Customer Reviews

The Bride Collector

5 star:		(109)
4 star:		(50)
3 star:		(17)
2 star:		(14)
1 star:		(20)

 

 

Taut and well written, this is a suspenseful psychological novel. A serial killer in Denver captures beautiful women and impales them by gluing them to a wall, one woman in each of seven different sordid locations, each woman dressed in a bridal veil. Of course they are all beautiful and they are all young. The killer leaves no DNA, no fingerprints, no tire tracks, nothing that investigators can use to discover his identity. But we the readers find out who he is early in the novel, a brilliant, supremely confident schizophrenic, gloating at his success and thumbing his nose at the authorities who can't catch him.

Special Investigator Brad Raines of the FBI thinks the killer is in love with his victims, creating a supreme sacrifice, an offering to the gods, of sorts, a macabre expression of love. But the deaths fuel the killer to continue his rampage, like a vampire feasting off the blood of his hapless prey. But it takes a psychotic to know one and off the investigators go to an institution for the insane, but an institution limited only to insane persons of high intelligence, (Remember Hannibal Lecter?)

The institution is filled with zany characters but the most notable is Paradise, a young woman who had suffered severe emotional trauma and who is reported to be able to touch a murdered person and name the killer by picking up some sort of vibes via osmosis. She hears voices and sees ghosts but nevertheless, you kind of get the feeling the real crazy people and killers are not in the institution, they are outside it and among us.

Brad has a premonition. He wants Paradise to view body number five, Melissa. But Paradise won't leave the asylum, she is afraid of the outside world. So the mountain must go to Muhammad. The body is taken to Paradise at the asylum. On the gurney the sheet is pulled back revealing the dead girl's face. And Paradise, trembling, touches the cold cheek. And then... and then....

I'm not going to tell you anything more because I don't want to inject any spoilers; it's almost impossible to discuss the plot without giving something away. Suffice it to say I was scared to go to bed!

P.S. I am adding this postscript a couple of days after I posted the original review. The reason is, I've thought a great deal about the character "Paradise Founder." Why she is named Paradise is explained in the book. But her first and last names together are an allusion to a question asked of epic poet John Milton:

"Thou hast said much of paradise lost, but what hast thou to say of paradise found?"

The killer in the novel mentions Milton's "Paradise Lost" in one of the cryptic messages he leaves at the murder scenes. Paradise Founder is quite an appropriate name. Anyway, this strange little girl upstages hero Brad Raines.

As part of the Amazon Vine review program, I recently selected the book The Bride Collector by Ted Dekker as one of my review items. I've not had the opportunity to read any of Dekker's works before, and the psychological thriller sounded like a decent way to spend a few evenings. Overall, the book was enjoyable. I'd have liked it to be a bit tighter in places where the action seemed to drag, but there were definitely enough characters to keep my interest.

Brad Raines is an FBI special agent who tends to end up with very complex and gruesome murder cases. In this instance, he's responsible for someone who is abducting women, gluing their naked bodies to the wall, placing a wedding veil on their heads, and letting them bleed out through two holes drilled in their heels. Definitely not your run-of-the-mill murderer... The killer's pace is accelerating, and he's not leaving anything behind in the way of forensic evidence that can be used to track him down. It's only once he starts leaving notes behind for Raines that there's any sort of trail to follow. And the trail is quite warped. He is presenting these women to God, and is working up to his perfect offering. In desperation, Raines turns to a patient who is living in an institution for the mentally ill. She is supposedly able to touch a body and see the event that killed the person. Raines isn't all that open to the possibility, but he has little else to go on. And when events start getting extremely personal and close to home, Raines is forced to confront his own demons along with those of others in order to stop the killer and save the ones he loves.

