Rating: 
Summary: No whiz, no fizz.
Review: The prose in this novel is undeniably Olympian-somewhat on the order of Ruth Rendell on her best days. There perhaps, as they say, lies the rub. The plot is indeed exceedingly thin and it takes forever to wander to its ill-fated and unsurprising conclusion. If there had been even slightly more genuine creepiness (as opposed to merely dark and watery imagery) or plot intrigue, I would have felt justified frittering away the hours it took to consume this book. As it was, I just wanted it to be over long before it, unfortunately, was.
Rating: 
Summary: MYSTERIOUS AND SPOOKY! A GREAT GHOST STORY!
Review: Slip into the murky depths of a town with dark secrets. Secrets no one seems to want to talk about and secrets most would completely deny the exixtence of...that is, until two of the town's favorite daughters go missing. In the ensuing uproar over their disappearance, a battle cry erupts from one of the girls' father--a wealthy and influential member of the town. His vengeance is aimed squarely at the head of Thomas Tripp, former local English teacher and recent confidant of the two "Lost Girls".The resulting search of Tripp's apartment (and his recent past) reveal a defeated, haunted man with secrets of his own. The walls of his modest teachers apartment are heavily adorned with thousands of cut-out pictures of young girls in various stages of undress--gleaned from teen girl magazines and catalogues. Muddy clothing found in his clothes hamper, and a bloodstained rear seat in his car seem to point to his unequivocal guilt. The fact that he recently experienced a painful divorce and subsequent loss of visitation rights to his only daughter (because of very questionable behaviour) only increase the appearance of his involvment. Tripp is arrested and held in the disappearance of the two girls. Enter Bartholomew Christian Crane, a still wet-behind-the-ears young attorney from a neighboring city--and newest member of "Lie, Gettemoff, and Associates", a not-too-prestigious law firm known for defending some of the country's more despicable criminals. Crane, accompanied by the diparaging comments of the senior partners of the firm and a cocaine addiction larger than his rented Lincoln Continental, appears reluctantly in the town of Murdoch, where the story takes place. He is fully prepared to do whatever it takes to procure Tripp's freedom...even withhold evidence. What Crane doesn't realize is that he's headed directly into the nightmare of his own past--long repressed and thought forgotten. As the insidious secrets that hide in the town of Murdoch slowly seep into him, Crane begins to realize that those very secrets are his secrets as well. As he loses control of the case and his own mind, we witness the inevitable destruction of two men, a town, and the results of what secrets can do to the very fabric of life. Ghosts come in many forms. Andrew Pyper creates a disturbing, ominous, and wholly memorable ghost story in "Lost Girls". Painting this dark mystery as a bleak landscape of self-destruction and courtroom drama, he draws an eerie portrait of man's vastly troubled soul, using faulted human canvasses. His depiction of a town and its people caught in the undertow of the past is incredibly vivid and nightmarish at the same time. This is one book you won't soon forget.
Rating: 
Summary: Terrific wit and sarcasm!
Review: I totally enjoyed the wit and sarcasm that Bartholomew Crane displayed throughout the book. The characters of Graham and Bert were unique and well drawn. The plot was a good one with shades of Stephen King throughout. The descriptions of northern Ontario and the people that inhabit it were very good reading. Over all I really liked this book, however I had to give this one a three star due to the length of the book. I felt as though the story line had become redundant. The reader should probably wait for the paperback on this one in order to make it worth while.
Rating:
Summary: I really wanted to enjoy this book...
Review: There's an interesting premise, a potentially fascinating set of characters, and a grisly set of deaths all based in an atmospheric town. It should have been a good read. And, it almost was. But... The atmosphere and foreshadowing overwhelm the characters and the story. The tension and the mood is laid in so heavy-handed a manner that it's distracting. It became a chore to plow through this novel to make it to the end (though I did, for whatever reason...). The few 'mysteries' were incredibly predictable. The descriptions were so dense that it was tough to remember what happening in the story, and the caricaturization was so distracting that it was impossible to care at all for the characters.
