Customer Reviews

Someone You Know: A Novel

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

 

 

I read this book in less than four hours. Not necessarily because it was a well-written nor because it was intriguing. It was very, very short.

The premise is very good; a closeted, married man's tricks are being murdered shortly after he leaves them. And then souvenirs (parts of their bodies) are sent to his house. Very good premise.

How the story misses the mark is the mystery. For a mystery to be effective the audience has to feel involved, but there are no clues to draw the reader in. Reader's can't guess if there are no clues. There are too may red herrings tossed in haphazardly, almost lazily, by the author--most not even making sense, and most without an adequate explanation.

The short length is welcomed, though, because I would have been really upset had I spent days reading this story and then read the ending, which seemed tacked on by the author and was a complete let down. The reader doesn't get an explanation of why the killer is murdering the victims or following the closet case around from state to state, airport to airport.

Lackluster...plain and simple. Would have rated a two, but uniqueness gives it an extra point.

I'm not going to beat around the bush. SOMEONE YOU KNOW is one sick puppy of a book, so I HATE admitting I was drawn into it like a moth to a flame. I have no one to blame but myself for the third degree burns this depraved murder mystery inflicted on my psyche. I knew early on what I was getting myself into, but Zebrun's expert use of minimalist intrigue made it impossible for me to stop reading. Once I realized I was on a road trip to hell, the vehicle was going to fast to jump off.

Daniel Caruzo is a newspaper columnist in Providence R.I., with a wife and teenage daughter. He has a little secret. He's gay and has been having anonymous sex with pick-ups for quite some time. As the novel begins Dan is in Seattle attending a newspaper conference. It's his last night in town and he finds himself cruising, Slaughter, a local leather bar. He picks up, Stephen Hart, a hunky firefighter and goes home with him. When he wakes in the morning the fireman is gone but he finds a note thanking him for the beautiful time. Disappointed to find himself alone, Dan decides to take a shower and discovers a bottle of AZT in the bathroom medicine cabinet. He realizes Stephen may have been lying when he told him he was HIV negative.

Dan, feeling guilty and upset, returns to his hotel to collect his belongings and head to the airport. On a lay-over at O'Hare in Chicago, Dan, gets slightly drunk in the bar and follows a fellow patron into the restroom. Upon leaving the stall, he kicks something left on the bathroom floor, discovering it to be the bottle of AZT rubber banded with a Bart Simpson chess piece, from a set he noticed the night before at Stephen's. Something is very wrong.

Once home, Dan finds out that Stephen's been murdered, and if that isn't unsettling enough, significant proof of the murder arrives on his porch the next day, packed and shipped in ice. Dan tries to remain calm and figure it all out, but as he slips deeper into a panic-stricken state, he has more clandestine sex, resulting in more deaths. It isn't long before Dan realizes he is the focus of an obsessed serial killer, who seems to know his every move.

Zebrun tells his story in tight, fascinating detail. His characters are realistically portrayed and his situations, chillingly believable. Unfortunately, as the novel progresses, it becomes clear Dan is a sex-addicted coward, frightened yet erotically charged by the nightmare he finds himself living. He's endangered all those around him and still he cruises every man he sees. As the situation gets worse his compulsions become more acute. He keeps promising himself that he'll come clean with his family and trusted friends, but jumps at every opportunity to avoid it. I'm afraid there is nothing noble about him and it damages the stories credibility. It's difficult for the reader not to think he deserves the mess he's in.

Also, I was bothered by the lack of difficulty in figuring out who the serial killer was. The title alone offers way too obvious a clue. I kept hoping for a last minute surprise that would prove my suspicions wrong, but it never came, and what could have been an extremely involving thriller slid into little more than a slasher-story, well written but predictable. I appreciate Zebrun's writing abilities in, SOMEONE YOU KNOW, but I can't say I enjoyed the book much. Of course, I'm sure there's an audience out there for gruesome, sadistic material, and this masterfully conveyed, dark offering should make that audience ecstatic.

For something written by a newspaper reporter, supposedly trained in answering the who, what, when, where and whys, this story sure has a lot of loose ends. The ending itself is totally unsatisfying and had me looking to see if some pages had fallen out. (They hadn't.) And that's too bad because it starts out as a gripping and graphic thriller about a tortured man conflicted between his seemingly perfect family and his true sexual identity. But then the problems with the writing start. Daniel turns on the TV and, presto!, the exact report he is looking for just happens to be on the air. (Cliche.) Characters in Seattle make business calls in the middle of the night. (Maybe.) The bad guy is identifiable less than halfway through the story (the sappy title doesn't help) but his motive and many other details are never revealed. The author credits a long list of people with helping him. They would have served him better by advising him to answer a few basic questions.

If you thought the dead rabbit in the movie "Fatal Attraction" was creepy, hold on tight. How about a killer who sends a body part from each victim in the mail? That's what happens to Dan Caruso, a newspaper columnist who is married and closeted. He tricks with ferocity, his unrequited lust burning within him and driving him to risky choices. He finds that men he has slept with are getting murdered--and the body parts he receives are the gruesome bonus.

He goes to a police detective for help--of course, it's a guy he has tricked with. The investigation delves into a seamy world of dark bathhouses and S&M bars. Why the killer is tormenting Dan is central to this suspenseful story. The writing is lean and keeps pulling you through page after page. You'll find yourself drawn to this creepy, unusual story and maybe even breathless by the end.

