Ford Reviews

What is a rainmaker?

Rainmakers have the ability to gain access to decision makers while they have high concern about confidentiality and are still in the process of formulating their needs around specific problems.

This access means knowing key people so well, they feel comfortable confiding in you.

One has to be a good sales professional to be an effective Rainmaker. But one need not be a Rainmaker to be an effective sales professional. Sales and Rainmaking are not necessarily the same thing, even though both contribute to the revenue side of the accounting equation.

At Stybel Peabody, we value this book so highly we use it as the basic text in our work with professional service providers who seek to develop rainmaking skills.

The title of this book, however, is somewhat misleading.

Ford Harding has written a first rate "how to" book on attracting new clients via all kinds of sales and marketing techniques. Rainmaking is only one of those ! ! techniques.

One of the book's strengths is that Ford Harding doesn't "preach." He talks about his own failures as well as his successes. Harding integrates his own experiences with survey research he has done with practitioners. Finally, his approach is contingency-based. By contingency, we mean that he provides readers with descriptions of different client development techniques available and some frameworks when tech technique is appropriate or inappropriate.

We'll be surprised if you don't get at least three good, useful ideas from this book.

Laurence J. Stybel and Maryanne Peabody STYBEL PEABODY & ASSOCIATESEND

Providers of professional services share a common problem -- that of maintaining a continuing flow of new business opportunities. Our "sales" problem is much different from that of those who provide tangible products. In fact, to some of us, the very concept of "selling" is offensive; yet, new business must come from somewhere.

As a provider of strategic marketing services for high-technology companies, I have spent the last 15 years helping my clients better understand their markets and customers' needs and develop effective marketing operations. I have also given much thought about how the concepts I recommend to my clients could be applied to my own business; some are applicipable, but unfortunately, most are not.

Over the years, I've looked for ideas about new business generation for professional Rainmakers -- The Manager's Guide to Training Professionals to Attract New Clients by Ford Harding.

The book starts with a realistic discussion of the problem we face, then continues to outline an approach to the solution. It does not suggest any particular process, but chronicles what has actually worked for others; it is based on interviews with over 100 highly successful rainmakers. Harding tells how to think about the problem and how to develop a process that will work for you and your firm. He acknowledges that many successful rainmakers have an intuitive gift, but points out that those of us who do not have it, can learn from those who do.

I recommend the book to you. Those who are already proficient rainmakers will find ways to polish their technique; those who are struggling rainmakers will find a systematic approach to developing a system that will work for them.

CREATING RAINMAKERS By Ford Harding -- Summary of Main Points

Most professionals are good at reactive sales, i.e., obtaining an assignment when a client comes to them with a problem. Rainmakers, on the other hand, identify prospects for new business and they turn those contacts into revenue-producing assignments.

Successful rainmakers have a system to assure a continuing flow of new contacts which eventually results in new business. There are as many differences as similarities in the specifics of their systems, but all have an "engine" to keep the process working. The most successful systems fit the unique requirements of the rainmaker's market and the characteristics and personalities of the firm. Building a rainmaking system is like investing at compound interest -- success takes time, but eventually it builds on itself.

There are four key parts to successful rainmaking systems. Targeting & positioning -- you must know your market and the value you offer. Lead generation -- using thought leadership, relationship networks and value selling. Face-to-face meetings -- all lead generation efforts must lead to this. Performing -- delivering quality service is most important.

Professional service firms face one or haystack" problem -- finding a client with a problem you can solve. The "many points of light" problem -- many others also provide the service you offer. The "one dog client" problem -- client already has a provider of service you offer. Some rainmaking techniques fit one problem better than others.

Harding describes three types of selling, professional services. Product selling -- works if you can define a "standard service." Need-based selling -- prior contact or a referral is necessary. Value-based selling -- often works when need-based selling won't.

Successful rainmakers spend more time generating leads than selling. Most rainmakers initiate calls; business seldom "falls in their lap." They find a way to integrate lead generation with their other activities.

