Customer Reviews

The Death Collectors

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In Jack Kerley's new novel, "The Death Collectors," Alabama Detectives Harry Nautilus and Carson Ryder are the recipients of the Mobile Police Department's "Officers of the Year" award. Nautilus and Ryder are the sole members of the MPD'S elite PSIT (Psychopathological and Sociopathological Investigative Team); they are considered to be experts on psychologically deranged serial killers. Ironically, this award is destined to bring these two men more grief than satisfaction.

Nautilus and Ryder get to use their special skills when the exhumed body of a murdered woman is found in a seedy motel room surrounded by candles and flowers. Other dead bodies soon follow, and pieces of bizarre artwork connect these cases to a serial killer named Marsden Hexcamp. Hexcamp, who himself was killed over thirty years ago, was a self-proclaimed artist with a Manson-like following. Why is a dead man's artwork showing up now and how is it related to these new killings?

Kerley's writing style is a mixture of black humor and hard-boiled detective-speak. The author vividly describes the beautiful Alabama coastal setting and he delineates his characters well. Besides the two leads, other notable personalities include DeeDee Danbury, a beautiful, cheeky, and aggressive television reporter, Jacob Willow, an elderly former Alabama detective who cracked the Hexcamp case in the early seventies, and Trey Forrier, a French artist who is incarcerated in the same mental institution as Jeremy, Carson's serial killer brother.

Carson and Harry interview a motley crew of individuals, some of whom are known as "death collectors," because of their penchant for collecting serial killer memorabilia. As they slowly gather clues, Carson and Harry realize that they will solve this case only when they unlock the secrets behind the life and death of Marsden Hexcamp.

"The Death Collectors" is an engrossing look at the fascination that some outwardly normal people have with violent death. Ryder and Nautilus are up against a ruthless and insidious enemy, and their pursuit of this perpetrator places them in mortal danger. Kerley has written a well-constructed, fast-moving, and intriguing police procedural with fascinating twists and turns and an exciting and suspenseful conclusion.

With his second novel, Kerley proves his thrilling debut THE HUNDREDTH MAN wasn't a fluke.

Alabama PSIT Detective Carson Ryder is back. He's a likeable hero; self-depricating, determined, and smart, with enough of a sense of humor to help take the edge off of the horrors he witnesses.

His insane, incarcerated brother Jeremy is again called upon to help Carson catch a killer, and their scenes together are among the best in the book. I've read reviews comparing the motif to Silence of the Lambs (the hero consulting the serial slayer), but in my opinion Jeremy is a much more believable and compelling psychopath than Hannibal Lecter. Creatures like Hannibal (the brilliant but insane psychiatrist) don't really exist. Creatures like Jeremy do exist, and there's a strange repulsion/attraction when reading about him.

Great suspense, solid characters, and a nail-biter finale, all revolving around a very unusual group of collectors. First rate all the way. I expect that Kerley will be around for a long, long time.

It would be inaccurate to say that THE DEATH COLLECTORS by Jack Kerley fulfills the promise of the talent that was so vividly demonstrated in his debut novel, THE HUNDREDTH MAN. That riveting work, told in a strong, confident narrative and peopled with quietly unforgettable characters, demonstrated a well of talent that obviously ran deep and strong. THE DEATH COLLECTORS reaffirms that demonstration, not only by magnifying the strengths of its predecessor but by ultimately surpassing them, mixing a memorable protagonist with a host of quirky and occasionally unsettling supporting characters in a work where the present and the past collide with terrifying results.

THE DEATH COLLECTORS marks the welcome return of Carson Ryder and Harry Nautilus, the sum total of the Mobile, Alabama Police Department's Psychopathological and Sociopathological Investigative Team (PSIT). On the surface Ryder and Nautilus are a mismatch, yet their respective zigs and zags interlock them perfectly. Their PSIT work, alas, only involves one percent of their caseload. But when a woman is found brutally murdered at a by-the-hour hotel, the staged nature of the killing makes it a natural for their investigation.

