Dialogues: A Novel of Suspense [Hardcover]

Stephen J. Spignesi (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 26, 2005

In this electrifying debut, Stephen Spignesi reinvents the psychological thriller with a chilling tale of mounting intensity. Ingeniously crafted and crackling with suspense, here is a puzzle within a puzzle, at the center of which stands a hauntingly enigmatic young woman whose story will challenge everything you think you know....

Six people have been murdered in the animal shelter in which they worked. One unlikely woman stands accused of the crimes. Her name is Victoria Troy, and she is the most improbable of cold-blooded killers. A lover of animals, petite, brainy, and gifted with a sharp sense of humor, she too worked in the shelter, in an anguishingly difficult job. What could possibly have provoked her to murder six of her own coworkers–some of whom were her friends.

Who is Tory Troy? It is up to Dr. Baraku Bexley to find out. An astute psychiatrist hired by the court to determine whether Tory is mentally competent to stand trial, Bexley must explore her complicated background and her unusual convictions as he interviews her in the Connecticut psychiatric hospital in which she is confined–and also talks to others who have known her.

What Bexley learns about this gifted young woman comes almost solely from these interviews…but is that enough to explain the divide between the person Tory seems to be and the terrible crimes she’s accused of committing? Others find her difficult to fathom too: her lawyer, her nurse at the hospital, her mother, one of her former teachers; but all seek the same objective, to learn the truth no matter where it leads–or what secrets it may reveal about Tory, about the nature of evil, about us all.

Fiercely engaging and morally provocative, DIALOGUES is a rush of adrenaline that will keep you riveted from the first page to the last, a novel that will leave readers deeply shaken–and deeply moved.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Veteran anthologist Spignesi (Catastrophe! the 100 Greatest Disasters of All Time; The Essential Stephen King; etc.) makes his novel debut with this engrossing yet ultimately unsatisfying examination of a woman's transformation from sanctioned killer to murderer. Victoria "Tory" Troy is a euthanasia technician at a shelter in Connecticut whose primary job is to kill unclaimed animals every Friday in the facility's gas chamber. One Friday, instead of killing lost and unwanted pets, she contrives to inject her six co-workers with a paralyzing drug, then gases them to death. What follows is an often fascinating narrative carried out in dialogue form as Tory's case progresses through the judicial system. The first half of the book consists largely of interview sessions where a state-appointed psychiatrist assesses Tory's mental state at the time of the murders. Glimpses of Tory's writings and flashbacks to her troubled childhood heighten the tension. The prosecution's case, the trial and the jury's deliberations dominate the second half, also all in dialogue. Some of the exchanges that Spignesi includes do little to advance the plot, yet many are spellbindingly crafted. In the end, resolution—why did this woman do what she did?—is not forthcoming, and the finale falls back on one of the most shameless devices fiction writers can employ. Agent, John White.(May 3)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Spignesi's fiction debut is a mildly successful psychological thriller that owes more to its frightening central question (What makes a person kill?) than to the thrills themselves. The story unfolds slowly, written in a series of terse dialogues centering on Tory Troy, incarcerated in a psychiatric hospital, where her stability is being evaluated in preparation for her murder trial. She has admitted to killing six coworkers in the gas chamber of the animal shelter where she worked as a euthanasia technician. Tory speaks to the court-appointed psychiatrist, to her nurse, and to her mother. Lawyers argue; jurors deliberate. Throughout the process, readers come to see Tory as surprisingly normal, despite a history of child abuse. She emerges as a smart, intuitive, sometimes funny woman who loves animals (and has a credible rationale for her job, which is described in detail) and who seems to harbor no particular ax to grind against her fellow employees. So what pushed her over the edge? Wisely, Spignesi allows readers to think about that on their own. Stephanie Zvirin
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 368 pages
• Publisher: Bantam (April 26, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0553804014
• ISBN-13: 978-0553804010
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,461,286 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars I CAN'T BELIEVE ALL THE GREAT REVIEWS!, August 3, 2006

By 

Lawyer Gal (Northern New Jersey, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Dialogues: A Novel of Suspense (Hardcover)