Above all, Harding's survey shows, rainmakers are optimistic

Rain Making: A Review

I am an applied psychologist and have been plying my trade for the last 26 years, during 23 of which I have been independently employed. The countries in which my clients are located include Europe, Israel and the United States.

After having read the book Rain Making, by Ford Harding, I can whole-heartedly recommend it to professional consultants (for example, accountants, management consultants and the like) who market / promote / sell their services. While I do not know to what degree people who sell, but do not sell consulting services, can benefit from this book, I can safely say that Rain Making is an excellent book for those who do sell such services.

There are a number of reasons that I recommend Rain Making so highly. One is that the methods, techniques and tips that are presented are done so in a very clear and systematic manner. This makes them not only easy to understand but, not less important, easy to remember. Another reason I found the book so satisfying is that the ideas and recommendations it offers actually work! I have applied a good number of them and can safely say that they have increased both my drive and motivation (an essential ingredient for sales success!) on the one hand and my sales, on the other.

Why does Rain Making do such a good job? For one, in addition to presenting concrete and effective recommendations and suggestions, it also presents a sales weltanschauung or world view / ideology which, if adapted, can help make for long-term sales success because it places the client in center-stage, as the factor of prime importance.
In addition, the fact the author has obviously "been there" and actually sold consulting services, enables him to understand my world and the challenges and opportunities of which it is made. I found his identification with my reality to be a solid source of support

While I have read many books on marketing and selling (Harvey Mackay's books have been very helpful) this is the first time I have read a book that is tailored to my professional reality. Morris Kaner, Israel

This book is not an "easy read", but it's very informative. With over 1,000 pages of in-depth networking technologies, you would think a book like this would put you into "Snoozeville" immediately; but, surprisingly, I found it to be well-written and easy-to-understand. The smaller chapter sizes helps you learn in bite-sized chunks.

Eventhough I'm not going for my Cisco certifications right away, this book helped answer many networking questions I had while studying for my MCSE tests.

This book concisely and succintly explains all Internetworking (LAN ,WAN) concepts in a way useful to the novice and also serves as a ready reference to the experienced professional. The print is also pleasing to the eye. However this compendium is a collection of all the Cisco Tutorials on the website.ALso many technologies are dealt with at a cursory level and the treatment could have been more in depth. But to sum up,a good buy.

While somewhat technical in nature, I have found this handbook to be a most valuable resource. The clearly defined terms and simple diagrams make this a must have for those in the ever-changing world of Cisco networking environments.

A lovely book with excellent illustrations but for those with sentimental memories, it's pretty much a failure as a lesson in Creation, Fall, Redemption or the birth of Christ. I would never give this to a child to read. At least not without guidance afterward to explain how the Scriptures really spoke to this.

Typical errors include: "After God had worked hard all week long to make these things it was Sunday, so He took a good long rest" (Sabbath, and yes God rested, but its important to teach children what Jesus taught later, that the Sabbath was made for MAN to rest, not for GOD to rest)

Another: "...you must never eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge because if you do you will surely die" (it is the tree of knowledge of GOOD and EVIL)

Another: "...HE (GOD) listened to men singing as they worked the fields and to a band of children playing ring-around-a-rosy" (ring-around-a-rosy originated during the Black Plague)

Another: ..God is upset at a child abandoned by its parents in a war and left starving at home, and sends the Angel Gabriel to take the child up and fly it to its parents. (????? this is not one of the mysterious ways in which GOD is known to work - much less would GOD choose to return a child to the parents who abandoned her)

There are many, many problems in this book. Joseph is a mystery man, there are multiple north poles and no south pole, there are so many errors and talking down to children (children can understand the idea of male and female animals, two-by-two - no need to call them a 'lady and a gentleman animal of every kind'

I appreciate that some people are sentimental about this book but I would recommend anyone thinking of giving it to a child read it very carefully first.

