Bloodman [Paperback]

Robert Pobi (Author)

Book Description

Release date: May 15, 2012

FBI contractor Jake Cole deciphers the language of murderers by reconstructing three-dimensional crime scene models in his head, a talent that has left his nerves frayed and his psyche fragile. Jake returns to Montauk, New York, for the first time in a quarter of a century when his father, a renowned painter, lights himself ablaze and crashes through a plate-glass window. Once home, Jake is pulled into a gruesome local homicide investigation that echoes his mother’s murder three decades earlier.

As he sifts through the detritus of his father’s madness, Jake discovers thousands of seemingly meaningless paintings stacked in the studio – a bizarre trail of dust-covered breadcrumbs the painter left as he tumbled down the rabbit hole of dementia. Breadcrumbs that Jake believes lead to the killer.

With the help of Sheriff Dan Hauser – a man scrambling to prepare the seaside community for the arrival of a catastrophic hurricane – Jake Cole sets out to find the seemingly unstoppable force of malevolence known as the Bloodman.

A unique and disquieting thriller that redefines the genre, Bloodman will leave you reeling long after its operatic finale.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

A Q&A with Robert Pobi

Question: You've said in other interviews that you don't necessarily enjoy focusing on graphic scenes in your writing, yet Bloodman contains some fairly disturbing descriptions. Why did you choose to include them?

Robert Pobi: Bloodman is a story that has a serial killer at its core, so there are going to be some unpleasant things that have to be done. I couldn't have written the book without showing how the characters were affected by what was going on around them. I had to show what they had seen. So we both had to visit a disturbing headspace, the readers and I. The trick was to do it without making it lurid--which, in the end, made it even more jarring.

Q: Tell us about the research involved in creating such an isolated setting and complex characters.

RP: The first time I went to Montauk, I knew I'd end up writing about it. The hurricane idea grew because to this day, you still hear stories about the 1938 Long Island Express, the storm that nearly flattened the island. And I needed a place where a famous artist could live in relative obscurity, so it all came together. In hindsight, I had been collecting research for this book for a long time. Mindhunter, by Mark Olshaker and John Douglas, set the whole thing in motion. And from there I spun off into newspaper archives, interviews, news footage, and biographies. All the things I read helped me nail down my main character, Jake Cole, because they all became part of his lexicon, his day at the office. And I tried to give the hurricane, Dylan, some good chapters. He took a bit of research. The National Hurricane Center was very helpful.

Q: Which other authors or books have influenced your writing?

RP: The novel that made me realize that popular fiction could be smart was The Eiger Sanction by Trevanian. Every author has that one book that he loves; The Eiger Sanction is mine. I keep a copy of it on my desk. The only other obvious one, I guess, would be Thomas Harris's Red Dragon. It's a beautiful novel, and I'd be lying if I didn’t admit that the specter of it was behind me during all the late nights I worked on Bloodman. Seth Morgan’s novel, Homeboy, knocked me out. Morgan had a massive voice. I wish he'd written more. I heard that the first chapter of his second novel is floating around out there. Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea and Islands in the Stream still mesmerize me. I don't know how he did it, I really don't. And if I don't mention The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, I'll regret it.

Q: Have you considered trying your hand at other genres?

RP: I'm working on contractual obligations for different publishers right now, so my roster for the next two years is: psychological thriller, horror story, techno-thriller, detective story. I honestly can't see writing only one kind of book for the rest of my career. I wouldn't know how. Since different countries have different perceptions of Bloodman, I get to flex a lot of different muscles, and I love the freedom. There are too many things I need to try.

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From Publishers Weekly

Former antiques dealer Pobi boldly announces his arrival as a cunning novelist with this grim and gory debut thriller. FBI contractor Jake Cole, burdened with an uncanny ability to mentally recreate 3D crime scenes, returns home to Montauk, NY to care for his estranged father, a renowned painter suffering from Alzheimer's. But Jake is soon called into action by local authorities to help capture a ruthless serial killer who scalps and skins his victims. Tormented by his morbid profession, a dysfunctional family history, and the blood-thirsty psychopath, Jake must immerse himself in a past he thought he left behind decades ago. As the victims pile up--and a Category 5 hurricane bears down on the coastal town--he becomes convinced that the secret behind the thousands of mysterious canvases stacked along the walls of his father's art studio will lead him to the killer. Pobi revels in grisly scenes, and though the chilling finale might feel lacking, the author's cinematic vision and precise attention to detail, as well as a subtle trail of clues and a tight, macabre plot, trump character clichés and the incomplete denouement.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 428 pages
• Publisher: Thomas & Mercer (May 15, 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1612182135
• ISBN-13: 978-1612182131
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.6 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (134 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #668,289 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Robert Pobi dealt in fine Georgian antiques for thirteen years before turning to writing full-time. He has fished for everything that swims - from great white sharks off Montauk to monstrous pike in northern Finland. He prefers bourbon to scotch and shucks oysters with an old hunting knife he modified with a grinder. In warm weather he spends much of his time at a cabin on a secluded lake in the mountains and when the mercury falls he heads to the Florida Keys. The critical response to his first short story (written when he was twelve) was a suspension from school. Now he writes every day - at a desk once owned by Roberto Calvi.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

