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摘要
摘要
Paul Graves is a middle-aged writer of gothic suspense novels that feature a sadistic genius pitted against a Victorian detective. Asked to investigate a real 50-year-old murder, Graves can't resist. Faye Harrison had been tortured, strangled, and her body hidden in a cave. The details of the murder all too closely resemble those surrounding the death of Graves's sister when he was twelve. Thomas Cook has woven a riveting novel of haunting power, of innocence lost and trust betrayed, and of an author who must confront the origins of his own disturbing trade.
评论 (4)
出版社周刊评论
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
《书目》(Booklist)书评
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
Kirkus评论
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.
《图书馆杂志》(Library Journal )书评
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.