Lori Burns' Chore-stoppers

Author Robert Crais just keeps getting better and better. His latest book, Taken, is my favorite so far.  And I thought The Sentry was my favorite (Berkley pap, $9.99).  Crais’s books always have great character development and this is no exception.  The settings really drew me in as well: Palm Springs, Rancho Mirage, Coachella, Anza-Borrego desert, Los Angeles.  I also love the way the book is laid out: each chapter or part switching between present and past (in days, hours and events) and character points of view. I know it sounds like it might be confusing, but it isn’t at all. Crais uses this method to build the story and tension, and you won’t be able to put the book down. 

The book starts off with an annoyed mother hiring private investigator Elvis Cole to find her daughter who the mother thinks has run off with her boyfriend.  OK – so typical missing person case – right?  No way. Robert Crais makes sure you are whipped into the excitement and dread of what is to come just a few pages into the book.  I am secretly in love with Joe Pike, Elvis’ best friend and partner, and he plays a prominent role in the story as well. Let me put it this way – if I needed a PI or needed a PI to find me, Elvis Cole and Joe Pike would be at the top of my list.  Very highly recommended. 

– LDB

Don’t miss the opportunity to meet Robert Crais at 7:30 PM on Friday, February 3rd at our Redondo Beach store. If you can’t make the event, please call the store in advance, and we would be happy to save a signed copy of Taken for you.

Give the Gift of the Strong Silent Hero! Author Lee Child’s new Jack Reacher book, The Affair, tells the back-story of how Jack Reacher became the Jack Reacher we all know and love – strong, silent and righting the wrongs in the world – not always in a legal way. -- LDB

This mystery thriller by the bestselling author of Hush would have me reading under the covers with a flashlight if I was younger and still had a bedtime. Too compelling to put down, The Sixes draws you in and doesn’t let you go until the last page.

Phoebe Hall’s career and personal life are a mess and she jumps at the chance to leave Manhattan and teach at a small college in Pennsylvania. But campus life brings back some bad memories for Phoebe who was targeted by a group of bullying kids in boarding school. Surprised to find this kind of thing at the college level, she agrees to look into the rumor of a secret group of girls on campus called “The Sixes” that are making their members jump through six circles of initiation. Each circle requires more difficult and challenging tasks that seem to target other students and staff.

When a body washes up on the shores of a nearby river, Phoebe’s boarding school friend and current president of the college she is now teaching at begs her to use her investigative skills to find out if the events are tied to the college and possibly The Sixes. – LDB

A masterful thriller with a supernatural twist, The Cypress House should be on your must read list.

Arlen Wagner is traveling on a train to a job in Florida when he notices a phenomenon he always dreads. He sees smoke trailing out of the sockets where his fellow passengers’ eyes should be. From his time in the Marines he knows this means that they will be dead soon. He convinces a friend to get off the train with him, certain that a tragic train accident will be the death of the rest of the passengers. Unfortunately, he and his friend Paul wind up stuck at a boarding house on the gulf coast of Florida when their car ride blows up – literally. Arlen and Paul discover that there is evil (of the human kind) in the town, and they realize that they can’t leave the beautiful owner of the boarding house to deal with it on her own.

Michael Koryta skillfully uses plot and setting to build suspense that will keep you reading to a surprising conclusion. --LDB

This long awaited novel by the author of runaway bestseller "Water for Elephants" was worth the wait, and it’s a mystery!   Bonobo apes (similar looking to chimpanzees) are taken from “The Great Ape Language Lab” at the University of Kansas after an explosion at the center. The scientists were studying these apes and their amazing ability to learn English and sign language and apply it to their own animal lives when they mysteriously disappear after the explosion. Reporter John Thigpen of "The Philadelphia Inquirer" can’t get the animals out of his mind. He had interviewed one of the scientists, passed the rigorous screening process, and been able to interact with the apes at the lab the day of the explosion in order to write a story for the paper. He had been overwhelmingly impressed with the apes’intelligence and personalities. Knowing he is pursuing the story for personal as well as business reasons, he sets off to find out where the animals have been taken and why. The mystery is not solved when they show up later as a part of a reality show that is being filmed in secret and broadcast to the world.

Sara Gruen does a masterful job describing the interactions between humans and animals and how we learn from each other. She also explores the world of animal study by humans and the groups that exploit as well as protest this type of research. It is wonderful to note that many of the descriptions of the apes and their behavior are based on the author’s actual experience with the bonobo apes at the Great Ape Trust. Although this is a story about animals, explicit descriptions of all of the apes' behaviors make this novel appropriate for 14 years old and above. --LDB

Once you open this book, get ready to stay up all night, call in sick to work and ignore your chores. So Cold the River will keep you in its wonderful, eerie and mysterious grip until the very last page. I will never look at another bottle of mineral water the same way again.

Eric Shaw is a failed Hollywood filmmaker who is making his living by doing video montages for weddings, funerals and other milestone events for people. After a particularly moving funeral montage, one of the mourners offers Eric a job doing a documentary on her dying father-in-law’s life. Campbell Bradford is a 95 year old billionaire with a past no one knows much about and he won’t discuss. Eric is hired to go to the rural town in Indiana where Campbell grew up and research his life. All he has to start off with is an old vintage bottle of mineral water called ”Pluto Water” that Bradford has held onto for years. The mineral water was supposed to have restorative powers in days gone by bottled at the source near this rural town. Not only is Campbell Bradford’s life turning out to be a real mystery, but also strange things happen after Eric opens the “Pluto Water” and takes a sip.

Don’t miss this exciting thriller! Signed copies are now available at the store. --LDB