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34 of 37 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
shockingly bad, July 15, 2009
This review is from: Deadly Angel: The Bizarre True Story of Alaska's Killer Stripper (Mass Market Paperback)
This is the absolute worst book I've ever read. It's ambling and crass. The book barely skims the surface of a very fascinating and complex case, and instead provides bizarre factoids and anecdotes about Sarah Palin, Louisiana gumbo, the Judiciary Act of 1789, Alaskan topography, the Klondike Goldrush, Wyatt Erp, the evolution of modern mining technology, etc, etc. etc.
More succinctly, this book is the VERY awkward love child of Wikipedia and CBS's 48 Hours.
Though the book fails to offer any new information or insight to its purported subject matter, it does provide a cautionary tale on the perils of passive voice:
"Since the nation was fortunate enough to have such a righteous man as George Washington, our first and some historians believe our greatest president, murder has been the only crime that has no statute of limitations." (p. 92)
The author's apparent psychosexual issues are also on bold display as he repeatedly conjures the image of Linehan "slithering" and "gyrating" on her "stripper pole" while "showing every orifice" of (her) body and gazing upon her patrons with "eyes that made their cocks jump almost as fast as their wallets." ( seriously??)
The book is also rife with embarrassing wordplay:
"In between showing her bush at the Bush Hughs had allegedly worked as a volunteer in various Alaska charities." (p. 89)
"By using a different name, she conjured a different personality, directly at odds with the stripper cum killer." (pg. 89)
This thing is a train wreck.
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21 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
poor excuse for an egotistical effort at writing and editing, July 28, 2009
This review is from: Deadly Angel: The Bizarre True Story of Alaska's Killer Stripper (Mass Market Paperback)
This book seemed interesting at first - especially with the marketing material from the publisher but do not waste your time. The book is about ten pages of data and the rest is composed of anecdotes, geographical lessons (all about the same area), crude remarks towards male and female characters and even gossip and judgment on Sara Palin - couldn't leave that out. I donated the book to the local library but I actually feel guilty for the person that tries to check it out - the content is a quick version of cut and paste sections by different "composers" and lots of details on nothing. Unfortunately, I do not like to disparage writers but this was a joke and should have been canceled - makes one wonder exactly what will a publisher accept and market - because this is a waste of time on all accounts.
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13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Bad writing, editorial comments, typos and confusion..., October 24, 2009
This review is from: Deadly Angel: The Bizarre True Story of Alaska's Killer Stripper (Mass Market Paperback)
... made me stop this book right now at page 71 and come to the computer to see if others were as bothered as I am. I find that only the author gave it 5 stars. Why do they allow authors to rate their own books? There must be a way for Amazon to allow authors to comment without rating the book.
I am so annoyed by the things that a previous reviewer detailed so well, I have to keep going back (and, again, I am only on page 71) and rereading to see why I remembered one thing and it said something else later. At least one of the inconsistencies was on back-to-back pages 63-64, which was the easiest one. Melissa Williams called the detective Wade in the middle of June. "That's when Williams explained that Hughes had sent her [the] laptop on May 6." Then we find, a few paragraphs later: "Melissa Williams had said during their phone conversation that Mechele had sent the computer to her 'the other day'(she couldn't remember which day) to fix because it as not working." Then Wade thinks she is lying because the laptop was mailed on May 5, and I don't know whether Melissa said it came on May 6 or "the other day" in mid-June, and it appears that Rosen doesn't either. Then, the author writes "Persisting, Wade went back and asked Melissa Hughes, more about the laptop." Commas, anyone? And isn't her name Melissa Williams? What a mess.
How about how everyone called Carlin III something different? His own son refers to him as "Carlin, Jr." The prosecutor (I know because I searched on it here) calls Carlin III "Carlin, Sr." and the son "Carlin, Jr."
I hated the caustic political snipes (and, no, I am not a Republican) that are not only unnecessary but are unprofessional, and I am only just at the part where it begins to talk about Palin. "The Wasilla town board voted to deny the opportunity to the strippers to practice their exotic talents in town. [sic - A terrible sentence!] However, they were more than happy to let Mechele Hughes, and the other exotic dancers at the Bush, purchase homes in the small town of forty-two hundred." (Can we say "learn to use - or omit - commas"?) Wow, what's wrong with selling them houses but not letting them strip in your town?
There are places that it is obvious that a phrase was altered but the author forgot to take out some of the words: "accompanied by the boy she thought of as a her stepson." It's the new age of the word processor, electronic files, and reliance on a spell check program to do the proofreading and editing. I am seeing it more and more, and wondering who the heck actually reads these things before they get printed?
OK, I have to stop here. I have better things to do than play with this guy, although I thought it important to add to the reviews already here. Sorry, Fred. I don't even know if I will pick it back up.
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