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