The Crucifix Killer by Chris Carter
Jul. 26th, 2009 01:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
quippeThe Blurb On The Back:
Say your prayers
When the body of a young woman is discovered in a derelict cottage in the middle of Los Angeles National Forest, Homicide Detective Robert Hunter finds himself entering a horrific nightmare. Naked and strung from two wooden posts, the victim was sadistically tortured before meeting an excruciatingly painful death. On the nape of her neck has been carved a strange double-cross: the signature of a psychopath known as the Crucifix Killer. But that's impossible. Because two years ago, the Crucifix Killer was caught and executed.
Could this be a copycat killer? Or could the unthinkable be true? Is the real killer still out there, ready to embark once again on a vicious and violent killing spree, selecting victims seemingly at random? Hunter knows he will risk everything to find out - even if it means becoming the hunted.
Two years ago Detectives Robert Hunter and Scott Wilson caught one of LA's worst serial killers. Dubbed the Crucifix Killer, Mike Farloe tortured and killed 7 people - the only apparent connection between them being the double-crucifix mark that he carved into their necks. Afterwards though, Wilson and his wife (Hunter's favourite cousin) died in a freak boating accident and ever since Hunter has been on a downward spiral fuelled by insomnia and alcohol. The spiral only begins to reverse when he meets Isabella (a biomedical researcher at UCLA Medical School) and gets a new partner, Carlos Garcia, a new detective just transferred to Hunter's division.
When Hunter and Garcia are called out to a derelict cottage in LA's National Forest they find the body of a woman who has been tortured and murdered. The victim bears the Crucifix Killer's mark. The detectives must work out if this is the work of a copycat killer or whether the wrong person was convicted 2 years ago, leaving the Crucifix Killer free to resume their reign of mayhem.
Hunter is a former wunderkind criminal profiler whose Phd thesis became a training manual for the FBI but who is haunted by his past mistakes, notably that of John Spencer, a man who Hunter helped to convict for the murder of his wife, only to discover after Spencer's suicide that another man was responsible. Hunter likes whisky, sleeping around and is plagued by insomnia. In contrast, Garcia is the fresh-faced newbie detective desperate to make an impression on the squad. When the Crucifix Killer strikes again, he finds himself drawn into the case, unable to let go despite the pleas of his wife, Anna.
Isabella is barely developed beyond being sexy and Carter quickly loses interest in developing the relationship between her and Hunter, limiting it to only a couple of dates. Indeed there are no strong female characters in this book with women being depicted as wives or prostitutes. I lost count of the number of "sexy winks" that most of the female characters gave Hunter and Garcia. The Crucifix Killer himself is a walking cliche - using an electronic voice disguiser so that he can phone up Hunter to taunt him as to his lack of progress, setting cruel games for Hunter to try and complete if he wants to save victims and ultimately deciding to strike against those who Hunter cares about as a means of increasing his torture.
The book has a powerful opening but the story itself meanders. The red herrings were obvious and play out for too long and the identity of the Killer is telegraphed from their first appearance. Particularly unforgiveable though is the way that Carter defers giving key information as to the Killer's motivation and how Hunter works out their identity until the final 50 pages of the book. In one instance, Hunter refers back to an earlier scene as giving him a critical piece of information but if the reader goes back to that scene, the information is not actually set out.
Dialogue is stilted and the jokes fall flat. There's clearly a set up for further books to follow but the quality of the writing would have to drastically improve for me to read on.
The Verdict:
If you're looking for something different in the serial killer genre, then this book isn't for you. If you're happy with the usual cliches and tropes though, you'll probably enjoy it.
When the body of a young woman is discovered in a derelict cottage in the middle of Los Angeles National Forest, Homicide Detective Robert Hunter finds himself entering a horrific nightmare. Naked and strung from two wooden posts, the victim was sadistically tortured before meeting an excruciatingly painful death. On the nape of her neck has been carved a strange double-cross: the signature of a psychopath known as the Crucifix Killer. But that's impossible. Because two years ago, the Crucifix Killer was caught and executed.
Could this be a copycat killer? Or could the unthinkable be true? Is the real killer still out there, ready to embark once again on a vicious and violent killing spree, selecting victims seemingly at random? Hunter knows he will risk everything to find out - even if it means becoming the hunted.
Two years ago Detectives Robert Hunter and Scott Wilson caught one of LA's worst serial killers. Dubbed the Crucifix Killer, Mike Farloe tortured and killed 7 people - the only apparent connection between them being the double-crucifix mark that he carved into their necks. Afterwards though, Wilson and his wife (Hunter's favourite cousin) died in a freak boating accident and ever since Hunter has been on a downward spiral fuelled by insomnia and alcohol. The spiral only begins to reverse when he meets Isabella (a biomedical researcher at UCLA Medical School) and gets a new partner, Carlos Garcia, a new detective just transferred to Hunter's division.
When Hunter and Garcia are called out to a derelict cottage in LA's National Forest they find the body of a woman who has been tortured and murdered. The victim bears the Crucifix Killer's mark. The detectives must work out if this is the work of a copycat killer or whether the wrong person was convicted 2 years ago, leaving the Crucifix Killer free to resume their reign of mayhem.
Hunter is a former wunderkind criminal profiler whose Phd thesis became a training manual for the FBI but who is haunted by his past mistakes, notably that of John Spencer, a man who Hunter helped to convict for the murder of his wife, only to discover after Spencer's suicide that another man was responsible. Hunter likes whisky, sleeping around and is plagued by insomnia. In contrast, Garcia is the fresh-faced newbie detective desperate to make an impression on the squad. When the Crucifix Killer strikes again, he finds himself drawn into the case, unable to let go despite the pleas of his wife, Anna.
Isabella is barely developed beyond being sexy and Carter quickly loses interest in developing the relationship between her and Hunter, limiting it to only a couple of dates. Indeed there are no strong female characters in this book with women being depicted as wives or prostitutes. I lost count of the number of "sexy winks" that most of the female characters gave Hunter and Garcia. The Crucifix Killer himself is a walking cliche - using an electronic voice disguiser so that he can phone up Hunter to taunt him as to his lack of progress, setting cruel games for Hunter to try and complete if he wants to save victims and ultimately deciding to strike against those who Hunter cares about as a means of increasing his torture.
The book has a powerful opening but the story itself meanders. The red herrings were obvious and play out for too long and the identity of the Killer is telegraphed from their first appearance. Particularly unforgiveable though is the way that Carter defers giving key information as to the Killer's motivation and how Hunter works out their identity until the final 50 pages of the book. In one instance, Hunter refers back to an earlier scene as giving him a critical piece of information but if the reader goes back to that scene, the information is not actually set out.
Dialogue is stilted and the jokes fall flat. There's clearly a set up for further books to follow but the quality of the writing would have to drastically improve for me to read on.
The Verdict:
If you're looking for something different in the serial killer genre, then this book isn't for you. If you're happy with the usual cliches and tropes though, you'll probably enjoy it.
