Customer Reviews

The Fever Kill

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Tom Piccirilli's writing is authentic, sharply humorous, and always deals with complex issues of family, a tragic past, and the delicate understanding of identity. For years he's worked to no small acclaim in the horror and suspense fields, but now with The Fever Kill he turns his talents to the neo-noir crime genre and gets first-rate results.

A New York undercover narcotics officer who is bound by red-tape and unable to fulfill his duty of taking down knife-wielding drug lord Tucco, Crease finds himself being drawn further into a world he hates. He's impregnated his mistress--Tucco's wife--has lost contact with his own family, and discovers that he too greatly enjoys living on the edge of blood and violence. In an effort to extricate himself, and to face some unresolved trauma from his past, Crease offers to have a showdown with Tucco as soon as he takes care of some unfinished business he has in Vermont.

In his rural hometown of Hangtree, Crease must deal with his powerful memories of childhood, when he watched his father's fall from grace. As the one-time sheriff, Crease's father may or may not have been involved with the kidnapping, ransom, and intentional murder of a young girl. Driven to becoming the town drunk, Crease's father was often beaten and abused by former comrades in the police department. After the man's death, Crease himself was forced out of town by one particularly brutal deputy.

Now no longer a frightened boy, Crease faces down his enemies, former neighbors, and even an ex-girflriend turned town tramp and small-time grifter as he seeks the truth about his father and himself. But not only does he have to deal with his past, but his present as well, since Tucco and several henchmen have followed him to Hangtree.

The Fever Kill is about as good as a neo-noir novel gets. This is a fast-paced, cynical, complex, often extremely funny story that combines a lean, powerful prose with a pedal to the metal plot. Piccirilli gives us not only plenty of action but also takes the time to examine the dark side of family, sorrow, loyalty, revenge, and the potential for redemption.

Piccirilli returns to the world of crime with his latest novel THE FEVER KILL, a neo-noir tale that fully embraces its pulp/hardboiled roots while beautifully taking them forward into the modern era.

Crease is a NY undercover cop working to bring down his "boss"--a Latino drug dealer who's not quite big enough for the police commissioner to really crack down on, but big enough to lead the authorities to even bigger fish. For that reason, they've left Crease in place for two years despite him having garnered plenty of evidence against the drug dealer. Driven by guilt, frustration, and a haunted past, Crease decides to admit he's a cop and tells his boss that they'll have a showdown once Crease settles some other accounts first.

Those other accounts are found in Hangtree, Crease's New England hometown. Ten years before he was run out by some dirty cops who had turned their back on the sheriff, Crease's father who died in disgrace after charges were leveled against him for having something to do with the kidnapping & murder of a young girl. Crease returns to Hangtree to find out the truth about what happened to little Mary and decide for himself whether his father was indeed involved.

Although all of these elements are rather familiar, they've never been added together the way Piccirilli does it. With authentic emotion, plenty of honest and plausible action, and some truly innovative touches. The bear on the cover of the novel references little Mary's teddy bear, who Crease imagines was with her at the end of her life. As he tries to put himself in both his father's place and little Mary's as well, Teddy takes on a life of his own and acts as something of a chorus for Crease's guilt and rage.

A first-rate crime novel that's equal parts thriller, suspense, drama, and tragedy (despite there being a great deal of humor). THE FEVER KILL is also one of the most beautifully produced indie press offerings I've ever owned. Creeping Hemlock Press deserves major kudos for the elaborate look of the book, designed to give the feel of a shelf-worn pulp novel from fifty years ago. Utterly gorgeous inside and out.

Tom Piccirilli's novels are crisp, concise, provocative, and usually, psychologically multilayered. "The Fever Kill" is an extraordinary study of a man's search for his identity and the meaning of his life within a neo-noir milieu that includes hardboiled characters, fast-paced plotting, and a return to one's roots...along with healthy doses of cynicism, humor, and tragedy. It is at once, a tale of revenge, a tale of personal discovery, and a tale containing mysteries from the past as well as the present.

