Rating: 
Summary: Adventure at its best
Review: Fantastic! I've had this sitting on my shelf to read for a few years now and finally got around to it. And I'm so glad that I did. Girardi spins a tale worthy of a sailor. Its got mystery, suspense, love, lust, greed, action, adventure - what more could you possibly want? From the first page, I was hooked and had a hard time slowing down to absorb all the details. I truly didn't want this novel to end. Grab a copy and enjoy.
Rating:
Summary: Adventure at its best
Review: Fantastic! I've had this sitting on my shelf to read for a few years now and finally got around to it. And I'm so glad that I did. Girardi spins a tale worthy of a sailor. Its got mystery, suspense, love, lust, greed, action, adventure - what more could you possibly want? From the first page, I was hooked and had a hard time slowing down to absorb all the details. I truly didn't want this novel to end. Grab a copy and enjoy.
Rating: 
Summary: One star for the title; you've got to love a girl!
Review: Gerardi has never been to Africa and it shows. Completely unconvincing. Shoddy details make plot twists deadweight, as when yon "hero" has a Wembley pistol blow up in his face. Well, Gerardi doesn't have the guy CLEAN the weapon during the entire novel. Anybody who's actually handled small-arms in Africa knows that if you don't clean a pistol in the tropics, particularly a WWI-era weapon, you're dancing with the Devil himself. But I give him a star for the title, as any reference to women always cheers my spirits. Back to Cormac McCarthy for me, who not only takes the imagination to places Gerardi does not dare to venture, but the Master from West Texas also knows of which he speaks.
Rating:
Summary: The Pirate's Daughter
Review: I found this a profoundly disappointing book. The storyline is contrived, the characters thin, the writing laboured. If you have a idle couple of hours at an airport it is a passable adventure yarn that might help pass the time but it is not a book I will be recommending to any of my friends.
Rating: 
Summary: An interesting mixed bag
Review: I picked this up a year ago while browsing, intrigued by the cover and the title. It looked interesting, but I was reminded of my towering shelf of books to be read and so did not buy it then. The professor for my creative writing workshop class was going to be out of town for a class period, and announced that he was having a guest instructor for that class, who turned out to be Robert Girardi. The to-be-read shelf be damned, I like to know whose instructing I'm getting, so I went out and found this and his first novel, Madeleine's Ghost.The story here is fairly straight-forward: Wilson Lander is a young man with a sense of dread, unable to complete his doctorate in archaelogy, and is working in the big city as a clerk to his girlfriend. He stumbles upon Cricket Page, who leads him into an exotic adventure as a galley cook on a tychoon's yacht called the Compound Interest. But Cricket is more than she seems (the title gives it away), and Wilson promises to be more than the nebbish than he initially seems. I'm a pirate fan. There's something about the outlaw on the sea that intrigues me more than an outlaw on the land. Two of my favorites in this area are Tim Powers' On Stranger Tides and A.A. Attanasio's Wyvern. Long-time readers will remember a fairly lengthy discussion in 1992 or 1993 about Michael Scott Rohan's pirate book, Chase the Morning. So I was predisposed to liking this book, even though this describes a modern day piracy. And I did like this book a lot--up until a certain point, the break between sections five and six, where Girardi lost my sense of disbelief in what the characters actually do. The motivations of the characters in other sections are a little hard to believe, but from a steady diet of a slightly more fantastical nature leads me to extend a bit more leeway to an author. The manner in which the story is told is very movie-like, and it was no surprise to me to discover that Girardi is also a screenwriter. After our class meeting, I talked with Girardi about his book. During class he had made a disparaging comment regarding "genre," which seemed to me out of place, considering the fact that this book is basically an adventure story set in the modern era and his first novel is a ghost tale. His definition of genre (learned from his time at the Iowa Writer's Workshop, I think) was books that are essentially adventure and nothing more. Of course, as a "fan" of science fiction, I have always used genre as the word to describe the marketing labels placed on the various "types" of fiction: mainstream, SF, mystery. Later in the semester, I discovered that there is a third usage of genre: describing the "forms" of written communication, i.e., poetry, fiction, essay, biography, advertising, etc. From all this I have deduced that genre is a highly overused word and I have made myself a resolution to discontinue its use, in an attempt to promote more understanding between the three camps that have adopted it into their discourse.
Rating: 
Summary: Couldn't wait for every page
Review: I really loved the book. I think it should of gone into more detail with the character's backgrounds and lives. I felt like this was a book report on a much longer novel.
Rating:
Summary: Modern-day piracy mixed with an aura of the 16th century
Review: I've never heard about pirates with a notebook connected by wire to databases around the world when they are about to make their victims "jump the plank" the old fashioned way! But, .... I can imagine it after reading this book! The author manage to mix the modern-day life and technology together with the feeling of the old era centuries ago when the black-eyed pirates sailed the seven seas! I'm already looking for Mr. Girardis next book. With this kind of writing it has to be great!!!!
Rating:
Summary: Modern-day piracy mixed with an aura of the 16th century
Review: I've never heard about pirates with a notebook connected by wire to databases around the world when they are about to make their victims "jump the plank" the old fashioned way! But, .... I can imagine it after reading this book! The author manage to mix the modern-day life and technology together with the feeling of the old era centuries ago when the black-eyed pirates sailed the seven seas! I'm already looking for Mr. Girardis next book. With this kind of writing it has to be great!!!!
Rating:
Summary: Read this book BEFORE Hollywood get their paws on it..
Review: In response to Gene Taxton's review: I have been to Africa, and I couldn't see anything wrong with Girardi's description of the place. Obviously you didn't like the book and want to have a whinge -as is your right- but, if you then wish to attempt a literary critique you need to have your facts straight - and this is where it all falls apart: an example being where you take Robert Girardi to task over the apparent 'shoddy details' he exhibits when writing about WWI weapons.. For the record: It is the _character_ that doesn't know the pistol will explode, not the author; I feel you've missed something vital here, so I'll expand.. The Wembley pistol blows up in Wilson Lander's face precisely *because* he doesn't clean it. Not ever having handled weapons or been to the tropics before, needing to keep the pistol clean is something that doesn't occur to him. The author, on the other hand, *does* know that pistols explode when they are not cleaned; thus, pistol go boom. Hope I've cleared that up for you. A lot of this novel examines the 'fish out of water' type encounters that Landers endures, which is clearly something you are also experiencing when attempting to review this book.. Moving on.. This is a wonderful book, I would almost call it an adult fairytale: it has a magical, wide-eyed quality, but it's dark too (more Brothers Grimm than Anderson..) Like Amy from Wollongong, I also had visions of the spectacular movie this book could become. However, the thought of this wonderful novel getting the Hollywood treatment is truly disturbing. Much meddling would abound (characters that stay true to their natures..? I can't see that radical concept making it through somehow..) and, no doubt, the ending would also be reworked; a crime that doesn't bear thinking about. So read it instead.
Rating:
Summary: Agree w/Taxton: Gerardi's book blows up in author's face
Review: Must say I agree with Gene Taxton. Gerardi's lack of knowledge about firearms makes the book fall apart at key juncture. I disagree with the Australian lady. She misses Taxton's point entirely. How does she so keenly know what the author knows, and does not know? All we have is the text. The text clearly shows how little Gerardi knows about that which he is writing. He has never been to Africa and never fired a Wembley, and as Mr. Taxton so rightly puts it, who in God's name would seek out a Wembley in our time? This book reads like a "This Boy's Life" adapted by someone who grew up fantasizing on National Geographic magazine issues. By the way, where's the second edition of any of Gerardi's books? Nowhere. Quite.
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