Reviews for Prygoski's Sum and Substance Quick Review on Constitutional Law, 13th Edition

The average rating for Prygoski's Sum and Substance Quick Review on Constitutional Law, 13th Edition based on 2 reviews is 2.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2017-08-27 00:00:00 James Brown I really liked this book. First and foremost, it's dark, the London setting adding to this aspect even if it starts in summer; however it culminates in autumn rain which is very fitting. It's genuine suspense. The fiends are believable. The pace sometimes moves on with breathtaking speed, as with Paul's escape from Delta Egypt's office in Cairo, sometimes it just crawls on when Jade and Paul do their research at their desks, just as it is in real life. And also very believable is that Paul's toiling and moiling doesn't make him famous in the end; his tribute to solving the crime, albeit somewhat crucial, is lost beneath the work of the police. This hero to me is a welcome change from all the superhero - like PI's who people today's bookshelves. He's just doing his job, and he is good at what he does because he is "a natural at finding out things that nobody wants to tell me" as he puts it himself. But he has his issues; starting with the trauma of his childhood, the sins of his youth, his recent mistakes. It was even fun to meet his little mannerisms like his ability to name the exact number of days, hours, and minutes since or until an incident or the rules he sets for himself like his love for whisky which he never drinks before 6 pm. Almost never. Paul is gay, a fact which is important for the plot as it leads Paul to make horribly wrong decisions, but he is not reduced to that single facet of his personality as it is often the case within the genre.However, it's perhaps that fact that allows for a depth of emotionality that would look weird on a "straight, hardboiled PI". When Paul is upset, he cries. When he is in pain, he begs. He can even be so lovesick he makes a fool of himself. Yet, he simply breaks into a building to gather information or to shoot a picture of his client's wife and her lover in a captious situation. He's a three dimensional human being I could feel sympathetic for although I didn't always share his point of view; however, his decisions and actions are completely comprehensible. Even the supportive characters are rendered equally inherently consistent, proof of the author's formidable storytelling. This mystery/ suspense book is too good to disappear within the confines of "m/m fiction" just because its major character happens to be gay. I strongly recommend it to everyone who likes themselves a good thriller.

Review # 2 was written on 2014-10-31 00:00:00 Akim Jebnouni Maloney’s Law by Anne Brooke is a gay romance and mystery. It’s also a dark, deep, and poetic gay romance and mystery. I confess I love novels written in the first person and present tense, but I also know it’s quite difficult to write them well. But not, apparently, for Brooke. Her Maloney’s Law is exceptionally well-written. Paul Maloney, a 30-year-old gay private investigator in London, takes on a lucrative assignment. It’s from Dominic Allen, the physically desirable and wealthy investor, with a wife and two children, who abruptly and coldly terminated his and Paul’s torrid 11-month affair three years and four months ago. Paul is precise like that with dates and times. His idiosyncrasy also makes it easy for readers to know where they are in the story, especially in the scenes set in the past. That’s brought another one down upon himself when he was 19 and should’ve known better. But what begins for Paul as the possible revival of an affair with the man he’s still in love with soon becomes a far more sinister matter. In that regard, I congratulate Anne Brooke for boldly creating a devastating development at the halfway mark in her novel. Nor does Brooke wish to leave us with the contentment of a tale in which good simply wins and evil loses. In Maloney’s Law, as in life, it’s a mix. Dominic might be the bad guy, but he’s not all bad. We sympathize with Paul, but he’s clearly no saint. The frosting on the cake of this novel is the writing. So Paul says, early on: “God alone knows what this man was ever doing with someone like me.” Later he ventures to ask: “When will I be free of it, this rock-hard certainty that, even when the book between the two of us seems closed, somehow, somewhere there’s another chapter not yet written?” I thank you, Anne Brooke, for writing this story. (As originally reviewed on Rainbow Book Reviews. Please visit for other reviews that may be of interest.)