Customer Reviews

Heartsick

5 star:		(78)
4 star:		(72)
3 star:		(30)
2 star:		(14)
1 star:		(9)

 

 

Detective Archie Sheridan spent ten years on The Beauty Killer task force, only to be caught by the beautiful killer herself, Gretchen Lowell (one of the most foul serial killers we've seen in quite a while) and viciously, hideously tortured by her. Archie survived, but just barely, and more than his mind was broken while he was in Gretchen's claws. Gretchen called 9-1-1 to save him when she was no longer capable of sustaining his life for her vile purposes, turned herself in, and that brings us to the present day - two years later. Archie is retired on medical leave. He is addicted to, amongst others, *Gretchen*, Vicodin, and Xanax. Gretchen, striking a plea bargain, sits in prison for the rest of her life.

Another serial killer has arisen in Portland, and Archie comes off medical leave to head up the new task force.

There were essentially three threads running through this story. That of Archie Sheridan's search for the "new" serial killer, that of the young pink-haired bohemian Susan who worked at the newspaper and who was covering the "human angle" of Archie being back on a task force looking for a serial killer, and that of Archie's tortured relationship with Gretchen.

Whenever a story contains multiple threads, the story runs the risk of having one or two of the threads outshine the other(s), and instead of a cohesive flow, the reader is left feeling off balance. Unfortunately, that's what happened here.

The relationship between Archie and Gretchen is told in two parts. I'll speak only of one, as I feel the other lies in the purview of a spoiler. Every so often, a chapter is inserted that takes us back two years to the ten days that Gretchen held Archie in captivity. Those chapters are without question the strongest chapters in the book. Not because of Gretchen's unspeakable cruelty, or the even how well Ms. Cain writes both characters in their respective situations - the purring Gretchen, the collapsing Archie. They're the strongest chapters because the chapters that cover the other threads are rather weak.

Because of the way Cain wrote the book, a comparison to Thomas Harris's The Silence of the Lambs (and I'll speak only of the book for the purpose of this review) is unavoidable. Without question, the strongest scenes in the book involved Hannibal and Clarice. However, when Hannibal isn't around, the book didn't lose its sense of urgency. The other "thread" - hunting for "Buffalo Bill" - was riveting.

In comparison, neither Archie's pursuit of what they called "The After School Strangler", nor Susan's angle, held my attention. They simply weren't compelling. And if a serial killer is going to be anything, he/she HAS to be compelling. I found myself longing for Gretchen to come back into the picture. SHE was compelling, and I wanted to learn more about the twisted relationship that was at the core of this story.

The ending surprised me, and I was glad to see that Publisher's Weekly said that this is the first in a new series. Archie Sheridan's character *is* a fascinating one - with or without Gretchen. He just needs a better story to work with. Here's hoping that we have something more engrossing than "The After School Strangler" for Archie the next time around. Despite my concerns about this book, I would most certainly read the next book in the series.

3½ stars rounded up to four due to the unique presentation of a female serial killer. Gretchen's character was, *ahem*, bloody brilliant.

This is an interesting novel in that it features a female serial killer and a compelling, disturbing relationship between that killer and the detective who hunts her. Unfortunately, that story is told in flashbacks and the 'current' story (the search for another serial killer) is far less compelling. As the detective detects, a reporter reports, he searching for a killer, she for a story. The plot lines eventually come together and everything is tied into a tidy package.

Since the central concept (the female serial killer and her hunter/prey) is a good one, it should have been the focus of the novel. Unfortunately, it is not, though it might be utilized again in a future work. Thus, the problem is that while the b-story plot is reasonably tight it is not as engaging as most readers of suspense fiction will desire. Most will find the a-story plot far more interesting. Indeed, the novel comes alive whenever the female serial killer appears, but it pales when she is off stage.

The writing improves as the novel develops, but initially it is often crude with many non-sequiturs and strange variations in tone. Some sentences and paragraphs are outright amateurish though, as I said, the writing improves noticeably after the initial chapters.

The book is worth reading for the serial killer plot and there are elements here that suggest that the author could do something far more impressive the next time out.

HEARTSICK, a dark, twisted, disturbing psychological thriller by Chelsea Cain, is of a genre that I do not normally read. I do not like blood, gore, or torture, but somehow, this novel got under my skin and really surprised me. I could not put it down. I HAD to know what happened next, and I read it cover to cover in almost one sitting.

