The Broken Hearts Club - Softcover

Black, Ethan

3.57

491 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0345426037 ISBN 13: 9780345426031

Publisher: Ballantine Books, 2000

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They meet every week in the dingy back room of a bar in New York City. An informal group of men with one thing in common: They all suffer the sting of a broken heart. But soon the anger turns to hate. The rejection turns to rage. And the Broken Hearts Club spins violently out of control--exploding into murderous acts of vengeance.

Detective Voort is assigned the case, determined to catch an elusive killer who is always one death ahead . . . who appears to switch identities with each new victim . . . and who knows how to cover his tracks with cold efficiency. Then Voort falls victim to his own broken heart, as his ex-girlfriend unknowingly becomes the target of a frightening new breed of serial terror. . . .

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Review:

Anyone who has ever been dumped or treated badly in a relationship can sympathize with the members of the Broken Hearts Club, a group of patients of the New York City psychologist Ian Bainbridge who meet weekly in the back room of a seedy steakhouse to share their pain and provide Dr. Bainbridge with material for a book. It's only after a couple of meetings in journalist Ethan Black's sly and sharply written debut thriller that our suspicions begin to take shape. Why are all of the club members men? And why do the women who have wronged them suddenly start dying in violent, brutal ways?

The NYPD's richest detective, Conrad Voort, 29-year-old heir to an historic family name and fortune, doesn't at first see how the murders are related. He's mired in a doomed relationship of his own, with TV news producer Camilla Ryan, who happens to be one of Dr. Bainbridge's patients but definitely not a member of his Broken Hearts Club. Camilla also races kayaks for fun and exercise, so you know that some kind of water-based action scene featuring a kayak is bound to occur.

Black plays tricks and takes liberties (Voort resembles John Sandford's Lucas Davenport, another rich detective), but he has the sense to let readers arrive at conclusions at their own pace. It's only after the last page that most of them will find themselves thinking back to scenes of Club meetings and asking, "But why...?" and, "But who...?" --Dick Adler

From the Back Cover:

"Black lowers his reader down into the darkly twisted tunnels of the serial killer's mind and then leads us breathlessly through the confrontations. . . . A genuinely clever tale."
--PAUL LINDSAY
Author of Witness to the Truth

"[A] WELL-PACED PSYCHO-THRILLER DEBUT . . . Black fashions some terrific dialogue and keeps the scenes rolling in punchy succession. The iconoclastic Voort could well augur the advent of a sexy, savvy, highly charismatic new icon in popular crime fiction."
--Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"THRILLING, ULTRA-HIP, AND COMPLETELY ENGROSSING."
--Mademoiselle

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