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annathepiperIt was a very interesting contrast indeed jumping from ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
desperance's current fantasy novel Bridge of Dreams clear back to his very first book, the psychological thriller The Samaritan. The prose is clearly the product of the same hand, even with twenty-some-odd years between the books, and even given that The Samaritan by necessity has a significantly terser style.
Paul Fenner is a former cop who was driven into alcoholism and divorce by the overwhelming brutality of a case he never solved: the rampage of the killer known as the Butcher. Since walking away, he's striven to rebuild his life; he's sworn off drinking and has established a new relationship with a young woman, Tina, whose fondest wish is to settle with him in a cottage in Wales. But when Paul's and Tina's landlady and friend is found murdered, Paul realizes that the Butcher is not going to let him go.
This entire story is intense, gripping, and in parts highly disturbing. The sections from the Butcher's point of view are particularly effective--told as they are in second person, which has the immediate effect of placing you right into his head so that you see every little twisted corner of his brain. You even relive the horrific abuse that the character experienced as a child, and this led me to almost, almost feeling sorry for the guy. Yet the gruesome barrage of violence in the very end of the book takes that little glimmer of sympathy, sharpens it right into a knife, and stabs you with it. Brr.
There's only one bit in the book I take issue with, one bit in the aforementioned barrage of violence that for me as a reader was really unnecessary--because in order for it to work, one of the characters in the cast does something that made me want to smack her so hard that I was momentarily taken out of the story. But that was mercifully brief. What comes after that point was otherwise a veritable storm, ripping through almost all corners of Paul's and Tina's lives, until its passing leaves them with barely more than a glimmer of gratitude that they've survived.
And after reading this book, I know exactly how they feel. ;) Three and a half stars.
desperance's current fantasy novel Bridge of Dreams clear back to his very first book, the psychological thriller The Samaritan. The prose is clearly the product of the same hand, even with twenty-some-odd years between the books, and even given that The Samaritan by necessity has a significantly terser style.Paul Fenner is a former cop who was driven into alcoholism and divorce by the overwhelming brutality of a case he never solved: the rampage of the killer known as the Butcher. Since walking away, he's striven to rebuild his life; he's sworn off drinking and has established a new relationship with a young woman, Tina, whose fondest wish is to settle with him in a cottage in Wales. But when Paul's and Tina's landlady and friend is found murdered, Paul realizes that the Butcher is not going to let him go.
This entire story is intense, gripping, and in parts highly disturbing. The sections from the Butcher's point of view are particularly effective--told as they are in second person, which has the immediate effect of placing you right into his head so that you see every little twisted corner of his brain. You even relive the horrific abuse that the character experienced as a child, and this led me to almost, almost feeling sorry for the guy. Yet the gruesome barrage of violence in the very end of the book takes that little glimmer of sympathy, sharpens it right into a knife, and stabs you with it. Brr.
There's only one bit in the book I take issue with, one bit in the aforementioned barrage of violence that for me as a reader was really unnecessary--because in order for it to work, one of the characters in the cast does something that made me want to smack her so hard that I was momentarily taken out of the story. But that was mercifully brief. What comes after that point was otherwise a veritable storm, ripping through almost all corners of Paul's and Tina's lives, until its passing leaves them with barely more than a glimmer of gratitude that they've survived.
And after reading this book, I know exactly how they feel. ;) Three and a half stars.