This is the second book I have read from author William Bernhardt, and it preceeds the first book I read titled “Strip Search“. It’s a continuation based on the criminal psychologist and the autistic guy.

This time, the book Dark Eye is about this very sick man who’s suffering because of an early child abuse. He believes that by killing girls and sacrificing them, he will usher in the end of the world and into paradise. He chooses girls properly, following the stories wrote by Edgar Allan Poe, and murders them in the way the stories said. One girl is caught because she dyes her hair, wears fake nails and makeup. She ends up like one of the stories where the person is buried alive, except she didn’t make it out alive like the story.

Another notable victim is a girl who works at a dirty bar giving lap dances and well, extra services.

Susan Pulaski, the crimial psychologist, was sacked due to a drinking problem, and now works instead under a contact based job for the police. Together with the Chief’s autistic son Darcy, she investigates the crime and tries to find out the motive behind, whilst struggling with her alcohol problem at the same time.

She eventually ends up getting kidnapped by the psycho, and had nude photos of her taken in lewd positions. Eventually she is rescued by Darcy who finds out a deliberate clue left by the psycho. The psycho had wanted to just teach Susan a lesson, and he considers Susan the perfect vessel to carry out his final act of “deliverance”.

Eventually as more and more girls go missing, the heat is on the police to do something, except that the police has no clues. With Susan’s brain and Darcy’s help, Susan eventually narrowed down the location of the psycho, and rescues 4 girls including her very own niece whose supposed to replace Susan as the vessel.

This book is an exciting book and it has made me look for William Bernhardt’s book when I go to the library. However I think I can only find Dark Eye and Strip Search that belongs to stories with Susan and Darcy. Older William Bernhardt’s books have a different protagonist, Ben who is a lawyer.

Note: Written on Jul 25, 2008

This novel’s central plot lies with this thing called “The Book Of Names”, and the religion behind it is closely linked to Madonna. Yes it’s Kabbala. Apparently, there are 36 special people in every generation, and the world will not end as long as these 36 people are alive. The thing is that the names of each generation’s 36 people have been written down since Adam’s time. It is through the good deeds that these 36 special people do that keeps the world from destruction.

The book has been found recently, but by evil hands. The Gnoseos, a group of people who wants to challenge God, has gotten it’s hands on the book of names, and is using the computer’s superior capabilities to find the names of each of the 36 people of this current generation, and the names are hidden in the book. At the start of the entire novel, The Gnoseos have killed 33 and only 3 remaining. They have to find the remaining 3 names and kill them to start the end of the world.

As more and more of the 36 are killed, the world falls into chaos. Natural disasters like wildfires start appearing. Think “The Day After Tomorrow” and you’ll be somewhat there. The mission now is to find out who the remaining 3 people are and save them.

David Shepard, a professor and the protagonist of the story, finds himself entangled in these whole issue when he realizes that the headaches he has gotten is giving him information. Everytime he has an headache, he writes down a name, and he finds out that these people are killed and did not die by natural causes. By talking to his priest, he starts a journey to find the remaining 3 names and save them, but when he does, he finds that the first non-dead name he comes out with is that of his step daughter.

Through the story, David has to evade the evil people, who have infiltrated many positions like ministers of a country or the ambassadors wife. He ends up having to find out the secret code to find out the names of the evil people from his diary, using the same method as how the evil people are finding the 36 names.

This book is pretty nice and exciting and it’s currently quite difficult to find it on the bookshelves because people are reserving it. The authors are Jill Gregory and Karen Tintori. When you search in the NLB website, search for Karen Tintori. I’ve tried searching for “The books of names” but it comes out everything OTHER than what I want.

Note: Written on Jul 25, 2008

In the book Outliers by Malcom Gladwell, he states the 10,000 hour rule; that is, to become successful in any enterprise, you have to practise for 10,000 hours.

He cites studies of violinists and divides the people who are capable of becoming world class musicians, and the people who are good enough to become music school teachers. The difference is in the number of hours one plays.

