger and when it counted, acted. The terrorists did not physically harm them. They were ready to execute the hostages at any moment, but never assaulted or beat them.

Greg Child is uniquely qualified to tell this white-knuckle tale. He is an experienced mountaineer, familiar with Kyrgyzstan having climbed there in '95, and is the author of some well-received mountaineering books. I have read two of his books and enjoyed his easy going style, his expertise, and his factual integrity.

Their return prompted a media frenzy that quickly turned into a firestorm. First because Mr. Child obtained exclusive rights to the hostage's story causing much hostility from other members of the press and secondly, the guard who the hostages pushed off the cliff turned up very much alive and not much worse for wear. The guard's accounts of the escape sometimes did and sometimes did not agree with the hostages' account. There were cries of "hoax!" and bitterness over the large monetary advance Mr. Child and the hostages received. I believe the story and am not much troubled by the fact the hostages' assumption they had killed the guard. It was dark, they saw him cartwheel in space, and thought he had fallen a great distance. (He did not.) I once saw a convertible on a switchback mountain road sail over a guardrail and tumble into space. I was positive and would have sworn that all the occupants had to be dead from the fall. It turned out the worst injury was a broken arm and the other two only had scratches and bruises. And this was in broad daylight!

I agree with other reviewers that noted all the controversy about the kidnapping did not belong in the book proper. He badly needed endnotes and should have uses appendices to set forth conflicting views. Nevertheless, it is a riveting story and a great read. The best way to judge the veracity is to read the book and form your own opinion.

The oral history form is perfect for "Edie" little-girl-lost, who streaked across the '60's horizon like a falling star. Despite her grace, fragile beauty and charisma; Edie Sedgewick was almost born to be doomed even before the drugs did her in.

She was born into a wealthy old family that had a history of instability. Her father, also breathtakingly beautiful, had crushing psychological problems. Two of her brothers committed suicide. Her mother was ineffectual with her large brood. She was raised on an isolated ranch with her seven siblings with almost no contact with the outside world. When she hit Cambridge at 18, she was pathetically ill equipped to be in the larger world.

I couldn't agree more that she found herself in the midst of horribly decadent people. Andy Warhol gets a particularly bad rap in this book, but to me, he was no better nor worse than his hangers-on, just a shade more self-absorbed. What really saddened me was that I don't think it really mattered who Edie took up with. She was destined to spin out of control. She had no focus, no inner strength, and was dangerously self-centered and delusionary.

"Edie" is compelling reading whether or not you have experienced the '60's. It is good to keep in mind that Edie herself and the contributors to the book all were a part of a very small stratum that whistled through this confusing decade. They were no more representative of the rank and file than Emmerin is representative of this decade.

Such a lovely child, such a terrible waste.

Much that puzzled me about this over-the-top Sci-Fi horror story made a lot more sense when I read Dean Koontz's Afterward. (No, it's guaranteed not to "spoil" anything.) "Phantoms" was Koontz's sophomore book after the wide success of "Whispers." Acceding to his publisher's demands and much against his judgment, he wrote the "horror" story they wanted and forever after was known as a "horror" writer. This is what he feared, and it has been a continual thorn in his side ever since. I had the feeling throughout the book that Koontz was saying "You want a horror story? I'll give you the Mother of Horror Stories!"

"Phantoms" takes the premise of the empty town where it appears everyone has vanished suddenly into thin air and runs with it. A doctor, her young sister and a band of local policemen try to solve the mystery. They discover a few bodies that have died most mysteriously, hear strange voices and noises, and realize they are being watched and are likely to be attacked -- but by what? Mr. Koontz pulls out all the stops in the creep and gore department and sets up good look-over-your-shoulder-fearfully tension. The dialogue is very bad, and he did better with the characterizations of the supporting cast than he did with the principals, but for the most part they are believable.

"Phantoms" is overlong; and because of it, the tension ebbs at times. The babykiller and the biker would never have been missed. Though the reader certainly gets his money's worth in the horror department, I wouldn't call this one of Koontz's better works.

Talba Wallis is smart and sassy, on and of the scene. By night she is poet Baroness Pontalba reading her stuff at carefully selected dives around town. Her clothes are meticulously described, which is a very good thing, because in our wildest imagination, we would be hard put to come up with a mental image of her glorious plumage. And the Baroness (thanks to Julie Smith) comes up with some pretty good poetry--see "Queen of the May."

As with most poets, Talba needs a day job to support her writing. Due to her razzle-dazzle preparation, she stuns elderly white male detective Eddie Valentino, into hiring her. He had braced himself to hire a nerd, but a "nerdette"? Eddie takes her along on what looks to be a pretty ho-hum case: finding out the identity of a man who has molested the client's daughter. The situation heats up considerably when a sure fire witness suddenly dies in a hit and run accident. Running concurrent with the investigation is Talba's emerging curiosity about just who and what her father was. Her entire family seems to be in mutual conspiracy to keep her in the dark about him.

The story has a good pace and is always colorful, but Ms. Smith does tend to overplot. She has such a long stretch about her father; I almost forgot the other mystery entirely. Actually, the two stories could stand alone and probably should have. The tie-in, as always, is the wonderful depictions of the star that grabs the spotlight: New Orleans. I can't think of anyone who captures the feel of this city like Smith does. "New Orleans Hotshot" is a nice welcome back for Julie Smith.

"In Harm's Way" is a compelling, edge-of-your-seat read. In the waning days of WWII, the USS Indianapolis was hurriedly put under orders to carry the first atom bomb, "Little Boy" subsequently dropped on Hiroshima, to Guam for assembly. This was so ultra top secret, none of the crew, including the captain was told what a deadly cargo they were carrying.

The miscommunications starting at Guam were lethal. Before Guam, the hasty questionable orders could be chalked up to wartime emergencies and too much red tape. Captain Charles McVay, not only was kept in the dark about his cargo, 250 of his crew were green as grass. The training they were to have received in San Francisco in the next three months never took place due to their emergency orders.

Between Guam and Leyete, the Indianapolis was torpedoed and sunk in less than 20 minutes. Of the crew of 1,946 men, 900 went into the water of the shark-infested sea almost on the equator. Because of the speed of the sinking, very few lifeboats were launched, many of the men were not dressed and some did not have life vests. A distress signal did get sent, but the captain was not sure there was sufficient power for it to be received. But he was sure rescue operations would begin in 24 hours when they did not show up in Leyete. This was a good assumption except the Navy "lost" the Indianapolis. How you lose a battle cruiser that stands 133 ft. above the water line and is 661 feet long (two football fields) carrying 1,946 men is hard to fathom, but lose it they did. The distress signal was received but an indignant commander called back the towboats that were sent out because they did not go through him to implement the order and he decided it was a hoax anyway.

It was five days before the survivors were accidentally spotted. Their suffering was indescribable. Over 200 were lost to shark attacks that were continual. The equatorial heat dehydrated them quickly and the lifeboats that were supposed to carry water didn't. Many hallucinated and attacked the other men. Some were in the water the whole time. Of the 900 that went into the water, only 317 survived.

Captain McVay was made a scapegoat (failure to take evasive action!) and court martialed. His life and career were ruined. He committed suicide 20 years later. After unstinting efforts on the part of the survivors and Captain McVay's family, he was cleared in 1998, but the court martial remains on his record.

This is a vividly told account, well researched with helpful endnotes, bibliography, maps and index. The author shifts the narrative among the survivors, which gives the account an immediacy that is almost unbearably painful. Highly recommended.