Paul and Annie Milton bought the dilapidated mansion known as Cul-De-Sac to restore it. But strange things are happening at the old house. They are being stalked. Paul is losing his mind, yet he refuses to leave. Ex-cop Teddy Camel begins to investigate the mystery surrounding Cul-De-Sac, starting with the violent killing that took place there seven years before. And what he and Annie uncover--about a high-level cover-up, a family with dark and expensive secrets, and an ex-convict bent on exacting his own brand of horrific justice--could very well kill them all.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Book Description
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com Review
Great villains can make a mystery, and David Martin's latest has not one but two wonderful heavies--a grinning lunatic named Donald Growler, guilty of everything but the murder that got him sent to prison, and McCleany, the cold-blooded cop who framed him. Squeezed between these two evils are Paul, the gentle, religious young man who helped Growler get paroled, Paul's wife, and her former lover--a tough ex-cop named Teddy Camel who can look at bad guys and make them confess. Camel will need all his smarts to get over the hump of a vengeful Growler and an even more vicious McCleany. Martin's previous Camel caravan, Lie to Me, is available in paperback.
--This text refers to an alternate
Hardcover
edition.
From Publishers Weekly
At the beginning of Martin's stylish but unbearably brutal new thriller, Donald Growler puts a severed human head into a washing machine, pours in some shampoo after it, notes it's called Head & Shoulders, thinks "Or in this case just Head," then muses: "It wasn't that difficult being a homicidal maniac." Not exactly a thigh-slapper, but that's about as light as the book gets. The ferocious Growler was once wrongfully accused of murder; after his release from a crippling jail sentence, he goes around systematically slaughtering, in lubriciously painful detail, the people he believes set him up. Since one of them is perky heroine Annie Milton, with whom ex-cop Teddy Camel once had an affair, Camel finds himself drawn into the hunt for Growler?which in this case consists mostly of trying to stay alive and keep Annie ditto. With the aid of a couple of really crooked cops, a hideous old house that doubles as a torture chamber and sundry cruelties, including a victim burned alive, the nailing of someone's foot to the floor, several beheadings, a sanguinary garroting and an ingeniously contrived electrocution, Martin eventually thins out his cast. The fact that he writes swiftly and with some wit doesn't really compensate for the strain on the reader. This and the recent Bone Collector (Forecasts, Dec. 16) seem to be part of a campaign to prove that writers can reach new depths in depicting violence if they put their minds to it.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
More About the Authors
Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Nail-biter,
By
This review is from: Cul-De-Sac (Paperback)
David Martin strikes again. I am completely in awe of his creation of Growler, a maniacal serial killer with an interesting twist. I was so caught up in this story that there was no way I could put it down and ended up finishing it in one afternoon. Martin's writing is clear, and he drew me in with all the twists and turns to this story.Donald Growler knows he has been wronged. He has just spent several years of his life in prison for a crime he says he never committed. Now he's out, and he's in search of all the people who caused him to be locked up. I was squirming in my chair with the descriptions of some of the more creative murders in this novel. The plot twists are amazing, and there were quite a few surprises. I love that Teddy Camel makes another appearance; he was a great character in Martin's LIE TO ME (another incredible serial killer novel). Martin is not for the squeamish! He is very detailed, and his bad guys are downright brutal. But he is a master of plot and character development. This is well worth the time to read!
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Martin avoids some of the pitfalls and implausibilities,
By
This review is from: Cul-de-Sac: A Novel (Hardcover)
The dialogue is right out of NYPD Blue (a compliment, of course). The discussion by a couple of the characters on whether Growler's name is pronounded Grow-ler or Growl-er is hilarious. Also appreciated by this reader is that Martin gives a plausible rationalization for Annie returning to Cul De Sac, knowing that a killer is probably waiting for her. So instead of saying to myself, "Lady, don't go in there!", I'm saying, "Yeah, I can see why she'd do that." I liked that he cared enough about the reader to realize that we'd need a reason for her risky behavior.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Does not live up to the hype... trying to stay awake is a chore!,
By A Customer
This review is from: Cul-De-Sac (Paperback)
I wasn't riveted, fascinated or spell bound by this tawdry little book. I gave it two stars instead of one because I love characters that are just a little out of sync with the rest of the world. Annie and Teddy were interesting as lead characters alebit you never understood why their brief summer affair couldn't have ended with something close to reality. Teddy didn't want to marry Annie so they broke up.... how trite given the nature of their summer together. Annie finds out she's pregnant and doesn't tell Teddy at the time but years later he's apologizing for not being there for her when she was pregnant. So when do you think the author might let it slip in that Annie had told him she got pregnant that summer. The whole stupid book is full of this sort of crap. Starting things and then forgetting how to end them and what they relate to. It's so ridiculous especially the 'bad guy'. So abused and taken advantage of by everyone you start hoping he gets to kill everyone. If you want me to feel sorry for the rat finks that lied at his trial then you gotta do better than this. I hated to see the way he died given he never did a thing to deserve the horrible things done to him while in prison for a murder he didn't commitOh yeah, just to let you know, there is no big mystery here. You know who's doing what from the first chapter. What you can't possibly know is that the author doesn't have anything else to really say.
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
|
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Suggested Tags from Similar Products(What's this?)Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product).
|
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
