Blood Moon: Featuring Psychological Profile Investigator Robert Payne [Hardcover]

Edward Gorman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1994

Psychological profile investigator Robert Payne is hot on the trail of a psychopath, with only one clue: the suspects named by the last private detective on the case, before he was killed.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A former FBI agent tracks a serial child killer in this expertly wrought atmospheric mystery featuring a plot as convoluted as the loops and rolls its hero performs in his old biplane. After the suspicious death of the previous detective on the case, investigator Robert Payne is hired by wealthy Nora Conners to solve the brutal murder and mutilation of her 12-year-old daughter, Maryanne, eight years previously. Through psychological profiling, the suspects have been narrowed down to three men in the small Iowa town of New Hope, where Maryanne and three other girls killed in a similar fashion had all visited. Posing as a journalist, Payne begins to investigate the men--a televangelist, a honey salesman and an art teacher, drawing the suspicious interest of New Hope's police chief Jane Avery. The disappearance of the daughter--the same age as the earlier victims--of one of the suspects, the murder of Nora Conners, whose identity and story prove fabricated, deepens Payne's involvement. Crime writing veteran Gorman ( The Night Remembers ), editor of Mystery Scene magazine, evokes the closed-in atmosphere of small towns in this promising series launch that features modern psychological crime fighting by a winning detective.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Well-known author and editor Gorman (Dark Crimes II, Carroll & Graf, 1993) initiates a new series featuring criminal psychologist Robert Payne. Doubling as an amateur sleuth, Payne tracks a murderous psychopath who killed the daughter of a beautiful woman.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 262 pages
• Publisher: St Martins Pr; 1st edition (June 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312109431
• ISBN-13: 978-0312109431
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.7 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,857,350 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Ed Gorman is an award winning American author best known for his crime and mystery fiction. He wrote The Poker Club which is now a film of the same name directed by Tim McCann.

He has written under many pseudonyms including "E. J. Gorman" and "Daniel Ransom." He won a Spur Award for Best Short Fiction for his short story "The Face" in 1992. His fiction collection Cages was nominated for the 1995 Bram Stoker Award for Best Fiction Collection. His collection The Dark Fantastic was nominated for the same award in 2001.

He has contributed to many magazines and other publications including Xero, Black Lizard, Cemetery Dance, the anthology Tales of Zorro, and many more.

Visit his blog at newimprovedgorman.blogspot.com

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3.0 out of 5 stars The grossest murder mystery that I have ever read, March 1, 2010

By 

Charles Ashbacher (Marion, Iowa United States) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Blood Moon: Featuring Psychological Profile Investigator Robert Payne (Hardcover)

Up front, as a lifelong resident of the Cedar Rapids area, I have a predilection for the books by Ed Gorman as I enjoy reading about places I encounter on a regular basis. However, in this case that tendency could not overcome the difficulties that I had reading the book. The criminal is a really bad one and his killings are among the cruelest. In the last part of the book, I simply could not read large sections at a time. Ordinarily when I get towards the end I move through to completion but the events were so gross that I could not read much more than 20 pages at a sitting.
Former F. B. I. agent and profiler Robert Payne is an interesting character but he lacks some skills as a field agent, walking into more than one trap. The action is all in a small Iowa town that was once a close-knit community but now is a bedroom town where many of the people commute to a large city and really do not have the deep community roots that people used to have.
The action is gross and very disturbing, young girls are tortured and very brutally murdered by the two-legged beast that Robert Payne is stalking. With all of my reading of history, I am hardened to such stuff, but even I was overwhelmed at times.

5.0 out of 5 stars Terrifying stuff ..., April 3, 2009

By 

Charlie Stella (Fords, New Joisey) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Blood Moon/Featuring Psychological Profile Investigator Robert Payne (Paperback)

Ed Gorman strikes again with yet another PI series that is clever, witty and this time absolutely terrifying ... Blood Moon has a half dozen twists and turns that keep the reader wondering ... nervously.

There's a psycho on the loose ... or is he ... or is he a she?

He's done time, we know that from a prison journal that will scare the hell out of us ... and what the author does with this serial killer exceeds terror ... throw in evangelist and two of his too devoted flock and a few murders, a kidnapping and, well ... (no spoilers) a few hundred of something that gives us all the creeps and the reader races through to the end to see how it all goes down ...

We should all READ, amici ... all of us ... as often as our lives permit ... and when the reads are this good, reading comes easy. READ, amici ... READ