Heartsick by Chelsea Cain

You know how in real life, serial killers always end up being unattractive loners, or balding middle managers? Thank goodness for the literary world. A suave Manhattanite who knows how to use rats and cheese in the most horrific way possible? A vinophile cannibal with a taste for FBI agents? Yes, please!

Gretchen Lowell, in Chelsea Cain's novel Heartsick, may top them all. Not only is she brutal enough to kill indiscriminately, destroy a person's torso, and carve a heart into his chest as a calling card, but she's hot. Like, not just hot for a felon. Textbook hot. So when Detective Archie Sheridan not only survives her torture, but becomes her final victim (she inexplicably turns herself in after bringing him to the brink of mental and physical death), it's not really surprising that he develops a totally fucked up emotional and sexual obsession with her.

But by the time the action of Heartsick begins, this stuff is all two years in the past. There's a new Buffalo Bill running around Portland, and Archie (the lead detective on the task force that sought "Beauty Killer" Gretchen for years before she kidnapped him and ended the game) is asked to come out of medical retirement to catch the new guy. Local high school girls are disappearing and then turning up naked and bleached in Oregon's waterways. The press still hates the cops for not sharing enough info when Gretchen was the It serial killer. So Archie gets back in it, bringing a shiny new Vicodin addiction and a spunky reporter, Susan Ward, to embed with the task force. Things spiral out of control quickly.

The premise isn't so unusual (I can practically see "female Hannibal Lecter" on some long-forgotten tipsheet), but Chelsea Cain brings a fresh, snarky voice to the genre. (I heartily recommend her parody novel Confessions of a Teen Sleuth for anyone who ever loved Nancy Drew or the Hardy Boys.) None of her characters are simple in personality or motivation, and she keeps everything moving well. Archie is certainly not the most sympathetic protagonist around--lingering sympathy for his trauma and resulting celebrity are pretty much canceled out by his continued, bizarre bond with Gretchen (whom he visits in prison every week), and his iffy treatment of his friends and loved ones. The reporter, Susan, the ostensible "good cop" of the book, is an unapologetic lover of married men and exploiter of dead teenage girls for stories. So yeah--they never cracked open anyone's chest or made them drink drain cleaner for kicks, but they're not saints.

I liked the book very much--and that's coming from a book snob who usually avoids mass market thrillers like it's her job. Chelsea Cain will probably never get great odds in the National Book Award predictions, but the book riveted my interest through most of a flight and much of my poolside time. Perfect vacation reading.