|
|
|
|
|
|
HomeShop at BookSurgeLawCriminal LawSentencingPortobello: One: PortoCaicos - An island in the stream |
|
|  |
| Customer Reviews: | | Average Customer Review:
Write an online review and share your thoughts with other customers.
 Lines in the Sand Nov 29, 2009
This is a massive trilogy with worldwide scope that starts as just a bit of local thievery. It is about rich versus poor, stupid against bright, black versus white and women challenged by male chauvinism. In orbit over all of this is a story about the media biz. Author Bob Cooper shows a mastery of how and why media works and the tremendous influences it can exert on a culture under stress. Local radio permeates Portobello throughout the trilogy; Cooper uses radio newscasts - as actually broadcast on the island's radio station, WIV, to keep the story moving and cohesive. "Pip-pip-pip; Good day; it is Wednesday 12 noon in the Turks and Caicos Islands and this is Karen Monasto with the mid-day edition news ... ." (Pip-pip-pip? One of many remnants of British tradition, uttered here to announce a news bulletin.)
If there is one group of potential readers which should find the Portobello trilogy hard to put down, it will be members --especially female members-- of the media world. Author Cooper spent 50 years in that world, and his experience shines through with intimate details that make the fantastic story almost historical. A fun side-bar to reading Portobello is in pondering and trying to guess the identity of international personalities who appear in Portobello and play cameo roles, including famed CNN anchor Bernard Shaw. Cooper has created something that is more than an evening's read - one to savour over many days and dwell upon, evermore.
 Three Huge Books In Island Triology Nov 16, 2009
Portobello One is the first in a three book trilogy, and each is a huge book. These are not your normal "fit in your back pocket" paperbacks - each book is twice the (physical) size (width and height) of most paperbacks, and roughly 600 pages each. You get a lot of bang for your buck. You definitely need to read them in order (Porto One - Porto Two -Porto Three). They are not so much sequels, but it is definitely a continuing story. Each builds on the previous book. You will need to be familiar with the characters in the preceding book to follow the story in 'Two' and 'Three'. While the book(s) are fiction, the characters are based on real people who lived on Portobello (actually Providenciales (informally known as Provo, in the Turks & Caicos Islands), and the story reads like actual history - as it could have been - and partially has actually come to past.
If you like intrigue on a large scale, especially based on real places and real people, you'll love the book. It begins as a local plot, and before it ends, unfolds into a global mystery. The books are big, and the scope of the underlying plans of the movers and shakers is bigger. It's as real as it gets, without actually being on the evening news.
|
| | |
|
|
|
|
|
