Joe Victim

Starred review from July 22, 2013
New Zealand author Cleave pulls out all the stops in his seventh Christchurch noir, a sequel to The Cleaner, which revealed that “the Christchurch Carver” was Joe Middleton, a police department janitor. A year after his arrest, Middleton’s incarceration and impending trial have put the issue of capital punishment back on New Zealand’s agenda, just in time for a national election. His female partner-in-crime, Melissa X, whose relationship with him is ambivalent at best, is looking for a gunman to take Middleton out before his day in court. The killer, in turn, is banking on the insanity defense to get him off the hook. And an ex-cop who was responsible for finally catching the Carver is hoping to use his inside knowledge to boost a bogus psychic’s TV show. Cleave juggles all the elements with impressive ease. Darkly humorous references to horrific violence will resonate with Dexter fans. Agent: Jane Gregory, Gregory and Company.

August 1, 2013
In his latest noir thriller, Cleave (Cemetery Lake, 2013, etc.) again stumbles into the evil environs of contemporary Christchurch, New Zealand. The Christchurch Carver, whose tale began in Cleave's The Cleaner, has been jailed. The Carver, posing as "Slow" Joe, worked as a police station janitor--when he wasn't bloodletting on Christchurch's streets. Now he calls himself Joe Victim, claiming no memory of the murders. The story unfolds with references to his rampage woven into the narrative, enough to let this episode work as a stand-alone novel. However, Cleave's protagonist from other Christchurch thrillers, ex-cop Theo Tate, takes no part. In fact, there's no hero to root for here, except perhaps guilt-ridden, stressed-out Carl Schroder, once Tate's partner but now himself fired from the police. Point of view shifts from Joe, to Schroder, and then to Melissa, whose true name is Natalie Flowers. Natalie has taken on her murdered sister's identity because, "There is something wrong inside of her, something terribly, terribly wrong." Natalie/Melissa, as thoroughly bloodthirsty as Joe, plans to spring Joe from custody as he is transferred to court. The plot is extraordinarily complex, interspersed with Joe's manipulative ramblings to prison psychiatrists, which vacillate among reluctant admissions of sexual abuse by an aunt, his claims that he has no memory of murdering, and his fearsome interactions with other deviants, both prisoners and guards, in the prison's segregation unit. Simultaneously, the disgraced Schroder, employed as consultant to a television psychic, attempts to manipulate Joe while also using his own frayed police connections to locate the body of another police detective. That detective, with his own corrupt history, was another victim of Natalie/Melissa and Joe. The novel is a cringe-worthy exploration of the heart's dark recesses, with a denouement exploding into mass violence as Natalie/Melissa's plot to free Joe goes awry amid a rally for restoration of New Zealand's death penalty. A little Hannibal Lector. A little Richard von Krafft-Ebing. A lot of gore.

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April 1, 2013

Joe Middleton says he can't remember, but he has murdered so many people so gruesomely that he's been dubbed the Christchurch Carver. Now, with New Zealanders considering restoration of the death penalty and a wary accomplice outside wanting Joe silenced forever, he's desperately working an angle with a television psychic and the disgraced detective who got him convicted. Your chance to root for the bad guy; with a 30,000-copy first printing.

Copyright 2013 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 1, 2013
This sequel to The Cleaner (2012) finds accused serial killer Joe Middleton imprisoned and awaiting trial as the accused Christchurch Carver, but, despite his imprisonment, dead bodies are still piling up. Joe's had a run of bad luck; his first two attorneys were murdered, and the latest is court-appointed and, to Joe's way of thinking, not that bright. Joe is convinced a jury will find him innocent by reason of insanity, but his lawyer and the court-appointed psychiatrist strongly disagree. The only bright spot is a disgraced ex-cop working for a TV psychic who offers Joe a deal: lead them to a murdered cop's missing remains for a large payoff, which Joe decides is his ticket out of jail. Meanwhile, he has to contend with fellow inmates trying to kill him, politicians looking to bring back the death penalty in time for his sentencing, and, less lethally, his mother's upcoming wedding. Once again, gruesome violence abounds, so fainthearted readers be forewarned. Chelsea Cain and Thomas Harris fans will appreciate reading from Joe's point of view.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)