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Zusammenfassung
Zusammenfassung
On a humid summer evening in 1963, following a hard day's work in the field, twelve-year-old Paul Graves came home to a nightmare. Snatched by a stranger, strapped to a chair in a sweltering farmhouse, he watched in horror as the man orchestrated the slow, deliberate, night-long brutalization and murder of his older sister.... Now, more than thirty years later, Graves is a marginally successful writer who has lost himself in the anonymity of Manhattan and in the mind-numbing world of his crime fiction. But still held captive by his memories, still haunted by this sister's agonized whispers, he writes chilling tales of cruelty and sadism, of evil triumphing over good. Stories so convincing, they have earned him an invitation to the Riverwood Estate. But not to practice his craft as a writer. Alison Davies, who runs the retreat, is convinced he's the one man capable of bringing closure to the mystery that has haunted her own family, asking him to investigate the fifty-year-old unsolved murder of 16-year-old Faye Harrision, Alison's best friend, who was tortured, strangled, and left to molder in the dark confines of a cave. Graves, more than anyone, knows where to look for the truth, where the instruments of night are brought to bear: In the deep basements, the dark caves, the lonely farmhouses where cowardice bows before corruption, where love cannot withstand the intimidation and pain. Compelled to peer into the chaos of twisted motives and tainted passions, he will confront the ultimate atrocity. Not about who killed Faye Harrison, or who killed his sister. Not about what he has witnessed and could never reveal. But about what he is capable of...and what he has done.
Rezensionen (4)
Publisher's Weekly-Rezension
Cook's previous novel, The Chatham School Affair (1996), won the Edgar Award for Best Novel. His latest is every bit its equal, a beautifully composed tale with enough plot twists to satisfy even fans who have learned to expect surprises from this talented author. Protagonist Paul Graves is a writer of dark, violent crime novels that feature a sadistic killer, Kessler, his cringing assistant, Sykes, and Slovak, the detective who doggedly pursues these master criminals. Graves sets his stories in turn-of-the-century New Yorkfar enough back in time that he can safely distance himself from the grisly crimes he conjures. But he can't distance himself from the horror that he still feels at the murder of his own sister, committed when he was a child. As the novel begins, Graves is asked to investigate a real murder by Allison Davies, who runs a writer's colony at Riverwood, her family estate in the Hudson River Valley. In 1946, a young girl, Faye Harrison, was murdered there, and the crime has never been solved. The victim's aged mother would like some closure before she dies. Graves agrees to look into the crime in order to keep his own personal demons at bay for a while longer. Cook employs many of the typical conventions of the genre, even resorting to the classic device of timetables. His complex plot is anything but dated, however. He excels in devising harrowing situations that eerily echo Graves's personal tragedy, ultimately delivering another indelibly haunting tale that once again demonstrates that he is among the best in the business. (Nov.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus-Rezension
Everybody at Riverwood, Allison Davies's estate in upstate New York, has always assumed that Jake Mosley is the one who murdered teenaged Faye Harrison over 50 years agoeverybody, that is, except Faye's ravaged mother. Now Miss Davies wants to help Mrs. Harrison put the case to rest, not by finally getting at the truth but by coming up with a story that will satisfy Faye's mother even if it's completely false. Carefully explaining what she wants to thriller writer Paul Graves, whom she's chosen as Riverwood's writer-in-residence for the summer, she provides him with access to all the dusty evidence of the police investigation. It's a perfect setup for one of Cook's painstaking descents into the past (The Chatham School Affair, 1996, etc.), with one harrowing difference: the storyteller Miss Davies has picked, haunted by his own sister's murder 30 years before, has been obsessively rewriting her killer into all his novels and can't help seeing him, his henchman, and his detective nemesis at every corner of the Harrison mystery. So Cook ends up sliding back and forth not only between past and present but between fact and fiction as tormented Graves imagines different suspects in unspeakable yet frighteningly plausible roles in Faye's death. To the slow burn that's been Cook's hallmark Graves brings a riveting imagination of disaster. Too bad The Chatham School Affair won an Edgar; this once-in-a-lifetime masterpiece deserves it much more.
Booklist-Rezension
This is an excellent psychological thriller in which the subplot is almost more interesting than the central story. Paul Graves, the author of a popular series of thrillers, is hired to write about an unsolved murder that took place half a century ago in the small town of Riverwood. And the crime--a young girl was tortured and killed--bears a frightening resemblance to an incident from Paul's own past. Paul's investigation of the crime is interesting, but it is not as compelling as his distillation of his own memories. Readers may find themselves wanting to skim through the central story to find out what happens next in Paul's painful battle with his personal demons. But that would be a mistake: Paul's trip into Riverwood's history becomes, as the line between reality and memory blurs, as gripping as his search for answers about his own past. Fans of psychological thrillers--and especially fans of this Edgar Award^-winning author--will flock to this title. --David Pitt
Library Journal-Rezension
Paul Graves, a writer of dark, historical mysteries, is hired to research the 50-year-old murder of an innocent girl and write a story that might explain it. His own tortured past as childhood witness to his sister's murder colors his every thought and action. Using shifting points of view, Paul presents his investigation as a series of leads that turn false, forcing him to revise his view of the case. In a multiple-twist ending, he and his fictional character seem to merge, even as a female acquaintance appears destined to become a character in a future story. Cook has previously used the premise of a troubled narrator looking back at a tragedy that has shaped many lives, most recently in Breakheart Hill (LJ 7/95) and the Edgar Award-winning The Chatham School Affair (LJ 7/96). Here, his Gothic, even melodramatic, prose style emphasizes mood and setting but will often seem repetitious and jarring to contemporary readers. This may appeal to mystery fans wanting something closer to Poe than to Chandler; those wanting more action than angst should pass. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 8/98.]ÄRoland C. Person, Southern Illinois Univ. Lib., Carbondale (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.