Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, August 22, 1993 TAG: 9308220176
SECTION: HORIZON PAGE: F-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
By Mark Savage. Doubleday. $17.
When goofy Misty Carmichael, a punk's punk, decides to rip off some Mob money, he upsets a lot of people - including his mother. The reason is that Misty's mom has been bailing him out for years. This time, she has to turn to Izzy Stein, an old bedmate and private detective, in the hope that he can save Misty's worthless hide before the Mob skins it. But the Mob also wants to know what Izzy knows, and while Izzy is being squeezed in both body and soul, Misty is hot-sheeting his way to Hawaii, where both good and bad things finally come to an end.
Author Mark Savage drags his tale out longer than necessary, and every time he feels his story is dragging, he puts mom or Misty or Izzie or somebody into bed. It doesn't seem to make anybody any happier, including the reader. Despite its flaws, however, "Paradise" isn't all that bad a place to spend some time.
- ROBERT HILLDRUP
The Fourth Horseman.
By Andrew Nikiforuk. M. Evans. $18.95.
Subtitled "A Short History of Epidemics, Plagues, Famines, & other Scourges," this delightful (I realize that owing to the subject matter, this adjective seems out of place) book examines how diverse epidemics have fashioned the way we live, and where we live. Examining such plagues as smallpox, tuberculosis, the Irish potato famine, and, most important for this age, AIDS, the author paints the fascinating picture of men throughout the ages fighting microbes and viruses they could not see, and if they could see then would not have the background to understand them, and if they had the background to understand them did not have a magic bullet available to kill them.
In his epilogue, the author states "The future of epidemics looks as lively as New World smallpox and as irrepressible as Renaissance syphilis." Reading of how small microbes have shaped the modern world, one cannot help be somewhat nervous about what new plagues are being bred in the landfills and toxic waste dumps which dot the Earth. The Biblical reference to the Fourth Horseman of the Apocalypse is accurate. Man may try to defend against disease, but disease is loosed by very efforts to civilize the world around him.
- LARRY SHIELD
Robert Hilldrup is a Richmond writer and former newspaperman.
Larry Shield trains dogs and horses in Franklin County.
The Friends of the Rockbridge Regional Library is sponsoring a series of four discussion programs on the subject, "Mysteries in Exotic Locales." Meetings will be held on Thursdays at 7:00 in the Lexington library headquarters.
On Sept. 9, the first program will focus on the Navajo world created by Tony Hillerman in his Jim Chee and Joe Leaphorn novels. The discussion will be led by Pam Simpson, art history professor at Washington and Lee University. The meetings are open to the public and there's no required reading, though a familiarity with Hillerman's excellent novels, particularly "A Thief of Time" (one of his best), wouldn't hurt.
On Sept. 23, the series moves closer to home with Virginia's own Ted Blain, author of "Love Cools" and "Passion Play," discussing his fictitious boys' school.
-MIKE MAYO, Book page editor
by CNB