Say It with Feeling

About the book:Since his arrival in Australia from the United States in the early 1960s, Gerald Stone has been at the forefront of Australian news media from working on such legendary programs as This Day Tonight to founding executive producer of 60 Minutes.

His career has spanned the glory days of free-to-air television and made him an intimate of the most famous names in the industry – whether proprietors such as Kerry Packer and Rupert Murdoch, or stars such as Jana Wendt, Ray Martin, George Negus and Richard Carleton.

My thoughts:
I've read a few of Gerald Stone's books before and enjoyed them. But I was a little disapointed by this one. Not because it wasn't interesting, but I had the feeling I'd heard it somewhere before which  probably had. A large chunk of Stone's career was at Channel 9 and this had been covered before  in Compulsive Viewing and Who Killed Channel 9? But otherwise a good read.

The President's Vampire

About the book:

The Ultimate Secret. The Ultimate Agent. Nathaniel Cade returns. For 140 years, Nathaniel Cade has been the President's Vampire, sworn by a blood oath to protect the President and America from their supernatural enemies. Cade's existence is the most closely guarded of White House secrets: a superhuman covert agent who is the last line of defense against nightmare scenarios that ordinary citizens can only dream of. When a new outbreak of an ancient evil - one that Cade has seen before - comes to light, he and his human handler, Zach Barrows, must track down its source. To 'protect and serve' often means settling old scores and confronting new betrayals . . . as only a century-old predator can.

My thoughts:
Disappointing. I'd read the first book in this series, Blood Oath, and found it okay, but I struggled with this one. I ended up giving it away halfway through.

Fair Cop

About the book:

It's no surprise that Christine Nixon grew up to be a cop. Her father Ross brought his police work home with him often: she helped mull over crime-scene photos at the kitchen table and helped lug seized weapons in from the car. She was one of the first women in Australia to move into operational policing and ultimately became Chief Commissioner of Police in Victoria.

My thoughts:

When I heard that Nixon was publishing her memoirs I was really looking forward to reading the final work. Aside from being Australia's first female commissioner of police, she also spend a fair part of her career in the New South Wales Police Force (rising to the rank of assistant commissioner under Peter Ryan) and ended her career heading up the Victorian Bushfire Reconstruction and Recovery Authority (in the wake of the Black Saturday bush fires of 2009).

I wasn't disappointed either. Nixon speaks freely and frankly about her life and career. She comes across as a decent woman who did the best job she could. And where she's make mistakes, she admits to them. My own view is I think it's really unfortunate that her reputation has been tarnished certain sections of the media. My only disappointment with the book is that she didn't spend a great deal of time covering her time in New South Wales, especially the Peter Ryan years. But that's a minor quibble in what was a very entertaining and interesting read.