'We were concerned the store was getting too big. Weekly wrote: 'In the end, selling the property became a much more profitable option than continuing to sell books.' After a long period of growth, in recent years the store had to adjust to a new age: 'Twenty years ago we felt like it was an expanding situation,' Madson told the paper. Noting that property values on Melrose Avenue, where the store is located, have risen dramatically over the years and that 'real estate agents have been circling the Bodhi Tree like vultures,' L.A. In part, the move is a real estate deal: Phil Thompson and Stan Madson, who founded the the Bodhi Tree in 1970 after leaving their careers as aerospace engineers, are selling the building to a real estate owner who leases space to other retailers in the area. 'About this title' may belong to another edition of this title.Sad news: The Bodhi Tree, West Hollywood, Calif., the best-known spiritual and metaphysical bookstore in the country, will close in a year, according to the L.A. YA) - Copyright © 2000 Kirkus Associates, LP. Still, an engrossing, suspenseful novel that is sure to keep the reader glued to the page. The resolution tries to have it both ways and the ending is more than a little improbable.

The novel bumps up the suspense a notch when one of Pop's criminal cronies shows up and threatens not only Cameron's newfound security but the safety of the other Lacey children as well. Alphin convincingly delineates the ambivalence felt by Neil's siblings, and her portrayal of how Neil's disappearance and reappearance all but destroyed the family dynamic is first-rate.

The police are skeptical, but the senior Laceys are overjoyed and immediately accept him as theirs. A wealthy family of hobbyist sailors captured Cameron's imagination-'at first because of the sailboats' and 'in the end, because of their money'-and after Pop is killed by the police, Cameron claims to be their missing son, Neil Lacey. During his long hours of imprisonment in the basement, Cameron read and reread all of Pop's files, which detailed the lives and families of the various boys Pop murdered. Cameron, who is more intact, psychologically, than seems possible for a victim of such severe, long-term abuse, survived by being totally obedient. Fourteen-year-old Cameron Miller had been the virtual slave of Pop, an evil man who got his jollies by torturing and killing young boys. Ripley with a brutal back-story and a more moral protagonist, Alphin (Toasters, 1998, etc.) mines the provocative field of identity, memory, and lies.

Counterfeit son by elaine marie alphin