Cover your eyes—this one's really nasty…it's impossible not to be swept away by its propulsive momentum. The appeal of this dark and intensely disquieting book isn't entirely visceral either. By shifting the narrative point of view, Black allows us to peer into the depths of his many richly developed characters, from the surprisingly complex killers and their dedicated hunters to the supporting players who pop up only to be ruthlessly disposed of.
★ 07/06/2015
At the start of this exceptional police thriller from Black, the pseudonym of British author Glen Duncan (Hope), two armed men show up at an isolated farmhouse outside Ellinson, Colo., with fatal results for the Cooper family. Soon afterward, a San Francisco woman is found dead, raped and mutilated with a piece of a crystal unicorn inserted in her body. SFPD homicide detective Valerie Hart links this crime and another Bay Area slaying to a string of murders of women in several states across the western U.S., in each of which the killers—DNA evidence suggests there are two of them—embedded a strange object in the corpse. Meanwhile, Valerie is drinking too much and has a rotten love life while Carla York, the FBI special agent brought in as liaison, dislikes Valerie for unknown reasons and works to discredit her. The appearance of an old boyfriend, fellow cop Nick Blaskovich, whom Valerie dumped three years earlier, complicates matters further. Despite these distractions, persistent Valerie displays a real gift for uncovering and interpreting clues. Readers will hope she returns soon in another nail-biter. Agent: Jane Gelfman, Gelfman Schneider Literary Agents. (Sept.)
If you want to ruin a perfectly good weekend with a gut-wrenching, spine-tingling, deeply disturbing, edge-of-the-seat-thrilling crime novel, The Killing Lessons is your ticket. Beware.
Do not read this. No reader deserves to be terrified like this.
This novel breaks brilliant. It's hard to tell what's the best part of The Killing Lessons: the sweaty-palm plot that races along like a squadcar on a high-speed pursuit, the breathtaking depictions of the characters, good and bad, or author Black's inimitable style. My vote? All three.
The Killing Lessons is a dark, twisted, and deeply compelling read. Saul Black perfectly inhabits each of his characters, even the most deranged among them, and weaves a breathless thriller that is as beautiful as it is terrifying.
★ 07/01/2015
For Nell Cooper life would never be the same again. The moment she found her mother on the kitchen floor and heard her whisper the words, "Run, they're still here," the safe world as she knew it ceased to exist. For the two killers, Nell's house was just a random stop on the road to completing a bloody list of macabre tasks. Det. Valerie Hart is obsessed with putting an end to this rampage and will stop at nothing to do it. Unfortunately, she will also have to work with her ex-fiancé, who recently rejoined the force, and figure out who's trying to sabotage her within the department. As the murder investigation heats up and the search for the killers becomes even more frantic, Valerie must also watch her own back. VERDICT Black (aka Glen Duncan, I Lucifer) has written a taut, smart thriller guaranteed to keep readers on the edge of their seats. Not to be missed.—Cynthia Price, Francis Marion Univ. Lib., Florence, SC
★ 2015-06-30
Ending the rampage of two sadistic serial killers may depend on a substance-abusing homicide detective facing an old lover and an unknown nemesis in this raw and utterly readable thriller. Behind the nom de plume is Glen Duncan (By Blood We Live, 2014, etc.), last seen spewing bloody ink in the wrap-up to his toothsome werewolves-and-vampires trilogy. In a different vein here, he cooks up mayhem among mortals, creating a duo from Of Mice and Men by way of Thomas Harris without the fava beans. Inspired by some horrific child abuse, Xander and Paulie are on a mission to rape, torture, and murder a certain number of women, aided by a serrated fishing knife, an iPad, and a combined IQ maybe in the high double-digits. Detective Valerie Hart leads a San Francisco team confronted with at least seven victims and zero clues. Black sets parallel narratives in motion when the latest murders send a teenage girl into hiding and a new potential victim hands the Hart team its first break—once underway, the police work is crisp and convincing. Meanwhile, the former lover complicates Valerie's chilly, vodka-fueled efficiency while an FBI operative seems to lie behind several incidents undermining her. Compared with the explicit gore of the trilogy, there's some writerly restraint here amid much nastiness. But nasty it is, and it's made more so by the author's deep dives into the mind of a victim, especially when her terror is stoked by the iPad's gruesome video records. An especially fine piece of staging has the injured teen and the writer crippled by sciatica with whom she has taken refuge awaiting unlikely rescue on a dead-end road. Aficionados may fault Black for allowing the police at least one major oversight, but most readers will likely be too engrossed or happily grossed out to do anything but whip through the pages.