Crease is an undercover narcotics officer for the NYPD who is so far under that he has long ago blurred the line between right and wrong, between what is and what should be. He has lost his family, become friends with Tucco, a Mafioso-type crime leader, and, in fact, fallen in love with and impregnated Tucco's mistress.

In the midst of this identity crisis and fleeing from an enraged Tucco, Crease impulsively returns to his hometown, Hangtree, in New England. Crease has unfinished business in Hangtree. His father had been sheriff there until a botched kidnapping, a tragic killing, and missing ransom got him fired and impelled him onward toward his alcohol fueled death. In the process, young Crease had to suffer the abuse of the townspeople who blamed his father for the tragic death and missing money. Ultimately, Crease was run out of town by a sadistic deputy.

Now he has returned seeking the truth of what happened, less to clear his father's name than to, hopefully, find his own way back to right and wrong. He is looking for some means to find his way and refocus his life before meeting up with Tucco and his henchman. Fans of revenge tales where the mistreated hero returns years later to exact his payback will love this story and its plotting. There are so many opportunities for Crease to exact retribution from "townies" who abused him or his father that it is fun to watch his transformation from an agent of vengeance to an agent of redemption.

"The Fever Kill" has astute commentaries on family, loyalty, self identity, and personal growth. The issues of losing focus on what is real vs. what should be real and self introspection leading to potential redemption underlie the entire novel. I truly enjoyed this effort and highly recommend it to fans of the genre. Piccirilli is an author well worth adding to your must read list!

The book itself is beautifully put together by the folks at Creeping Hemlock press. The cover artwork is incredible and the intro from Ken Bruen alone is well worth the price of admission.

But I have to say Mr. Piccirilli has definitely outdone himself with this one. These are, by far, hardest hitting, grittiest characters he's drawn yet.

Crease is a man haunted by everything - his past, his present, his future. He's got loyalties he didn't even know he could form. He's weighed down by duty, pride, and a shame that's only partly his own. He's struggling to find some sort of peace that he's not even really sure he wants.

This is a mystery, a revenge tale, a family gone horribly awry tale. But mostly what it is, is an inventive, absorbing, heart pounding, can't stop turning pages tale.

Do not miss out.

From my review in Cemetery Dance Issue #60:

"Having just read Cormac McCarthy's No Country for Old Men, I can honestly say that The Fever Kill puts me in the mind of that kind of book, and Piccirilli's writing is as fine, and maybe finer, than McCarthy's. The Fever Kill is just as deeply layered with moral ambiguities, just as peopled with characters trapped in orbits out of which they can't or won't break free. Riding along with Crease in his Mustang, revisiting old haunts, old grudges, old flames--none of which is the same, yet all of which is the same--evokes that same sense of desperation and inevitability all great noir writing aspires to. Piccirilli's horror credentials remain as an underlying current threaded between the traditional noir themes handled masterfully by a writer at the top of his game. Sardonic and sparse, there is simply no fat on these bones.... Perhaps the Coen Brothers should come calling."

-W.D. Gagliani, author of Savage Nights

Crease is such a badass! I'm such a fan of Tom Pic and this book did not disappoint. If you like his other books, this is just as good as any he's written. I can picture everything so cleary he describes, so poetic at times. I hope I interpreted the ending as the author intended. Happy to see stuff for my kindle from Tom Piccirilli that I haven't read yet.

THE FEVER KILL is not only the best book I've ever read by Tom Piccirilli, but perhaps one of the best books I've read in the last few years in this genre. I devoured it in a single sitting, regretting only that I didn't have the willpower to slow down and make it last. But THE FEVER KILL is not one of those books you can linger over and savor. No, it demands to be read, forcing you to move along, to hurry toward the conclusion just as its protagonist, Crease, rushes toward a confrontation that has been building for ten years.

You see, Crease is going home again. Back to the place where his father, the sheriff, shot a little girl in the midst of a bungled kidnapping. Back to the place where Crease himself was beaten, jailed, and kicked out of town. Back to settle old scores and maybe create a few new ones.