59 of 66 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars THIS IS AN INCREDIBLE FIRST NOVEL BY A TALENTED AUTHOR. March 19, 2012

By QueenKatieMae VINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)

It's been a long time since I've read a first novel that enthralled and tested me like Robert Pobi's "The Bloodman"; an intriguing, complex thriller that twists it's way through a four day period in quiet Montauk, New York. Special Agent Jake Cole has come home after walking away from his abusive and alcoholic father twenty-eight years ago. His father, a talented painter now tortured by dementia, horribly maimed himself in a mysterious fire. Over the years, after battling his own demons, the anger and hatred Cole felt toward his father is now superseded by a numbing apathy. But as the only child to his widowed father, Cole feels it is his duty to attend to his affairs.

The night Cole arrives at his childhood home, now full of garbage and scotch bottles, he receives a call from the local sheriff. They found two bodies in a house up the beach from his father's place, a woman and a child both skinned alive. For Cole, this is a gut punch. The horrific scene at the crime is familiar, he recognizes the murderer's work from his own tortured past. Desperate to quickly finish his father's affairs and run home to his own wife and son, Cole now feels compelled to stay and work on this case. His eidetic memory, commonly referred to as photographic memory, allows him to reconstruct three-dimensional crime scenes in his mind, and provides him with an unusual skill that can assist the overwhelmed small town police force.

Everything about Agent Cole is unusual. A recovering substance abuse addict with the entire text of Dante's "Inferno" tattooed on his body, he can verbally shred an officer foolish enough to laugh at a crime scene, mentally suppress the graphic "pornography" of his job, and still come across as a devoted husband and father. He is a master at solving the puzzles left behind by murderers. With demons lurking in the corners of his own mind, he can relate to and decipher the thoughts and intentions of the monsters he is trained to hunt down. It is both a blessing and a curse.

Compounding the murders and the enigma of thousands of crazed paintings littering his father's house is a Category 5 hurricane headed directly for Montauk. With the storm pounding Montauk back to the stone age, Cole is desperately pursuing answers and the killer. It is a thrilling combination of events and puzzles and character drama that had me guessing up to the final haunting twist at the end.

Unbelievably, this being Pobi's first novel, he has presented a fiercely complex masterpiece with riveting scenes and compelling characters. The author has also cleverly painted clues into the layers upon layers that make up the final picture. There are puzzles within puzzles throughout the book. But his writing evokes clear images, whether of a graphic murder scene or a quiet moment between Cole and his wife. And I found myself anxiously tearing through the last 100 pages as the hurricane's destruction of the town starts to mirror the anguishing devastation of Cole's life as he knows it.

This is an incredible book that kept me thinking even after I finished. I hope it does well as the author definitely deserves kudos for his work. And, when he writes his next book, I will be in line ready to buy it.

20 of 22 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing June 1, 2012

By the ethicist

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

This type of writing is undoubtedly hard to do. When it is pulled off well (e.g. Thomas Harris) - what a treat. Unfortunately in this day and age it is hard to be original.
I'm not sure why this book has the hype and the advertising. The writing is bloated and repetitive. Full of cliches. Plot is ridiculous and requires an acceptance of so many incredulous coincidences, unrealistic behavior, etc.
Unfortunately if you are a sophisticated enough fan of this genre, you are familiar with the frustration of failures such as this. You have to wade through a dozen books like this to find one gem.

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars Plot is a bit Convoluted May 22, 2012

By Brett H TOP 100 REVIEWER

Format:Paperback

Bloodman is a debut novel and the author has certainly come up with an imaginative plot, albeit one which the more squeamish amongst his readers will find hard to take, probably to the point of giving up on the book. This apart, to my mind the author falls into the trap of many less experienced writers by making this story overly complicated and over long. It really is the case that less often proves to be more.

This is a tale which starts out well. Serial killer novels are almost a genre in their own right these days, with authors vying for the most outlandish ways for the victims to be offed and here we have an especially unpleasant series of killings. Jake Cole, a consultant to the FBI has a remarkable mental ability and attention to detail whereby he is able to visit a crime scene and then replay it in his mind subsequently searching for evidence which was missed during the first physical inspection. He is in the area when a particularly nasty double murder takes place which involves the victims being skinned alive and is drafted in to help the local police. It seemed to be shaping up for an interesting read.

Jake is not the most believable of investigators and it seems unlikely that the FBI should have employed someone who is so mentally and physically flawed which makes the basis of this tale a bit unlikely. I felt the story did not keep up its initial momentum and in particular did flag significantly in the middle. A lot of the narrative at that point contributed little and really felt like padding which was a shame as the story started to drag. The action certainly steps up towards the end and the climax is not without its twists and turns, although by that point this story had got rather convoluted and it was really not very believable. I am afraid it was a book which I was quite relieved to have managed to finish.

Having said that this is not a bad effort at all at a first novel and there are certainly some promising elements. The basic story line is interesting and inventive, and I could quite imagine that if edited down by a hundred pages or so and with the plot tightened up somewhat the result could have been very good.