I used to read this book when I was young if I couldn't fall asleep at night or had a scary dream. I am fortunate to have my father's copy. I would like to give this book to all my nieces and nephew. I am disappointed that it is out of print and that the used copies are priced outrageously high. I hope it will be reprinted soon.

this is a marvellous book for children and adults. It is a shame it is out of print. It is a treasure, especially now after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

The author started off with a respectable historical review of how the fed came about. It was eye opening and provided a lot of information which was not widely available. (For example, who were the shareholders of the fed).

The later chapters got wackier and wackier. He started making claims that he either neglected to or were unable to substantiate and thereby greatly diminished his credibility.

It was an entertaing and easy to read book. But I would classify if as part fact and part speculation.

When reading the book for the first time in 1999, it was a mind blower. It described the various steps taken by a money trust to take over the World, punctuating the evolution with episodes about the various financial crisis, the foundation of the Federal Reserve including the infamous Depression, the end of Bretton Woods, the 1973 oil crisis, the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the Y2K bug which was a plan for Europe's old money to take over the World again. At the time it opened several mind barriers.

But since (15 November 2001) I also discovered "Return of Depression Economics" from Paul Krugman explaining fundamentals in economy in an easy way, "False Dawn" from John Gray explaining the dangers of over borrowing which causes our present and probably temporary downturn, "Essays on the Great Depression" from Ben S. Bernanke explaining why the countries which abandoned the gold standard quickly (Britain 1931, Germany 1933) recovered much faster than those who did not (US 1934, Belgium 1935, France 1936). And those who did not use gold but silver did not suffer at all (China, Spain) because the metal was never in short supply.

If the Federal Reserve had not been there, if the Bank of England had not showed the way to the solution in 1931 and if this solution did not become a global standard after 1971, we would all be in a bad shape today. The reason why the dollar fares better than the euro is not because economic fundamentals but because the Federal Reserve has more room to manoeuvre and avoid crisis (recent slowdown in employment proves it) than the European Central Bank influenced by Germany who was rightfully traumatised by its 1923 hyperinflation period. Gray explains how a depression or an hyperinflation leave a deep trauma to a generation that lived true one of those events. Unfortunately fighting inflation is only one side of the coin. Recession and depression also exist.

Global finance is shaped by all those rules. September 11, 2001 showed why insurance companies and other financial institutions pool together to reduce risk. This is not a conspiracy, just the desire to diminish exposure. In 1929, central bankers were a new specie initiated by the Warburg before and after WW I to prevent problems (US, Russia, Germany, Japan, Bank of International Settlements) on the model of the banks found in France and Britain. Nobody ever had to cope with a global depression before and several states including the US did exactly what made it worse: raise interest rates, raise taxes, close their borders for foreign goods (see last chapter Krugman and also Bernanke). Since 2000 Fed reduced the rates, US government diminished taxes and lawmakers in industrial countries insist to keep borders open to avoid the unnecessary collapse of global trade. Rather trade adapts to demand.

Last but not least "All Connected Now, Living in the First Global Civilisation" from Truett Anderson explaining how our system became global thanks to telecommunication (telegraph, telephone, telex, fax, internet). Circa 1850 people started to install electric communications lines and everything else followed the wire to become global (business, finance, politics, culture, religion, social movements, information, etc...).

So a good book but reader must search for further reading to find the true meaning of the paradigm shift that occurred between 1850 and 2001.

I purchased this book a couple of years ago, lent it out to someone I don't remember so I'm buying it again! It's an easy-read, yet very detailed in its implications and suppositions. I THOROUGHLY enjoyed this book. Mr. Ford has an awesome amount of insight and unparalleled objectivity for such a subject as this. If you have a sincere desire in understanding how our society is as screwed up as it is, Mr. Ford has a couple of more than compelling reasons as to why. Definitely worth your time - enjoy!

