Creeper

July 9, 2012
In British author Carver’s taut follow-up to her 2011 debut, The Surrogate, Colchester Det. Insp. Phil Brennan and his hodgepodge Major Incident Squad pursue a serial killer, the eponymous creeper, who likes to torture and mutilate his female victims. Could 26-year-old Suzanne Perry, to whom he’s sent a chilling warning, be next? Carver exposes the all-too-human foibles and internal police politics that can impede investigations even as the lives of future victims hang by a slender thread. Brennan’s personal life is in shreds after police profiler Marina Esposito, the mother of his child, inexplicably leaves him. And thanks to austerity, he’s forced to work with Fiona Welch, a cheap profiler knockoff. Worse, the MIS team is saddled with his superior’s paramour. But when the investigation inevitably implodes, Brennan has to man up and pull the pieces—personal and professional—back together. Carver’s just-one-more-chapter pacing, subtle clues, and cunning plot twists once again do the trick. Agent: Jane Gregory, Gregory and Company.

August 15, 2012
A sadistic killer targets the few young women of Colchester to have survived Carver's blistering debut (The Surrogate, 2011). Speech therapist Suzanne Perry awakens from an unusually vivid nightmare to find a revealing, very recent photograph of herself on which someone's written, "I'M WATCHING OVER YOU." Her nocturnal visitor is the Creeper, who's already claimed at least one victim, missing occupational therapist Julie Miller, though the gruesomely disfigured corpse will have to await DNA evidence for identification. But who is the Creeper, and what does he have against the staff of Colchester General Hospital? DI Phil Brennan, once again in charge of the investigation, hasn't a clue. Nor has his scheming boss, DCI Ben Fenwick, who's presumably too busy shagging DS Rose Martin, the CID plod in charge of Julie's disappearance, to get any brainwaves that reach as far north as his brain. The psychological portrait that Fenwick's handpicked profiler, Ph.D. student Fiona Welch, compiles could apply to just about anyone. The first suspect Phil and his colleagues focus on, Suzanne's ex-tutor and alleged stalker Anthony Howe, tries to kill himself while he's in police custody. In the meantime, the Creeper has returned to Suzanne's flat to kill Zoe Herriot, the friend and colleague who'd been staying with her, and abscond with Suzanne to a place of unspeakable horrors. Carver doesn't stint on the fun-house shocks and shivers, and gourmands of violence, physical and psychological, will have a field day. But there's so much straining to get in your face, so many chapters from the Creeper's point of view, and such a pat motive for all the mayhem, that the nasty thrills never upstage the dysfunctional relationships within the Colchester constabulary.

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September 15, 2012

After Carver's excellent debut thriller (The Surrogate), reader expectations will be running high for this second installment featuring DI Phil Brennan. The Creeper meticulously stalks, kidnaps, and brutally tortures his victims before killing them. Brennan desperately tries to focus on solving the case, but capturing a killer isn't easy when Brennan is surrounded by drama among his fellow police officers and his personal life takes a disturbing turn. VERDICT Carver starts off with a bang and again demonstrates her skill at writing from multiple viewpoints. However, the predictable storyline features a mystery that is too easily solved and suffers from a disappointing lack of detail in the two main characters' relationship. Readers who don't mind thrillers or mysteries with easily solved plots may enjoy this book, while others may be unimpressed.--Amy M. Davis, Parmly Billings Lib., MT

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