Customer Reviews

The Murderers' Club

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1 star:		(4)

 

 

"Feel free to indulge your darkest fantasies.", December 8, 2007
By E. Bukowsky "booklover10" (NY United States)

In P. D. Martin's "The Murderers' Club," four psychopaths communicate with one another via an online chat room. Led by their president, whose screen name is "American Psycho," the club members have one thing in common: an affinity for torture and murder. They choose their prey carefully, preferring loners who are less likely to be missed. Once the predators have their victims under control, they brutalize and strangle them.

The narrator is thirty-five year old Special Agent Sophie Anderson, who hails from Australia and relocated to Virginia to work as a profiler for the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit. Six months ago, she nearly lost her life at the hands of the "DC Slasher." Since then, she has been seeing a bureau psychologist and putting in quite a few hours at the gym and firing range. She is also practicing kung fu and other body conditioning exercises to get in top shape so that if the need arises, she will be able to defend herself. Sophie may be physically strong, but she suffers from chronic anxiety and insomnia. She hopes that her forthcoming trip to Arizona as the guest of detective Darren Carter will provide the rest and recreation that she needs. Unfortunately, her stay in Tucson proves to be anything but relaxing.

Although Sophie and Darren have never been romantically involved, they are undeniably attracted to one another. Darren is the only one who knows that Sophie has disturbing dreams that enable her to witness crimes in her mind's eye. She has even experienced "the feelings of pleasure in the mind of a killer." Although her gift has proven to be a valuable crime-fighting tool, Sophie's visions disturb her greatly, and for her own peace of mind she tries to repress them. However, when Darren and Sophie, along with other members of the Tucson police department, struggle to solve a homicide case with multiple victims, Darren urges Sophie to use her psychic abilities to help catch the elusive perpetrators.

"The Murderers' Club" is a haunting novel about the evil people who walk among us, hiding behind a façade of normalcy. The club's leader is a diabolical person who has devised a brilliant scheme that he hopes will enable him and his fellow members to torture and slaughter eight individuals with impunity. The author includes transcripts of the chat room sessions in which the killers revel in what they have done and are about to do; these virtual conversations are chilling and terrifying. As the bodies begin to pile up, the police are frustrated by the lack of useful forensic evidence. Sophie contributes her expertise as a profiler and a psychic to help find the members of the murderers' club before they strike again.

This is a disquieting thriller with detailed information about police procedure, as well as insight into the perverted minds of male and female serial killers. We also learn about the FBI's Cyber Crimes Division, whose skilled agents are able to perform amazing feats of computer forensic analysis. "The Murderers' Club" is not a book for the faint-of-heart, since it deals with the most depraved aspects of the human psyche. Although the writing is workmanlike, it is far from elegant, and the author's decision to purposely leave some loose ends dangling may irritate some readers. Still, fans of gritty, graphic, and suspenseful serial-killer stories with a strong psychological component will not want to miss this one.

Although six months have past since Australian expatriate FBI profiler Sophie Anderson nearly died while working on the D.C. slasher serial killer case (see BODY COUNT), she still remains shook up. Part of it is because she has psychic skills that come in the form of disconcerting often ugly nightmares. Although at the time considered the top profiler, Sophie has not been able to do any field work.

Sophie looks forward to her vacation in Tucson where she will spend time with Detective Darren Carter. However, when he goes to a murder scene, Sophie comes with him. Upon seeing the corpse, Sophie has a vision. Soon more bodies and visions follow. However, what Sophie sees is not lucid as each killing seems slightly different as if more than one culprit is at work. The FBI assigns Sophie to the investigation, but as she suffers nightmares she begins to uncover the truth that will shake her more than the Slasher's case did.

THE MURDERERS' CLUB is a chilling police procedural that has the beleaguered and bewildered heroine wondering how many culprits are out there. The villains will chill the readers' bones as few can. As with BODY COUNT, P.D. Martin provides an excellent thriller that has her audience on the edge of their seats with what happens next.

Harriet Klausner

An unique twist on a murder mystery. Martin shows us through the story that there is no honor among thieves. With the help of the internet, a vicious club of serial killers is born. FBI agent, Sophie finds herself in the middle of a series of killings while on vacation in Arizona.
It took more than the old fashion detective work to figure out this murder mystery puzzle. Sophie tunes into her ability to see psychic visions and uses them to her the law get a step ahead of the "murder's club". A fascinating read.

This is the second in the series featuring Sophie Anderson, and FBI profiler originally from Australia. The first book was an introduction and I found it a bit unbelievable, so it was with trepidation that I tackled the second book.

Sophie supposedly has a psychic gift to see visions of the crimes and perpetrators. However, she keeps trying to suppress this gift. If this is the premise of the character, then the author should use this tool instead of creating all this anxiety.

