Perfection - Hardcover

Satterthwait, Walter

3.72

68 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0312352441 ISBN 13: 9780312352448

Publisher: Minotaur Books, 2006

View all copies of this ISBN edition:

Walter Satterthwait gives his readers a feast of different flavors. His modern-day private-eye series was followed by his historical mysteries. In real life, Lizzie Borden may actually have killed her parents, but Satterthwait turns her into a high-spirited amateur sleuth. Satterthwait's Left Bank in 1920s Paris is alive with artists like Ernest Hemingway and Gertrude Stein. And he has even dug up Hitler and his true-to-life Nazi pals (but, never fear, the good guys still win).

Now Satterthwait turns his hand to this terrific thriller, Perfection, with a pair of true-to-life police detectives for us to root for. In a small Florida city, a most baffling killer insists that his victims meet very specific criteria. Satterthwait teases the reader---and police detectives Sophia Tregaskis and Jim Fallon too; he shows us the killer in his own home, reliving the satisfaction of his latest murder. We watch him scouting his neighboring supermarket for the next person who will require "perfection."

Even childhood episodes that made him the monster he is don't help us---or the two police detectives---learn who and where he is. When the pair finally does track him through his past, chance---or the devil---stacks the odds against them with a vicious hurricane and the thrill of uncertainty until the very end.

"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.

About the Author:

Walter Satterthwait has lived on both U.S. coasts, as well as in six other countries. He is the author of several crime novels that feature characters ranging from a modern private eye to Houdini, Arthur Conan Doyle, Ernest Hemingway, and Adolf Hitler, to name just a few. He lives in Southern California.

From Publishers Weekly:

In this grisly, stand-alone thriller from Satterthwait (Masquerade), Florida detective Sophia Tregaskis and her older partner, former NYPD officer James Fallon, investigate a serial killer with a hatred of overweight women. Beautiful, enigmatic Dr. Eva Swanson, a psychologist, offers her services in profiling the killer. Some suspense builds as the detectives slowly comprehend who the suspect could be. The book's dialogue serves the needs of the plot, but the characters are pretty much clich�s. Tregaskis continually employs Greek phrases when she thinks of her Greek mother; the brilliant serial killer is also a gourmet and lover of fine wine (and has an unfortunate tendency to refer to victims as "Wibble-Wobbles"). The narrative hurtles along smoothly if unpleasantly until the end, when a plot twist that requires far too much suspension of disbelief stops the story in its tracks, calling into question the entire novel and leaving the reader feeling more than a little cheated. (Feb.)
Copyright � Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.