One of the books in Susan Salter Reynolds' "Discovery" column in Sunday's LAT Book Review is Malibu Diary: Notes from an Urban Refugee. It's by Penelope Grenoble O'Malley, an ex-upstate New Yorker who adopted Malibu as her escape from city life in the '80s. She reported for the Malibu Times and wrote the book, says Reynolds, "with a reporter's eye and a resident's heart." It's out in March from University of Nevada Press.

Also in the Book Review, David L. Ulin has nice things to say about Homicide Special: A Year With the LAPD's Elite Detective Unit by Miles Corwin. In the Business section, Michael Cieply unfolds the bitter fight between Philip Anschutz's Crusader Entertainment and adventure writer Clive Cussler over the making of his novel Sahara into a movie. It's currently filming in Morocco with Mathew McConaughey as the star, directed by Michael Eisner's son Breck.