Heartstone by Phillip Margolin: a mystery involving the murder of a young couple in 1960.

In November of 1960, Richie Walters and Elaine Murray are brutally murdered. Roy Shindler, one of the detectives on the case, is convinced that two brothers, troublemakers and gang members, are behind the crimes. It becomes his life's mission to bring them to justice, no matter what the cost. In the process, the lives of several people are changed irrevocably, most of them not for the better.

Since the novel is done as a flashback, we know that Bobby Coolidge, one of the brothers was brought to trial. This, however, just makes the journey that much more interesting, in my opinion, and I definitely was surprised by how the book ended. I always appreciate a book that can lead me down one path and still surprise me that way. I also enjoyed the trial, especially the glimpse into some psychological beliefs of the era.

All in all, the book was solidly written, the characters very believable, and the plot really well done. Well worth a reading.

(Finished on July 8, 2004 for Zuly's Reading Room.)

.: 191 words at 11:42 AM in Zuly's Reading Room, ";print substr($entry_cats, 0, -2); ?> :: Link :: Pings (0) :: All the Voices Say... (0) :.

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Just a reminder, but today is the last day to sign up for Burn It - The Summer 2004 Edition. Come read the rules and sign up. This Burn's going to be a lot of fun!

.: 37 words at 01:17 PM in Burn It, ";print substr($entry_cats, 0, -2); ?> :: Link :: Pings (1) :: All the Voices Say... (1) :.

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After getting such a kick out of all the Happy Bunny stuff that I found online, I decided to whip up a new skin featuring Happy Bunny. Because if "cute by psycho" doesn't say Neurotic Fishbowl, I don't know what does.

.: 42 words at 02:18 PM in Skinning the Fish, ";print substr($entry_cats, 0, -2); ?> :: Link :: Pings (0) :: All the Voices Say... (10) :.

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I stumbled across Books For Soldiers today and just about cried reading all the posts over there. If you have any extra books or CDs to spare, please go to the boards and get an address for a soldier that could really use a pick me up.

.: 47 words at 08:25 AM in Participation, ";print substr($entry_cats, 0, -2); ?> :: Link :: Pings (1) :: All the Voices Say... (0) :.

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Just a reminder, but tomorrow's the last day to sign up for Burn It - The Summer 2004 Edition. Go read the rules and sign up already! What are you waiting for?

.: 33 words at 07:00 AM in Burn It, ";print substr($entry_cats, 0, -2); ?> :: Link :: Pings (0) :: All the Voices Say... (0) :.

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For the past couple of years, I've been a big sponsor of the Blogathon where, for 24 hours straight, bloggers blog every half hour for the accepting domations to go to charity of their choice. Blogathon is taking this year off, but Project Blog is, in theory, doing the same thing this year. Since I'm unemployed right now and consequently don't have as much money to give in support, I've decided to participate instead.

My chosen charity is Heifer International. I've been a big supporter of Heifer since I found out about their site around four years ago. They supply poor locations around the world (including here in the United States) with a gift animal - a goat, llama, water buffalo, rabbit, etc. The people of the region are then taught how to care for it. The animal supplies the people with food, (milk, eggs, meat, etc.) items like fur that can be sold or used to make clothing, and much more.

The best part is that the recipient of the animal are then required to give some of the offspring to another family or group of people in need. They in turn do the same and so on and so forth. By teaching people how to become self-reliant and having them help others, Heifer has assisted millions of people in becoming healthy, happy individuals that can stand on their own two feet. In essence, Heifer is the embodiment of the sentiment "Give a man a fish, feed him for a day. Teach a man, feed him for a lifetime."

If you can spare a few dollars, please go and sponsor me. It's a wonderful program and they can use all the help they can get. I will be talking more about Project Blog as the date approaches and I'm thinking of a few small things that I can give away (maybe Burn It CDs?) to help encourage people's support. I've never done this before so please be kind and sponsor me.

.: 335 words at 01:09 AM in Participation, ";print substr($entry_cats, 0, -2); ?> :: Link :: Pings (1) :: All the Voices Say... (0) :.

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Is it totally wrong that I want the Happy Bunny "Hi. Eat me." belly button ring? I would love some of their t-shirts too, while I'm at it.

.: 29 words at 05:48 PM in Fish Tales, ";print substr($entry_cats, 0, -2); ?> :: Link :: Pings (0) :: All the Voices Say... (4) :.

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While out running errands today, I was at Dillard's checking out their shoe sale. They had these stripey shoes that I just adored, but I have *nothing* to wear them with (except for my stripey boxer shorts and panties), so they stayed on the shelf. Aren't they cute, though?

.: 49 words at 04:56 PM in Fish Tales, ";print substr($entry_cats, 0, -2); ?> :: Link :: Pings (0) :: All the Voices Say... (6) :.

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Ever since my IE got completely hosed by a trojan (Anyone know how to completely uninstall IE? Everything I've tried doesn't work), I've been using Firefox.

It's fine as a browser so far, but every now and then, I come to a page that has the funkiest text display. I've seen it on Lists of Bests and Wordpress. My guess is it has something to do with how Firefox reads CSS since my default fonts are Times New Roman and Arial.

I've got a screenshot so you can see what I see (to quote Johnny Smith from The Dead Zone). Anyone else ever have this problem? If so, how'd you fix it?

.: 114 words at 04:46 PM in I'm Looking For...., ";print substr($entry_cats, 0, -2); ?> :: Link :: Pings (0) :: All the Voices Say... (4) :.

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Trust No One by Harlen Coben: an intruging novel about a man who loses his wife only to find out that she might not really be gone after all.

Eight years ago, Dr. David Beck lost his wife Elizabeth when she was kidnapped from the cabin that they had gone to every year since they were teenagers. Ever since he’s been essentially just walking through his life in a daze, missing her every day and not moving on. Suddenly, out of the blue, he gets an e-mail containing references and phrases that only his wife would know. Who could send something like that? Could Elizabeth still be alive? If so, where has she been and why has she been hiding?

I enjoyed this book quite a lot. The characters were interesting (from his best friend - a lesbian fashion model who’s his sister’s domestic partner - to one of his patient’s drug dealing fater), the mystery puzzling, and the book was just generally well written, as you would expect from an Edgar winning author. I look forward to reading more of his books in the future.

(Finished on July 7, 2004 for Zuly's Reading Room.)

.: 196 words at 08:40 AM in Zuly's Reading Room, ";print substr($entry_cats, 0, -2); ?> :: Link :: Pings (0) :: All the Voices Say... (0) :.

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The first Russian erotic museum in St. Petersberg is displaying Rasputin's penis. (Probably not very work safe.)

(Link courtesy of Jen.)

.: 23 words at 06:35 AM in Notable News, ";print substr($entry_cats, 0, -2); ?> :: Link :: Pings (0) :: All the Voices Say... (2) :.

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For some reason, I've always been under the assumption that your MT had to be a higher version that what I'm running (v. 2.62) to install MT-Blacklist . I finally went and took a look today only to find out that my version is compatible and I could have been running it since it came out! Needless to say, I installed it right away (took all of three minutes) and am now protected from MT spammers (I really hate those bastards. The trojan that I have on my machine right now is from accidetally clicking on one of their links. Fuckers.).

My black list is under The Fishkeeper sidebar if you want to add any of the people I've blocked. Here's hoping I get a lot less comment spam!

.: 129 words at 11:27 PM in Geeky Things, ";print substr($entry_cats, 0, -2); ?> :: Link :: Pings (0) :: All the Voices Say... (2) :.

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