A married man attending a conference in Seattle goes to bed with a fireman. Sounds like the beginning of a bad joke, right? Well, if you're expecting Gary Zebrun's thriller, "Someone You Know" to be anything resembling a well-ordered, believable, or intelligent thriller, then the joke's on you. The previously mentioned married man, the book's "hero", is such a self-destructive, self-loathing idiot that it's hard to take him seriously as an award-winning reporter. After his tryst with the fireman in Seattle, the reporter jets back to the family in Providence, only to find his life turned upside down when it appears that a psycho killer may be trailing him. Suddenly, the reporter's recent sex partners are turning up dead, and he's receiving grisly mementos in the mail, along with dark warnings of doom via the internet. In order to save himself and his family, he must track down the killer. So what's a closeted, gay married man to do? Well, this one spends a whole lot of quality time with a whiskey bottle, makes out with as many unsuspecting men as possible (thus ensuring their demises) while continually lying to his wife and daughter (thus ensuring that they will be unsuspectingly endangered), and hangs out in dark, creepy places inhabited by shadowy figures who may or may not be the killer. Add to this the fact that he won't cooperate with the people who can actually help him, and nurses a forbidden crush on a straight cop, with whom he once enjoyed a furtive quickie. He may as well be wearing a "Kill Me Next" sign on his back. It's hard to believe that real people would behave the way this guy does in such a dire situation. Yet, he's so dumb that you can't help wanting somebody to save him, maybe from himself as much as from the killer. Somehow--despite the totally ludicrous behavior of the main character, along with gaping holes in the plot, and an ending that seems to have been written while the author was on mushrooms--somehow, I still managed to get some enjoyment from the book, if for no other reason, than to see what sort of insane mess the hero was going to progress to next. There are a couple of gruesome passages but they're not drawn out unnecessarily and don't encompass entire scenes. The sex scenes aren't particularly noteworthy, although there are plenty of them; for someone with a killer hot on his heels, the hero has no problem with his libido. "Someone You Know" is a fast read that, if you don't think about it too much, is passable entertainment.

The premise of SOMEONE YOU KNOW is intriguing: a married guy who has anonymous sex with men on business trips and at the local cruising parks suddenly finds himself in a web of murder that threatens to reveal his true sexual identity. The book itself was a very quick read and does, indeed, grab the reader and makes them hold on for the ride. You want to know who the killer is, and you want to know if your different suspicions are true.

However, without giving anything away, I would also have liked to have seen less of the seedy side of gay sex and more about the man's struggle with coming out. It seems that the reader would have felt more sympathy toward the main character, his affected family, and the killer's victims if all of his sexual encounters with men weren't met in dirty, dark locations. (Hello, Senator Craig!) Additionally, as other reviewers have noted, a bit more mystery about the killer's identity would have been welcome.

Overall, I would give this debut novel 5 stars, as the writing was excellent and did not bore the reader; it flowed naturally. However, the story is probably only 3 stars as it stands. I feel that it could have been executed (enter bad pun here!) better. Hence, my average rating of 4 stars. I look forward to Zebrun's next novel, Only the Lonely.

It is evident, after only a few pages of his impressive debut novel Someone You Know, that Gary Zebrun has produced a page-turner worthy of late night reading chills. In fact, this book which has since been nominated for a Lambda Literary Award in the Mystery category, has enough going for it to make Zebrun an author to watch. Someone is sleek and briskly told, and will engage the reader immediately, defying to be put down.

The story centers around talented journalist Daniel Caruso, a closeted married father of one who has plenty of anonymous sex at home and abroad. It is his unfortunateness that he attracts the attention of a serial killer, who begins murdering his conquests. Blackmail and mailings of body parts ensues, erupting into a cat and mouse game as Caruso attempts to outwit his tormentor, believing it is someone he knows.

However, Someone is more than just a well-painted thriller. It is an examination of the self we hide from ourselves as well as other people; lies told to keep afloat, and lies told to others so as not to alert them to our demons.

Caruso is a hard drinking, self-destructive man who is wracked with guilt and shame, by himself and the killer. And Zebrun is a skilled enough writer to allow his protagonist to remain flawed from beginning to end, particularly when his secrecy becomes too big for him to contain from his family. There is no magic redemption here, and no fully predictable ending, even though one wishes desperately that Caruso would come to his senses before it is too late.

Fuzzy plot points aside and forgiven, Someone is mostly clean and smartly written, and gets right to the point. One applauds Zebrun for pushing Caruso right to the edge, particularly in a finger-in-the-socket scene in which Caruso is faced with a razor sharp and undeniable brand of humiliation in front of his wife and daughter.

Someone You Know is sure to find itself a following this summer, and some may be compelled to read it twice. If Alfred Hitchcock were alive today, given his bold direction and fondness for telling twisted stories involving the effects of sexuality on the common man, he'd readily add this to his cannon, which includes similar-minded works as Psycho, Rope, Vertigo, Rear Window, and Frenzy.

I found this book both chilling and quite entertaining. I think you will too.

Its beyond inconceivable that anyone would act the way the leading characters do. Makes a mockery of the slightest connection to even the slightest connection to reality. Its one thing to suspend disbelief. Its another to have fairy tale/comic book characters pass as really acting in any sort of human context.

I must agree with some of the other reviews.. it's rather graphic.. but I was too drawn to it, being a gay man. It was very erotic. The story seemed unrealistic.. but I must say the ending SUCKED! I was expecting something wonderful! But it's not..