Top Ten [Hardcover]

Ryne Douglas Pearson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 11, 1999

An artful criminal is hell-bent on killing his way to the top of the FBI's Top Ten Most Wanted List, in this electrifying tale of madness and murder. Soon to be a major motion picture.

Ryne Douglas Pearson has been praised for his "aerodynamic prose and superb pacing" (Publishers Weekly) and as a craftsman of "excellent entertainment" (Booklist). In Top Ten, he turns his talent to a story as frightening as any tale from James Patterson or Thomas Harris.

Michelangelo is an unusual killer: a madman tortured by a painful past and a man who believes he is an artist. After he strikes at a small-town post office in upstate New York, the FBI, frantic to discover something about his motives, assigns Ariel Grace to the task force. As Ariel watches the video of Michelangelo at work, she believes she has found the logic behind his rage: his all-consuming shame at his number-ten position on the FBI's Top Ten Most Wanted List.

Infuriated, Michelangelo begins killing off the criminals who rank above him, completely unaware that number five, Mills DeVane, is in fact a deep undercover FBI agent on another case. A furious game of cat-and-mouse ensues, pitting Michelangelo, DeVane, and Ariel against one another. And Ariel knows DeVane is a dead man if she doesn't reach him before Michelangelo does.

Editorial Reviews

From Kirkus Reviews

Between Red Dragon and The Silence of the Lambs, Thomas Harris has a lot to answer for, having invented the serial-killer monster who specializes in ultragory, agonizing deaths. This latest from Pearson (Simple Simon, 1996, filmed as Bruce Willis's Mercury Rising) is a pale copy of Harris's method and characters, without a syllable of his stylishness. The Jodie Foster character here is FBI agent Ariel Grace, 29, whos working on Task Force Five when she's reassigned to Task Force Ten. Ariel considers this a terrible drop in prestige, but it happens because she got too close to unmasking the FBI's fifth most wanted killer on its list of the Top Ten. Number five is Mills DeVane (Teddy Donovan), an agent working undercover as a serial killer to help nab narcotics traffickers. Number ten on the list is Michaelangelo, a madman who prides himself as an artist at murder and sends descriptions of his work to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Who is this well-spoken villain? About halfway through, we discover that Michaelangelo is Mickey Strange, the victim of a drunken doctor who missed with his snippers when he went for the umbilical cord. Mickey's million-dollar award for his departed penis has grown to $11 million and will thus support his artistic endeavors, although he can't get over the childhood pain of being called Mickey Dickless and now likes to cut off, cut up, and creatively re-member his victims: one female postal worker's bloody parts, for instance, become a Calder mobile in her post office. And thats maybe the one death we can tell you about without getting laughably grotesque. You see, Mickey has set out to murder everyone on the Top Ten list, so he can be top serial killer, as opposed to number ten. Not without storytelling energy. Sold to Warner Brothers, with a nod from the book clubs, and with foreign rights going like hotcakes. -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Review

"An interesting twist on the serial-killer thriller." --Publisher's Weekly

"Interesting premise...interesting killer." --St. Petersburg Times

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 311 pages
• Publisher: Putnam Adult; 1st edition (October 11, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0399144994
• ISBN-13: 978-0399144998
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.2 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (25 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,575,482 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A chilling thriller, September 10, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Top Ten (Hardcover)

Because of FBI Special Agent Ariel Grace's excellent reputation, her supervisor Jack Trale, Chief of the Atlanta field office, allows her to deliver Mills DeVane to him. So confident in her abilities, Jack sets up a press conference. A chagrined Ariel fails to convey Mills and an irate Jack transfers Ariel to Task Force 10. Her new boss welcomes her because he needs agents to catch # 10 on the FBI's Most Wanted List, serial killer Michelangelo who uses his victims as a canvas.

The superego Michelangelo is livid with the FBI for leaving him at the bottom of their list. He feels he has earned the # 1 slot and takes out his frustrations by hacking a postal clerk to pieces. Ariel finds a clue that leads her to believe that # 10 plans to kill the other nine individuals sharing the list with him. She participates in a special task force meeting that includes her former supervisor. Jack informs her that Mills is an undercover agent with a vital mission that requires his full protection at any cost. However, Michelangelo, Ariel, and Mills appear ready to defy physics and occupy the same space when the inevitable collision occurs.

Readers will recognize that TOP TEN is one of the top ten thrillers of the year. Ryne Douglas Pearson, author of SIMPLE SIMON, has written a one-sitting reading experience that keeps the audience compulsively hooked to learn what happens next. The author provides a brilliant depiction of what it feels like for a law enforcement official to go so deep undercover that he becomes a perpetrator committing the same crimes as the people he infiltrated. FBI buffs and thriller fans will gain much pleasure from this exciting tale.

Harriet Klausner

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Exciting and Exhilarating From Start to Finish, May 22, 2005

By 

Alive in Christ - See all my reviews

This review is from: Top Ten (Paperback)

Yes, it is predictable in some parts only because you know the goal of our serial killer. Other than that the book has awesome imagery that makes some horror novels look like children's books.

Ryne Douglas Pearson knows his audience and gives them a roller coaster into the mind of a mad man!!!

Not for the overly sophisicated person who can't allow his imagination to run rampant.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Very nice !, February 7, 2001

By 

David D (Belgium) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Top Ten (Hardcover)

An entertaining and exciting thriller that reads like a Hollywood action movie. A bit over the top sometimes, but hey : it's fiction !

5 stars, not a masterpiece but very good in its genre.