No Certain Rest : A Novel

Rating:
Summary: Not Much Here
Review: At the heart of the book is a murder on the battlefield of Antietam. the remains are found by artifact hunters and the murderis deuced by an archeologist and his Smithsonian pathologist friend. The premise is a good one. Unfortunately, Mr. Lehrer goes no where with it.

This book really contains very little. Very little history, very little mystery, very little archeology, very little forensics - well, you get it.

The story line could have been good if fleshed out more. The author spends way too much time recounting his hero's imaginings of the battle at Antietam Creek. There was also much redundancy in the recountings of the battles.

Lastly, the last chapter containing a modern day murder is completely incongruous and superfluous.

This is a book to skip. I was hoping for some interesting insights into the battle or some in depth accounts on the archeology. The book delivers neither. It is mostly an ode to the Civil War by the main character, a National Park Archeologist, who apparently wishes he was there.

Rating:
Summary: Average, but a Decent Value at the Amazon Price
Review: I enjoyed the reading experience, for the most part. As with many 3 star experiences, there are pro and con opinion points. On the con side, I never really received what I was hoping for in terms of historical analysis or even a moderately captivating storyline. On the pro side, I found it most interesting due to the fact that, personally, I too am researching some unidentified Yankee remains in a local cemetery here. It is there that the connection and interest begins and ends, though. Still, it was enough incentive for me to complete the book, and to give it 3 stars.

In the end, the fundamental premise of the story is intriguing; however, the subplots and related characters were not developed to a point where I found them to be very interesting. This, and the implausibility of the story of how the Civil War soldier's demise pretty much just falls into the researcher's lap (i's dotted, t's crossed), make for an average book. Lastly, the overly-melodramatic (and yes, silly) confrontation between the ancestors of the soldiers at the end could have been left out, as well.

Of course, the book cost is very reasonable. It IS a value at that price, and would be enjoyed by those who themselves enjoy collecting, assembling, and integrating "little" pieces of history into the greater whole.

Rating:
Summary: Interesting Premise.....Ok Execution
Review: Jim Lehrer has spun a great premise that grabbed me as a fan of both the Civil War and good fiction.

Human remains are found on the Antietam Battlefield by relic hunters. The archaeological exploration by the National Park Service reveals that the man buried on that bloody field was a Union Lieutenant whose body supposedly rests hundreds of miles away -- under a glorious Monument in a small town in Connecticut that still remembers his devotion in fond memory.

The book is a mystery that solves the identity problems of switched Civil War bodies as well as unraveling hundred and forty year old secrets about how the bodies came to be in unexpected places.

Lehrer tells the story in two tracks. The current historical and detective work centers on Dr. Don Spaniel of the National Park Service. The second track speaks to the reader with a voice from the 1880's in a remembrance of the bloody battle and the weight of events that happened there. Those events, while giving today's reader a good first hand account of the battle around Burnside's Bridge (Lehrer used the words of real participants), bear directly on Dr. Spaniel's efforts to unravel the mystery of the past.

The premise is great -- inspired by occasional findings of whole bodies at Civil War battlefields in recent years. The voices of the past reverberate with the horror an infantry charge into concealed positions must entail. The least satisfying part of the book is the present day detective work undertaken by the good Dr. Spaniel and other characters who pop into the story. I have to agree with one other commenter who thought they were flat and under developed. I also thought Lehrer had a tendency to have Dr. Spaniel over-react to other characters and occurrences in the story. This is a thin book, an instance where another forty or so pages could have led to more well-rounded characters -- and perhaps avoided their seemingly convenient popping into the story when needed.

Those criticisms noted, it is not a bad story. In fact, this is an engaging read. The story does move along quickly and the size of the book makes it an ideal candidate to polish off over a long rainy afternoon.

So there it is -- a great premise and an average story. Not bad, although I had the feeling that it could have been done a little better.

Rating:
Summary: Interesting Premise.....Ok Execution
Review: Jim Lehrer has spun a great premise that grabbed me as a fan of both the Civil War and good fiction.

Human remains are found on the Antietam Battlefield by relic hunters. The archaeological exploration by the National Park Service reveals that the man buried on that bloody field was a Union Lieutenant whose body supposedly rests hundreds of miles away -- under a glorious Monument in a small town in Connecticut that still remembers his devotion in fond memory.

The book is a mystery that solves the identity problems of switched Civil War bodies as well as unraveling hundred and forty year old secrets about how the bodies came to be in unexpected places.

Lehrer tells the story in two tracks. The current historical and detective work centers on Dr. Don Spaniel of the National Park Service. The second track speaks to the reader with a voice from the 1880's in a remembrance of the bloody battle and the weight of events that happened there. Those events, while giving today's reader a good first hand account of the battle around Burnside's Bridge (Lehrer used the words of real participants), bear directly on Dr. Spaniel's efforts to unravel the mystery of the past.

The premise is great -- inspired by occasional findings of whole bodies at Civil War battlefields in recent years. The voices of the past reverberate with the horror an infantry charge into concealed positions must entail. The least satisfying part of the book is the present day detective work undertaken by the good Dr. Spaniel and other characters who pop into the story. I have to agree with one other commenter who thought they were flat and under developed. I also thought Lehrer had a tendency to have Dr. Spaniel over-react to other characters and occurrences in the story. This is a thin book, an instance where another forty or so pages could have led to more well-rounded characters -- and perhaps avoided their seemingly convenient popping into the story when needed.

