Chelsea Cain

Booklist (07/01/2009):
*Starred Review* 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 Gretchen's beautiful but deadly hands. Lets recap: first she tortured him unmercifully 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 isn't through with Archie. When bodies start turning up around Portland, usually in locations where Gretchen has plied her trade in the past, Archie's 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?

...Cain packs plenty of surprises for us along the way, but don't panic: it isn't all gore. Cain continues to display her remarkable ability to probe the psyches of her characters the way Gretchen probes our squishy parts. She's 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 entertainment--the kind that mixes crime, horror, and even a little black comedy--just doesn't get much better than this. (Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2009, American Library Association.)

*Starred Review* It was apparent at the end of Cain's masterful Heartsick (2007) that we hadn't heard the last from either Gretchen Lowell, the most mesmerizing serial killer since a fellow named Hannibal, or Archie Sheridan, the Portland cop whom Gretchen tortured and then freed, locking the two of them into a creepy symbiotic relationship somewhere between Romeo and Juliet and Holmes and Moriarty.

Cain picks up the story with Sheridan trying to overcome his addictions to pain pills and Gretchen, respectively, and not doing very well with either. A new case -- bodies found in a Portland park, near where Gretchens first victim was discovered -- provides distraction as well as bringing punky, turquoise-haired reporter Susan Ward back into his life, but neither is enough to get Gretchen out of his mind.

Then she escapes from prison, determined to draw Archie away from his family, away from his job, and into her arms for a deadly pas de deux...There is considerably more psychological complexity, as the knot binding Archie to Gretchen tightens further. The interplay between the two is endlessly fascinating and, amazingly, thoroughly believable.

In addition, Cain gives more space to her supporting cast -- especially reporter Ward, who seems ready for a starring role herself. It's hard to say how long Cain can play out this lovers duel between Archie and Gretchen before they tumble into their own Reichenbach Falls, but its a sure thing we won't be leaving our seats before the final curtain. (Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2008, American Library Association.)

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Throw out all your assumptions aboutthe sameness of serial-killer novels; this one breaks the mold.Yes, the notorious Gretchen Lowell is behind bars throughout the novel, and, yes, she counsels the Portland, Oregon, cop who is chasing a new sociopath, but unlike in Silence of the Lambs, Archie Sheridan, Cain's detective hero, was one of Lowell's victims.

So two plotlines unfold alternately, each feeding the other: the backstory of what Lowell did to Sheridan, and the real-time account of Sheridan's search for a new serial killer who is preying on teenage girls from Portland's high schools. The plots are thickened by costar Susan Ward, a pink-haired, punky reporter, and by Sheridan's addiction to prescription drugs and his unbreakable emotional attachment to Lowell, his torturer and savior.



Cain never misses a beat here, turning the psychological screws ever tighter for both Sheridan and Ward while drawing us deep into the nightmare that lives inside Gretchen Lowell's head. Sheridan will remind thriller fans of Ridley Pearson's Lou Boldt, and Cains use of Portland as a setting contrasting the charm of the city against the horror of the crimes echoes Pearson's similar use of Seattle. But Heartsick is in no way derivative. This could well be the thriller of the year. Starred Review. (Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2007, American Library Association.)