Rating: 
Summary: Fast start, slow ending ...
Review: Like many novels I've read recently, the last quarter of the book can not keep up with the rollercoaster thrills of the early chapters. I was hooked quickly, the plot is right out of today's headlines. However, I disappointed with a "gotta wind this baby up" quick ending. Plus, why were so the many of characters just left hanging, ie: what happened to the early cops and the newspaper and media slugs and the attorneys ... I wanted to see all these guys dealt with thoroughly by the author ... they all deserved their due.
Rating: 
Summary: Man of the Hour
Review: Peter Blauner did a great job in writing MAN OF THE HOUR because he took a fictional story and mixed it with reality. Blauner sends the message that our lives are not set because you could be going on with your normal life and then one act can change your life forever. He shows us this through David Fitzgerald, a teacher, who begins by getting everything ready for a field trip before all of the kids get on the bus, but one girl who was pregnant. The next thing you know the bus is in flames and he is saving his student's lives.
The character that sticks in my mind is Dave Fitzgerald, because he is going through a troublesome time in his life and then the bus blows up and and makes everything worse. The way he handled the problems at first showed that he was a weak man and then later he starts to handle the situation like he has been through it before.
I expected this book to be about a building blowing up and Dave Fitzgerald saving someone. As I was reading, things that I thought wouldn't happen did happen. I believe that this book should be made into a movie because the plot was always changing and it was extremly vivid. I would recommend this book to people who like suspense, action, and thrillers book because MAN OF THE HOUR has it all.
Rating: 
Summary: Intrigue, Action, all around great suspense story
Review: Peter Blauner has a great writing ability to keep the reader on the edge of their seat. The story tells a tale of mistakes and hatred. It all starts out when a boy named Nasser bombs a school bus and a teacher is a main suspect for the case, and then he is blamed for it, and he's searching for the truth. If you like action books that are really and keep you on the edge of your seat, this is for you. BUY IT!
Rating:
Summary: Good Texture -- Biggest Asset
Review: Peter Blauner's MAN OF THE HOUR isn't as socially relevant and scathing as it wants to be, with familiar situations and an all-too-tired attack on the media weakening its finer points. The characters aren't as vivid or richly defined as in Blauner's THE INTRUDER, yet they'll do. But what gives this novel its girth is the gripping atmospheric texture Blauner is famous for. He (along with Richard Price) manage to pen New York novels that are completely original in their sense of time and place.
Rating: 
Summary: The author
Review: So why did I write this book anyway? Oh yeah. A few years back, I read a magazine article about the brave young parademic from Texas who'd risked his life going down the well to save Baby Jessica. You remember. For a few days after the rescue, the guy became one of those instant celebrities, appearing on every major television news show and newspaper front page in the country. But that was the less interesting part of the story to me. What was more compelling was the idea that somewhere along the line, he got addicted to all the attention. By then, of course, another major story had brokenelsewhere and the media spotlight had moved on. But our hero was not ready to let his moment go. He began bombarding producers and reporters with phone calls in increasingly desperate efforts to hold on to the limelight. Eventually, his entire life unraveled and he wound up committing suicide, an event which rated only passing mention in most of the daily papers. Obviously, the man of the hour in this case had some deeper problems, but the whole scenario got me thinking about how the modern media has effected the way we see ourselves, and more specifically the way it's distorted our definition of heroism. At the dawn of a new millennium, we live in a culture where heroes have been replaced by not just celebrities but anti-celebrities - people who fascinate and repulse us with their willingness to do anything for attention. Cads who brag about sleeping with princesses, would-be Lolitas who shoot their boyfriends' wives and write books about it, morons who get parts of themselves cut off and thrown into traffic by disgruntled spouses and then go on to star in porn films. As a reporter in the eighties and early nineties, I'd been a part of the build-'em-up-tear-'em-down frenzies in which these marginal characters are rewarded with fame and then hypocritically denounced by the press for their depravity. I'd seen how that process worked. ut now I started to think about what it was like to be on the other side of the media mirror. In a bizarre post-modern way, people have begun to define themselves in relation to the media, as if appearing on camera somehow validated their existence. Men and women who've literally lost their homes and families somehow make it to the television studio in time for interviews the next morning. But a novelist should try to take things a step further. I started wondering about how someone could define himself in the modern world IN SPITE OF THE MEDIA. In other words, how would you defy the television cameras, the web sites, the newspapers, the magazines, the whole fully-wired disposable-information instant gratification modern world and say no, you're wrong, the hell with you, you cannot define me, THIS IS WHO I AM? So in this novel, each of the main characters are trying in their own way to be man of the hour. There's David Fitzgerald, a schoolteacher in the gaudy run-down Coney Island section of Brooklyn. He's one of those people who's always dreamed of doing something wonderful and courageous to live up to the legacy left by his war-hero father but has never really gotten the chance. But then one day, opportunity literally explodes in his face. A school bus blows up in front of him and, in a moment of mad unexpected courage, David saves one of his students, who'd been on board. For a few days, David becomes one of those instant celebrities, appearing on all the major television shows and being saluted by the President. And in some small way, he allows himself to be sucked in by the hype. For once, his ordinary life feels extraordinary and he begins to believe he is the person being described by the press. But then all of a sudden, things turn around 180 degrees. The police decide David might have planted the bomb on the bus to make himself heroic and the story quickly spreads to the press. Soon he's in all the headlines and on all the tv shows as a villain. Having immediately believed all the positive stories about him, his friends and colleagues are just as fast to turn against him. And for a few confusing moments, David finds himself lost and unsure of who he really is anymore. What he has to do in order to survive is not just find the real bombers, but re-define himself in the eyes of the world and say this is who I am, flesh and blood, not a two-dimenional media image. In a small sense, his effort to pull himself together seemed analogous to a writer's attempt to create a character from scratch. As a counter-point to give the story a greater sense of tension and atmosphere, there's Nasser Hamdy, a young former student of David's, who sees himself as heroic for fighting off the modern world. Having grown up in Palestinian refugee camps and fallen in among Islamic extremists, Nasser hates American popular culture and everything it represents, yet subtly and inexorably he finds himself being influenced by it. He bombs the bus outside David's school as an act of political protest, but then he comes to see how much coverage CNN is giving it on the news that night. And naturally when the time comes to strike again and do something even more drastic and dadly, his terrorist bosses demand that he do enough damage to get higher ratings. Of course, it's up to David to stop him. Well, so what have I written here? A thiller (a label that makes me less and less comfortable these days) or something that attempts to be a little more provocative and thoughtful? The answer, I hope, is a bit of both. I don't write escapist books, but I'm also aware that on every page I'm competing for readers' attention against the same tv shows, newspapers, magaines, and web sites I'm writing about in MAN OF THE HOUR. Still, the best books - or at least the ones I care about - give you more for your money. The words and characters keep moving around inside your head long after the book has been put back up on the shelf. In MAN OF THE HOUR, I've tried my best to write one of those.
