Art is very much down to personal taste, but in the case of the murderer in this book its very personal.
The Artist us kidnapping people and turning them into art for his own pleasure, before displaying the finished article to the world.
The problem is, at first, nobody realises what is happening, and his first kill leads to a gang war between two old mobs on the streets of Boston.
After the first body is found Detective Ray Hanley is sent to investigate. From the start he is convinced that this is not a normal murder, but everybody else thinks it’s a mob hit.
As the investigation into the first murder gets underway the “Artist” is already working on his next victims.
As Ray looks at the mob angle he has his mind set more towards a sick individual. Unfortunately the gangs have brought into the war theory and have started attacking each other.
As Boston is faced with a bloody gang war, and a sick serial killer, Hanley tries to pacify the mobs and find the real killer.
This is one of those books that is going to live with me for a long time. There will be comparisons with Silence of the Lambs, and rightly so, but this is a written in todays society. More is possible today, the killer can keep his victims alive for longer, can make them suffer more, and can reek havoc on society as his victims are soon displayed on news web sites in all their gore.
Somehow this makes this book a little bit more realistic, more plausible, more frightening.
This book won an award for Horror in the General Category of the American Fiction Awards and was a finalist in the Thriller, Crime Category. I think it fits nicely into both these categories.
So. If you like a good psychological thriller wrapped around a good police thriller you will love this book.
Pages: 293
Publishing Date UK: 20thSeptember 2019
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