Customer Reviews

Head Games

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I won't elaborate on the book's plot--others have already done that. I almost put the book aside several times because of Molly Burke. I found her to be insufferable! The oh-so-witty repartee she and other characters engaged in was over the top. I kept wanting her to get on with it. And the constant bickering and downright nastiness between Molly and her so-called boyfriend Frank was sickening. I'd hate to see how she would treat a guy she REALLY doesn't like!
The only reason I kept reading was to find out who was sending her the "gifts" and notes, and I will say the ending was a real surprise which I had not figured out.
I will try another Eileen Dreyer book but probably not one featuring Molly Burke.

Kenny, as we discover immediately, is a serial killer. He kills more for pleasure than for attention, and to fill a void left from a bad childhood.

Molly is an emergency room nurse, and has been for years. She's seen abused kids come in and out of the ER, helpless to help them. Sure, she tried when she was young and idealistic, but these days, she knows that most are beyond helping.

Kenny was one of the ones that she tried to help in her younger days. He remembers and he wants to thank her. Thank her for noticing him, for being the only one who did. He begins sending her gifts, special gifts, human gifts.

If there is one thing Molly has learned through her life, it's that nothing is certain, nothing is how it seems. Following that logic, she can't be sure that she's not his next intended victim.

Thus begins her frantic search to find him, while still maintaining two jobs, being in the middle of an odd courtship and becoming the unwilling guardian to a troublesome, and quite charming, nephew. Molly has too much on her plate, and more keeps getting added.

At times, it seemed that Molly was getting more than even a fictional character could handle, and I felt overwhelmed with it myself. But, it was the type of "overwhelmed" that required further reading. And fast.

This is a book that starts off fast and ends breathless, with the reader whirling in a happy state of fear, shock and pure book-loving pleasure. Dreyer, herself a former St. Louis ER nurse, writes convincingly of nursing, the city and murder.

The clues are all there. There is not one discovery that left me feeling cheated. Everything was spelled out for me. But it was so cleverly done that every revelation was still a surprise. I'd slap my hand to my forehead and say "HOW did I miss that?", and then bury my nose right back into the book.

I only came up for air a few times while reading Head Games. It was so good, I read it straight through one night. And, after I finished at 2 pm, I woke my husband up and made him stand in the door of the bathroom while I showered. I was seeing killers in every shadow. It was that good of a book!

The book-induced fear wore off with morning, but not the book itself. It was a stunning book, with some shocks that I never anticipated and an ending that while satisfying, was still unsettling--and caused me to question some unconcious prejudices. I give Head Games the highest recommendation.

Very few people have lived through the trauma Molly Burke has and remained sane but somehow she has managed it. Her parents were emotionally distant (some might call them abusive). She did a tour of duty in the hell that was South Vietnam and came home to discover she couldn't have any children thanks to the effects of Agent Orange and to this day still suffers from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Yet with all that she is one of the best trauma nurses in St. Louis because she cares about her charges.

Working two jobs just to stay above the poverty line Molly is doing her best to deal with the threatening letters she is receiving. Her troubled nephew Patrick comes to stay with her while she is trying to cope with her stalker who is now sending her human skulls and femurs. The killer informs Molly that she knows him so she is in the middle of a very dangerous homicide investigation, trying to identify the perpetrator before he strikes against. Molly also deals with her rambunctious nephew and a media onslaught that turns her home into a glass house.

Although the heroine thinks she is a head case, she is one of the sanest characters to walk the pages of a crime novel. After what life has thrown at Molly, she somehow not only manages to cope but also has become a stronger person. Eileen Dreyer is a superb writer who manages to keep surprising the reader with one unexpected revelation after another. Fans of Patricia Cornwell and Robin Cook will love HEAD GAMES.

Harriet Klausner

Eileen Dreyer has written some fabulous suspense novels, Head Games, however, is not one of them. The story starts out with a bang, then fizzles. It prattles on, then has a decent finish. The only reason I continued to keep reading the book, was the morsels Ms. Dreyer kept throwing in from time to time. At the end of each chapter, an excerpt from the killers diary was given. It kept the story going long after it should have ended.

The characters left much to be desired also. All of the folks in this story seemed to have a love/hate relationship going on with one another. There was simply nothing credible about their interactions with each other. It was difficult to understand the killer's mindset because we weren't told much about him. We knew he was killing people but it seemed as though the author just couldn't bring herself to describe any of the interactions between the killer and his victims.

The story had a great premise, there just wasn't enough meat,either that, or the story should have been about 100 pages shorter. I guess what I am trying to convey is that I felt the story was just rushed, and incoherent. The book is worth reading, but it certainly doesn't belong in the "best suspense ever written" catagory.

As a long-time reader of Stephen King, James Patterson, Dean Koontz, Ann Rice, etc., I'm not new to the creepy or shocking. But this book was one of the best I've read in a long time. The ending will give anyone who loves this stuff a satisfying thrill...I think I need to go smoke a cigarette after this one!

Molly Burke is a complex character; it helps to have read "Bad Medicine" to understand some of her background. The action in this book is non-stop, and the ending is thought provoking - it challenges you to reconsider what you think you know about how someone becomes a monster.

This is my first Eileen Dreyer thriller and what a ride it was.
Molly, a 52-year old Vietnam vet, is an emergency room nurse in St. Louis who begins to get messages from a serial killer - likely someone from her past. The thing is, she isn't sure who it is.

With the help of her collegues and a love interest that Molly isn't sure she's interested in, Molly tries to piece together the mind of a killer in the hopes of discovering who it could be.

With elegant twists and turns, Dreyer's prose weaves a tantalizing tale of emotional disfuction, obsession and abuse into an intriguing novel that will keep readers turning the pages.

And Dreyer's technique - not so heavy on medical terminology that it gets dry - allows the author to join the plot and subplot with a twist at the end that will leave some readers gasping.

This review is deliberately vague because I don't want to give anything away. Dreyer is dead on in her description of a serial killer's thought processes and the measures law enforcement - and one desperate woman - will take to catch the killer. (speaking as a former journalist who covered crime)

This is my first book of Eileen Dryer. I loved it. I couldn't put it down. I picked it up because Eileen Dreyer was compared to Tess Gerritsen, one of my favorities. My only complaint is that the author slips and twice calls the main character Maggie, not Molly. I'd understand if it is a minor character, but not the main one. A proof reader should have caught that.

Eileen Dreyer said that the reason she wrote Head Games was to show people that monsters didn't just come out from under the bed, but that they were people's children. Was the message depressing? Yes it was, but it was real and it made me think about the horrors of child abuse, be it physical or emotional. I've read several of Dreyers books and I rate this as one of the best!

I will keep this brief. I had trouble getting through this book. I could only get through a chapter at a time before dozing. There just wasn't enough action. There were too many long stretches of boredom. The only reason I give it 2 stars is that it got half decent after I was about 2/3 of the way through it. If you want a page turner about serial killers then try The Hour Game by David Baldacci.