But the thing is, Crease isn't going alone. For the last ten years he's been working as an undercover cop, playing second fiddle to a drug-dealing, knife-wielding psycho named Tucco, and in the process managed to get the man's mistress pregnant. Now Tucco wants revenge. And with Tucco comes all the ghosts from Crease's past, just waiting for a reckoning of their own.

While I've always enjoyed Pic's work in the horror genre, THE FEVER KILL makes it clear where his true talent lies. Rather than slaving away in the publishing sub-basement that is home for those of us who dabble in the realm of the supernatural, Pic should be soaring among the clouds with the rest of the bestselling writers working in crime fiction today. THE FEVER KILL certainly proves he has the chops to do it.

Tom Piccirilli's writing is authentic, sharply humorous, and always deals with complex issues of family, a tragic past, and the delicate understanding of identity. For years he's worked to no small acclaim in the horror and suspense fields, but now with The Fever Kill he turns his talents to the neo-noir crime genre and gets first-rate results.

A New York undercover narcotics officer who is bound by red-tape and unable to fulfill his duty of taking down knife-wielding drug lord Tucco, Crease finds himself being drawn further into a world he hates. He's impregnated his mistress--Tucco's wife--has lost contact with his own family, and discovers that he too greatly enjoys living on the edge of blood and violence. In an effort to extricate himself, and to face some unresolved trauma from his past, Crease offers to have a showdown with Tucco as soon as he takes care of some unfinished business he has in Vermont.

In his rural hometown of Hangtree, Crease must deal with his powerful memories of childhood, when he watched his father's fall from grace. As the one-time sheriff, Crease's father may or may not have been involved with the kidnapping, ransom, and intentional murder of a young girl. Driven to becoming the town drunk, Crease's father was often beaten and abused by former comrades in the police department. After the man's death, Crease himself was forced out of town by one particularly brutal deputy.

Now no longer a frightened boy, Crease faces down his enemies, former neighbors, and even an ex-girflriend turned town tramp and small-time grifter as he seeks the truth about his father and himself. But not only does he have to deal with his past, but his present as well, since Tucco and several henchmen have followed him to Hangtree.

The Fever Kill is about as good as a noir novel gets. This is a fast-paced, cynical, complex, often extremely funny story that combines a lean, powerful prose with a pedal to the metal plot. Piccirilli gives us not only plenty of action but also takes the time to examine the dark side of family, sorrow, loyalty, revenge, and the potential for redemption.

Piccirilli returns to the world of crime with his latest novel THE FEVER KILL, a neo-noir tale that fully embraces its pulp/hardboiled roots while beautifully taking them forward into the modern era.

Crease is a NY undercover cop working to bring down his "boss"--a Latino drug dealer who's not quite big enough for the police commissioner to really crack down on, but big enough to lead the authorities to even bigger fish. For that reason, they've left Crease in place for two years despite him having garnered plenty of evidence against the drug dealer. Driven by guilt, frustration, and a haunted past, Crease decides to admit he's a cop and tells his boss that they'll have a showdown once Crease settles some other accounts first.

Those other accounts are found in Hangtree, Crease's New England hometown. Ten years before he was run out by some dirty cops who had turned their back on the sheriff, Crease's father who died in disgrace after charges were leveled against him for having something to do with the kidnapping & murder of a young girl. Crease returns to Hangtree to find out the truth about what happened to little Mary and decide for himself whether his father was indeed involved.

Although all of these elements are rather familiar, they've never been added together the way Piccirilli does it. With authentic emotion, plenty of honest and plausible action, and some truly innovative touches. The bear on the cover of the novel references little Mary's teddy bear, who Crease imagines was with her at the end of her life. As he tries to put himself in both his father's place and little Mary's as well, Teddy takes on a life of his own and acts as something of a chorus for Crease's guilt and rage.

A first-rate crime novel that's equal parts thriller, suspense, drama, and tragedy (despite there being a great deal of humor).

Overall, I liked this book. It doesn't slow down. I had a bit of a hard time empathizing with the main character and the ending was a bit contrived. But, altogether, it was a good read.