Please forget about talent for a moment. Talent, undoubtedly, plays a part, but after you average it out, it takes roughly 10,000 hours of practise to become really good at something. For example, a saleperson has to practise his sales pitch to clients many many times before he can deliver the pitch smoothly. However it takes more practise to learn the art of the close, as well as to recognize the customers body language and do the proper pitch.

The book also gave an example on a guy called Bill Joy (if I remember correctly) and Bill Gates. Both were forunate to have he change to practise their computer programming skills so much during their university and teenage years respectively that when it is their turn to step up and program, they are more than good enough. Which is why the first guy is the founder of sun microsystems, and the other, as everyone knows, Microsoft.

Even Steve Jobs had practise assembling and designing his own computers.

I once read a quote from Bruce Lee that goes like this: I do not fear the man who practises 10,000 kicks one time each, but one kick 10,000 times.

Practise indeed makes perfect. If anyone doubts the examples because they are written, then I shall provide my own example. I obtained good results in programming aspects of my modules in NUS for just one simple reason.

I started making my own websites when i was 13. I learnt HTML, then CSS. Both are not programming, but it led me to learn PHP, and by the time I took my own programming module, I had already built a tuition website with a database of tutors. Although I did not practise 10,000 hours, it gave me a great headstart. If I had spent 10,000 hours on it, I might have been much better.

A little bit of practise goes a long way. Hence work hard and practise your trade for 10,000 hours so you will be good at it.

This book is written by Brian Tracy, a man whom I only know after watching numerous videos about him in the Advisors Alliance Internship Program that I attended in 2008. He’s a great motivational speaker, and makes much sense. He is also good at the art of selling, be it in insurance or real estate or anything that requires one to sell to another.

In this small little book that anyone can finish in about an hour or a little above the hour, he highlights 21 attributes or things for one person to start achieving the success he desires. Although this book is titled as though it is to become rich, but it actually teaches you principles of success, which would eventually lead to you being successful and perhaps being rich.

I just want to share and summarize the 21 success secrets, as well as give some input.

1) Dream big dreams
It’s something like begin with a vision in mind. With dreams, you explore every possibility and you can visualize the goal and the ending you want in mind. The question Brian Tracy asks us is “What is the one thing would you dare to dream if you knew you could not fail?” One must think that once can achieve his dreams before he will achieve it.

2) Develop a clear sense of direction
One thing mentioned was that successful people think about their goals most of the time. They think about it when they are on the mrt; they think about it whilst bathing and so on. They form concepts and ideas. The few steps involved in developing a clear sense of direction are:
-Deciding what we want exactly
-Writing down the goals
-Setting deadlines
-Making a list of everything you can think of to achieve your goal
-Organizing lists into plan of action
-Take action immediately

3) See yourself as self-employed
By doing this, you take responsibility of your life. You do not blame anyone else for your circumstance but yourself. You recognize that you are the one responsible for your own life and you can do anything to change it. Instead of waiting for things to happen, the self-employed person in you will make things happen.

4) Do what you love to do
This is about having a continuous stream of energy and excitement when you do what you love to do, and it also helps in allowing you to keep thinking of your goals and thinking about how to achieve it. What you love to do is usually where your natural strengths and abilities are to do the job and achieve the results desired.

5) Commit to excellence
Aim to be the best in whatever you do. Become extremely competent in your field. Everyone at the top 10% started being in the bottom 10%.

6) Work longer and harder
Well I guess this doesn’t seem appealing, but I guess before you eventually succeed and take some rest, one has to put in more effort than his peers to be one step ahead of them?

7) Dedicate yourself to lifelong learning
This is about developing your mind like how you’ll train for muscles. Working on it mentally instead of physically. One of the steps is to read more. Don’t read fiction I guess, read the non fiction books that teach you things that can help you in your goal. For me I’m reading investment books to get more knowledge of stocks. The alternative is to listen to the audio on the way to work, be in on the mrt or bus or in your car. But I guess you have to have the audio book in the first place. A good place to see is the library, and rip the files into mp3 if you want to use your mp3 player.

