Lying Wonders

by Susan Rogers Cooper

Book Overview

Lying Wonders by Susan Rogers Cooper released on Sep 24, 2004 is available now for purchase. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 031229056X
• ISBN13: 9780312290566
• Release Date: January 2003
• Publisher: Minotaur Books
• Length: 209 Pages
• Weight: 0.90 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.3" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

A real page turner

Unlike the other reviewers I was totally unfamiliar with the Milt Kovack series.The reason I picked this book up was because the story was about a fictional cult and I love reading about cults, religions and sects in both fiction and non fiction formats. That being said, this book was great. I got very engrossed in it and couldn't put it down. I read it in 5 hours because I couldn't wait to see what happened next.The only complaint I could muster up about the book is that I thought it was a little unrealistic at points. Well, unrealistic in a real life situation such as this anyway, but since this book is totally fiction , I can't say it takes away from the book much. The book is deftly written and I enjoyed reading it very much. I liked the down home feel of the story and the Sheriff's MidWestern manner. And some of the names in the book inadvertently cracked me up-Tiny Arnold,Larry Joe January,Harmon Monk.

Laidback Sheriff Kovak pleases in casual Cooper mystery!

Cooper fans have had to wait since 1995 for this seventh in the small-town Oklahoma Sheriff Milt Kovak series. Busy with her housewife / romance writer EJ Pugh series, featuring an equally laidback stay-at-home mom, Cooper finally dusts off Kovak to give us yet another pleasant, not-too-edgy, police procedural. But Kovak, a humble yet successful crime solver, is as apt to take his not too hardened criminals home to their mama as he is likely to throw them in the slammer.The plot line per se, as it often is in Cooper's novels, is partially just an excuse to parade along our familiar characters and their everyday trials and tribulations. A teenage couple, having gone to visit a star-trek type cult, turns up missing. Soon the female of the pair is found murdered but few clues are forthcoming from the strange brotherhood of mostly pregnant women and male leaders in the cult compound. A former lover of Kovak's puts on the heat as it's her son that's also missing, and so the story unfolds. In the end, Kovak gets the bad guys, but meanwhile we go through his not overly cerebral processes and help from his friends to zero in on the solution.As with Cooper's other books and other series (Pugh, and stand-up comedienne Kimmie Kruse, that latter just a two-book set), we enjoy a soft-core mystery without much blood and guts. The author's conversational writing style makes the everyday ordinary seem familiar if not special, and we proceed amiably enough to a decent conclusion generally feeling pretty good about everything and everybody. Light reading for sure, but a fun few hours! Recommended.

Murder at "The Holy Temple of the Seven Trumpets"

   Susan Rogers Cooper, a mystery writer who lives in Austin, Texas, is the author of Funny as a Dead Comic and Funny as a Dead Relative.   Lying Wonders is the eighth novel in her Milt Kovak Series, which includes Doctors and Lawyers and Such, Chasing Away the Devil, and Dead Moon Rising.   Milt Kovak, "looking the barrel of sixty right in the eye," is the high sheriff of Prophesy County, Oklahoma. He and his new wife, Dr. Jean McDonnell, a psychiatrist at Long Branch Memorial Hospital, are the proud parents of a toddler called Johnny Mac.   The Kovak's small-town life is relatively quiet until Milt finds the corpse of Amanda Nederwald, 18, at the "retreat" of a religious sect called The Seven Trumpets. The girl was lying beneath a mesquite tree, her long blond hair entwined on the hooklike feet of a vulture.   The headquarters of this weird cult in situated in the northwest corner of Prophesy County (page 11). Or is it in the county's northeast corner (page 15)?   Basically, the Seven Trumpets is a mishmash of pseudo-Eastern religions, a little Judaism, some Christianity, and a whole lot of Star Trek.       The self-appointed prophet, guru, and spiritual leader of The Holy Temple of Seven Trumpets is one "Brother Grigsby," a sleazy con man "as slimy as a squashed bug."   Revered by his gullible female acolytes as "The Source" and "The Light," Brother Grigsby is dedicated to disseminating the seed of Gospel Truth and populating the  New Age that is dawning."Religion," muses Sheriff Kovak, "is a tricky business."   Amanda's boyfriend, Trent Johnson Marshall, also 18, who was with girl when she disappeared, has vanished. Assisted by his four deputies--Emmett Hopkins and Dalton Pettigrew (the day squad) and Jasmine Bodine and Hank Dobbins (the night squad)--Milt not only has to find Trent and identify the killer, but must also save his niece from the same fate.   The best feature of this novel is Sheriff Milt Kovak, a down-to-earth and likable character. Although Milt is not exactly a Sherlock Holmes, his dedicated pursuit of justice ingratiates him to readers. The author also paints a convincing picture of small-town politics.   Roy E. Perry

exciting police procedural

His former lover Laura Marshall hysterically demands that Prophesy County, Oklahoma Sheriff save her teenage son Trent from the Seven Trumpets religious community that she swears kidnapped him. Though he prefers distance from Laura, Milt reluctantly follows up on her complaint and quickly learns that Trent's girlfriend Amanda Nederwald has failed to come home either.Milt visits the Seven Trumpets estate, but before he sees anyone, he finds the corpse of a young female that is later verified is Amanda. Trent remains missing. Milt visits the church where he notices that most of the flock consists of pregnant women. His interview with the founder Brother Grigsby goes well, but also leaves Milt feeling a bit creepy. He returns with his wife, psychiatrist Dr. Jean McDonnell, so she can provide him with a quick assessment of Grigsby. As Milt and his department investigate the homicide and missing boyfriend, his niece becomes a recruitment target of the Seven Trumpets.LYING WONDERS is an exciting police procedural that readers will enjoy due to the clever interweaving of the overflow of Milt's past personal life into the murder investigation. The story line never slows down even when the hero's sister and niece go at it. Milt is a strong character that makes the rest of the cast seems real because he comes across as a person with complex relationships. Though his sarcastic behavior in his second encounter with Grigsby seems out of character for the calm sheriff, Susan Rogers Cooper provides a delightful who-done-it.Harriet Klausner