Birdman: A Novel - Hardcover

Hayder, Mo

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 038549694X ISBN 13: 9780385496940

Publisher: Doubleday, 1999

Synopsis

Your worst nightmare is his dream come true....

A relentless debut novel filled with cutting-edge forensic and investigative detail, Birdman marks the arrival of a uniquely talented writer.

Detective Jack Caffery--young, driven, and seemingly unshockable--catches a career-making or career-breaking homicide in his first case as lead investigator with London's crack murder squad.  A young woman's body has been discovered, dumped on wasteland near the Millennium Dome site in Greenwich, England. It's the most brutal degradation of the human form that the squad has ever uncovered. Caffery's well-deserved reputation is that of the most stoic of detectives, but his initial inspection of the corpse will forever sear his psyche.

One by one, four more corpses are discovered only steps away from the first. Five bodies, all young women, all ritualistically murdered with cunning precision. And when a postmortem examination reveals a singular, macabre signature linking the victims, Caffery realizes that he's facing the most dangerous offender known to the force: a sexual serial killer.

In the murky recesses of his own mind, Caffery harbors the haunting legacy of a loved one's slaying.  What baffles him is that not a single missing person's report has been filed for any of the five young women. How has the Birdman chosen these seemingly perfect victims?

Now, as he employs every weapon forensic science can offer, Caffery knows that time is running out before the killer strikes again, and that he must put away his tortured past in order to safeguard the Birdman's next prey.

With refined craft and beguiling imagination, Mo Hayder is certain to skip the hearts of the most demanding readers of crime fiction.

About this title

Review:

This crackling psychological thriller introduces police detective Jack Caffery, who is on the hunt for a serial killer the British tabloids have nicknamed "The Millennium Ripper."

The Ripper is behind the murder of five prostitutes, whose bodies are unearthed beneath the rubble of a Greenwich landfill. All the victims have been raped and their bodies horrendously mutilated--but not until after being killed by a dose of heroin injected directly into their brainstems. What stuns Caffery even more is the one detail of the murders the public doesn't know; the hearts of the women have been replaced with live birds sewn into the victims' chests.

Caffery himself is a tortured man, still burdened by guilt over the decades-old murder of his younger brother and frustrated because he cannot bring the man he knows is responsible to the bar of justice. When the Millennium Ripper confesses to the prostitute killings just before taking his own life, Caffery faces his own limitations and begins to make peace with his past. But then another prostitute is found dead, her body ravaged in the same way, a bird where her heart was--and Caffery realizes that his past may never truly be put to rest.

A solid page turner, this gripping debut by a young Englishwoman introduces a complex and fascinating protagonist destined for another appearance. Meanwhile, Birdman will enthrall readers who just can't get enough of Hannibal Lechter. --Jane Adams

About the Author:

Mo Hayder was born in Essex, England. After leaving school at fifteen, she worked as a barmaid, security guard, filmmaker, hostess in a Tokyo club, educational administrator, and teacher of English as a foreign language in Vietnam.  She now makes her home in London. Birdman is her first novel.

About this edition

• Publisher: Doubleday
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 038549694X
• ISBN 13: 9780385496940
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 336