The writing is outstanding. I was immediately grabbed and drawn into this vivid, perverse world. The atmosphere created by the mood, voice, and tone is truly amazing, dark, and creepy. I had to keep looking outside my window to reassure myself that it was still daylight. I have not been this affected by the atmosphere of a book since INTERVIEW WITH A VAMPIRE by Anne Rice many years ago. The characters are mesmerizing in a distressing, twisted way. Our "hero," detective Archie Sheridan, was the final victim of a truly brutal psychopathic female serial killer, Gretchen Lowell, whom he tracked for nearly 10 years. He is also the only victim to "survive" her torture, if you can call Archie's current life and state of mind survival. Although Gretchen is in a maximum security prison for life, she still pushes Archie's buttons, and he is still dancing to her sick, terrifying tune. The chapters detailing Archie's prolonged captivity and the supreme agony and brain-washing inflicted upon him by Gretchen nearly two years ago are deftly interwoven between the chapters describing Archie's hunt for a new serial killer. This very unique and successful device lets us glimpse inside Archie's warped and troubled mind as he works to solve his current case.

HEARTSICK is gripping, sinister, page-turner of a thriller that keeps you riveted until the final page. While you may think you have it all figured out, believe me, you don't. The twists, turns, shocks, and surprises carry on to the last words of the final page.

The book cover reads "CHELSEA CAIN MADE HER THRILLER DEBUT WITH HEARTSICK; introducing two of the most compelling characters in decades: Gretchen Lowell and Archie Sheridan." I must disagree with the statement.

Archie was somewhat interesting, but I didn't find him to be "compelling", rather, I found him to be a little boring at times. What seemed to be an attempt at making the "hero" mysterious just left him as somewhat milquetoast overall. Gretchen Lowell, the villain, was less "compelling" still. Her supposed wisdom and sick mind played out like a weak attempt at a female Hannibal Lecter; she was not intimidating (though the attempt was made) nor was she scary. She was a criminal who had been caught and little more.

The most interesting (and that isn't saying much) character was the reporter, Susan Ward, who spent time writing a story about Archie Sheridan for the newspaper. The book was, although not written in first person, really a story from her point of view and she came through most strongly in the telling. The addition of a second story that she was pursuing was an obvious setup for follow up novels that will, if written like this one, be just as mediocre.

The story surrounds the search for a serial killer and several efforts at presenting potential suspects fell flat. There was barely any suspsense, hardly an ounce of mystery. It was a ride-along with a cop on his puruit of a killer that really didn't seem to be much of a SERIAL killer. I won't spoil the outcome, but suffice it to say that there was no buildup, no climax of story, no real heart-fluttering moments of intensity. To sum up, the book was just there; an average read with nothing to make it stand out from the thousands of other crime stories that line the shelves of bookstores or pour forth from searches on websites.

I wanted to enjoy this book. I wanted to feel shaken, unsure, off-kilter, but all I felt was relief when the book finally grinded to a slow and uneventful conclusion.

Book 2 is now about to hit the street and I will read it in hopes of something more substantial. I will keep an open mind. Hopefully it will be more impressive. Having read this book, I could take it or leave it. It is certainly not something that I would trudge through again and I don't think I would recommend it to a friend that asked me if I had read a good book lately.

It just didn't follow through and therefore it shouldn't be classified as suspense or mystery. It is a bland and uninvolving read at best. The prose is dry and cliche. Many descriptive words are used so often that I actually began rolling my eyes as I continued to come across them. The style of writing is not bad, but it is certainly not engaging.

All in all, the book is what it is; a book, nothing special, nothing interesting. Sorry, but I just can't say that there was anything impressive at all.

I had high hopes for this book and bought it because it received a decent review in Publisher's Weekly. From now on I will trust my gut instinct. There are so many things wrong here. First off, the plot is too convoluted. It is not hard to follow (to the writer's credit) but there are too many extraneous threads and most are distracting and uninteresting.

Archie Sheridan is a vicodin popping cop who was once held hostage by a female serial killer, Gretchen Lowell. Archie gets pulled out of retirement to hunt a new serial killer, "the after school strangler". He is shadowed by a pink haired reporter, Susan Ward who wants to write her first big story. This is the skeleton of the story. There are sub-plots involving Archie and Gretchen Lowell, Ward and her high school teacher, Ward's involvement in the other big story she plans to write. You get the idea..

