The book I am reviewing is the thriller Edge by Jeffrey Deaver which is a very good book which I borrowed from the library. The plot concerns a district attorney who has been responsible for prosecuting a gang called the J8s and now they appear to want him killed. Actually it turns out his wife was involved in intelligence in Afghanistan and her husband thought she was just doing simple typing and now the killer is after her. Anyway someone is assigned to look after them and is rather alarmed that there daughter is using social network sites despite them being in hiding. Anyway the man assigned to kill the family called Henry Loving likes to torture people with sandpaper and alcohol on their private parts and he murdered the mentor of the man who is protecting them. There is a dilemma as to whether the family should be used as bait to draw Henry out of hiding. There is a happy ending though. Also officially Henry is dead as they thought he died in a warehouse fire although he got to one of the lab technicians and made him falsify the results. With his brand of torture he can make people do anything. At first the family are dismissive of the danger they are in but of course that soon changes. Deaver has won loads of awards for his thriller writing and interestingly used to be a folk singer among other things. He's also most famous for the Lincoln Rhyme series which features a disabled detective of that name and The Bone Collector was a successful film.

I have done a post reviewing Allies which is part of the Star Wars series and written by Christie Golden at http://oldscratbag.blogspot.com

You're all welcome to have a look.

The book I read to research this post The Complete Idiot's Guide to the Mafia by Jerry Capeci which is an excellent book which I bought from a carboot sale. There are many different types of mafia including american, russian and italian. Even the groupies who followed the kennedy's were called the irish mafia. This book looks at the italian mafia both the type active in italy or the sicillian, cambrian and camorran and the offshoot in america or la cosa nostra. Around the beginning of the twentieth century many people from europe went to america. The italian mafia saw opportunity in this and many of their people went to america to start similiar racquets there. In addition a new form of mafia called la cosa nostra which had no direct connection to the italian mafia was formed. At one time it was very difficult to indict the people at the top of the chain as they often had no direct involvement in the racquets their henchmen ran. Nowadays that has changed with the advent of surveillance equipment. Also with the introduction of the RICO or racquet and corrupt organisation act which provides a heavy sentence to anyone who can be proven to be a member of the mafia, many have turned informant to either get a reduced sentence or go on the witness protection programme. In places like Tampa there is no mafia left as people like the FBI have convicted them. In Rochester the local mafia has been seriously weakened by infighting. The mafia were at there peak during prohibition which meant they controlled most of the liquor. Despite many believing the mafia are honourable people who won't do drug dealing, many do make money any way they can. It largely depends on the controlling mafiosa whether drug dealing gets punished or not. Although there is a hierarchy that means on the bottom rung is associates, above them soldiers and above them capo's. Sometimes associates have more power than capo's especially if an associate makes a lot of money or is a close relation to the godfather. To become a capo you must be at least part italian and often the reason someone is only an associate or a soldier is because they have no italian blood. The godfather gets a percentage of what his underlings make. As a result he is normally very wealthy. Often the FBI concentrate on trying to trace whether a godfather pays tax or on how he launders his money and things like that. Al Capone was convicted for income tax evasion. This blog I'm doing exclusively on this site so it won'ted be copied and pasted on any of my other sites.

The book I read to research this post was A Brief History of Birmingham by Peter Leather which is a very good book which I bought from a bookshop. Birmingham started out as a small anglo saxon settlement and was quite important due to the 2 rivers, cole and barr, which served it. It received a town charter in 1106 and had an important market. In the 16th & 17th centuries a manufacturing base started to develop. In the 19th century the population mushroomed and it was called the workshop of the world. Other areas were incorporated into Birmingham and it became a city at the beginning of the 20th century. In 1939 it had more buses than anywhere else in the world. Also it had the what was reputed to be the longest bus route in the world which was the 11 bus which was a circular route around the outskirts of Birmingham. Nowadays it has quite a lot of tourist attractions like the National Exhibition Centre & the International Convention Centre. The famous motor show is held at the NEC. It has a huge network of canals and they do boat trips from near the ICC. Race relations tend to be good in Birmingham but reach a low point during the Handsworth riots. It also has a sizable irish community and when the Birmingham Six had their convictions quashed the police came in for a lot of criticism. It has one of the biggest St Patricks Day celebrations in the world. 

The book I read to research this post was Heath Ledger by John M McShane which is a very good book which I borrowed from the library. Heath and his sister Cathy were named after the characters in Wuthering Heights. He spent his childhood in Perth which is a big city but very remote. His parents sent him to an exclusive boarding school. It was a kind of training ground for the armed forces and had cadets there. Heath wasn't interested. He excelled at sport in particular hockey. He had a choice of doing drama or continuing with hockey and chose hockey. He was just interested in drama and no idea he would do well at it. In his childhood he got quite a few prestigious acting jobs including a stint in Home & Away. When he went to America his first acting job was in a film called 10 Things I Hate About You which was a remake of The Taming of the Shrew. The plot was a woman who won't date being seduced by an australian and both falling in love with each other. It was quite a big hit and put him on the map. He went on to get a good role opposite Mel Gibson and he starred in A Knights Tale. Both big hits. For Brokeback Mountain he was one of the youngest actors ever nominated for an oscar. On the set he met Michelle Williams who was his screen wife and in real life they would have a romance and she had a baby girl by him. He died at the age of 28 in 2008. It's thought he died accidently from abusing prescription drugs. He had got valid prescriptions for the drugs. He was only the second actor ever to win a posthumous oscar which he did for playing the Joker in Batman: The Dark Knight.