This is a novel, and I wonder how much of it is historically correct. Be it as it may, it is a most interesting novel about the West of the US in the late 19th century. It reminds us that things were still wild and woolly while in Europe they had more elegant killings. All the gang is here, so often heard of from old gazettes. It also amazes how young they all were. They were riding off robbing and killing at an age where nowadays the parents would still call up the baby-sitter.

The only quarrel I have with the book is, that it has long stretches of tediousness. All the descriptions of far horizons and beige horse manure stretch too far. Also, the author must have used every adjective known to Funk and Wagnalls at least twice. That gets irritating.

This is really two books, both compelling. The story of Joshua Beynon a 15 year-old with a fascination for Jesse James, who falls in with James' assassin Bob Ford, bookends Ford's account of James. In the large middle portion of the novel readers follow Jesse James from his bushwacking adventures in the Civil War, through his days as one of America's most notorious criminals, up to the moment Ford kills him.

The middle of the book introduces us to the little-told story of Missouri during and after the war, where sectional feelings were so strong they led to rampant bloodshed in a "give no quarter, take no quarter" spirit. These feelings were hardly related to the preservation of the Union or the establishment of a slaveholding Confederacy. Barry does a remarkable job of giving readers a sense of why this hatred existed. The novel is a history lesson weaved into a thoroughly entertaining tale.

James is exposed as a ruthless, often sadistic killer, who lived with constant paranoia and false hope. Meanwhile he was a hero to many who saw him and his gang as avengers of "the lost cause." Barry excels at vivid characterizations. Readers become well acquainted with all participants, like them or not.

"Chivalry of Crime" begins and ends with the adventures of Welsh immigrant, Benyon who runs into serious problems with the law, only to find his new friend Bob Ford as his savior. But how good a friend is Ford, himself a "crooked" man? Young Benyon has occasion to speculate on Ford's "friendship."

To an even greater degree it is in these sections, with the advantage of one setting in a short period of time (set in Weaver, Colorado in 1892) that Barry draws a vivid picture of a place and it's people -- vigilantes, prostitutes, corrupt, lawmen and crooked gamblers.

Once again the action is palpable and there are moral questions to ponder.

"Chivalry" is rivaled only by "Cold Mountain" among historical novels set in 19th century America.

It is amazing that a writer from Wales has written such a wonderful novel of Jesse James and the west that existed in his time. Great dialogue- excellent description of the culture and landscape of the times. he weaves in the reasons for the violence that made up the personna of Jesse James. He describes what happened after the civil war that caused the Younger brothers, Bill Anderson. and Quantrell to wreak such havoc in the border states.

The author - Desmond Barry- has written another book soon to be published. I will waste no time in ordering it.

Michael Thomas Ford's first novel tries very hard to be optimistic at best and vague at worst. I wish that Ford would have cut half of the characters or at least not given them to us in a barage. So many great characters are undeveloped and it's as if the reader sort of knows them. The only truly developed character is Josh and the reader must trust the narrator to explain why the other satellites are orbiting around P-Town. Ford does a fantastic job with the setting and the sense of place. His description of character actions harkens back to his essays and work quite well for him here. As with Masters of Midnight, Ford expresses his English Major roots by citing who his sources-- which in this case are Shirley Jackson(Midnight) and Armistead Maupin (Summer). A wonderful summer read, I just want to go back and get to know the gang a bit more . . .

Up until now, Michael Thomas Ford has been recognized as been one of the best gay humorists/commentators for his highly praised collections of essays like THAT'S MR. FAGGOT TO YOU and ALEC BALDWIN DOESN'T LOVE ME. Now he has produced his first novel, and it is one of the best reads of last, this and probably next summer.

The setting is the summer season in P-Town and Ford has populated it with a most diverse, interesting and enjoyable cast of characters - gay, lesbian, transgender and straight - singles, sluts, engaged, married, separated or abandoned - and a 17-year old virgin from Hannibal. But mainly it's about Josh Felling a free-lance copywriter from Boston who is trying to get over a six-year relationship shattered by a cheating love and the "families" he discovers around him.