Now this is a thriller and I was not expecting to find a literary masterpiece, but there are factors that make the story, events and characters implausible. I wonder where the editors are in all this.

For instance, while Ward is being tortured and strangled, she holds it together remarkably well given that she has no experience of being in such dire straits before. People being strangled are rarely this composed. They beg, plead and bargain. They lose control of bodily functions. I bring this up because the writer has no problems from shying away from gruesome details when they involve inconsequential characters (like a murder right at the start of the book). Archie also handles his torture at the hands of Gretchen Lowell like a superhuman.

Now for some technicalities. Vicodin has hydrocodone, not codeine. Lowell performs a splenectomy on Sheridan (just to prove that she is Evil, it seems). Even if she has the know how to perform such a procedure, it cannot be performed by one person. That is why there are so many assistants in the operating room holding retractors and performing other essential tasks. Lowell is unable to procure antibiotics for Archie, although she is able to find a morphine drip!! I won't go into other medical impossibilities in the book. They are too many.

During his visit to Lowell in the prison (at 3 am!!), Archie kisses her and she gropes him. Now keep in mind this is a serial killer in a Max. Security Penitentiary. Need I say more?

The torture performed by Lowell on Archie during his captivity bears resemblance to the actions of serial killer Robert Bardella. Bardella subjected his victims to many of the same acts (injecting drain cleaner, torture, mutilation and even administration of antibiotics). So really, there is no originality.

My request is only this. If you are going to write a bad book, please at least get the research right.

It took me quite a while to read Chelsea Cain's Heartsick. I was gripped from the beginning. Regardless, I finished three other books in between starting and reading the final word of Heartsick. Every time I picked up Cain's book and read a few more chapters unraveling more of the suspense and mystery, I'd sit it back on the shelf and come back to it days (at times, even a week later) and pick it back up where I left off. Now there are some books that have me so involved I read them within days, but Heartsick I wanted to savor.

I love the story here and the well built mystery that had my heart pumping like I was running for my life. Chelsea has a gift for doing this and making it enjoyable for the reader. She paints a distinct picture of Portland as the setting (evidently with passion for her city.) Her characters rise from well written passages and become distinct in your mind. She creates not only great, lovable characters, but also the most beautifully admired, evil monster in human form ever imagined. Gretchen Lowell is this beast, a suductive female serial killer with no remorse.

Cain doesn't tell this distressing tale in an archetypal manner; in fact, the storyline extremely inventive. It's a story within a story revealing a mystery as it unravels the past. After reading each powerful chapter, I stared into an empty void somewhere in my mind savoring and picking at what I had just consumed with my eyes into the belly of my brain. When a read does this to me, I want to relish it; therefore, I slow down and take my time. Telling a story is a true talent. Many storytellers can do it, but Cain is a master of it.

The tone of Heartsick is very dark. Its characters are captivating. Cain's prose is engrossing. I don't want to say much more about this breathtakingly intense novel. You should just grab a copy and enjoy. To write any more is unnecessary. Upon reading Heartsick, Gretchen Lowell will plunge a blade into your memory, and the scar will remain forever.

Review by Don Moore.

Sweetheart

Muffy: or A Transmigration of Selves

Smashed, Squashed, Splattered, Chewed, Chunked and Spewed

If you like James Patterson's serial killers, you'll love Chelsea Cain's new novel, Heart Sick. In fact, it's a combination of James Patterson (think Alex Cross), Stephen King (think Misery) and Thomas Harris (think Hannibal Lecter).

Archie Sheridan is a Portland, Oregon cop who has been on disability for two years. For ten years, he worked The Beauty Killer Task Force, trying to catch a serial killer who operated between states. Although he became the Beauty Killer's 200th victim, he ended up surviving his ordeal--but with severe physical and psychological scars. Another serial killer is now working in Portland, and kidnapping young teenage girls coming home from school. So the Portland Police Department convinces Sheridan to return from disability to lead the task force (same name, mostly the same people, but chasing a different serial killer). A female reporter from the Oregon Herald, Susan Ward, has been assigned to follow Sheridan and the task force. But Ward has her own emotional baggage that she brings to the table and her past will play an important part in this case. The new killer has been dubbed The After School Strangler, and he's killing girls at a faster and faster pace. Although Sheridan and his crew have some ideas, they just can't seem to put the pieces together. Cain's plot will take you to a very stunning conclusion.

