The author’s healthy appetite for merrily killing off any and all of his characters is not enough, alas, to add suspense to...
Fourth novel from French reporter-turned-mystery-writer Grangé (The Stone Council, 2002, etc.), packed chock-full with extreme mutilations.
Believing that you’re not who you seem to be could be considered a trope of bourgeois Parisian life. But young housewife Anna Heymes turns out to be right. Suffering from memory loss, including the inability to recognize her husband, she wonders whether he’s had plastic surgery. Well, one of them has, but it’s not hubby: in the bathroom one day, Anna discovers that her entire face has been smashed and remade. Okay, then, time to scale the balcony and take off in search of the Truth. Meanwhile, back at the cop shop, a cute, idealistic young inspector named Paul and a grizzled, corrupt old flic named Schiffer (whom everyone refers to as the “Cipher”) are on the trail of a serial killer who is butchering redheaded Turkish girls with an intimate ferocity that seems personal. (His techniques include removing their facial features.) As they bumble through the Turkish quarter, the pair begins to suspect that the true culprit may be the Grey Wolves, an elite organization of Turkish guerrillas whose ties to both right-wing politicians and organized crime scare the bejesus out of any potential witnesses. The Turks seem to be looking for a redheaded woman who double-crossed them. The newly liberated Anna, along with a chic psychiatrist sidekick, uncovers a brainwashing plot that has nothing at all to do with the Turks—though she finds she has skills more befitting a trained warrior than a housewife, as well as a red hairline. Soon, most of the characters meet up, and all goes to hell, leaving trails of wretchedly mutilated corpses across a couple of countries.
The author’s healthy appetite for merrily killing off any and all of his characters is not enough, alas, to add suspense to his tale.Pub Date: Jan. 7, 2005
ISBN: 0-06-057365-1
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Ecco/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2004
BOOK REVIEW
Slaughter (Cop Town, 2014, etc.) is so uncompromising in following her blood trails to the darkest places imaginable that...
Twenty-four years after a traumatic disappearance tore a Georgia family apart, Slaughter’s scorching stand-alone picks them up and shreds them all over again.
The Carrolls have never been the same since 19-year-old Julia vanished. After years of fruitlessly pestering the police, her veterinarian father, Sam, killed himself; her librarian mother, Helen, still keeps the girl's bedroom untouched, just in case. Julia’s sisters have been equally scarred. Lydia Delgado has sold herself for drugs countless times, though she’s been clean for years now; Claire Scott has just been paroled after knee-capping her tennis partner for a thoughtless remark. The evening that Claire’s ankle bracelet comes off, her architect husband, Paul, is callously murdered before her eyes and, without a moment's letup, she stumbles on a mountainous cache of snuff porn. Paul’s business partner, Adam Quinn, demands information from Claire and threatens her with dire consequences if she doesn’t deliver. The Dunwoody police prove as ineffectual as ever. FBI agent Fred Nolan is more suavely menacing than helpful. So Lydia and Claire, who’ve grown so far apart that they’re virtual strangers, are unwillingly thrown back on each other for help. Once she’s plunged you into this maelstrom, Slaughter shreds your own nerves along with those of the sisters, not simply by a parade of gruesome revelations—though she supplies them in abundance—but by peeling back layer after layer from beloved family members Claire and Lydia thought they knew. The results are harrowing.
Slaughter (Cop Town, 2014, etc.) is so uncompromising in following her blood trails to the darkest places imaginable that she makes most of her high-wire competition look pallid, formulaic, or just plain fake.Pub Date: Sept. 29, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-06-242905-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: June 30, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2015
A tepid follow-up to The Camel Club (2005), with few surprises.
Helped by a beautiful grifter, the “Camel Club”—the four-man band of conspiracy theorists—returns to battle a threat to national security.
Annabelle Conroy is con-artist extraordinaire; Jerry Bagger, mobster and mark; and Roger Seagraves, master assassin. All come straight from central casting. Seagraves is killing high-level government officials, and Conroy is putting together the con of the century, with Bagger as the target. The mysterious death of a rare-books expert at the Library of Congress launches the story, which splits off at first into two different plotlines. In one, Conroy and her team work their way up to their major score. In the other, the Camel Club investigates the mysterious death of a close friend. Things are slightly more exciting in Conroy’s world. She’s assembling her team, eager to settle an old score by taking down Atlantic City’s most notorious and ruthless casino owner. After a series of capers out west to build their bankroll, the team heads back east. There’s little drama Players act out their part; marks fall. The big score comes off without a hitch. The two plots intersect halfway through. Annabelle arrives in D.C., thanks to an awkward development, along with a new piece of unfinished business. Seagraves and the Camel Club are engaged in a cat-and-mouse game, and Annabelle Conroy is the special guest star. The merged stories reach a predictable conclusion. An obvious conflict remains unresolved for much of the way, setting up the next chapter in the saga.
A tepid follow-up to The Camel Club (2005), with few surprises.Pub Date: Oct. 17, 2006
ISBN: 0-446-53109-X
Page Count: 448
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2006
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