The Serpent's Kiss : A Novel (Hardcover)

~ (Author) "Thirty hours later, at seven forty-five in the morning, clouds the hue of Tahitian pearls rolled in off the Pacific, pushed by a chill, relentless..." (more)
Key Phrases: San Diego, Carlton Lee, Brother Neal (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Seamus Moynihan is a San Diego homicide detective with an analytical mind, a disastrous family life and the annoying habit of deliberately antagonizing his bosses. In this, Sullivan's seventh novel, Moynihan faces a Bible-reading serial killer who uses poisonous snakes and strychnine-laced apples to gruesomely murder his victims. The serial killings are some of the strangest Moynihan has ever seen, and experts eagerly fall all over themselves to help him out even though most end up being suspects. With his former Israeli cop partner, Rikko Varjjan, Moynihan chases wild leads, but the pair make too many mistakes and the killer taunts them. Wrongful arrests, embarrassing scandals and a foul-up shoot-out put Varjjan in the hospital and Moynihan on suspension. Working on his own, Moynihan follows tips to a peculiar television celebrity, a famous zoo and an obscure fundamentalist Christian snake-handling church in Alabama. Smart as Moynihan is, he pulls some dumb stunts, and this well-crafted police procedural could have finished up much sooner if he had just followed his own rules and paid attention to a crucial detail. With Moynihan, Sullivan has created a solid if familiar character-a brilliant cop who's divorced, lonely, lives on a boat, drives a vintage 1967 Corvette and chases women. The investigative action is exciting and credible, and readers won't be disappointed, even if the killer's motive for murder is a bit too weird to be believed.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

Nelson DeMille The Serpent's Kiss pulls you, guts-first, right through to the back cover. -- Review

Nelson DeMille The Serpent's Kiss pulls you, guts-first, right through to the back cover. --atria

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 384 pages
• Publisher: Atria; Stated 1st Printing 10987654321 edition (July 8, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743439821
• ISBN-13: 978-0743439824
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.4 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #624,974 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Disturbing Old-Time Religion, March 15, 2005

By	A Discerning Reader (Cedar Rapids, Iowa) - See all my reviews

What a fascinating read! The first half of the book seemed like the typical American police procedural--this time set in San Diego. The murders are ghastly, and the subset of individuals who seems to be the chosen victims adds another disturbing twist to the story. Our hero, Seamus Moynihan, is a narcissist and is somewhat hard to like. He's a jock, good with the ladies, drives a muscle car, and spews testosterone in every interaction with another living thing, etc.

Once Moynihan travels to rural Alabama--that's when things get interesting. The deeper he seems to go into those dense, humid forests looking for the house where a tragedy took place 27 years ago (and may be the key to solving the string of San Diego murders), the eerier the story.

The ending is somewhat predictable, but the psychology of the criminal's behavior is plausible enough to warrant our suspension of reality to enjoy a spooky, disturbing police procedural.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Sure to Rattle You and Keep You on the Edge of Your Seat, August 12, 2003

By	James A. White (Cookeville, TN United States) - See all my reviews

This is an excellent new thriller by a wonderful author. The plot concerns a series of bizarre killings in San Diego. Nude men are found strapped to their beds, with evidence of recent sexual actions, with three snake bites on them and strychinnine in their veins. Detective Moynihan ventures into the seamier side of San Diego life, and eventually has to make a trip to the backwoods of Alabama to visit a small-town and a serpent-handling church with its own deep, dark secret.

You'll grimace at the descriptions of the victims (think ebola...) and the fast-paced, but evenly distributed action, will keeps you on the edge of your seat. There's even something for the romantic, with tales of Moynihan's sexual conquests during the book, sometimes getting rather graphic (occasionally unnecessarily so).

The Amazon reviews give the tagline that the book jacket does, extolling it for explaining the mystery of the second woman. I went into the novel thinking it would be rather like the phenomenol "The Da Vinci Code," going in-depth on the Bible's greatest mystery. The second-woman thing isn't really explored in-depth, though. It's not really a time-consuming part of the mystery, and is really only used as a minor clue.

The only main problem in this book is the main character. He's an Irish cop whose father was a cop killed in the line of duty. He's haunted by the memories, is divorced, and his relationship with his son isn't what it could be. Basically, he's a rather stereotypical character. Sullivan, however, does flesh him out some, making him an ex-Major League baseball player, and adding some very good and well-drawn side characters to balance. He also writes with enough style and panache to keep you caring about his slightly hackneyed protagonist, all the way to the gripping, exciting conclusion with even something of an unsolved mystery at the end.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Uneven thriller with promise, June 9, 2005

By	Craig Clarke (New England) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

Mark T. Sullivan has created a winner of a character in San Diego homicide detective Seamus Moynihan. He's complex and conflicted as all get-out--his family life is in a shambles, his career is on the line, and he's got a past that would haunt anybody. His father, also a police officer, was killed in the line of duty and Seamus broke a promise to his mother by also becoming a cop after a traumatic injury cut short his life with the Boston Red Sox. His ex-wife is moving on with another man, he is alienating his son, and he has difficulty with all his relationships. He doesn't always follow his own advice--the book would be shorter if he did--but then what real person does? In addition, he is an effective narrator and he lives on a boat like Travis McGee. All in all, Moynihan is one engaging character--although not always entirely believable (I mean, I like my heroes as flawed as the next guy, but Moynihan has enough for two characters). Sullivan plans to write a series of books starring "Shay" and, at the very least, this is a man we will not tire of visiting anytime soon.

The Serpent's Kiss, however, is another story. It's a riveting read--plenty of suspense, action, twist, and turns, as well as lots of different characters to keep us guessing to the identity of the murderer. Unfortunately, Sullivan attempts to lead his readers down a path that makes sense, then jettisons it at the last moment for a more sensationalist ending. The last quarter of the book--while gripping, informative, and quickly-paced--dampens the effect of the rest of the novel. Nevertheless, I was engrossed to the very end.

A string of sexually-related serial murders is the focus of the investigation. Peppered with the bites of various illegally obtained snakes (or "hot herps"), the victims are found with poisoned apples in their mouths (where's the Snow White angle?) and obscure literary/biblical references left at the scene. The search leads Moynihan and his partner/brother-in-law to the local reptile adventurer, Nick Foster, star of Cold Blooded (an obvious Crocodile Hunter parody) and his reluctant partner, zoologist Jan Hood. Also involved in the investigation is professor Susan Dahoney, author of a controversial book about the Lilith myth called The Second Woman. Both these women will provide keys to the eventual solution, but not before Moynihan gets involved with them romantically. And before long, Shay will get too close for comfort with several poisonous snakes, but at least his knowledge of them--courtesy of the investigation--will help him survive.

From the beginning, Sullivan leads his characters down the wrong path intentionally, all the while winking at his readers and letting us know he's in on it. This made it all too easy to guess the perpetrator's identity. Sullivan's prose is mostly invisible--perfect for this type of thriller--but there end up being too many subplots. He leads us running from location to location, trying too hard to make sure we're having a good time. After a while--just like on a rollercoaster--I'd had enough and was ready for it to be over.

In the end, I enjoyed The Serpent's Kiss very much, and will certainly be on the lookout for future Sullivan/Moynihan novels. I think that readers who are looking for a suspenseful ride will be very pleased with the novel and those who prefer their characters to be attractively flawed will enjoy keeping company with Moynihan. I recommend it with only these few reservations.