Evil at Heart

July 20, 2009
Gretchen Lowell strikes again—or does she?—in bestseller Cain's grisly third thriller to feature the female serial killer who takes sadistic pleasure in taunting Portland, Ore., detective Archie Sheridan (after Sweetheart
and Heartsick
). A violent attack that leaves body parts in a rest stop bathroom, along with Lowell's signature heart design, persuades Sheridan, a recovering Vicodin addict, to leave rehab and rejoin the hunt for Lowell. As he and newspaper reporter Susan Ward dig deeper, they discover that while the corpses cropping up around town are reminiscent of Lowell's nasty handiwork, they might also point to one of the myriad fan clubs dedicated to the killer, who has become a media sensation since she escaped from prison in Heartsick
. Even though readers may wonder how much longer this extended game can play out, Cain delivers her usual blend of organ-ripping, blood-soaked gore and compelling flawed heroes—and antiheroes.

August 1, 2009
Detective Archie Sheridan (Sweetheart, 2008, etc.) continues his danse macabre with serial killer Gretchen Lowell in what might well be the year's most repellent novel.

She's extracted his spleen, hammered nails into his chest, broken his ribs, whittled away at him with an X-Acto knife, but these and an array of other scarifications, emotional as well as physical, have not dampened Archie's ardor. He remains crazy about Gretchen Lowell, aka the Beauty Killer. And crazy, too, in the sense that as the result of her ministrations, he currently resides in Portland, Ore.'s Providence Medical Center, termed by Archie"the loony bin." As for Gretchen, until recently she's been residing in the slammer, where Archie helped put her. Having busted out, however, she's up to her old tricks—murdering with undiminished enthusiasm, leaving her signature heart carved into the torsos of her victims, usually before they're dead. Seldom indeed, when in the hands of Gretchen the grotesque, does anyone die in a hurry. And now, perversely, she's become a media darling. Her glam photographs seem omnipresent. She sells newspapers, she boosts ratings, she has fan clubs: global constituencies, gleefully marking the days their hero has been able to elude slew-footed police forces—76 and counting. So suddenly the question takes on an unsettling nuance. Is it Gretchen and Gretchen alone who's been dismembering and disemboweling? Or has she been joined by copycats? It's enough to get Archie into his clothes, out of the hospital and back into bossing his catch-Gretchen task force, the trauma of it all having driven him sane.

Archie wallows in victimhood and Gretchen is a mindless, robotic monster. Is loathsomeness as good a sales driver as sex? Clearly, Cain's publisher has decided to bet it is.

(COPYRIGHT (2009) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

August 15, 2009
Just two months after serial killer Gretchen Lowell, aka the "Beauty Killer," escapes from police custody (see "Sweetheart"), body parts begin showing up in random Portland, OR, locales. Meanwhile, devastated Det. Archie Sheridan continues to languish in a mental hospital, while irrepressible journalist Susan Hunt longs to save him and her story. Her storyand the essence of this thrillergoes beyond Gretchen's certifiable status as a psychopathic killer and instead examines society's morbid glorification of gruesome, ritualistic killings. Have Gretchen's despicable acts spawned more evil? Archie reemerges, determined to kill Gretchen this time, but then puzzling inconsistencies suggest that a copycat killer is at work. Archie and Susan match their wits against the opposition, meeting people who defy all the rules and experiencing horrors beyond comprehension. VERDICT This sequel can't top the jaw-dropping horror of Cain's "Heartsick", but her snappy pace and sustained creepiness keep the pages turning at a steady clip. Not for the faint of heart, this addictive thriller will be quickly devoured by serial killer addicts. Gretchen Lowell has taken on a persona not unlike Hannibal Lector. [See Prepub Alert, "LJ" 5/15/09; library marketing campaign and 200,000-copy first printing.]Teresa L. Jacobsen, Solano Cty. Lib., Fairfield, CA

Copyright 2009 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from July 1, 2009
After his last encounter with bewitching serial killer Gretchen Lowell (Sweetheart, 2008), Portland, Oregon, police detective Archie Sheridan checked himself into a mental hospital. And why not? The man has suffered enough at Gretchens beautiful but deadly hands. Lets recap: first she tortured him unmercifully, cutting out his spleen sans anesthesia, before inexplicably letting him live (Heartsick, 2007); then, after escaping from prison, she drew him into her web again, seduced him, and sliced his jugular vein, not quite badly enough to kill him. But, of course, Gretchen isnt through with Archie. When bodies with missing spleens start turning up around Portland, usually in locations where Gretchen has plied her trade in the past, Archies police colleagues come calling at the loony bin: they need his help if they are to have any chance at catching the Beauty Killer this time. But is Gretchen really back, or has she spawned a generation of copycats whose taste for removing internal organs is every bit as voracious as her own? A few more spleens are sacrificed before that gets sorted out, and Cain packs plenty of surprises for us along the way (dont even ask by which male part one hapless fellow is suspended), but dont panic: it isnt all spectacular gore. Cain continues to display her remarkable ability to probe the psyches of her characters the way Gretchen probes our squishy parts. Shes no slouch at narrative strategy, either. Remarkably, both Gretchen and Archie are offstage more than on this time around, but that proves a clever ploy, both because it heightens our anticipation for the inevitable confrontation and because it gives more screen time to punky, spunky reporter Susan Ward, whose charisma demands a starring role eventually. Popular entertainmentthe kind that mixes crime, horror, and even a little black comedyjust doesnt get much better than this.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2009, American Library Association.)