The author is very adept at working with a large and varied cast and entwining their many different tales into a common theme that all works out in the end. Also because of his gift for writing totally believable dialogue, you'll probably go on reading the book just another chapter or two after you've planned to stop.

Characters, plot and dialogue - you just can't top what you'll find in LAST SUMMER. And until Ford's next novel, I guess I'll just have to start with his essay collections. Don't miss this one, I'm giving it my rare *****+ rating and making it Our Bookshelf's Book Of the Month.

The first thing that I noticed about the book was the beautiful cover art. I then read the summary of the book and gave it a try. I have never heard of Michael Thomas Ford so I decided to give the book a try and was astounded. This is one of the best gay books I have read in quite a while. All the characters were very likable and realistic. The bond that the characters build throughout the summer in Provincetown is very believable. I hated when the book ended because you lose contact with many of the characters you grew to love through the novel. I hope that Michael Thomas Ford is planning a sequel because I would love to know what the characters are going to be up to next summer.

Daniel Ford has done something that took more than a little moral courage. The American Volunteer Group, aka "The Flying Tigers," have acquired mythic status in the annals of American arms. Ford has gone back to the roots of the myth, to what actually happened; and written a compelling, if at times tedious, history of the Flying Tigers.

He has done an excellent job of placing them in the context of their times. He interviewed a number of surviving Tigers, including the lesser lights of the Group, and told the truth with at best only a little varnish. He provides the specifications of the aircraft used by both sides over China and Burma, and precisely details who was stationed where, when and with how many aircraft of what types, on both sides.

He gives a good look at the interactions between Chennault, Chiang, Madame Chiang, Stilwell and Bissell; and their patrons and enemies back in Washington. How the assorted feuds amongst the principals and their patrons affected the war in the air and on the ground has never been analyzed in quite this way before. One thing I like was that Ford presents the facts as he unearthed them, and leaves it to the reader to draw conclusions as to how things went wrong and what could have been done differently, and who could have done them differently.

Ford brings the myths crashing down in flames. But he then erects a new monument to a group of heroes, some of them reluctant and all with feet of clay, who did the impossible for the ungrateful with almost nothing at all. The reader will, I think, take away an even greater respect for the men (and women) of the American Volunteer Group than he brought to the book before reading.

This one belongs on the bookshelf of all who study World War II and how it brought about the world we live in today.

Dan Ford's book on the Flying Tigers is not only fascinating, but factual. I've read just about everything there is on the AVG, including Pappy Boyington's obscure novel, and Ford makes most other work take second place. The story of the AVG is one of the great romantic, adventure stories in American aviation history. And, for the most part, that is how it has been portrayed leaving one to wonder what really happened out there in those skies over China and Burma so long ago? The only criticism I would have is that I am sure there is some things that the author left out, mainly on the mercenary nature of the venture. I wish Ford would do an update to this work which will stand as an important contribution to aviation history.

The Flying Tigers are one of the few legends of American history. But in this skeptical age, it's hard to believe a legend. Author Dan Ford brings a historian's skills to researching what really happened in Burma and China when a handful of volunteer American airmen took on virtually the entire Japanese Army Air Force in southern China and southeast Asia. Ford shows that, while--not unusually--the Tigers are credited with destroying more enemy planes than they actually did, the number of planes that can be reliably confirmed as destroyed by them is still phenomenal, considering the odds they faced, the poor conditions they flew in, and the almost total lack of support from the U.S. Ford has the novelist's knack of being able to evoke the feel of a place with a few key words and phrases. After reading his book, you know what it was like to be in Rangoon as the British Empire crumbled and the barbarian invader closed in.

Read Parade's End with Pat Barker's World War I trilogy. The contrast is fantastic.

