This gripping serial killer thriller with series potential is a cut above.
Two Buffalo Police Department detectives race to find what connects a serial killer’s victims in this novel.
Detective Rhody Richardson has the best case closing rate in his department’s history, but a spate of murders involving members of the medical community is putting his vaunted “ultra-high powers of perception” to the ultimate test. The killer, with a Patrick Bateman–like meticulousness, submits his victims to unspeakable tortures and leaves them with a number tattooed on their bodies. He places poems at each crime scene that count down the victims (“Revenge has taken four, with six to go”). Richardson and his partner, Jon Wayne (“Like the actor?” “Yeah. But spelled differently”), are aided by psychiatrist Dr. Kaileen Taylor, who is troubled by her new patient, Paul Schon. Schon is disturbingly still devastated by the loss of his cherished college sweetheart, who succumbed tragically to an infection. In Schon, Taylor detects “an underlying rage and resentment” that continue to build. The detectives also receive unexpected and invaluable assistance from Connor Patrick, a young “numbers guy” whose geeky expertise makes him a target of ridicule by department members. But appearances are deceiving. O’Brien has crafted a mostly potent procedural that opens the door to a series. The tale features characters who have an earned authority and integrity. The killer is tipped early, which moves the book’s focus from whodunit to how Richardson and his team will connect the dots. The author effectively makes a distinction between actual detective grunt work and “the sorta shit someone in Hollywood dreams up,” but he cannot resist giving Richardson his Clint Eastwood moment when he confronts a drug-addled restaurant robber. The flowers, cards, and stuffed animals surrounding one victim’s makeshift memorial are a keen-eyed detail. The opening murder is more uncomfortably graphic than the subsequent homicides, a successful technique by which readers’ imaginations can summon up worse horrors than O’Brien could relate in foreshadowed killings (“Dr. Saran Nadeer, a dentist who would not have a nice smile for long”). But in one regard, the author is an unreliable narrator when the killer tells a corpse: “This is nothing personal.” This case is revealed to be nothing but personal.
This gripping serial killer thriller with series potential is a cut above.Pub Date: Aug. 5, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-95-240437-5
Page Count: 296
Publisher: Cayelle Publishing/Whistler
Review Posted Online: May 17, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Fast-moving excitement with a satisfying finish.
The feds must protect an accused criminal and an orphaned girl.
Maybe you’ve met him before as protagonist of The 6:20 Man (2022): Ex-Army Ranger Travis Devine, who’d had the dubious fortune to tangle with “the girl on the train,” is now assigned by his homeland security boss to protect Danny Glass, who's awaiting trial on multiple RICO charges in Washington state. Devine has what it takes: He “was a closer, snooper, fixer, investigator,” and, when necessary, a killer. These skills are on full display as the deaths of three key witnesses grind justice to a temporary halt. Glass has a 12-year-old niece, Betsy Odom, and each is the other’s only living relative—her parents recently died of an apparent drug overdose. The FBI has temporary guardianship of Betsy, who's a handful. She tells Travis that though she’s not yet 13, she's 28 in “life-shit years.” The financially well-heeled Glass wants to be her legal guardian with an eye to eventual adoption, but what are his real motives? And what happens to her if he's convicted? Meanwhile, Betsy insists that her parents never touched drugs, and she begs Travis to find out how they really died. This becomes part of a mission that oozes danger. The small town of Ricketts has a woman mayor who’s full of charm on the surface, but deeply corrupt and deadly when crossed. She may be linked to a subversive group called "12/24/65," as in 1865, when the Ku Klux Klan beast was born. Blood flows, bombs explode, and people perish, both good guys and not-so-good guys. Readers might ponder why in fiction as well as in life, it sometimes seems necessary for many to die so one may live. And what about the girl on the train? She's not necessary to the plot, but she's a fun addition as she pops in and out of the pages, occasionally leaving notes for Travis. Maybe she still wants him dead.
Fast-moving excitement with a satisfying finish.Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2024
ISBN: 9781538757901
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2024
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.
A woman accused of shooting her husband six times in the face refuses to speak.
"Alicia Berenson was thirty-three years old when she killed her husband. They had been married for seven years. They were both artists—Alicia was a painter, and Gabriel was a well-known fashion photographer." Michaelides' debut is narrated in the voice of psychotherapist Theo Faber, who applies for a job at the institution where Alicia is incarcerated because he's fascinated with her case and believes he will be able to get her to talk. The narration of the increasingly unrealistic events that follow is interwoven with excerpts from Alicia's diary. Ah, yes, the old interwoven diary trick. When you read Alicia's diary you'll conclude the woman could well have been a novelist instead of a painter because it contains page after page of detailed dialogue, scenes, and conversations quite unlike those in any journal you've ever seen. " 'What's the matter?' 'I can't talk about it on the phone, I need to see you.' 'It's just—I'm not sure I can make it up to Cambridge at the minute.' 'I'll come to you. This afternoon. Okay?' Something in Paul's voice made me agree without thinking about it. He sounded desperate. 'Okay. Are you sure you can't tell me about it now?' 'I'll see you later.' Paul hung up." Wouldn't all this appear in a diary as "Paul wouldn't tell me what was wrong"? An even more improbable entry is the one that pins the tail on the killer. While much of the book is clumsy, contrived, and silly, it is while reading passages of the diary that one may actually find oneself laughing out loud.
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-30169-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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