Pay yourself first
This is more about money. This theory has been talked about for a very long time, and it is about spending based on a budget you set, since the money you pay yourself is already untouchable. Then you’ll save more and become richer.

10) Learn every detail of your business
This is about becoming an expert in your chosen field so you can do your work better.

10) Dedicate yourself to serving others
If you have a business, ask how can you serve customers what they need? What do they really want?

11) Be absolutely honest with yourself and others
This is a lesson on integrity. Never compromise your integrity because all businesses are based on trust.

12) Determine your highest priorities and concentrate on them single-mindedly
Do I need to say more? It is the path to success when you put in effort and not have anything else distracting you.

13) Develop a reputation for speed and dependability

14) Be prepared to climb from peak to peak
Develop a long time perspective and plan many years into the future. Ignore the daily fluctuations of life. Have an uptrend over the many years. (Sounds like the stock market)

15) Practice self-discipline in all things
I guess I need not explain

16) Unlock your inborn creativity
Come up with something newer, better, faster, cheaper or easier to accomplish a result.

17) Get around the right people
The people you hang out with influences you. Someone will help you or hinder you, and that someone will be near you to influence you. If people around you are highly energetic people who take positive action, chances are you’ll be a little like that too.

18) Take excellent care of your physical health
Nothing much to say, but you can definitely have both health and success.

19) Be decisive and action oriented
Keep trying and eventually you will find the right way.

20) Never allow failure to be an option
Keep going forward and even if you fail, you continue until you get the success that you want.

21) Pass the “Persistence Test”
I guess this is to keep going on even if its tough and continue. Never give up.

These are the 21 success secrets that are not so secret after all. It is easy to say, but hard to follow.

This is the 4th Steve Berry’s novel that I have read, the first being “The Third Secret”, the second being “The Templar Legacy” and “The Venetian Betrayal”.

As usual, Steve Berry’s novels have some bit of a history tale behind, and this time it has something to do with olden Russia. In the period during 1918-1919 the royal family of Russia, headed by Tsar Nicholas II, was massacred during the Communists revolution. Basically the actual mystery of the story is that they have never found two of the bones of the royal family, leading to theories that they may have been alive, and this forms the basis for the plot.

Basically the story is about Russia after communism and how they had elected to get the Tsar back. This is not factual in reality. The story is about how a black lawyer got hired to find any discriminatory evidence about a particular candidate’s right to become Tsar. The thing is that this candidate is the closest to the Romanov family, and is the closest to become the Tsar, if and only if the descendents of Nicholas II have all died.

The lawyer founds some disturbing messages left by Lenin and wonders if the actual imperial family have not been wiped out. Those in favor of the candidate decided to kill the lawyer, because they wanted the candidate elected as he is a perfect puppet for them to manipulate.

Through his journey he discovers how the person in charge of the execution supposedly felt guilty and how he arranged for the two children to be saved and sent to different places, eventually settling in the United States. The lawyer, along with a circus performer friend he met, went through the journey finding clues and people who have been waiting for them to come.

Soon they found the descendents of Nicholas II and a small fight ensued with the killers come into the picture. Eventually the rightful Tsar took his place.

The most interesting part is its mysteries and how they pieced together pieces of the mystery, as well as how Rasputin’s supposed prophecy came true. I don’t know how true it is, but Rasputin is quite a “powerful” character in history, even though he is a normal person from Siberia. The Tsar and the Tsarina treats him well and even in history books it seemed that he didn’t die easily. If I remember my secondary school works, Rasputin didn’t die when fed poisoned wine and food, and eventually ran off and got shot and dumped in a river. But nobody did ever confirm his death. Quite mystical I would say.

Overall it’s a pretty interesting book but it got a little boring at the start. The history is always interesting.

