Secret Identity

The Barnes & Noble ReviewCathy Hapka’s Lost: Secret Identity, the second in an ongoing series of novels based on ABC’s hit television show, revolves around Dexter Cross, one of the few survivors of Oceanic Flight 815, who is forced to deal with the mountain of lies that has brought him to this point in his miserable sham of a life.

Throughout his formative years, Dexter Stubbs was looked upon as a loser, a nerd, and a wimp. He grew up without a father, and his mother struggled to make ends meet; but Dexter’s dreams of escaping a hopeless future came true when an aunt reached a lucrative settlement with a major retail chain after a dubious injury and gave him enough money to attend an Ivy League school. At college, Dexter constructed intricate lies about his family, in order to “fit in” with affluent students — like the beautiful Daisy Ward. To preserve his relationship with Daisy, he continues lying, until it’s too late for anything except disaster

While not the must intellectually challenging of story lines, these incredibly fast-paced novelizations (which also include Hapka’s Lost: Endangered Species and the forthcoming Lost: Signs of Life by Frank Thompson) will appeal to fans of the show — because while the plots focus on peripheral survivors, they also prominently feature popular main characters like Jack, Kate, Hurley, and Locke. If your favorite band is Driveshaft, if you own a T-shirt that says “Everything Happens for a Reason,” or if you know the significance behind the numbers 4-8-15-16-23-42, these books are definitely for you! Paul Goat Allen