The way the story is structured, you know who the murderer is right off. The story bounces back and forth between the killer and Raines, so the payoff isn't the "who dun it" resolution at the end. Instead, it's more along the lines of seeing whether Raines will be able to stop him before he can claim his final victim. Dekker also touches on issues such as the mentally ill, spirituality, abuse, and a few other themes that will allow the reader to ponder such topics if they so choose. In the middle of the story, things slow down a bit, and it seems as if we're just killing time before the end game comes into play. I also felt as if some of the characters, especially Nikki Holden, were less developed than I would have expected. It may be that this isn't the first novel with the Raines character, in which case I could understand it. But I still felt as if I was missing something in terms of the depth of some of the people...

I'd have no problems heading over to the library and starting to catch up on some prior Dekker novels. The Bride Collector was worth reading, and if his other novels are as good as this one, I'd enjoy them.

Disclosure:
Obtained From: Amazon Vine Review Program
Payment: Free

While obviously a murder mystery--even if one were to solely judge a book by its cover--I was surprised to find that Dekker takes the reader on a journey seldom visited in novels, and certainly not in real life, at least by most people. Dekker can be extremely descriptive, so be prepared for minute details, plus the point of view jumps from character to character, allowing deeper insight into each character without ever knowing the entire story. These are observations, not criticisms, because I really enjoyed this novel. I was further surprised when the murderer was revealed early on, and I often asked myself what more the author could possibly write, and yet I was never disappointed until I neared the end and felt he could, well, continue writing more. It was definitely a page-turner as others have described, and like many, I hated to put down (but you have to sleep sometime, right?).

I don't think it was an accident that Ted Dekker chose the name "Paradise" for his complex heroine in this unusual thriller. I have not read Dekker's work before so I had an open mind.

The set up is a serial killer who has glued beautiful women to walls and systematically drained their blood by inserting a drill in their heels. He leaves them wearing a bridal veil on their nude torsos. This psychotic killer has motivated the FBI to find the murderer and stop further killings. Brad Raines, a 32 year old, sensitive and bright FBI agent, thinks out of the box and his quest leads him to an unusual institution. At the Center for Well-being and Intelligence, he discovers mentally ill patients who are gifted with possible extra sensory powers and high intellect. One of the patients is Paradise; she can touch people and see how they died.

We learn early on who the killer is and the reader despises him even though Dekker puts us inside his head to try and explain his madness. His hatred for anyone who annoys him is way off the scale. An early scene involved hitting a strange child in a restaurant's bathroom to teach him a lesson about proper behavior. Faith appears to be one of Dekker's themes and since the killer`s mission is to find the perfect bride for God, allusions to devotion are rampant throughout the plot.

I am probably in the minority but I thought the book was too long, it dragged on and there were no real surprises. The murderer was a victim of extreme abuse and Paradise witnessed the most horrific family massacre. I did find originality in the Center for Well-Being and Intelligence. Dekker was able to humanize the mentally ill and their pain was palpable. Paradise's name was well chosen but I found Allison, the ex-nun who was the administrator of the Center the most interesting character and one who knew how to heal the heart.

I bought this book because of an Amazon recommendation the site gave me on the basis of my reading other, similar thrillers and unaware Ted Dekker was a well-regarded author or that his work has a Christian slant to it. To be honest, while I did notice the presence of religious themes the explicit Christianity in the book is so negative that I didn't realize the author presents himself as Christian. That said, that was the least of this book's problems.

"The Bride Collector" follows (literally, at points) a ritualistic killer being tracked by the FBI's Boulder office. The agent, Raines, and his partner are supposedly serial killer experts but it's clear Dekker is not, from the sloppy and awkward to flat out stupidity. For example, use of the 'Bride Collector' nickname being told to potential resources: using a nickname like that is a sure fire way to bias the people being interviewed. Worse, considering the book is about a ritual killer, one of the so-called experts, a psychologist at that, is unequivocally wrong:

"Most [serial killers] are well educated, financially stable, often good looking, seemingly well-adjusted people. Unlike mass murderers, whose delusions feed beliefs of supremacy, serial killers act for personal gain or revenge. They do so in a calculated, thoughtful way." [p12, eBook edition]