I find it very sad that this great novel has again gone out of print, perhaps never to reappear after Everyman had to put it on remainder. Granted, as the reviews below note, it is written in an elliptical manner with time shifts, interior monologues as substitutions for action scenes and other moderist devices which make this book, like the Ulysses of Joyce, for instance, or Woolf's To the Lighthouse, God help us all, a challenge to the reader. And let's face it. Only critics like, or claim to like, a difficult book. Parade's End has never been a best seller; it has never been a modest seller. But behind the challenge is a heroic life given to us fearlessly, without irony or cynicism; a story that simultaneously beats on us and disintegrates before our eyes; and, built accretively, below our consciouness until the final novel, the tapestry of all the dross and glory of our own lives--all this the result in large part, no doubt, of these very modernist devices (while Lighthouse shows us that modernism can be an empty stage too). Tietjens stands with Adam Bede as one of the most memorable and noble characters in English literature. We care about him, which is exactly why the modernist style maddens us here--we need to know what happens to him, to be rushed to the finish. But Ford will not let us. We have to be pulled deep into Tietjens, to experience as our own all of his humiliations, to hold hard and unbending with him in intuitive dignity against the moral folly of others and the emptiness through which they are hurtled. Toward the end our reading slows. He is become our strength, our safe harbor; we cannot let him go. I know of no more powerful multi-volume work after Proust, not Musil, Powell, Durrell, etc., than Ford's Parades's End.

One of the greatest books EVER written in the English language. Period. (Well, actually, it's four books, but they don't publish them separately anymore.) FMF is a modernist genius in the order of a Faulkner or a Woolf, with a beautiful style, incredibly human characters, and a mind-boggling knowledge of both the human heart and the physical world. FMF seems to be as quasi-omniscient as his noble last Tory, the main character, Christopher Tietjens. Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to say that it's an easy book. Parade's End not a potboiler to read at the beach while you're getting a tan and sipping margaritas. It is a book that challenges the reader to let go of expectation and any hope of conventional structure, and to allow FMF's unique storytelling to settle into your gut slowly. It is a moral novel that doesn't moralize. A book about what it is to be good, to be a human being. FMF's beautiful style is even exceeded by his love for humanity and generosity of spirit. The sheer uncynicalness of the book--especially in this hollow, cynical age--is like a balm on this reader's eyes. This is one of those books, like Sound & The Fury, like Ulysses, like Pride & Prejudice, like Great Expectations, that EVERYONE should read.

The physics is fine but this is an autobiography. What kind of a man is Wheeler? I got the impression he spent as much time avoiding offending anybody important as he did on physics. He sounds like an amiable sycophant.

Having noticed over the years that Prof. John Archibald Wheeler's name turns up in an amazing variety of physics-related articles and anecdotes, I was particularly primed to read his autobiography. The book doesn't follow a simple from-birth chronology, but rather begins with Wheeler teaching at Princeton and volunteering to meet the ship carrying his mentor, Niels Bohr, at a New York City dock in January of 1939. From that pivotal moment at the brink of World War II, Wheeler fills out his story by reaching back to childhood and forward to his long career in teaching, research, and national service. We learn of his brother Joe, whose body lay in a foxhole on an Italian hillside until it was reduced to bones. Wheeler reminds us that if the Manhattan Project had geared up one year earlier, the lives of his brother and many others might have been spared.

Wheeler's remarkable character pervades the book and helps make it unique and interesting. In a profession legendary for strong intellects and egos, he has achieved and maintained a pomposity coefficient of zero. His judgments of other people are unfailingly generous, but also astute enough to be interesting and revealing. He provides candid firsthand impressions of legendary figures such as Bohr, Einstein, Oppenheimer, Teller, Ulam, Heisenberg, Fermi, Szilard and Feynman . We also learn about many less well-known colleagues, friends and students whom he finds memorable for various reasons. In contrast to the eminent-scientist stereotype, Wheeler has always enjoyed teaching undergraduates and is genuinely interested in the problems and aspirations of the young people entrusted to his care.

