Joan's picks: Desert Star and Cult Trip

Desert Star  by Michael Connelly. He’s famous for a series of books with Harry Bosch as the central character; then started a second series with Renee Ballard, and then a spin off series with the two of them working together and this is one of those. She had left the force but been lured back with a brief to try and wrap up some cold cases, one of which was the murder of an entire family several years before which Bosch had never managed to crack and she persuades him to come back and work with her to give it another shot.  Cult Trip by Anke Richter. She’s a journalist who was exploring her own spirituality at a retreat in Byron Bay when she met a New Zealand woman who told her about her experiences at Centrepoint and set her off on a mission around the word to look at cults – why they exist, why people believe and stay there, the role of the inevitable gurus in charge and how so many people seem to get sucked in to these things, often giving not only all their money but giving up their freedoms as well. The first chapter in this book is all about Centrepoint and the last one Is about Gloriavale, and it’s fascinating stuff – from someone who’s been to the frontline of many of these organisations and about what really goes on inside them.  LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.