P.S. @ 19th Jan 2010..I wrote this on 25th July 2008!

I borrowed this book from the library on impulse. I just saw the red book standing out, particularly since it’s one of the newer looking books there, and then I just picked it. It sounds interesting though, with things about a CIA spy in Al Qaeda. After reading a few detective and history novels, I thought it would be a refreshing change, and it is.

The writer, Alex Berenson won the EDGAR Award for this book.

Basically, this story is about a CIA spy named John Wells who successfully infiltrated into Al Qaeda and slowly progressed up the ranks in the many years he was in Afghanistan. Since he has not contacted CIA for a very long time, they are unsure if he has changed to the “dark side”, and whether he is working as a double agent.

One day John Wells was sent back to America by Al Qaeda because Al Qaeda wants to launch a terrorist attack on America. Feeling that it is his fault for not getting intelligence on 9/11, John decides to make it up by foiling whatever big plan Al Qaeda has for America.

When he gets back he is doubted by his CIA minders, although one of his female minders strongly believed in him, and has romantic feelings for him. The CIA let’s him loose to see what he will do, and with the female’s help he escapes and starts to plan to welcome the Al Qaeda representative.

In a nutshell, he has to do things to gain trust from the representative, and only manages to discover the terrorist problem in the very last minute, but he also manages to foil the attacks. How he does it would be a question that you have to read the book to answer.

Update: This post is written on July 30th last year! I actually saved it as a draft and forgot about it.

This is the third book I have read authored by Steve Berry, the first being “The Third Secret” and the second being “The Templar Legacy”. This time, this book is about a fictitious organization called The Venetian League.

Like the previous two books, they have a bit of history in them. The Third Secret is about visions of the Virgin Mary and the Vatican and The Templar Legacy, is as it’s names suggests, something to do with the Knight Templars. This book though, has something to do with Alexander The Great, who conquered many countries, a bulk of it is under Asia.

Basically, it’s about a conspiracy between the current leader of the Venetian League, and the Supreme Minister of the Central Asia Federation (fictitious too). The Supreme Minister is this power obsessed lady who has been inventing biological weapons, and intends to follow in Alexander The Great’s footsteps in conquering certain countries near her Central Asia Federation. The leader of the Venetian League however, is more obsessed with making money and discovered a natural source of water filled with bacteria that instantly kills the HIV virus.

The book takes you through the same characters as The Templar’s Legacy, and you follow the exciting quest of going through many mysteries and getting near to Alexander’s grave and the place where the mystical water, also known as the draught, exists.

People get killed, people go missing and people are found. Elements like Greek fire are also inside and it’s a pretty interesting read. Like the previous two books, there are factual elements regarding the history behind the book and it’s all very interesting to me.

You can borrow it from the library!

Before anybody thinks that the word Strip is something suggesting and not safe for work, let me clarify that this book has nothing to do with Stripping. Strip just refers to a general area in the book, or where the plot is located in.

I borrowed this book from the library and this is the first William Bernhardt’s book that I have read. I must say that he is a good author and I will definitely be finding books that he has authored.

Strip Search is actually of the “Thriller” genre. Basically it’s a detective book, where you have detectives running around trying to solve this mass murder that is happening all over town. The main protagonists are the criminal psychologist (in charge of getting the criminal profiling done), as well as the Chief of Police’s son, who isn’t nomal. If I remember correctly, he is autistic and is super brilliant at mathematics.

The criminal or criminals have been going around killing one person at a time, and every time one part of the body is left at the murder location, like an arm or the head or the skin of the skull or the heart. Everytime when the body is found, it is discovered that the body is branded. Which means the victim was forced to endure hot iron on their bodies which gave them a scar in the form of a letter in the alphabets.

The weird thing is, at every location, there is a particular mathematical formulae written down, which makes the detectives even more puzzled. In the end, the psychologist and the autistic son finds out many things that allow them to know when will a person be murdered, and who will get murdered. A spoiler, the victims are murdered on days where the date is a prime number. Everything is linked to mathematics, and it is a good book to read.