As even a fleeting glance at the national database for serial killers, organized by the FBI, would tell you that this single sentence is wrong in no less than five ways it's hard not to classify this novel as criminally stupid. The type described above is only a single type of ritual killer. There are also many who are isolated loners or antisocials without steady income or in a low paying job and while most are slightly above average in intelligence (only slightly) they are often self-taught. Also, a variety of motivations exist, including at least three types of killers (Angel of Death, Missionaries, Visionaries) with an opinion of self-importance, as if singled out for a necessary duty. This is something our FBI agents should have learned in their first criminology course, let alone first seminar on serial killers.

The other point of focus is mental instability of the female protagonist and love interest who lives in a upper class psych clinic. Paradise is a stringy haired pixie of a woman with the maturity of a young teen, which would be disturbing enough given the age of Agent Raines. Add in that she's actively delusional, though she seems able to tell which delusions are delusions and which are what it seems are psychic imprints/actual ghosts. When she gets in contact with a victim the reader is told that this ghost seeing is not illusion but while she sees the face of the killer it's so traumatic she immediately blocks it out. Interestingly, she's being given an (unnamed) medication to manage her schizophrenia without her knowledge (she's told it's a vitamin) which seems to be the one magic psychiatric med with no serious side effects. Conveniently when she misses a single dose within a few hours she begins to actively hallucinate, a plot twist so unbelievable it's ridiculous.

The other characters with psychiatric disorders are flat, repetitive, and oh so much more crazy than the relatively stable and merely eccentric Paradise. Agent Raines empathizes with her, comparing his struggle to hers because, gasp, he knows what it feels like to be alone. Please. Lucky for Paradise Raines is just the guy to help her out of her deeply ingrained fear of men stemming from her father's abuse. He can also make her feel beautiful about herself; Ted Dekker seems to be the sort of guy who thinks that stringy hair and two showers a week can make a beautiful woman plain or unattractive but not to worry as he orchestrates a makeover just in time for the climax. In a handful of meetings she wants to jump his bones and even mentions marriage once or twice. The killer fits into the less than 1% of ritual killers who are ill, also with schizophrenia. Because Paradise is special she's only ill in the most convenient of ways and is very beautiful, not like all those strange nut jobs. Not that Dekker would recognize a nut from a bag of flower: his descriptions of schizotypal behavior come off as second or third hand from someone who doesn't really understand the disorder. From back to front the psychiatric part of the plot is insulting, dismissive, and inaccurate in the worst of ways.

Finally, if the characters were at least somewhat engaging and likeable the book might have some redeeming feature but Raines, the killer, and Paradise all sound so familiar when they lead the narrative that the characters don't even manage distinct. Without the flowery language and a number of unnecessary plot twists this book could have been half the length to its benefit. Horrifyingly, I could go on, which says something in itself. Please, please save your money because if there was any justice Dekker wouldn't benefit so much as another nickel for this trite, poorly researched, illogical mess.

The Bride Collector is not a book I enjoyed listening to, and although I was very frustrated most of the time, I finished it!
It's a mix between a mystery -thriller/romantic style novel.
The book started out ok, but there was just too much repetition and I couldn't really enjoy the book because I felt like it was just too weak.
I had no idea that Ted Dekker was a Christian author, and I was kinda put off by some of the more dark details. I mean there's no nice way to describe what a serial killer does, but I dunno...
I hated the fact that there was so much emphasis on romantic feelings(between Brad and Paradise) because for me, it took away from the book. It's hard for me to focus on the thriller when right in the middle of a build-up scene they are cuddling, looking at each other, wanting to touch/kiss...it was just so silly to me.
I quess I was just expecting something different.
I feel like the author was trying to portray a message of what "true beauty" really was, but it kinda feel short for me, because in one way beauty shouldn't be defined by clothes, status, etc... but then all through the book I hear how beautiful Brad was (tall, blonde,built), and even Paradise who started off as plain, unkept, was transformed literally into a "beautiful woman" through a salon visit,and is finally recognized as beautiful through her actions and heart.
This book just didn't make much sense to me, I mean it had the makings of a good novel, but it was just something to listen to.
I would recommend checking this out from your local library before spending any money on it...

