Kindle Edition Amazon Category:  Mystery/Suspense Publisher: self ISBN-10:  1301687847 Type: Fiction Pages: 272 Copyright: 9/2012 ISBN-13: 9781301687848 Walt, a Wall Street insider turns actor to find a new life - but in the role he takes he unwittingly steals the endowment and bankrupts Aldrich College - he barely gets away with his life. He returns, in a new role, to save the college and the town with the help of an eclectic group – a shamanic artist, the dream visions of an astrophysicist, a literary patron convinced Marlowe wrote the plays of Shakespeare… Excerpt Uncertainty sparks the imagination – combine this fact with all the creative minds in Ulysses, along with their propensity for collaboration, and you have the perfect Petri-dish of rampant, cataclysmic, doomsday scenarios. The common theme of all these scenarios was the closing of the college and the end of the town’s vibrant community as all the creative artists, scientists, musicians, writers, poets are scattered to the four winds. Unfortunately, for the college and the town, Willard Aldrich was way ahead of everyone on that scenario. Willard began his “end of days” scenario for Ulysses five years ago. That was a year before he hired Sam Adamson. Of course he didn’t hire Sam for the job of financial Comptroller of the endowment, not technically anyway – he simply arranged for Sam’s appearance in Ulysses, then he let the board of directors hire Sam. “Those fools on the college’s board of directors are so easily manipulated that I almost feel sorry for them,” he muttered to Tomas, his private secretary. But instead of feeling pity for them, Willard chose to feel admiration for himself. The future of Ulysses was carefully laid out on his massive desk. He had stacks of architectural and land development plans, printed on four-by-five foot sheets of vellum, just waiting to become reality. Years spent planning were now ready for implementation. Closing the college was just the beginning of his rebirth for Ulysses – in his image of paradise. The campus’ architecturally splendid buildings would soon be remodeled into upscale condos, the campus grounds, gardens, and natural habitat would be transformed into a world-class golf course. That much of his plans were already unveiled, back when it was announced the college might close. But that was just the beginning, that was phase one. His, as of yet unannounced, plans were to cut the old-growth forests surrounding the town to make room for upscale McMansions. He envisioned the forests transformed into a gated community where he would live, surrounded by people like himself, who could appreciate what wealth and order creates. He even planned to restart the old Aldrich lumber mill and saw up the giant trees into lumber to build the McMansions – solid, straight-grained wood that was clear, without knots. Lumber of that quality hadn’t been seen for decades and he planned to market that fact into premium prices for the homes. The trees and forest would not be forgotten – he had already laid out new streets with appropriate names – Fir Street, Cedar Avenue, Huckleberry Lane, Salal Court, Deer Fern Drive, and Trillium Way. The chaos of the old forest would be replaced with gracefully curving streets leading to houses with manicured lawns, topiary and boxwood shrubbery, hydrangea, English ivy, with bluestone paths leading to their front doors.

The Long Take
This is a contemporary novel that combines mystery, science, nature, and philosophy. Barbour is a skilled writer who adds his own brand of humor to create a story that moves along at a perfect pace. I was impressed with the attention to detail as there were some complex facets to the story. Barbour captures the beauty of the northwest in a tale that has something for everyone- the scientist, the mystic, the romantic, the environmentalist,and Shakespeare's aficionados.


The Long Take is a psychologically complex mix of political mystery and intriguing character development. Barbour orients the reader to the North West landscape, through accurate and sensitive descriptions of the culture, history and ecology. The story unfolds smoothly and believably despite some paranormal events and surprising plot twists.