“We’re all in the same boat,” an unwitting accomplice tells the Carpenter. But can these isolated individuals barely aware...
A New Yorker devastated by the bombing of the Twin Towers goes on a methodical rampage of his own in this haunting valentine to the Big Apple.
The murder of the first victim, East Village realtor Marilyn Fairchild, seems so commonplace that the cops don’t miss a beat before arresting John Blair Creighton, the author she’d brought home the night of her death. But the case starts to go south when Creighton’s lawyer, cancer-stricken Maury Winters, argues a connection to the slaying of two prostitutes and their madam—a crime discovered by the same hapless witness, alcoholic cleaner Jerry Pankow, and one for which Creighton has an alibi. Once the bombing of three bars also on Jerry’s client list sends the death toll into the double digits, most authors would narrow the focus to the manhunt for the killer. But Block (Hope to Die, 2001, etc.) builds suspense by the daring trick of suppressing virtually every glimpse of the bamboozled justice system to focus on the lives of citizens going about their business. Creighton finds his latest novel fetching an incredible advance and himself turned into a celebrity because everybody assumes he strangled Marilyn Fairchild. Gallery owner Susan Pomerance, excited by her upcoming show of an unknown local sculptor and her recent body piercings, stocks up her toy chest and gets in touch with her inner dominatrix. And the most likely detective figure, former police commissioner Francis Buckram, back in town to explore a possible mayoral bid, is too busy writhing on Susan’s bed every Friday night to take much interest in the violent craftsman the media have started to call the Carpenter.
“We’re all in the same boat,” an unwitting accomplice tells the Carpenter. But can these isolated individuals barely aware of each other’s existence pull together to defeat a madman? It’s an excellent question for us all.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-06-001190-4
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2002
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Advertising executive Patterson doubles neither our pleasure nor our fun by giving us two intense, Hannibal Lecter-type murderers for the price of one in an improbable and hopelessly derivative mess of a thriller. Feds and local authorities on both coasts are baffled by a pair of serial killers targeting beautiful young women: The Gentleman Caller works the scene in sunny L.A., where he brutally murders and dismembers his prey; his counterpart back East, who calls himself Casanova, trolls the Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill area for sexy coeds to victimize. Their MOs provide plenty of fodder for an author trying to cook up a work of psychological terror: Both are powerful, handsome, brilliant (natch), commit perfect crimes, and, despite their busy schedules, manage to keep in touch with each other. To catch them, you obviously need a perfect crime fighter. Enter Alex Cross, the Washington, D.C., detective/psychologist hero of bestselling Along Came A Spider (1993), who gets dragged into all this after his niece Naomi, a student at Duke University, vanishes. Working with the authorities and a medical student named Kate McTiernan, who was lucky enough to escape Casanova's clutches, Cross begins to understand how the two dueling psychos operate. Just in the nick of time, too, because the Gentleman Caller, on the run from the law out West, decides that nothing could be finer than to be in Carolina with his old buddy Casanova. So, what does Cross, whose favorite niece is now in the clutches of two sickos, do? Fall in love with Kate McTiernan, of course, in an ill-placed romantic subplot intended to raise the stakes in the deadly cat-and-mouse game. Does Cross save Naomi? Are the two killers brought to justice or, at the very least, consigned to gory demises? Who cares? As a storyteller, Patterson is a great ad copywriter.
Pub Date: Jan. 11, 1995
ISBN: 0-316-69370-7
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1994
BOOK TO SCREEN
Careful research, a driving plot, wry wit, and compelling characters make this a most entertaining read.
The real-life Victorian police detective who was the inspiration for Charles Dickens’ Mr. Bucket serves as the main character in a fast-paced historical mystery.
Although this is Mason’s debut novel for adults, he’s an accomplished playwright. Those skills are evident in the crisp dialogue and well-structured scenes of this book. It begins with a bang in 1860 as Chief Detective Inspector Charles Field, assigned to guard Queen Victoria and Prince Albert during a public appearance, witnesses an assassination attempt. The shooter, who’s arrested, is mentally ill, but Field quickly begins to suspect the man is just a tool of a conspiracy—one connected to the controversy over the new ideas of the naturalist Charles Darwin. Field’s determined pursuit of the truth is sometimes snagged by his celebrity; Dickens fans, including some in the royal family, insist on calling him “Mr. Bucket” and confusing the fictional policeman with the real one. Field persists, however, plunging into a dizzyingly complex plot that takes him all over London and off to Germany. The cast of characters teems with satisfyingly despicable villains, many of them based on real aristocrats and scientists. The most villainous, however, is the memorably terrifying Decimus Cobb, a former choirboy–turned–Victorian-era Hannibal Lecter. Countering Cobb and the other bad guys are the earnestly heroic Field, his resourceful wife, a kidnapped butcher’s boy, and Prince Albert, who gets a touchingly human portrayal. There are cameos by such famous figures as Karl Marx, Dickens, and, of course, Darwin. With many grisly murders and many shocking surprises along the way, the book rockets toward a last dark twist.
Careful research, a driving plot, wry wit, and compelling characters make this a most entertaining read.Pub Date: June 11, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-61620-634-5
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Algonquin
Review Posted Online: March 2, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
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