So, Ted Dekker is one of my all time favorite authors. I highly suggest any of his books. He is brilliant. His newest book "The Bride Collector" just came out this past week on the 13th. I can say that I literally read this book in 2 days. I did NOT want to put it down! I won't post the description since it can be found above.
The story line won't leave you bored. When Ted Dekker writes books, there isn't a lot of filler in the beginning. The story line takes off right away, so there isn't any boring intro stuff to read through. You are immediately introduced to the roller-coaster that is the story. The characters are well developed. It is a solid thriller that fits in well with the rest of Dekker's thrillers. What makes Dekker's books interesting is that he basically likes to explore the internal struggle of his characters, which is very evident if any of you have ever read any of his previous books. This leads the reader to take a look into their own lives and discover a little something about themselves.
My favorite character in this book is Paradise. I don't want to give a lot away, so you guys will just have to check out this book for yourselves, but she is different from any of the other characters that Dekker has written about. We can all learn a lot from Paradise, actually. So I hope you guys will go pick up this book, maybe share it with your friends. It is definitely worth the read. I think it is one of the best he has written. His books just keep getting better!

Reading this book is like listening to a long, long, long, speech (or maybe SERMON). I was hooked into parting with $10.00 by all the helpful, glowing reviews that take up several pages in the front of the book, although none of the names were familiar to me. Now I must conclude that Mr. Dekkar has an unusually large and close family, or maybe they are all in his Sunday School class.
I was anticipating a GREAT story, by the GREATEST thiller writer, EVER! After Raines' second trip to the Center, I wished he would check himself in with the other nuts and put a real detective on the case.
Filled with nonsensical dialogue and excruciating, repetitive detail that the author clearly believes flesh out this bare bones story and one-dimensional characters (all sensitive souls, even the killer), one concludes at the end that yes, God does allow us to make mistakes, and one of them is wasting time reading this drek. I just wish I had flown on over this cuckoo's nest.

I'm an avid fan of Dekker and have been enjoying his works since Thr3e and the Circle trilogy. The quality of his writing, as with most authors, has been up and down in places and it had been a while since Dekker kept me riveted for most of the book AND I wasn't let down by the ending. Books like Showdown or Sinner started off very strong but didn't finish as strongly. This one started off nicely and not only kept going strongly but blended in some very well done romance, philosophical and action threads with some nice discussions about mental illness to boot. The antagonist is very believable for the most part and I felt he was one of the stronger "bad guys" since Showdown. All in all, it's not "perfect" but it is very, very good and I'm glad to be able to recommend this to anyone who's a fan of Dekker, Koontz or King.

You want to talk about lunatic killers? Want to have the wadding scared out of you? This is the book for you!

A serial killer is at work in Denver, killing young, beautiful women by gluing them to and then impaling them on a wall, and finally, draining them of their blood after drilling holes in their heels. The killer always leaves a bridal veil at the scene of the crime. The crimes are so vile but they seem to impel the killer on to the next and the next killing. The killer leaves behind no clues except for the similarity of the crimes.

Brad Raines, the FBI special agent investigating the crimes, eventually is left clues in the form of notes. Raines is in love with a young, beautiful woman who may be on the target list and he is desperate to solve the crime spree. He finally turns to a patient in a mental hospital for help in solving the crimes. The patient, Paradise Founder, has the reputation of being able to touch a dead body and in her mind, see the circumstances of the death. With the assistance of Paradise, the cases are finally solved.

The reader learns early on the identity of the killer but that does not disturb the pace or scary quality of the book. If you like horror/mystery stories, this is a good choice. If they are not among your favorites, be warned.