Interspersed between the current happenings are chapters that deal with Archie Sheridan's captivity and torture by The Beauty Killer, Gretchen Lowell. Lowell is beautiful and brilliant but a true psychopath. In fact, she's probably one of the most gruesome serial killers in fiction and I found that her actions were a bit too ghastly and repugnant. But that's more my fault than Cain's as I enjoy mysteries, but usually shy away from slice and dice. But overall, I think Heart Sick is a fine effort with not just plot, but also writing and character development. I see that Cain is writing another book with Gretchen Lowell and I will definitely read it, squeamish or not.

I enjoyed Heartsick enough to give it a 5. It was fast paced, interesting and sick enough to make you cringe. I do have one problem with it. Ms Cain needs to get better people to help with her medical facts. She had the drug combination wrong in Vicodin and the dosing wrong with lidocaine. Otherwise I didn't find much wrong with it. Looking forward to the next one.

I am not into bloody, gory, serial killer novels, with the exception of Thomas Harris's Hannibal Lecter - a real favorite of mine, although I wouldn't want to have lunch with him! However, author Chelsea Cain has come up with a new take on the genre. Her psychopath is a woman, Gretchen Lowell, and an extremely beautiful, brilliant woman at that.

We don't hear about many female serial killers, and that may be partly because women aren't as prone to commit this type of crime as men. Criminologist, Eric Hickey, has assembled the most extensive database on demography of serial murder. He states that, "88% of serial killers are male, 85% are Caucasian, and the average age when they claim their first victim is usually around 28.5. Women account for 15% of violent offenders (men are 6 times more likely to commit violent crimes)." Gretchen Lowell makes Ted Bundy look like a pussycat!

Detective Archie Sheridan is a hero in Portland, Oregon. Sheridan headed the so-called "Beauty Killer Task Force," and solved the case two years before the novel begins. It was proved, in a court of law, that Gretchen Lowell was responsible for the deaths of 26 victims. She claims she has murdered over 200 people, brutally torturing each one first. She has no profile and is an equal opportunity killer - blacks, whites, Hispanics, young, old, men, women - it doesn't matter. However, she does not victimize children. She is called "The Beauty Killer," not because she is beautiful, but because when the medical examiner was asked to categorize the condition of the first of many corpses, he whistled and said, "It's a beauty!" Autopsies are usually boring, according to the ME - mostly drownings and suicides. He is positively "tickled" by Gretchen's original work. It is just a coincidence that she's a "looker."

Archie was the lead detective on the case. He was also Gretchen's last victim. The FBI profiler was sure the killer was a man, an opinion which almost cost Sheridan his life. Ms. Lowell, posing as a psychiatrist, (she was an operating room nurse, in actuality), insinuated herself into the task force by claiming that she gave up her practice to write a book about the killings. She is clever enough to have created a portfolio of credible information which could be backed up when investigated. She told members of the team that she read about the gruesome murders and believed she could be of help. The case had been hell for the detectives, and Lowell "believed" she could talk with them - not counsel - just talk to ease their anxiety. They had been working on the case for ten years and their lack of success was really getting to all of them - all the dead, mutilated bodies, all the grieving, traumatized families waiting for closure, all the dead ends.

One afternoon, two years before, Archie visited Lowell in her office. His supposed colleague gave him coffee with milk, sugar and drugs. When he awakened he was strapped to a gurney in a basement, outfitted like an operating room, with medical-looking machinery, and a drain on the cement floor. His captor cooed in his ear, "Whatever you think this is going to be like, it's going to be worse." Now, two years later, Archie remembers all too clearly what was done to him. His spleen was removed without the benefit of anesthetics, nails were hammered into his rib cage, he was given enough drugs, when he wasn't being physically tortured, to become addicted to an impressive cocktail of medication - uppers, downers, you name it. His tormentor doodled on his chest with a scalpel, including a drawing of her signature, a heart...need I go on??

However, Gretchen did something different with Archie than she had done with other victims. She allowed him to live for 10 days, although he longed for death. She only gave her other victims 3 days before she mercifully killed them. When Archie began to die, she called 911, reported the situation and asked for immediate medical attention. Then she turned herself in to the police.

