Helpful Score: 3
Excellent book - but very graphic.
E.L. Pender, the FBI agent introduced in Nasaw's previous mystery (The Girls He Adored, is a few days short of retirement when he gets a letter from a California woman with an unlikely premise--that the deaths of three people who, like her, attended a conference for people suffering from a variety of phobias (some very strange indeed) were not the random accidents they appeared to be, but the work of a serial killer. Once Pender meets Dorie Bell, the letter writer, he believes her, and with the help of a gutsy agent sidelined from an active career in the FBI by her recently diagnosed MS, he tracks the murderer--the man who bankrolled the conference in order to meet his victims, learn their vulnerabilities, and use their fears to kill them.
E.L. Pender, the FBI agent introduced in Nasaw's previous mystery (The Girls He Adored, is a few days short of retirement when he gets a letter from a California woman with an unlikely premise--that the deaths of three people who, like her, attended a conference for people suffering from a variety of phobias (some very strange indeed) were not the random accidents they appeared to be, but the work of a serial killer. Once Pender meets Dorie Bell, the letter writer, he believes her, and with the help of a gutsy agent sidelined from an active career in the FBI by her recently diagnosed MS, he tracks the murderer--the man who bankrolled the conference in order to meet his victims, learn their vulnerabilities, and use their fears to kill them.
Helpful Score: 3
Great book! Jonathan Nasaw knows how to keep you on the edge of your seat. The short chapters keep you reading for hours only to take breaks to think "one more chapter".
Helpful Score: 2
This book sort of put me in mind of the movie "Saw." And it was EXCELLENT! The bad guy is definitely off his rocker and it's interesting to see what he'll do next - or who he will kill next and how he will kill them. What do you have to fear, but fear itself?
Helpful Score: 2
I find Jonathan Nasaw to be a very compelling writer. I cannot seem to put his books down once I pick them up. The way he brings you into the mind of not just the hero of the story but the serial killer as well. He is a tad bit grittier than your mainstream authors and is not afraid to add the debase darkness of the serial killers mind in his books. He is not afraid to detail what society is to polite to discuss. I like that in an author.
Helpful Score: 1
In the beginning Nasaw introduces Linda Abruzzi, the one taking Pender's place in the Liaison Support, because he really is happy and can't wait for his official retirement. Linda isn't happy about taking his outlaw post because besides the pain she feels 24/7 it reminds her that it was this or leaving the FBI, which graciously already degraded her from Special Agent to Investigative Specialist.
In this book Pender shows himself from another side, one much more personal than in the first novel The Girls He Adored. Nevertheless his reputation hasn't changed much, he's still known of being the worst dressed agent.
So when Pender receives a letter from Dori Bell, suffering from a terrible fear of masks, about friends that officially committed suicide untypical for persons with phobia, he leaves a possible investigation to Linda and takes off for a golfing vacation.
Didn't he know his vacation spot isn't far away from Dori's home.
So things come together and when Pender visits Dori there is an instant connection between them. She seems to be very much like him and not to mind his clothing and Pender's just Pender-Mr-Cool from the outside. But then Dori's already in the killer's focus and is captured the next day.
She knows who he is. She knows she did tell Pender about the convention she visited and that Simon Child's has been the main contributor moneywise but will he be able to rescue her before she is killed by Child's who enjoys torturing his victims with their fears until they ultimately die.
A lot of people will die and already have died through Simon Child's hands and he always seems to be one step further of the people chasing him.
-
The sad thing with this book is, that the whole plot somehow is there but that it isn't executed well. I missed the investigation. Instead it seems Pender always knew where to look and what to look for. Unfortunately reality isn't that simple.
I find it really sweet to read about Pender and Dori which seems to be a perfect match, complementing each other but other than that I really don't have much to say about this book.
It is one of those you read and pretty soon forget about it.
In this book Pender shows himself from another side, one much more personal than in the first novel The Girls He Adored. Nevertheless his reputation hasn't changed much, he's still known of being the worst dressed agent.
So when Pender receives a letter from Dori Bell, suffering from a terrible fear of masks, about friends that officially committed suicide untypical for persons with phobia, he leaves a possible investigation to Linda and takes off for a golfing vacation.
Didn't he know his vacation spot isn't far away from Dori's home.
So things come together and when Pender visits Dori there is an instant connection between them. She seems to be very much like him and not to mind his clothing and Pender's just Pender-Mr-Cool from the outside. But then Dori's already in the killer's focus and is captured the next day.
She knows who he is. She knows she did tell Pender about the convention she visited and that Simon Child's has been the main contributor moneywise but will he be able to rescue her before she is killed by Child's who enjoys torturing his victims with their fears until they ultimately die.
A lot of people will die and already have died through Simon Child's hands and he always seems to be one step further of the people chasing him.
-
The sad thing with this book is, that the whole plot somehow is there but that it isn't executed well. I missed the investigation. Instead it seems Pender always knew where to look and what to look for. Unfortunately reality isn't that simple.
I find it really sweet to read about Pender and Dori which seems to be a perfect match, complementing each other but other than that I really don't have much to say about this book.
It is one of those you read and pretty soon forget about it.