Rating:
Summary: Terrific work
Review: The media dubs Coney island High School teacher David Blauner a hero when he rescues students from a bomb planted on a school bus by terrorists. Reluctantly, David begins to embrace his role as a hero. However, almost as quickly, the bottom falls out for David when the press, starting with reporter Judy Mandel, accuse David of being the planter of the bomb. The police and the Feds begin to investigate David as the prime suspect. His heroic act may cost him custody of his son and much more. Though the police never officially accuse him of any crime, the media hangs David. Peter Blauner is quickly attaining much acclaim for his urban thrillers (see THE INTRUDER) that sharply expose the moral conflicts seemingly inherent in the big cities. His latest tale, MAN OF THE HOUR, though not as taut as THE INTRUDER, is a jewel of a tale that brings home the social dilemmas of modern society. David is a superb character, whose metamorphosis from reluctant hero to embracing hero to victim is cleverly developed to retain his basic character traits. Sub-genre fans will take pleasure from both of Mr. Blauner's inner city thrillers. Harriet Klausner
Rating:
Summary: Decent Audiobook Fare...
Review: There was a lot more to this tape than it seemed at first "reading." At first, I found myself a little wary of a terrorist plot, given how the very subject is super-charged with anxiety. The plot, however, was more about a young man caught in very conflicting societies and belief systems, a teacher who wants to be better than he believes he is, and a sister's love of her brother making it near impossible to do the right things. The plot is basically itself quite straightforward: a teacher is catapulted to fame when a school bus bombing gives him an opportunity to shine through with courage: he saves one person from the bus. It doesn't last, however, as he is soon the key suspect in the bombing. As the real terrorists plan a new assault, the teacher's life falls apart, and the sister to the man who planted the bomb starts to realize what is going on, the tension jacks up, notch by notch. Joe Mantegna has a good voice for this tale, moving from the voices of a Moslem teen to a Brookyn teacher with ease, and without sounding overmuch like a bad stereotype. His pacing is excellent. It's a strong enough story to entertain, and it did make me think a little about the nature of courage and sacrifice. 'Nathan
Rating:
Summary: Decent Audiobook Fare...
Review: There was a lot more to this tape than it seemed at first "reading." At first, I found myself a little wary of a terrorist plot, given how the very subject is super-charged with anxiety. The plot, however, was more about a young man caught in very conflicting societies and belief systems, a teacher who wants to be better than he believes he is, and a sister's love of her brother making it near impossible to do the right things. The plot is basically itself quite straightforward: a teacher is catapulted to fame when a school bus bombing gives him an opportunity to shine through with courage: he saves one person from the bus. It doesn't last, however, as he is soon the key suspect in the bombing. As the real terrorists plan a new assault, the teacher's life falls apart, and the sister to the man who planted the bomb starts to realize what is going on, the tension jacks up, notch by notch. Joe Mantegna has a good voice for this tale, moving from the voices of a Moslem teen to a Brookyn teacher with ease, and without sounding overmuch like a bad stereotype. His pacing is excellent. It's a strong enough story to entertain, and it did make me think a little about the nature of courage and sacrifice. 'Nathan
Rating:
Summary: Exciting
Review: This book is a well written and fast paced narrative. It brings many social issues into the story, such as teachers effects on their students. It also combines the "hate USA" and Arab terrorism to make for a great story. This is the first book I have read by the author and I am very impressed. He is able to combine a few different plots together to create the whole picture. The characters are described in such great detail, you will have an excellent mental picture.
Rating:
Summary: Exciting
Review: This book is a well written and fast paced narrative. It brings many social issues into the story, such as teachers effects on their students. It also combines the "hate USA" and Arab terrorism to make for a great story. This is the first book I have read by the author and I am very impressed. He is able to combine a few different plots together to create the whole picture. The characters are described in such great detail, you will have an excellent mental picture.
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