Lori

    Lori Holmes has everything-doting parents, a happy home,

a brand-new college degree, and a wonderful fiance-until fire destroys her home

and family, until grief turns love to ashes, until nightmares steal the peace of

sleep from her tormented mind.

    Step by step, an innocent young woman is drawn into a web

of deceit, murder, and supernatural danger Death awaits-but will Lori be

victim…or killer?

    

***

    

    From Publishers Weekly

    Bloch, whose professional career is now in its 55th year,

still manages to write with the same enthusiasm and in the same voice he used in

the novels of his prime (c. 1954-1964). A master of pulp fiction, Bloch always

sets up an intriguing premise. In this case, a recently orphaned young woman

whose parents have died in a mysterious fire discovers a school yearbook older

than she is-with her picture printed in it. Bloch piles mystery upon mystery,

adds unsavory characters, false leads and several violent deaths, before

resolving the whole thing in a typically complicated and unbelievable fashion.

Despite, or because of, all this, it's great fun-the thrills and the puzzles

keep the reader engaged all the way through, and the prose is befittingly

purple.

    

***

    

    From Library Journal

    Lori returns from college graduation to find her parents

dead, her home burned. In the wreckage, a daffy psychic finds an old college

yearbook containing a photo that looks just like Lori. The "twin" is Priscilla

Fairmount, who disappeared in 1968-the year of Lori's birth. Lori begins having

nightmares and becomes convinced that Priscilla is trying to possess her mind.

Under police suspicion for the fire and for the murder of her family lawyer, she

receives help from her psychiatrist to find out who the mysterious Priscilla is.

Although the story is interesting, most of the characters are two-dimensional.

Lori is particularly disappointing: dependent on everyone else to solve the

mystery, she herself does nothing but indulge in stream-of-consciousness

wordplay. Not bad, but one expects better from the author of American

Gothic (1974) and the film classic Psycho (1959).

    

***

    

    "Lori is all that Bloch's hordes of admirers could

wish: inimitably written, ingeniously sustained, and spinecnilling as only Bloch

can be!"

    - Ramsey Campbell

    

    "A new Bloch of terror? Look in the mirror and repeat

after me: he's baaaack! Now go read it and tremble!"

    - Harlan Ellison

    

    "It's a terrifying read shot through with those dark

glints of humor only Bob seems to know how to find-a book made for a stormy

afternoon with a big cup of hot chocolate somewhere near at hand. Lori

was made for suspense addicts like myself who like to take their poison

straight; compulsive reading and imaginative plotting. I loved it!"

    - Stephen King

    

    "He has become part of the popular psyche, has Robert

Bloch. A dark part, to be sure, but a permanent one."

    - Gahan Wilson

    

    "Robert Bloch knows every twist conclusion available and

probably invented most of them. Any time devoted to studying this master is time

well spent."

    - Fangoria

    

    "Robert Bloch is one of the all-time masters."

    - Peter Straub