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Cookie Cutter [Hardcover]

Sterling Anthony (Author)
4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (70 customer reviews)


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Book Description

November 2, 1999
If you see him you will not know him. If you greet him, it may be too late. For every image you have of a murderer--he will defy it. And he will make you pay . . .

COOKIE CUTTER

For the Shaw family, the nightmare begins in a small, ranch-style house outside a dusty Alabama town. A black man in his late twenties. A white woman in her teens. And an unborn baby, about to emerge into a scene of horrific, fear-driven violence.

Thirty years later, the crime committed in Alabama resurfaces in the Motor City--and detective Mary Cunningham is spearheading the investigation. Haunted by the demons of her past, and by the painful choices she has made as a black professional woman on her way to the top, Mary knows she is not searching for just another loser with a knife. The man she is looking for is smart, plotting his murders with cool precision and leaving behind one taunting clue: a single cookie, black on the outside and white inside, pressed into his victims' hands.

Then Mary and her fellow detectives get their break and come face-to-face with the murderer. But Mary can never guess the twisted history that is driving her suspect, or how his political connections will affect the case, or why she herself could be his next, perfect prey.

A work of stunning psychological suspense featuring one of the most complex villains in recent literature, Cookie Cutter is more than a compelling thriller. It is also a gritty, passionate tale of family and lovers, crime and politics, and the black experience in America--on both sides of the law.

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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Anthony's ambitious debut thriller has as its psychological hook a legacy of racial violence reenacted by a crazed, confused killer. Isaac Shaw, a respected African-American Alabama mortician, tries but fails to escape his sordid past. In 1967 he impregnated a white teenage girl, "adopted" the son she bore seconds before her death and stuffed her body in someone else's casket. Moving to Detroit with his barren wife and new son, Eugene, Shaw establishes a funeral home empire and climbs the social ladder. Because Eugene looks white, he doesn't fit into the black community. He experiences "the intraracial backlash against fair-skinned blacks," and at the same time, a sense of guilt that he has escaped racial bigotry. In a desperate urge to claim his black heritage, he becomes an artist specializing in African-American images. He also becomes delusional, with a murderous mission. Meanwhile, Lt. "Bloody Mary" Cunningham, along with others of the Detroit Police's Homicide Squad, investigate a string of murders with a distinctive feature. The killer is targeting conservative African-Americans, and his victims hold an Oreo cookie in their hands. Those killed include a top-ranked black executive at a Japanese car company and a renowned Reaganite conservative leader with a special distaste for quotas. As the Motor City prepares for a tough mayoral election in which Isaac Shaw is a leading candidate, the cops don't realize how intimately their investigation is tangled with local politics. Anthony intersperses the convoluted family history of the Shaws with a more interesting profile of Cunningham, a well-rounded character with her own troubled childhood, strained marriage and battles with sexism on the job. He makes some perceptive comments about the complex dilemmas facing black Americans of all economic levels, who must make decisions regarding assimilation, representation and interracial relationships. Credibly depicting police procedures, this modest novel delivers enough keen analysis of race relations, social history and psychology to keep thriller fans reading to its bloody conclusion. (Nov.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Anthony's first novel is a complex murder mystery ? la Walter Mosley that explores race relations and politics in the deep South in the Sixties and in present-day Detroit. The victims are all blackAstabbed repeatedly and left for dead with their fingers folded around a cookie, black on the outside and white on the inside. (LJ 10/15/99)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

  • Hardcover: 336 pages
  • Publisher: One World/Ballantine; 1st edition (November 2, 1999)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0345426045
  • ISBN-13: 978-0345426048
  • Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.5 x 1.3 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
  • Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (70 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,262,575 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

70 Reviews
5 star:
 (54)
4 star:
 (9)
3 star:
 (4)
2 star:
 (1)
1 star:
 (2)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
4.6 out of 5 stars (70 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A great find, May 11, 2000
By A Customer
This review is from: Cookie Cutter (Hardcover)
A self-appointed crusader is bumping off victims who he regards as Oreos (black on the outside but white on the inside). A quick tempered hot mama of a homicide detective draws the assignment of stopping him. That's the plot in a nutshell. It's a fresh storyline but I didn't rate it just on originality. What I liked most was the execution and I'm not talking about the murders. I'm talking about the quality of the writing. I found every character believable with strengths and weaknesses. I disconnect with stories based on characters that are all good or all evil. The main character, Bloody Mary (no, that's not the killer), for example, has a number of personal issues that she wrestles with in addition to having to stop a serial killer. And speaking of the devil, Eugene Shaw is an original as far as I know. I've never run across the likes of him on page before and certainly hope never to in person. I sort of stumbled onto this book. It was listed as one of the books readers also bought for another book I ordered. The cover is very eye catching but I was convinced by the reviews. Now I'm returning the favor. Buy the book.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars Not Very Lively, Especially for a Thriller, January 10, 2000
By A Customer
This review is from: Cookie Cutter (Hardcover)
This book should be riveting, based on its premise. Instead, it is clunky and trite. The story isn't so much a reversal of a common theme as a parading of all the usual cliches, done in a slightly different manner. The characters are almost all unappealing or uninteresting, and Mary should have been drawn better. The book is fairly easy to read, but the author's skill is merely adequate, not up to the level of most thriller-writers, let alone Michael Connelly. Read The Poet if you want a story of psychological suspense. Most authors do it better than Sterling, so wait for him to develop into a writer before you spend money on one of his books.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars The Wild Thing, February 16, 2000
By A Customer
This review is from: Cookie Cutter (Hardcover)
Yeah, this book scored on the fundamentals of plot, character, dialogue, pacing...yadda, yadda, yadda. But as they say on Madison Avenue, sex sells. In this case, the author handled sex in a way that wasn't exploitive but in a way that complimented the story. At different times it was tender, ugly, impersonal, or loving, depending on the participants. The author used sex to give the reader insight into the characters and to give dimension to them. Afterall, reading good writing about sex is second only to the real thing.
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First Sentence:
Thomas Kincaid heard the click in his headphones, the usual signal that his sound engineer was about to cut in for a station identification break followed by a commercial. Read the first page
Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Isaac Shaw, Eugene Shaw, Bent Fork, Felicia Wells, Martha Chenault, Annie Parsons, Bloody Mary, Chief Upton, Ricky Powell, Yacht Club, Frank Corleone, Mayor Clay, Inspector Newberry, Joe Kingsley, Precious Jones, Sam Parsons, Kevin Wilson, Lieutenant Cunningham, Museum of Afro-American History, Xavier Livingstone, African American, City Hall, Governor Blocker, Belle Isle, Mayor Randal Clay
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