I loved the movie and I looked forward to insights about the making of it.
Instead I got a dry recitation that included a lot of information I already knew. The
book is written in a flat way, repeating itself and anecdotes long told.
The research shows and the author does share enough insights that almost moved me to
the three star category. But it was too much of a disappointment to offer more than faint praise.

I love his style. We get real meaty stories that don’t end on some silly twist or forced crescendo.
By the time we finish, the tale is told, the work is done.
I loved most if the stories. Only one clanker and the rest are sweet, painful, sad. Just like life.
I highly recommend this book.

It was amazing to read about the number of hijackings before we clamped down. Part of our history we seem to have forgotten.
The author gives us a dual track……..the story of two people and one hijacking, and the larger picture of hijacking history.
I think both work. The story of the hijacking couple works the best since the overall history gets a little tedious.
But make no mistake. This is a well written, well researched book. You learn a lot even if you lived through it.
It even leaves us with a hanging mystery. Love that.

I bought this and one other Crichton book from his early days before he was Crichton. I actually liked this one a little
better than Drug of Choice, which is praised for using science like his later books. This one is just a fairly predictable murder and mayhem chase. But I found it more fun and had no problem breezing through it to the not unexpected conclusion.

This early work by Crichton is fun, and you can see the ingredients that led to his later success. It isn’t terrible and it is just good enough to keep you going.

I know this goes against the Woodrell tidal wave but I don’t think is near his best work. The story is built on an intriguing incident, but his indirect style with rich prose just doesn’t generate enough heat for me. It falls short of some of his other page turners.

I was curious about this book since I have family members who live nearby. It is hard to imagine these being “mean streets” today.
The book is a gentle tale about the power of love and flowers to turn a tough neighborhood into a caring one. It may be from another era, but the message is as sound as ever. It is a book for teens to be appreciated by adults.

Juicy stuff. Believable. I am always suspicious of these first person accounts that cast a bad light on the star of the book. But
I felt this was a reasonably honest account of the man behind the desk. I enjoyed it.

The characters are interesting. The dialogue is snappy and brittle. The interplay between the two main characters in
the story is very good.
But the book moves from one interview to the next as our hero tries to solve the crime. And they go on. And on.
When Grafton does this it always seems like a sprint. This one has a lot of crawling.
The ending is resolved in an worthy way. But I won’t be reading a sequel.

It is the rare star turn biography that is more interesting when sharing the early years, than the famous years.
But this is one of them. Sizemore is an interesting guy with a background and family worth sharing. And some
of the star stories are a lot of fun.
But when drugs get him, the book leaves us in a haze. There is nothing more boring than details about an addict
who fails in rehab 75 times.
As the book ends and Sizemore is acting in these minor films to work his way back, it is sad but you are rooting for him.