IT'S THE LITTLE THINGS

A psychopath rapes and tortures dozens of women in this pornographic thriller.

New York publishing executive Roberto Sanchez receives a doozy of a pitch–a letter telling him that his missing sister Melina will be dismembered unless he gets the enclosed manuscript onto bookstore shelves within two weeks. He immediately prints thousands of copies of the book, a memoir of the pseudonymous Rush-Hour Madman’s exploits as a serial killer, and a preview of his plans for an upcoming terrorist spectacular. In lengthy excerpts from this text, the Madman recounts his sexual torture and murder, by whip and razor and fire, of countless young female victims, starting with classmates at his Long Island high school and moving on to Ohio University co-eds and Florida telemarketers–with Manhattan prostitutes and some Hong Kong club kids along the way. He kills men, too, but usually through the less personal method of bombing public places. Appalled by what he reads, Roberto contacts his ex-girlfriend Becca Willis, an investigative reporter. She begins sleuthing for the perp’s identity based on broad hints in the manuscript–so broad that the reader will spot the villain long before the slow-on-the-uptake Becca does. The Madman is a well-written, commanding figure. Veering between caustic drollery, grandiose preening and savage rage, full of contempt for the “faceless” denizens of ordinary life, he easily holds center stage. Unfortunately, the story finds him all too fascinating, so much so that it seems to share his perspective. As the title suggests, the narrative wallows endlessly in the gory details of the Madman’s atrocities and fairly throbs with lascivious delight at them. Whenever it strays from the fiend’s energetic perversions, the novel lapses into a perfunctory, sluggishly paced mystery peopled by pallid characters.

Sadists will be engrossed by this chronicle of obscenities, but normal readers will find it gratuitous and nauseating.