Rating:
Summary: Life...The Unexpected
Review: I found Lost Girls a wonderfully, suspenceful summer read. Andrew Pyper delivers a thought provoking first novel examining "Who we have become...based upon where we have been. This modern day moralistic journey postulates that the sins of the fathers...may not go unpunished. I enjoyed the multiple themes of this unique novel. Ghosts are everywhere. This mysterious, moralistic psychological thriller will have you up late, reading with the light on.
Rating:
Summary: I REALLY DID NOT LIKE THIS BOOK
Review: I enjoyed this book in the beginning but then grew increasingly weary of it as it went along. This book was not overly-long, page-wise, but it felt that way to me. As a matter of fact, towards the end of the book, I actually started skimming which is something that I *never* do. The main character was extremely unlikeable and I didn't like him any better after he betrayed his client by giving locks of the dead girls' hair to the old woman for her to turn into the police. (Sorry, I am a lawyer and have no tolerance for such things. I am not a criminal lawyer, and never could be because I wouldn't want to defend people I believed to be guilty. But, once undertaking their representation, however, I would not betray them as it is professionally unethical). I also had no feeling whatsoever for the accused killer. He didn't inspire fear, or loathing, or sympathy, or much of anything. I kept waiting for something to happen with his character, and nothing ever did. The author's style reminded me a little bit of Nelson DeMille. That is - the somewhat-unsympathetic main male character with a sarcastic sense of humor. But I have enjoyed DeMille's works far more than this. I don't recommend this book and I doubt I will read this author's works again.
Rating:
Summary: Blue Mood
Review: This book has a border-line personality. Nothing about it is full blown. The hero,the setting,the plot and the secondary characters are all vaguely creepy.Suggestions of the existence of Evil are hinted at but there is no proof of anything save for life's pitiful relentlessness and its ability to drown you under unless you can outlast, outwit,outdo or simply bow out. The writing is wonderful,but dont expect any easy or neat answers. Read it on a hot and humid day, and then think a long time before you go in for a swim.
Rating: 
Summary: Accurate Portrayal of Small-town N. Ontario
Review: Having lived in small-town Ontario (cottage country) for 15 years of my life, Pyper's depiction of Murdoch is bang-on, particularly the hotel (where he spends most of his time), from his description of the bar right down to the telephone ringing in the middle of the night. As he rightly puts it, every Ontario town has a Queen's Hotel or an Arlington. His accurate descriptiveness aside, Pyper's interaction with his two law partners is side-splitting in its own right and, as such, it is easy to see where our Bartholomew comes by his cynical attitudes towards both his profession, his clients and practically everyone else he comes in contact with. The plot (sometimes) stretches, but on balance is a fine mystery and more than deserves the awards it has won in Canada. If I'm not mistaken, it's the authors first novel. A brilliant start.
Rating:
Summary: Haunting Morality Play
Review: Bart Crane is a criminal defense attorney with moral values equvialent to the average serial killer. Cocaine addicted and having an unseemly attraction to teenage girls, this character is the embodiment of a thousand lawyer jokes. He is sent to a burnt out little town in Northern Ontario to defend a man accused of killing two teenage girls. Then the atmosphere grows eerie as the bad dreams and hallucinations begin.This novel owes as much to Dicken's 'A Christmas Carol' as it does to the works of Stephen King. The lead character at first seems to be an anti-hero, but by the novels end the reader believes he has transformed into a halfway decent human being.I would recommend this horror legal thriller hybird to fans of John Grisham, Stephen King, or Ruth Rendell.Also Recommmended: 'Julian's House' by Judith Hawkes and 'Something Dangerous' by Patrick Redmond
Rating:
Summary: Puts Grisham to Shame
Review: Lawyer novel/murder mystery/gothic ghost story...Andrew Pyper's book has it all. Readers are quickly drawn to the character of Barth Crane and to the mystery surrounding the disappearance of two teenage girls. Great story telling! This is the novel John Grisham wishes he could write!
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