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Rating: 
Summary: Davy Crockett never "kilt a bar" with a repeating rifle.
Review: I picked this book up because 1.) I enjoy the Howdunit series, and 2.) I was hoping to find out some useful information about guns for my own writing. From reading the first few pages of the book, the author comes off as all-knowing and haughty. I decided to overlook this because many writers have done the same thing, especially when they're pretty much an "expert" on what they are writing. It took me a week to get through this book. Why? Because I found the text boring; it read like an outdated text book. Firstly, the book presented a lot of history. Maybe too much. I didn't really count that as a negative since not every mystery/action writer writes in the present year(s). The way the material, though, was presented was enough to cure my insomnia. I nodded off on this book more times than I'd like to mention. The only thing that interested me in that "history lesson" was the depictions of the 'Old West'. Secondly, where were the pictures? It was hard for me to get a mental image of the guns he was describing. Yes, he described them nicely, but I'm not going to describe the gun exactly as he did in my own story. It would have been nice to see pictures, so that I could have rendered my own descriptions. In the back, there are only 4 guns pictured. I found myself relying more so on internet sources (handguns.com) than the descriptions in this book. Thirdly, unless you have at least a little prior knowledge of guns, then this may confuse you. There are too many technical terms and not enough layman terms. You'll find yourself constantly flipping back and foward through the book to make any sense of some the things he mentions. But in defense of the book, it's obvious the author knows his guns. I was impressed with his knowledge on the subject, but I wasn't impressed with the way he presented his knowledge. It seems like he was trying to exercise his rather extensive vocabulary rather than actually educating his readers. Would I recommend this book for buying? I don't know it depends on your knowledge thus far on firearms. It might come in handy as a reference every now and again, but personally I feel there are better references out there.
Rating:
Summary: A small book with too much history
Review: Michael Newton, the author, has penned around 70 novels, and his knowledge of weapons and firearms is undisputable. However, the problem with this book is the amount of space it takes on the history of weapons. For the crime writer, it's way, way too much. The other problem is that it lacks illustrations. A book of this kind could have done with color plates so that the writer can get a chance to describe the gun him/herself by looking at the picture rather than having to rely on Newton's analysis. The appendix and glossary are probably the most useful for writers, with clear labelled photographs of some weapons (only 4!) and tables of calibre types and ammunition. Unless you absolutely want to own the entire Howdunnit Series, give this one a miss. It suffers from having to fit into the look and size of the other books in the series, when it clearly should have been a bigger and more pictorial book.
Rating: 
Summary: They say weapons, they mean guns
Review: This book will be very helpful to someone needing correct information about guns. It is completely worthless to those of us (like me) who picked it up believing that it would touch on all sorts of weapons - knives, swords, bows, etc. I know they are targeting mystery writers, but not all mystery writers want a gun-toting suspect.
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