The Poison Artist

April 4, 2016
Can a novel be too noir? That’s the question Moore’s disturbing thriller raises. His hapless protagonist, Dr. Caleb Maddox, is a San Francisco toxicologist studying the chemical effects of pain when he meets the mystical, absinthe-sipping femme fatale Emmeline and winds up the main suspect in a serial-murder investigation. His obsession with Emmeline drags him deeper into the murders and even entwines his best pal, Henry Newcomb, the city’s medical examiner. Reader Daniels has the perfect voice for representing men in conflict: confident and mildly aggressive in dealing with problems, but still showing a hint of vulnerability. Caleb, however, is an unusual case in that he’s harboring significant secrets. Following the author’s example, Daniels uses a what-you-hear-is-what-you-get approach, ignoring what lies beneath the surface to present a noir hero on an emotional slide into serious trouble, shunting aside loved ones, friends, and career in his quest for the elusive Emmeline. A Houghton Mifflin Harcourt hardcover.

Starred review from November 9, 2015
This exquisite tale of obsession from Bram Stoker Award–finalist Moore (Redheads) opens with Caleb Maddox, a toxicologist and pain researcher, looking in the mirror of a San Francisco hotel bathroom as he picks tiny shards of glass out of his bleeding forehead. A short time before, his live-in lover, now his ex-girlfriend, threw a tumbler in his face. “It was good glass. Murano crystal, maybe,” from a set they had bought at Macy’s just before she moved in a year earlier. Caleb later leaves the hotel and goes to a bar called the House of Shields, where he meets a mysterious absinthe-drinking woman, Emmeline, who mesmerizes him with a whisper and a titillating silken touch. Caleb’s hard-drinking week-plus pursuit of Emmeline parallels the serial killings that he has been secretly investigating with his oldest and closest friend, medical examiner Henry Newcomb. Male bodies have been washing up in the bay with evidence of unspeakable torture. The scientific lore and postmortem techniques may be more than some readers want to know, but the sympathetic, though brutally flawed hero and the shocking, Hitchcock-esque finale make this psychological thriller a must-read. Agent: Alice Martell, Martell Agency.