Jul 30 2008
Heartsick–and in love
I think I’m in love. I just finished reading a crime thriller called Heartsick by Chelsea Cain and I just couldn’t wait to share. First a quick disclaimer for those who may not know my diverse taste: I do not lump Great Thrillers into the same catagory as Great Literature, any more than I would Great Symphonies and Great Country Music. But I like it all, and judge each on the relevant merits. That said, read on, share my giddy pleasure!
First, I love the cop, Archie Sheridan. If I had to draw a comparison to another great character, he reminds me of Harry Bosch from the stellar Michael Connelly series. Archie was the leader of a task force assembled to apprehend the Beauty Killer, a process that took ten years and ended in Archie being kidnapped and nearly killed himself. He now has a strange and compulsive relationship with the killer, Gretchen Lowell, physically imprisoned, but still torturing Archie by offering up the bodies of girls still considered missing inexchange for weekly visits from him.
Susan Ward is a reporter with the local paper chosen to write a feature series on Archie when he’s called back to work a new series of serial murders, dubbed The After School Strangler. Her mother wears platinum dreadlocks and dark red lipstick, refuses to own a car, and protests for environmental causes. Susan lost her father as a teenager and developed an unhealthy need for the attention and affection of older, unavailable men. This affects her backstory in a number of ways, including her swanky loft, sublet from a college professor she refers to as The Great Writer. It also affects the current story in such a way that I was surprised, but pleased and intrigued to note, that she appears in Cain’s next book (I peeked).
Next, the action takes place in Portland, Oregon, a city I visited for the first time not too long ago. I loved my time in Portland. In this book, Susan loves the rain, and waits for the sunshine to pass, which it quickly does. This reminded me that I probably don’t want to live in Portland, but it was fun to experience the atmosphere of a different town. I read a lot of crime, and most of it takes place in southern California, New York, Chicago (a lot of it takes place in Miami, but I have an unexplainable aversion to stories that take place in Miami and therefore avoid those). Portland is a really different vibe.
Last, of course, I really liked Chelsea Cain’s style, her voice, otherwise the rest of it wouldn’t have kept me involved past the first few chapters, certainly wouldn’t have stolen my heart. It’s always exciting to catch a great debut and be able to ride that wave into a new series. Today I start an advance of Sweetheart, the next in the series, on sale September 2nd.