This book is a tease - it calls itself a novel of "suspense," but there is no real suspense, and any suspense that there actually is is left unrequited in the end. You go through the entire book waiting to find out why Tory killed her six co-workers. You never find out, and the ending is the biggest cop-out since "Son of Rosemary, The Sequel to Rosemary's Baby". How could the publisher have allowed the author to end this book in that cliched fashion? I felt truly cheated.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Spignesi breaks new ground in impressive fiction debut, May 27, 2005

By 

George Beahm (USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Dialogues: A Novel of Suspense (Hardcover)

After a lifetime of writing nonfiction on every possible conceivable--and some clearly inconceivable--subject under the sun, Stephen Spignesi switches gears and wrote his first novel. As most writers well tell you, switching gears like this isn't easy: Stephen King, in fact, is on record saying that he rarely writes book-length fiction because, as he discovered, after writing DANSE MACABRE, it's plain hard work, whereas storytelling (i.e., writing fiction) is for him like stretching out in a hammock on a warm summer afternoon.

With this book, Spignesi has gone into high gear. Rather than self-publish, publish an e-book, or publish this as a print-on-demand book -- all the things lesser writers do just in an attempt to get in print -- Spignesi set his sights high and went to the largest publisher in the world, Random House, where he found the kind of enthusiasm for the work he was looking for. The result is the right author at the right house, and the result for you, the reader, is a compelling, unputdownable read from page on to the final page.

More a novel of character than plot, Spignesi gets deep inside the head of Victoria ("Tory") Troy. Most of the book, as the title suggests, is written in dialogue, which is a neat trick to pull off: I can't think of a lot of veteran fiction writers who would have attempted it, since writing convincing dialogue is damned tough. One false note, one misplaced word, and the dialogue sounds, and reads, like pulp fiction.

Of the story itself, I would be doing you a disservice if I were to tell you the plot. Besides, it ain't the plot that's important -- it's the telling. Spignesi, who has dozens of nonfiction books under his belt, has an authoritative storytelling voice that serves him well in his fiction. The confidence he shows in the storytelling is more like that of a veteran storyteller who knows his craft. Spignesi knows what he's doing.

And of the ending, well, don't expect me to tell you the butler did it. Go read this fascinating, intriguing, compelling, and damned impressive first novel for yourself and make up your own mind.

This is an impressive first fiction debut and heralds the arrival of a new, important voice of a writer who goes on my list of Writers to Watch.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Fascinating, Gripping Suspense Novel., April 29, 2005

By 

Valerie Barnes - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Dialogues: A Novel of Suspense (Hardcover)

'Dialogues' is a "MUST READ" for all fans of suspense, drama, horror, mystery, legal thrillers! It's the gripping tale of a young woman named Victoria (Tory) Troy. Though young, she's exceptionally bright, has a very charming personality, and has formed many insightful concepts about how the world, and the people in it, treat each other... and animals. She's an animal lover at heart, but has decided to take a job as a Euthanasia Technician at a local Connecticut Animal Shelter. Every Friday, she's in charge of the detestable act of putting large numbers of animals "to sleep." She hates her job, obviously, but needs the money to survive. Unfortunately, her job finally gets to her, and she snaps under the pressure. Six people are now dead.

Enter Dr. Baraku Bexley. Bexley, the doctor assigned to her case, at the local Psychiatric Hospital, where Tory now resides under lock and key, interviews Tory extensively to determine if she's fit to stand trial. Through many conversations (dialogues) with Tory, her family, a former teacher, and others involved in the case, Bexley makes an informed decision. Now, it's in the hands of the Jury.

This is a captivating, "can't put down" book! From Prolugue to Epilogue, Stephen Spignesi takes the reader on an unforgettable journey. "Tory's story" is beautifully crafted, with an ending that packs a punch!

On a more personal level, I've read many of Spignesi's non-fiction books: all his Stephen King work, The Robin Williams Scrapbook, The Odd Index, The Cat Book of Lists, The Complete Titanic, What's Your Mad About You I.Q., What's Your Friends I.Q, just to name a few. So I was already aware that he's an exceptional writer!

Dialogues, his first novel, blew me away. It went so far beyond my expectations of what a "first novel" could be. It's well thought out, it's brilliantly written, the characters evolve from "words on a page," into real people. Their voices, through the many dialogues, are heard loud and clear. The crime is gruesome, yet - I believe - Tory will remain beloved to all who read the story that unfolds.