Colorado Boulevard

October 1, 2017
Caleb RushCrush to everybodyis a bouncer, bodyguard, and all-around badass who landedon the scene with both feet in 2015's Crush. So big, bald, and brutal was he that we took him to our hearts at once, and it helped that he had a knack for literate one-liners. But in last year's Heart Attack and Vine, he was one more character in a novel that had too many of them. Now, with Colorado Boulevard, he's almost a supernumerary in his own story. But this time the balance works, as his author leads him into a multilayered story with a familiar themea decades-old crime that surfaces at the wrong moment: now. Once Crush swooned over the beautiful Renee. In a stunning scene, he saved her from suicide. Then she disappeared. Other things happen. A relative devotes his life to creating a bullet train. Crush's stepbrother becomes obsessed with a group of Targeted Individuals being preyed on by Overlords. A Nazi connection surfaces. A bloodied, concussed Crush sorts through it all, carried along by some exceptionally fine writing.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)

October 2, 2017
Sutton’s enjoyable third novel featuring macho L.A. bodyguard Caleb “Crush” Rush (after 2016’s Heart Attack and Vine) centers on the eccentric Zerbes, an old-money Pasadena family, whose patriarch, Emil, was once briefly married to Crush’s mother. The trouble begins when two kidnappers show up early one morning at the 12th-floor apartment that Crush shares with Emil’s son K.C., who’s under house arrest after serving time in prison for an unspecified crime. Crush, who considers K.C. a brother, arrives home just in time to grab one of the kidnappers, but not before his confederate gets away with K.C. in the building’s elevator. The captured man swears that K.C. hired them to kidnap him. To Crush, it’s obvious that K.C.’s twin, Noel, was responsible. Besides trying to deal with the zany brothers, Crush must also contend with their volatile sister, Angela, and the hoopla surrounding the Zerbes’ extravagant float for the Rose Parade, a celebration of California high-speed rail. Fans of comic capers will find plenty to like. Agent: Allison Cohen, Gersh Agency.