Archie lives, but after an extensive stay in the hospital, he is placed on long-term medical leave. He is too damaged psychologically to maintain his marriage to his childhood sweetheart, although he loves her and adores their two sons. The couple finally decide to separate. However the worst after effect of his kidnapping and torture is his compulsion to visit Gretchen Lowell in jail every Sunday. His excuse for these weekly visits is that she occasionally divulges another victim's name and place of burial. Her only condition for these revelations is that Archie maintain these weekly visits - thus she continues to exert control over him. Worse still, he is drawn to her sexually. His problem is perhaps a version of the Stockholm Syndrome, "a psychological response sometimes seen in abducted hostages, in which the hostage shows signs of loyalty to the hostage-taker, regardless of the danger or risk in which they have been placed."

I haven't included any spoilers, as this background information is divulged at the beginning of the novel. The plot of "Heartsick" involves a series of murders occurring in Portland, Oregon. Someone is killing and raping teenage girls. Gretchen Lowell does have a role here also, although she is in prison. The police reconvene the "Beauty Killer" task force and Archie is asked to come out of "temporary" retirement to be lead detective on the case. Although he maintains a professional demeanor, he is dysfunctional. To look at him, to work with him, no one would know. He is careful to keep his condition a secret, and, in fact, coming back to work helps keep him sane. He shovels drugs down his throat as if they were candy - just enough medication to relieve his physical and emotional pain, but not enough to really damage his kidneys and liver.

Pink-haired Oregon Herald reporter Susan Ward is assigned to the case and is allowed complete access to the murders, crime scenes, and to Archie - she is to work alongside him. Her goal is not only to write a series of articles, but to write a book also. Why does Archie allow a reporter complete access to the case? Why did Gretchen allow him to live? You will have to read the novel to find out.

This is a "can't put it down" read. The author writes well, the narrative clips along at a good pace, and Ms. Cain's characters are quite compelling. She really brings them to life on the page. The storyline is told in a series of flashbacks, from the present to the time when Archie was a captive. This book gives the term "psychological thriller" a new meaning."

If you like thrillers, you will love this one. Even the gory details are not a real deterrent, given the exciting plot, the depth of the characters and what makes them tick. Highly recommended.
Jana Perskie

Sweetheart
Evil at Heart

I'm torn in my opinion of Chelsea Cain's bestselling thriller: on the one hand, it has interesting characters in intriguingly intricate relationships that spin out in satisfying ways. On the other hand, it owes such a huge debt to Thomas Harris that it feels like a reprise of Hannibal Lecter's Greatest Hits.

Portland, Oregon, police detective Archie Sheridan dedicated his entire career to tracking down Gretchen Lowell, who seems to be the lost daughter of the Green River Killer. The hunt culminated when she captured him, tormented him into submission for over a week, and inexplicably turned herself in.

Two years later, Sheridan is on medical leave. He's estranged from his family, living in an endless mental tape loop of his ten days with Gretchen, and popping enough Vicodin to make Doctor House look abstemious. That is, until another serial killer, preying this time on teenage girls, drags him out of isolation.

The problem is, if I told you only what I've said in the last two paragraphs, and handed you a copy of Red Dragon, you could write this book yourself. Its plot is so dependent on the arc of Thomas Harris that you could map the story in advance without looking ahead. Why should I pay money for a book I've already read?

Nor am I being flippant in my repeated references to Thomas Harris. This is a debt that even the author acknowledges. In chapter 31, Gretchen Lowell refers to another principal character, Susan Ward, as "Clarice." Why steal from a better author and then call your audience's attention to the theft?

In fairness, the characters' relationships are interesting. The twisted symbiosis that lingers between Gretchen and Sheridan holds interest and could pay dividends for Freudian analysis. And Susan Ward's elaborate layers of self-deception afforded some genuine surprises as I read.

Still, this isn't enough. Especially when relationships of such potential are hostage to the tender mercies of a plot lifted paint-by-numbers from more path-breaking author, these virtues pale. I knew who did it and why less than halfway through the book. The only reason the protagonists don't know is because they don't realize they're in a novel.

I can honestly recommend this book for people who like to only read what they already know they're going to like. Since this book cherry-picks the best of the crime thriller genre, it has a large guaranteed audience. Readers who like to wear novels like a favorite old shirt will love this book.

But readers like me aren't part of that audience. I like mysteries, from Inspector Dupin and Sherlock Holmes all the way up to Thomas Harris and Ian Rankin. I like them because they plumb the range of human psyche in new and revolutionary ways. And there's not one new or revolutionary idea at any point between these covers.