The men soon discover that the murder, and others that follow, bear an eerie link to Marsden Hexcamp, a homicidal Pied Piper who led a sheeplike troop of followers on a homicidal rampage through the Gulf Coast over thirty years previously. Hexcamp has been dead for three decades, yet he almost seems to be directing the new murders from his grave. The trail leads Ryder and Nautilus to a missing attorney with an apparent link to the murders, as well as to a number of eerie individuals involved in the collecting of serial killing memorabilia.

Ryder and Nautilus reluctantly accept some assistance in their search from DeeDee Danbury, a local television reporter whose attraction to Ryder is not limited to professional matters. What Ryder, Nautilus and Danbury don't realize is that they are closer to the source of the murders than any of them can imagine --- and Ryder, particularly, is on the verge of being the final victim of a killer long deceased.

Kerley has a talent that is simply amazing; I can think of no other appropriate word for it. His work has the feel and sense of a bright, illuminating polish, one that will provide a reflection capable of scaring the heck out of you. Yet there is a folksiness about Ryder and Nautilus that makes them two of the more accessible characters operating in contemporary detective fiction. There is a laid-back quality to them, perhaps imbibed by their Gulf Coast backdrop, which makes them endearing while providing a subtle relief to the dark nature of the subject matter of their cases.

Kerley, and THE DEATH COLLECTORS, will give the reader grim but beautiful nightmares.

--- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub

In 1972 in Mobile Alabama Circuit Court, as he sentences Marden Hexcamp, Judge Penfield does not hide his repulsion for the convicted serial killer, whose trial led to the hospitalization of two jurors with nervous conditions. The Judge makes it clear that the electrocution at Holman Prison will somewhat clean this evil. Marden states that only art is worth living for. However, before he can be escorted out of court, the "Crying Woman", who sat outside the courtroom with a vigil during the trial, pulls out a gun, tells Marden she loves him and kills him before shooting herself to death.

Three decades later Mobile Police Detectives Harry Nautilus and Carson Ryder spend 99% of their time on homicides but the remainder of their work involves the only specialists assigned to the renowned "PISS" squad, the Psychological and Sociological Investigation Team. Currently, they investigate the murder of a hooker; other killings follow. The link appears to be Hexcamp's paintings. Apparently, they, as are other items of famous serial killers, become valuable collectibles; one death collector apparently has crossed the homicide line to obtain the blood memorabilia of his or her diabolical heroes.

This is a weird police procedural that starts with a bang and never slows down while fascinating the audience with the ghoulish memorabilia that THE DEATH COLLECTORS covet. Making what seems a farfetched tale realistic is the recent pack of cards that showcased infamous serial killers and mass murderers that sold rather gruesomely fast. Harry and Carson (NY football Giants fan?) are two solid cops whose PISS case leads to good citizens collecting the macabre. Jack Kerley writes an eye opening grisly dark thriller.

Harriet Klausner

explodes upon the crime-detective scene. THE HUNDRETH MAN, his first book was excellent and THE DEATH COLLECTORS is as good and even better. Can't wait for the next one!

Why this is an Amazon sale item befuddles me. But since it is , grab this bargain while you can because it is a terrific novel!

The PSIT team of LAPD, Carson Ryder and Harry Nautilus are faced with a dual-time mystery. More than 30 years in the past, a serial killer with a following of mesmerized women who adore him, is killed in the courtroom the day he is sentenced.

And NOW; starting with the grizzly find of a murdered prostitute in a seedy motel room...it seems as though the serial killer has risen from the dead to continue his reign of terror. Each time a new murder surfaces the killer is a step ahead and just out of reach of Carson and Harry. The touch of subtle humor adds bas-relief without taking anything away from the thread of the story and lightens it tension for brief seconds at a time.Perfect!

The murders are freakish! Disgusting! Brutal! But the two PSIT detectives refuse to give up and what finally unravels the twisted cloth of this old/new mystery will knock you out of your chair.

A truly masterfully plotted novel with two familiar and charismatic 'partners against crime'. A series to follow and enjoy. Get both of Kerley's books and double your pleasure!

Try them, you'll like them and you'll love Jack Kerley. I promise!!

