Ladies and Gentlemen: Gretchen Lechter... errr, Gretchen Lowell
Rumor has it that women who become serial killers are exceedingly rare. Let's face it, serial killers; tens of thousands of novels, movies, and TV dramas notwithstanding, are pretty darned rare themselves - so it probably stands to reason that female serial killers are "rare." That doesn't mean they're all that common in fiction; however, with a little thought I could probably tick off a few novels I've read that feature one (hmmm... Thomas Perry's Nightlife, perhaps?). But Gretchen Lowell is something pretty special...
Gretchen Lowell is Charlize Theron without her Aileen Wournos make-down job; a drop-dead (emphasis on the "dead" part) gorgeous blonde. Three years ago Lowell, posing as a shrink, insinuated herself into the manhunt for the "Beauty Killer" and, before anyone figured out who she was, snatched the lead investigator and tortured him for ten days. At death's door when she called 911 to come save him (and turn herself in), Archie Sheridan has spent the time since on medical leave from his the Portland (OR) PD.
But no more...
The "After School Strangler" just took his third victim, and Sheridan's been called out of semi-retirement to head up the investigation. At the same time, local features writer Susan Ward has been requested (by the mayor's office) to profile Sheridan and the investigation: full access, a reporter's dream. Though medically recovered from his ordeal, Sheridan's carefully concealing a psychological mess: lingering Stockholm syndrome, addiction to painkillers, and regular visits to Lowell's prison cell so that she can reveal the location of more bodies have all done a number on his psyche. Ward's no dummy, even if she does have pink hair and an all-black wardrobe: she picks right up on that pills thing; for instance. Maybe she'll get around to outing the Vicodin addict in the last installment of her series, if it goes that far. And maybe not.
But all the time she writes, dark-haired schoolgirls in Portland are in mortal danger... Tick. Tock.
HeartSick is the first novel from Portland author Chelsea Cain, who (according to the author bio) grew up near Seattle with the Green River Killer as her own personal boogeyman. It's quite clear from the plot that Cain is a fan of Thomas Harris, for - absent the cannibalistic tendencies - Gretchen Lowell is little more than a distaff version of Hannibal Lecter; the Hannibal of The Red Dragon and Silence of the Lambs, that is. She's beautiful, cultured, manipulative, and absolutely lacks a conscience - and she likes to get other people to do her killing for her. Give her a leather mask and Clarice Starling would be right at home. The After School Strangler, on the other hand, is remarkably flat considering his putative leading role...
HeartSick is at its core three competing subplots: one comprises a series of flashbacks to Sheridan's ordeal at the hands of Lowell; the second consists of the hunt for a serial killer in the here and now; the third is Clarice's, errr, Ward's process of writing her profile of Sheridan. That first subplot plays out in bursts of flashback; each rich in gory detail, right down to the scent of Lowell's shampoo. One watches, horrified, as she physically and mentally brutalizes Sheridan; and watches equally horrified as his crumbling psyche focuses all his emotions on the only stimulus left. It is a case study of a sick, sick relationship.
Though nominally the main character and the one from whose point of view the book is written, Susan Ward remains a nonentity. She's remarkably shallow; often more concerned with whether her clothes fit the occasion (they rarely do) than with the events she's called upon to record. She's broken in her own way, emotionally scarred by the death of her father when she was a teen; raised by a free-spirit mother who insists that her daughter call her "Bliss" (hmmmm, Cain's bio mentions having grown up in a commune... art imitating life?). The pink hair is a dead giveaway: conformist nonconformity.
The third subplot, the hunt for the After School Strangler complete with FBI profiler and a team of local cops, is remarkably low-key. There's little passion and little urgency even as the killer takes a fourth victim. The detective work appears to be rather shoddy, too; considering that this is supposed to be a crack team. Cain's characters might want to watch more "Law and Order"...
So, what are we left with? Well, Archie Sheridan seems like a nice guy with a few problems, not of his own making. He might even make an interesting series protagonist; though it's tough to tell if that's what Cain has in mind - she does, after all, focus on Ward. Gretchen Lowell seems like a psycho, not the least because that's what she is. Writing more books about her would be just too Hannibal-Lecterish: I can just see a book describing the horrors she witnessed as a young girl, entitled Gretchen. Nahhh... Susan Ward seems like a complete lightweight, at least in part because that's what she is.
So where does that leave us? Well, it leaves us with a book whose three subplots end up neatly tied with a bow - a bow the Coincidence Fairy helped tie with a wink and a nod. The police-procedural parts are pretty weak; the characterization of Ward is just as weak; and the denouement is one long cliché. Still and all, a fairly good first novel - but Cain had better improve on her delivery before delivering the second installment in her series. Rumor has it it's already done, though, and there's lots more Gretchen Lowell: Silence of the Puppies, perhaps?