Synopsis
It is America's most notorious, unsolved, serial murder case: the Green River Killer slaughtered at least fifty women in the Seattle-Portland area during the 1980s and was never brought to justice. Now, in this gripping novel, the bestselling author of The Detective and Diehard presents his own horrifying portrayal of the Green River killings. River unmasks the Green River Killer and reveals why he was never caught--a story no true crime account has ever been able to tell.
Phil Boudreau is a veteran detective with the Seattle vice squad. Tough, smart, impatient, he appreciates beautiful women and genuinely cares for the throwaway kids on his beat. Boudreau knows from the first that the murderer is cunning and brilliant. Then the details of one of the killings burn a name into Boudreau's mind: Garrett Richard Lockman.
Sent to jail by Boudreau years before, Garrett Lockman is society's worst nightmare: a shrewd, manipulative career criminal driven by an unstoppable will and insatiable sexual needs. When Boudreau learns that Lockman had escaped from prison before the first killing, the detective conceives an obsession of his own: prove that Lockman is the perpetrator of the most sadistic crimes one human being can commit against another.
But Boudreau is powerless to act--through Lockman's machinations, he, himself has become a suspect. As Boudreau stalks Lockman for eight grueling years, he realizes to his horror, that the police department has become an accomplice in the unspeakable crimes. River reaches its shattering climax in an agonizing power struggle between psychopath and cop--a contest that Boudreau can win only by dispensing justice as cruel as Lockman's crimes.
No other writer has probed the evil depths of a serial killer's mind as unflinchingly as Rod Thorp does in River. No other crime writer has rivaled Thorp's mastery of the paralyzing labyrinth of the criminal justice system. River is a brilliant portrait of heinous criminality that starts with the reported facts and explodes into fiction of unsurpassed intensity. Relentless in its suspense, chilling in the dark truth it explores, River is an overwhelming journey into the nightmare of evil that surrounds us all.
"River is the perfect serial killer novel. Horrifying, dark, procedurally fascinating, unrelenting in its suspense."
--Jonathan Kellerman
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From the Inside Flap
VER KILLINGS WERE THE MOST HORRIFYING SERIAL MURDERS EVER COMMITTED. THE CASE WAS NEVER SOLVED . . . UNTIL NOW.
"[THIS] WORK OF FICTION READS EERILY LIKE A TRUE CASE STUDY of these infamous unsolved crimes. . . . Lockman is the kind of character who can haunt your waking dreams."
--The New York Times Book Review
"CHILLING SUSPENSE . . . In this novel, bestselling author Roderick Thorp takes on the true-life terrors of a maniacal serial killer known as the Green River Killer, who is suspected of killing at least fifty young women in the Seattle-Portland area during the '80s, and who has never been convicted . . . Breathtaking in its pacing, RIVER takes the reader into the minds of both a detective fighting personal demons and a human demon whose wanton disregard for human life is so despicable his actions and motivations make the reader cringe. Thorp has imagined a surprise ending to his roller-coaster thriller that is genuinely surprising."
--Boston Herald&l
From Booklist
The Green River serial killings during the 1980s in the Pacific Northwest remain unsolved. More than 50 young women, most of them prostitutes and drifters, were killed. Thorp offers a gritty fictional version of the infamous murders. In it, the cunning killer-protagonist is manipulative sociopath Garrett Lockman. Thorp balances the viewpoint of the hard-drinking, pornography-loving murderer with that of tough Seattle vice-cop Philippe Boudreau. Early on, New York transplant Boudreau is convinced that Lockman is the killer, but because of police department politics, he isn't allowed on the Green River investigative team until late in the case. The novel's characters are sharply drawn, especially the creepy Lockman, who finally meets his demise in a surprising, maybe even innovative, manner. True-crime accounts are often recommended because they read like fiction. This fictionalization of true crimes is recommended because it seems as realistic, as authentic, as the best nonfiction. True-crime junkies and hard-boiled detective fans alike will have a field day. Sue-Ellen Beauregard
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