Ryder and Nautilus are faced with yet another homicide with psychological overtones that forces them to activate their PSIT unit. This time the crimes seem to revolve around Marsden Hexcamp, a man convicted and shot in the head in a court room by one of his followers thirty years ago. Yet, all the crimes seem to have scraps of his art and ties to Hexcamp, leaving Ryder and Nautilus to delve into the world of people who collect mementos of the favorite serial killers.

This novel was such a step us from The Hundredth Man in both pacing and plot development. I was very leery of even continuing this series but as the novel improve they are proving to be worthwhile reads. Ryder and Nautilus are great partners although Nautilus and his rhyming thing annoy the every loving crap out of me. Kerley is making great strides as an author so this series is worth the attention of fans of thriller fiction.

Jack Kerley's "The Death Collectors" is a cohesive and coherent murder mystery investigation conducted by Mobile, Alabama police detectives Carson Ryder and Harry Nautilus. Kerley's plot is tightly wrapped even when straying into apparent unrelated tangential incidents. He concludes his novel with a surprise twist when he reveals the perpetrator of the crimes he chronicles.

Ryder and Nautilus, members of the psycho and sociopathological investigative team are summoned to a murder scene in a seedy motel where a woman has been killed and adorned with candles that have melted on her body. The room was festooned with bouquets of flowers. Soon thereafter Ryder receives an anonymous phone call inquiring whether any art had been found at the scene.

The anonymous caller was retired Alabama detective Jacob Willow who sensed that the crime was reminiscent of the killings committed by psychopathic mass murderer Marsden Hexcamp some 30 years ago. Hexcamp, an accomplished artist who studied in Paris, led a Manson-like entourage of wayward souls. Hexcamp's group which consisted mainly of women was controlled by his paramour the alluring and manipulative vamp known as Calypso. The group migrated from Paris to Alabama. Under their guidance the group committed six brutal murders as if they were an art project. Marsden at his trial had been shot and killed by Calypso who then turned the gun on herself.

As the investigation went forward Ryder and Nautilus got drawn into the world of art collection consisting of works by notorious and infamous criminals. Soon other murders were committed and haunting and alluring pieces of artwork purported to be created by Hexcamp appeared at the crime scenes.

Not only did a serial murderer with ties to the long gone Hexcamp have to be apprehended but an apparent clandestine sale of Hexcamp's artwork seemingly was to be conducted.

The detectives using a wide array of supporting players such as TV investigative reporter Dee Dee Danbury and Ryder's own brother Jeremy, himself a serial murderer confined to an institution for the criminally insane, try to make sense out of the bizarre clues and solve the crimes.

To keep it short and sweet, both of Kerley's books are awesome, and have characters that have character and are characters. I highly recommend these, and am anticipating the third one in the series.

Jack Kerley is one of my new favorite authors! I got hooked on Kerley with the Death Collectors and then bought his first book - The Hundredth Man - And it was as good as his second novel. A Garden of Vipers (his third) was also EXCELLENT! Can't wait for more Carson Ryder novels to come out.

Marsden Hexcamp was a Charles Manson-like cult leader, whose band of art students turned psychopaths murdered, and then painted pictures of, half a dozen victims in the 1970s. Hexcamp in turn was sensationally murdered in court. The portfolio of art was thought to have died with Hexcamp, until scraps began turning up 30 years later.

The pieces of art turned up at the sites of new, bizarre murders. Investigating the cases, detectives Carson Ryder and Harry Nautilus uncover a sordid yet legal underworld of art collectors with particular tastes in serial killers. The more pieces of Hexcamp's work turn up at murder scenes, the more the works thought lost increase in value.

Investigating the case, the detectives find Hexcamp wasn't quite the genius or Messiah figure his followers had thought him to be. Also hindering the investigation is a nosy television reporter, who takes a shine to Ryder. Witnesses and former followers of Hexcamp turn up dead, making the trail harder to follow, when suddenly, it hits too close for comfort.

While this book contains a lot of the cliches of the oversaturated detective story genre, the characters are quite likeable, rather than the dark, almost dysfunctional law enforcers of similar stories. The plot is complex and twisted, and includes a number of red herrings, keeping the story lively right to the end. This is only author Jack Kerley's second novel in this series, but it seems he has a bright and prosperous future ahead.