Those criticisms noted, it is not a bad story. In fact, this is an engaging read. The story does move along quickly and the size of the book makes it an ideal candidate to polish off over a long rainy afternoon.

So there it is -- a great premise and an average story. Not bad, although I had the feeling that it could have been done a little better.

Rating:
Summary: sloooooooow!
Review: Lehrer presents two parallel stories, a contemporary American Civil War description of battle events and a modern archaeologist's attempt to decipher those events. (This is a technique also used to much more spine-tingling effect by Beverly Connors in her archaeological mystery stories.) Unfortunately the archy character is an excitable scatterbrain and mere day-dreamer, whose pursuit of the past leads to a cruel modern tragedy. There are passages of incantory violence found in an "original" soldier's confessional narrative.

Lehrer knows how to plot and has a good premise here, but his prose is jarringly rough, wheezy, and simplistic (e.g., he concludes far too many descriptions with the incredibly lazy phrase "and whatever"). Of the old McNeil-Lehrer PBS News duo, McNeil is the better writer of fiction. This could have made a chilling short story but it went long and whatever.

Rating:
Summary: A Pleasant Way To Spend An Afternoon
Review: Like most Jim Lehrer books, this one doesn't make you think too much, doesn't haunt you, doesn't make your brain work too hard and is an enjoyable way to spend an afternoon. I enjoy his off beat way of finding a story and presenting it. I liked it very much

Rating:
Summary: Nice idea...not so nice writing
Review: No Certain Rest is an example of a really good idea smeared by flimsy writing. Jim Lehrer's knowledge and understanding of the civil war is amirable and even educational at times. But when it comes to the fiction-writing aspect, this feels like the work of a weekend warrior/amateur.

The plot is the most intruiging part of the book. An archeology professor stumbles across a case where a landowner found some bones of a Union soldier buried in his property. The more the professor investigates the conditions of his burial, the more confused he gets about the circumstances surrounding the solider's death. Early in the story, the soldier's history is linked to the battle of Antietam, the bloodiest battle to occur during a very bloody war.

Jim Lehrer would be pretty good at writing nonfiction works since he knows so much about what he's assigned himself to write. But he just can't put it into a hypothetical content. And if he does, it is not done with ease. One gets the nagging feeling, while reading, that the whole process of writing a piece of fiction did not come easily to Mr. Lehrer.

Too bad too, because No Certain Rest can give many lessons to its readers concerning history, the ethics of archeology, the role that the past plays in the present, and so on. It's a short book, so if you do in fact pick it up, try to tough it out.

Rating:
Summary: Antietam revisited
Review: This is a short novel dealing with a puzzle from America's past. A pair of relic hunters are searching the Antietam battlefield, and find a skeleton with a bullet hole through its head. As the park service's local archeologist investigates, it becomes clear that the dead soldier was an officer, and was killed in the battle, but not (apparently) in combat. This intrigues the archaeologist, and off he goes to investigate and solve the mystery.

This is an interesting, if short book. There are interesting themes here. Several of the main characters almost kill one another (or do so) at various points, and you get the feeling that Mr. Lehrer is trying to make a point about violence and friendships. There is also some thoughts on the Civil War and the soldiers who died in it, and refreshingly it's not mostly about the gallant Confederates, who tend to get most of the ink in this sort of thing. I enjoyed the book, and would recommend it.

Rating:
Summary: A jammed packed thrill ride on the civil war.
Review: This novel is about two relic hunters who discover bones at the battle field of Antietam. A man named Don Spaniel is called in to examine these bones and soon finds out that these bones are those of a soldier from the Civil War. From discovering these Civil War remains a new war breaks out between friends. From beginning to the end of this novel you'll be on the tip of your toes wanting to know what will happen next. This novel started out very fast and right to the point and for most of the time stayed that way. This story teaches you both about the modern day of archaeology and about the Civil War. With so many twists and turns during the book it can get confusing. Sometimes, I didn't understand what I was reading. From beginning to end it keeps you guessing what will happen next. Once you start reading this book you never want to stop and even the end turns out a way you might not have expected.
I recommend this book to accelerated readers because at times this book can get very confusing and the reader may not understand it. Personally, I thought this book was average and think that if you like the Civil War, you should read it.

Rating:
Summary: A jammed packed thrill ride on the civil war.
Review: This novel is about two relic hunters who discover bones at the battle field of Antietam. A man named Don Spaniel is called in to examine these bones and soon finds out that these bones are those of a soldier from the Civil War. From discovering these Civil War remains a new war breaks out between friends. From beginning to the end of this novel you'll be on the tip of your toes wanting to know what will happen next. This novel started out very fast and right to the point and for most of the time stayed that way. This story teaches you both about the modern day of archaeology and about the Civil War. With so many twists and turns during the book it can get confusing. Sometimes, I didn't understand what I was reading. From beginning to end it keeps you guessing what will happen next. Once you start reading this book you never want to stop and even the end turns out a way you might not have expected.
I recommend this book to accelerated readers because at times this book can get very confusing and the reader may not understand it. Personally, I thought this book was average and think that if you like the Civil War, you should read it.