The Other Side of Hell, fifth in the Emerson Moore mystery-thriller series by Wooster novelist Bob Adamov, is a colorful crossover between adventure and tall tale, as Adamov peppers the narrative with true-life characters in his tale of stolen Nazi gold and Cayman Island diving action.

Emerson, the peripatetic Washington Post investigative journalist who occasionally thinks of his job, meets Mike ''Mad-Dog'' Adams, the popular (real) entertainer who's a summer fixture in Put-in-Bay; later, they visit Key West with Emerson's friend Sam Duncan, who spends much of the book wandering off after women.

After a great deal of technical information about deep-sea diving, as Emerson takes classes at a (real) diving academy, he becomes interested in the doings of a (fictional) Jamaican drug kingpin and the wreckage of a German plane. Naturally, he pokes around where he shouldn't, including in some underwater caves. The ''powerfully built and rugged'' Adams goes all Schwarzenegger on the baddies in the big finale, as the body count rises.

For escapists who enjoy verisimilitude, The Other Side of Hell (305 pages, hardcover, http://www.packardislandpublishing.com) is a budget alternative to a trip to the Caymans. The $29.95 price includes an 11-song compact disc by Adams; the title song is new.
Pa. writer focuses
on Amish society

• Pauline Stevick, an instructor at Messiah College in Pennsylvania, describes Amish society in Beyond the Plain and Simple: A Patchwork of Amish Lives. She includes an essay about a wedding she attended in Holmes County, reflecting on the relative happiness of Amish marriages; her husband hears the story of a strict Ohio Swartzentruber sect member who left the faith to serve in the Air Force, then returned and became a bishop.

Beyond the Plain and Simple is far beyond the usual listing of customs and traditions. At 159 pages, the hardcover costs $22.95 from http://www.kentstateuniversitypress.com.

Footnotes

• Bob Adamov will sign The Other Side of Hell at 7 p.m. Friday at Barnes & Noble, 4015 Medina Road, Montrose section of Bath Township. On Saturday from 10:30 a.m. to noon, William ''Bill'' Murphy will discuss and sign Motorcycling Across Ohio, which includes a tour of the Ohio & Erie Canal system and a route that follows the Ohio River.

• Commentator David Sirota will sign The Uprising: An Unauthorized Tour of the Populist Revolt Scaring Wall Street and Washington on Monday at Joseph-Beth Booksellers at Legacy Village in Lyndhurst. On Wednesday, Cleveland native Scott Raab will sign Real Hollywood Stories: Inside the Minds of 22 Celebrities with One A-List Writer. Both events are at 7 p.m.

• The Barberton Public Library will host Cleveland Plain Dealer sportswriter Terry Pluto at 7 p.m. Monday in the Spillette Meeting Room. Pluto is the author of The Curse of Rocky Colavito: A Loving Look at a Thirty-Year Slump and, with Beacon Journal sportswriter Brian Windhorst, of The Franchise: LeBron James and the Remaking of the Cleveland Cavaliers.

• Hudson resident Stephen Beirne, 17, whose novel November Reign was published by Harper Collins when he made a wish through the Make-A-Wish Foundation, will sign his book from noon to 2 p.m. Thursday at a reception at the Learned Owl Book Shop, 204 N. Main St., Hudson. Beirne was affected by a chordoma tumor when he wrote the book, and Liz Murphy, the shop's owner, was instrumental in the publishing effort.

• Geneva children's author Tanya Pilumeli will be the Learned Owl's guest for this week's Friday Fresh Voices series with her book The DragonFly Keeper, a fantasy for readers 8 and older. Her visit is from 7 to 8 p.m.
— Barbara McIntyre
Special to the Beacon Journal