Like the brilliant George Gamow, Wheeler has a talent for explaining difficult concepts and illustrating them with whimsically inventive diagrams. The book's autobiographical threads are interwoven with a rich tapestry of subtle but plainly-spoken physical insights on dozens of topics, some arcane enough to leave even the author slightly bemused. I believe anyone interested in physics will find a personal revelation or two among Wheeler's lucid, informal scientific explanations. There are touches of Gamowesque humor too, such as his theory that the fates somehow conspired to entangle him with a string of Hungarian emigres.

The title concepts of the book -- Geons, Black Holes and Quantum Foam -- were all named by Wheeler himself. He began his career at the minute scale of particle physics, moved on to the grand sweep of relativistic cosmology, and finally circled back to the hyperminuteness of quantum foam. Of course there is nothing really disjointed about such a journey, since connections among the nested scales of nature constitute one of the grand unifying themes of physics.

During his tenure at Princeton university, John Archibald Wheeler has served as the mentor to such outstanding physicists as Richard P. Feynman, Kip Thorne and Hugh Everett. He was also great friends with such individuals as Albert Einstein & Niels Bohr. In short, his contributions to physics have been indispensable.

This present work of his traces his life, a life that is (as the cover says) one of science. However, one of the nice facets of this book is that it goes beyond just the laboratory & reveals the personal life of this great man. We learn of the moving death of his brother in WWII, his worries and concerns over nuclear war (as well as the grapples with his conscience that he endured over the invention of the hydrogen bomb) and many other aspects of his life. He also tells stories of some of his most memorable students; not all of these were necessarily his most gifted pupils. Above all, Wheeler reveals a genuine human passion that has characterized his approach to science over the greater part of this century. One of the best biographies of a scientist I have ever read.

This was a moderately amusing first novel by G.M. Ford. It was entertaining and fast paced, but it felt a little too much like a "made for TV" movie. There are some funny scenes, but I thought a lot of it was just silly.

You will get a pretty good sense of Seattle and suburbs, and Waterman is an interesting PI. But there isn't enough here to have me rush out and get the next in the series. There is too much better stuff out there. I recommend this only if you are an avid reader of the "hard-boiled PI" genre.

This novel introduces the occasionally amusing Seattle detective Leo Waterman and his posse of down-and-out assistants. The book is a fairly quick read and the mystery is mildly engaging, but the characters are not all that believable and the dialogue is neither interesting nor (for the most part) amusing. Those expecting an amusing mystery novel (see Hiassen instead) will likely be disappointed. This book rarely elicited a chuckle and is often outright boring. Not on par with John D. MacDonald's Travis McGee novels in either story or style, but similar in the overall feel as far as mystery novels go. This book can be recommended if you're looking for a quick, easy read. Otherwise, track down MacDonald, Hiassen, or van de Wetering.

I have just finished reading the whole Leo Waterman series (as of 2003) and must say I enjoyed it greatly. "Wanda Fuca" is a great beginning to a great series.

Having been born and raised in Seattle, but now living in Alaska, I did enjoy follwing the geography as PI Leo Waterman scoots around the Puget Sound region, sort of a nostalgic "old home week", but that was not what held my attention.

What for me sets this book apart from the rest of the "hard boiled PI" genre are the characters that Ford gives us. The are fresh, memorable and we care about them. It would be easy to make Leo's "domestically challenged" team of drunks mere two-dimensional throw-aways, but Ford fleshes them out with humor, without being condescending, and a complexity that I had never considered for "bums". These are multi-leveled people with stories behind them. I found I really same to like "The Boys" and their addition as Waterman's helpers is one of the most compelling aspects to this novel, and to the series as a whole.

If Ford's characters caught my attention, his writing style helped keep it. His action scenes are beleivable; his descriptions are terse, but evocative; and there is a self-depretiation that flows from Ford through Leo Waterman that I found both refreshing as well as compelling.