The book I read to research this post was Creative Visualization for dummies by Robin Nixon which is an excellent book which I borrowed from the library. People have known about the basic principles of creative visualization for thousands of years but this knowledge reached the mainstream when Wallace D Wattles wrote The Science of Getting Rich in 1910. Napolean Hill added to a lot of his ideas a couple of decades later in Think and Grow Rich. If you have a goal you should write it down, break it down into smaller steps and think what can I do today to help me achieve my goal. You should do relaxation exercises, and one of the simplest is to lie down,  start with your toes, tense them, think toes relax twice and relax the toes. You then work your way up your body, doing the same until finally doing your mind. You should then lie there for say 20 minutes and can think about a goal. If you want a material goal like a brand new lambourghini you should decide on things like what colour and model you want and then should research what you can about it. This will help you acheive it. To make yourself more creative, one exercise is to imagine you have a magic chalk and blackboard. You then imagine you draw a door and it becomes real and you open it, you then step through it into another world. This world is different from your world and you have to imagine what it's like. Many athletes use visualization to improve their performance. If for example someone is a basketball player it will visualize shooting the basket in addition to actually practising. If someone wants to run the 100 metres in under 10 seconds he will usually spend time visually it. Your unconscious will gradually accept it as a reality, which will enable you to do it. If you find this post interesting I have done a post on positive psychology at http://daveroberts69.wordpress.com

The book I read to research this post was Labrador Retrievers for Dummies by Joel Walton et al which is an excellent book which I bought from Amazon. I remember a few years ago in the british newspapers there was a story that a family were taking their labrador for a walk and their 3 year old girl got attacked by a stray staffie. The labrador intervened and beat up the staffie which surprised a lot of people. Even though labs are quite gentle they are very strong and good fighters. I used to have a dog who was a cross between a chocolate labrador and border collie and he was great with people but hated other dogs. When I first got him from the rescue centre he had scars on his nose and his nose had been shaved so I think he had been in a fight with another dog which explains why he hated them. Anyway labradors are the most commonly kept pedigree breed in the USA. They are descended from the St Johns Water Dog and are related to the Newfoundland who are bigger but look similiar. They come in 3 colours, chocolate, gold and black. Regardless of the colour they are the same dog. You sometimes hear stories that gold ones are more friendly or chocolate won't listen but they're a load of nonsense. They are very energetic, need lots of exercise and are destructive so you need to take that into account before buying one. They vary in size quite a lot and they are very loyal. There is 2 types of labrador the english type which is more suited to being a pet and the field type which is more suited to being a working dog. 

I have done a post reviewing The Crew by Dougie Brimson which is a very gritty novel about soccer gang violence at http://oldscratbag.com

You're all welcome to have a look.

The book I read to research this post was Consciousness - A Very Short Introduction by Susan Blackmore which is an excellent book which I bought from kindle. Consciousness is the way we interpret the world around us. No one knows if we all have the same perception of the colour green for example. No one knows if the colour green actually exists or if it's just something we perceive. We do know that according to the density of the surface of something and how it reflects light that determines its colour. We can't comprehend what it's like to be a bat. Bats have poor eyesight and use hearing predominantly and of course use sonar to find there way around. One philosopher said that us trying to comprehend consciousness is like a dog learning to read and that it will never happen. For a long time scientists refused to study consciousness. Nowadays a lot of research is done into it for example one scientist attached electrodes to different parts of the brains of people having open brain surgery and was able to prove that different parts of the brain had different functions. We still don't know where thoughts emanate from. If somebody is told to do something at random we have no way of working they will do it. Another question is why do we have a much higher level of consciousness than animals. It has been suggested it's a matter of survival developed in prehistoric times but why can animals function quite happily without it. 

The book I read to research this post was The AA Pocket Guide to Gran Canaria which is a very good book which I bought from a bookstore in Hereford. The temperature rarely drops below 15 degrees centigrade at the Canary Islands and it is like summer weather all year round. If you are travelling from far away like Australia it might be cheaper to get a connection from either Amsterdam or London. They have a ferry from Cadiz,Spain which takes 38 hours. You don't generally need any vaccinations although if you are travelling from the USA you need either a return or ongoing ticket. All the islands are linked together by ferry. Several of the islands have airports. Among the attractions are Reptilandia where they have Komodo Dragons which are the biggest lizards in the world. There is a quaint little town called Teror. There is a canyon called the Barranco de Guayadeque. Another beauty spot is the Anden Verde. There's the governors residence at Casa de Colon. There are a network of caves at Cenobio de Valeron. There are spectacular sand dunes at Dunas de Maspalomas. There is a famous botanical garden opened in 1952 at Jardin Botanico Canario. There is a little resort at Puerto de Morgan. There is Saint Annes Cathedral at Vegueta. There is also Puerto Rico which offers some of the best big game fishing in the world and over 30 world records have been set here.