If you have time, just go down to your local library and borrow it.

“How Starbucks Saved My Life” is a real story of Michael Gates Gill written by himself, in short, something like an autobiography in the form of a story. It’s about how Michael has gone from a huge salary in a successful advertising firm to nothing at all. At the same time, he had an affair and got divorced, and his life just seem totally screwed.

He got a way out of the whole mess when an African American came up to him when he was drinking his coffee at Starbucks, and asked him, “Would you like a job?”. Although he is a white man, Michael said “Yes” and an interview took place.

The story is about how he started off from nothing, and then becoming Starbuck’s partners (which is the better name of workers) in one of Starbucks many stores. From being a wonderful cleaner at Starbucks to challenging his fear of the cashier counter, from calling out the drinks in correct order to making the drinks himself, Michael learnt many life lessons and became a happier person, even though he isn’t earning as much compared to when he was at the advertising firm.

He learnt to overcome his fear of counting money and went from 5 dollars loss at the end of the day to a few cents of loss. He learnt some customer relations, that you never deny anyone the toilet, whether he or she is a Starbucks customer or not, or chase anyone away during closing time. Through his chats with customers when he is at the cashier counter, he made many new friends and enjoyed the daily chats as he sees them everyday and knows what coffee they want, decaf or not.

It’s a story of how he picked his life up together, and even managed to get his children to forgive him and come to see him at the store. Eventually he became a Coffee Master and he gets to brew coffee once every week and give free samples of brewed coffee to anyone walking by any Starbucks store. Coffee Masters have to be trained and they have to be able to be really good with the different versions of coffee, the taste, their histories, etc.

In short, this books tell us how Starbucks key principles and treatment to partners and customers alike are lessons we should all learn in life. I guess that is the reason why there are so many Starbucks books written about its management and policies.

This is a great book to read. Trust me.

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This is another book I read recently by Steve Barry, the other one being "The Third Secret" which I reviewed earlier last week. I must say I enjoyed "The Third Secret" more, but this is an exciting book too.

In a nutshell, this is a story about The Knight Templar’s treasures. The Knight Templars were Knights, basically, who patrols the roads for pilgrims and keep them save from bandits and bad people. The Knight Templars became very powerful in the end, and can rival any state, if I remember correctly. However in the 1300s, the French King imprisoned The Knight Templars and convicted them of many crimes which the Knight Templar’s confessed after torture. The master of the Knight Templars moved the treasures away and the location of the treasures were long gone. Hence the story is about the quest to find the treasure of the Knight Templars. (This doesn’t seem to be in a nutshell. Hmm)

Anyway, the story has the protagonist, and the antagonist. The antagonist is the Marshall of the Knight Templars who became the Master after the previous Master died. This new master wants to reclaim the glory of the Templars and make the Templars as powerful as the good old days, bearing in mind its 700 years ago. However this Master is evil because he sacrifices many of his brothers to achieve his aim.

On the other side, the protagonist side has Cotton and Stephanie. Stephanie’s husband is a fanatic in the sense that he followed the clues and actually found the location of the Knight Templar’s treasure, except that he told no one and he committed suicide. Stephanie, who got interested in the entire saga when her husband’s journal was sent to her, gets embroiled in all the action. The whole story is a cat and mouse game to see who finds the treasure first. However the Master’s way to find the treasure is to wait for Cotton and gang to find it first.

Things get complicated when Stephanie’s long lost son is actually not dead, but was formerly the second in command of the Knight Templars. With her help, Mark (the son) found the treasure, defeated the evil Master (actually he killed him in a "duel"), and became the next Master.

I don’t really enjoy this book as much because it’s pretty confusing to read as compared to "The Third Secret". And perhaps I enjoy reading Vatican stuff more than The Knight Templars. No matter what, I think The Knight Templar is a exciting subject to read more on. Read this book if you’re bored during the holidays.