For a character that is supposedly by the book, Sophie falls a bit short near the end of the book. Why can't she see that she is breaking with protocol and allowing unsanctioned activities? She should be written up. In fact, putting an untrained desk jockey out in the field is counterproductive to FBI procedure.

I was quite disappointed in this book, as I was with the first. I do believe I will remove this author from my preferred list. Life is too short to tolerate mistakes, inadequacies and incompetence.

The story is unoriginal. Characters are laughable facsimiles of what you see on TV, with words like vic and perp tossed around like confetti. The background/setting/research in this book is textbook preachy when it's not outright wrong. The main character is psychic, yet spends 9/10 of the book chasing dead leads. Everything is overly predictable except to the one person in the book who's supposed to know what's going on. The psychic part just doesn't fit, feels like it's shoehorned in so it lures in the urban fantasy fans (who probably won't like it because it's no woo-woo enough) and alienates the police procedural fans (because it's too woo-woo).

Cliched, overly long, and suffering from a cast of unremarkable characters, don't bother with this book. It's not worth the the time it takes to read it.

Bought this for 8 and it's not worth that. Despite the gushing reviews this book is neither chilling nor likely to hold you attention.

It's basically another psychological profiling is wonderful piece, but this one adds psychic visions on the part of the protagonist to the already dubious mix of statistics and psychology (in the real world profiling is a very limited tool).

It's *really* obvious that the author hasn't done much research, other than some FBI PR handouts, chunks of which seem to be pasted into the book as filler.
The passages dealing with computer forensics are particularly painful; it's obvious that Martin's research was limited to looking up a few software names and no further. The whole section is *painful* to read if you have even basic knowledge of computing; if events had happened as portrayed the whole case would have fallen apart, most of the evidence would be compromised and inadmissible using the techniques described (not that they'd have given any useful results anyway).

Besides the technical problems the books fails on two other fronts. The characters, including the protagonist, are two dimensional and lack any realism. The plot is predictable in the extreme, though it's not as bad as Martin's next book which I read in a fit of Masochism, and relies on silly coincidences to move the plot along.

As a book this doesn't work, try Sandford's latest.

I picked up the book because I live in Tucson and thought it might be a good read. However, on page 28, when the heroine gets off the airplane and looks "out the car window at the trees and notice the branches weighed down by plump leaves," I begin to wonder. Tucson is in the middle of the Sonoran Desert. Where does she find these plump leaves? The only trees near the airport are mesquite or palo verde trees, and their leaves are the opposite of "plump." The only things plump around here (besides some people) are the saguaro cacti after a rain.

A murder takes place near the University of Arizona football stadium. The stadium is on Sixth Street. She's driving down "Fourth." Fourth "Street" is an east-west residential side street that dead-ends in a number of places - none of which is close to the stadium, especially coming from the airport. Fourth "Avenue" is a north-south street, but quite a distance from the stadium. Neither is a convenient walk to anywhere the stadium is visible. There are more direct routes from the airport to the stadium. There is no reason for her to be on either street.

Later, on page 42 she writes, leaving the morgue, "We head west down East District Street and take a left onto the I-10 heading for Phoenix." From the morgue, East District Street dead-ends before I-10. If it did meet the freeway and she turns left, she'd be heading for Nogales and the Mexican Border, not Phoenix. Left would take her south; Phoenix is North. East District Street doesn't start again until she is west of the freeway so she'd have to be going east, not west, to get on the freeway. But my real objection is no one would use the freeway because it's easier to take surface streets to the police station.

This was as much as I could take from an author who was trying to be authentic. That extra step would have been so simple. If she can't get basic geography straight, especially in today's Google Earth world (the book was published 2007), how can I expect a coherent storyline? I closed the book.

Read P.D. Martin's first book, Body Count. I was so pleased, I quickly ordered the Murderer's club and was even more pleased. Her story lines and characters are amazing. Both books kept me on the edge of my seat. Waiting patiently for the next book by this wonderful Australian author.

This book was absolutely amazing! So many twists and turns to keep you on the edge the entire time! This is only PD Martin's second book, but she is on a roll let me tell you! If you are considering buying any murder mystery, buy this one.

THE MURDERERS' CLUB is a clever premise. It's a book in two parts: the killers and the police. Initially the readers have the advantage, because we know something of the set up of the crimes. We learn about the killers and their individual personalities and quirks via their chat logs. It makes chilling reading.

As the investigation progresses, the gap between the readers' knowledge and what the police know gradually narrows until the two converge and the case is solved. And that's where much of the suspense in the book lies. While the reader is privy to the serial killer chat room conversations, we don't know their identities. But it is possible to figure it out by putting together the two components of the story.