Rating: 
Summary: Early Vail
Review: Rather comprehensive about the very early years in Vail. Having an outsider overview the early sixties gives those years perspective. Description of the fire and surrounding events is spellbinding.
Rating: 
Summary: Intriguing, but too much vulgarity and profanity
Review: The book is interesting as an unsolved mystery, but everyone cannot be as guilty as they sound. I struggled a bit with the writing, and did not like all of the vulgarity and profanity. It did not add anything to the book, except to make me feel like I was overhearing conversations in a cheap bar. It was also apparent from the start that Glick does not like rich people (some peoople might call them successful). He could hardly talk about them in a civil tone. He used phrases like "Outrageous luxury", and "Trophyest of trophy homes."
Rating:
Summary: We're no longer in Kansas, Dorothy
Review: There's a good reason why the locals call Vail Associates' offices at Avon the "Death Star." Dan Glick brings into focus what has been an amorphic sense in the Colorado region that perhaps what's going on in the Vail Valley isn't a good thing. Since white hat and black hat stereotypes can diminish the discussion, Glick sheds light on the growth-at-any-cost mentality and its long-term effects on animals, both human and other. He lets his major players damn themselves with their own words. His images are rich--I especially appreciate the one of CEO Adam Aaron standing on the deck of his multi-million dollar home at Beaver Creek, wondering why everyone's so cranky about VA's ventures, while just over the ridge, in the cheap seats, sit the trailer parks of Little Mexico with 14 to a unit working at minimum wage. The Vail fires are a lesson in the consequences of oligarchy and dislocation. As a native Coloradan, I thought I couldn't be shocked any more. However, the behind the scenes skull-duggery is worse than I imagined, and Glick turns a story of fire on the mountain into a who-done-it page turner. If you care about mountain environments, this is a "must read."
Rating: 
Summary: Rocky Mountain Whodunnit
Review: Vail/Beaver Creek is probably my favorite vacation spot on earth in the summertime...about the only time of year I can afford it (and even then barely). This is a fascinating book, part history of Vail, part meditation on the issues surrounding growth in the affluent west (ie, how a resort for the rich and famous affects the locals and the environment), but largely a whodunnit surrounding the 1998 arson on Vail Mountain.I wouldn't go so far at to call this a "Rocky Mountain version of "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil' " - Glick's writing isn't that smooth and his character development isn't that deep. But I am fascinated by this part of the country and it's a good story that he has to work with. In the end he presents all the available evidence and lets you draw your own conclusions - probably the best way to end considering that the arson itself remains unsolved.
Rating:
Summary: Rocky Mountain Whodunnit
Review: Vail/Beaver Creek is probably my favorite vacation spot on earth in the summertime...about the only time of year I can afford it (and even then barely). This is a fascinating book, part history of Vail, part meditation on the issues surrounding growth in the affluent west (ie, how a resort for the rich and famous affects the locals and the environment), but largely a whodunnit surrounding the 1998 arson on Vail Mountain. I wouldn't go so far at to call this a "Rocky Mountain version of "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil' " - Glick's writing isn't that smooth and his character development isn't that deep. But I am fascinated by this part of the country and it's a good story that he has to work with. In the end he presents all the available evidence and lets you draw your own conclusions - probably the best way to end considering that the arson itself remains unsolved.
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