Customer Reviews

Chameleon

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

In light of the 12 year old Ohio boy who'd recently held his classmates and teacher at gunpoint with a fully ,oaded 9 mm semiautomatic, this book almost seems like a prophecy. Kennett has written an engrossing, ultimately terrifying story that bids fair to re-sharpen the blunted sensibilities of we who have been treated to an almost weekly dose of school vilence.

CHAMELEON is a disturbing book that, while it doesn't even begin to promise a solution to schoolyard violence, stills presents a chilling, well-written account of the consequences of parents and teachers not reading the signs.

Talk about ripped from the headlines. This book deals with juvenile violence, and I swear the author must be psychic because this book has been out in hardcover since last year but it forecasted current happenings. The story centers on a young sociopath (Ever wonder where those 30 year old serial killers come from? Well, here's one in the making.) who has created a world for himself inside his computer that is more comfortable for him than the real world. Then he starts to get them confused, real vs. fantasy. As Kennett develops this, it is 100% plausible and chilling to the bone. Not only does this book have a great villain, it also has investigators that are real people I can identify with, especially PJ Gray. I can hardly wait for the next book in this series so I can find out where the relationship between PJ and Schultz is going. If there's a relationship at all!! What Kennett has got here is a hard-boiled romantic suspense, something completely new, something for those of us who find Mary Higgins Clark a piece of fluff. I couldn't put the book down, especially the last 50 or 60 pages. I read this book in the series first, but now I'm going back for the others. I've got to find out how PJ and Schultz met for the first time, and what they thought of each other then.

This was my 2d Kennett book. In both cases I couldn't go to sleep until I finished. If you like Cornwell, and mysteries with plenty of hi-tech this is the series for you!!

3rd fantastic book in a row! Don't miss her 4th in the series written under the name of Avery Morgan titled Act of Betrayal! Also, check out her Web site for more about Kennett.

The St. Louis police have noticed a recent increase in homicides, but no discernable pattern appeared to the law enforcement officials. Desperate to figure out what is happening in the Gateway City, the police turn to the relatively new Computerized Homicide Investigations Department, headed by Penelope Jennifer "PJ" Gray, a trailblazer in forensic simulation modeling.

Using her virtual reality program, PJ is able to visualize the killer from the eyes of the victim. She begins to find the elusive pattern to the murders. Meanwhile, old fashioned detective Leo Schultz continues to pound the cement, seeing if he can break open the case. However, neither one of the police officers expected to find the identity of the killer to be a twelve-year-old ingenious misfit, who has chosen PJ's son as a future target.

The information technology age meets forensic psychology in a novel that will leave readers stunned by its brilliance, ease of understanding, and entertainment value. Shirley Kennett is at her best. Anyone who enjoys forensic psychological investigations will enjoy CHAMELEON and Ms. Kennett's previous mysteries (FIRE CRACKER and GRAY MATTER).

Harriet Klausner

I've read some of Shirley Kennett's other works, and found them enjoyable, but I really had to suspend some disbelief for Chameleon. Two grown adults go up against a 12-year-old child and almost don't take him down? I've seen the same plot except the killer was an older adult, more plausable for thwarting police. It was still a good read, but I didn't really go for the child-as-a-killer plot. Might have worked well with an adult, and the killer certainly did have the proper childhood to become a killer later on in life. But at his age, it just didn't gel with me.
I'm not saying don't read it, because it's not bad. Suspend your skepticism and go for it.

Very entertaining book. Shirley has managed to create some very nasty villains in her 3 books. Imagine your teenage son being under the spell of a teenage psycopath. A child who started his murderous career at an unbelivably young age. Instead of your son ending up in the killer's clutches - you do. That is the situation Dr. PJ Gray finds herself in. Psychologist PJ Gray thinks she has dealt with the worst, but maybe she has met her mental match when she invites the killer into her home. Her partner Leo Schultz is only a step behind in unraveling the evidence and pinpointing the suspect, but he has a hard time saving his partner from her own good intentions.

I want to know when she will have a 4th book published? I have been going through withdrawal??????

A great combination of suspense, action, and exciting investigative techniques. The characters PJ Gray and Leo Schultz are vivid, real people. Kennett makes the twelve-year-old villain not only plausible but so scary that I practically held my breath whenever he was around. There are some great virtual reality scenes in this book, but they are so well conveyed that even if you don't know computers, you can understand and appreciate them. I couldn't put this book down once I started reading it. I'm going to go back and read the first couple of books in the series because I care about the characters and I want to know how they first met.

Shirley Kennett has an exceptional grasp of the pychopathic mind. The chilling villains she creates for the P.J. Gray series really challenge her heroine, P.J. Gray, a police psychologist and an innovator in the use of virtual reality, as well as her partner Leo Schultz, an aging police detective, who hunts bad guys the old-fashioned way, through old style police legwork. In CHAMELEON, P.J. and Leo face their greatest challenge yet, when P.J. discovers she's up against an accomplished child serial killer, and one who places her own son's life in jeopardy. You won't be able to put this one down! Despite their different approaches to police work, P.J.'s and Leo's professional and personal relationships have also overcome a variety of challenges; despite a rocky start, they forge an unexpected friendship that promises to be even more interesting in the future. -- Kris Neri, mystery writer