Synopsis
"A serial killer holds a city in the grip of terror in a hard-boiled, gritty novel of crime in Chicago." "He's a cutter. He accosts unsuspecting young women, he overwhelms them with a pad of ether. Then he kills them. And eviscerates the corpses, neatly, professionally. The crime scenes he leaves behind are not pretty." "This crime novel sets Jimmy Parisi of Chicago Homicide, a strictly no-nonsense kind of Italian cop, on the gory trail of an elusive but very efficient (and alarmingly active) killer. The bodies are beginning to pile up. The killer is so rapidly harvesting a crop of female organs, in fact, that the cops in Parisi's department are calling him "the Farmer."" "Employing criminal profiling techniques, Parisi narrows his list of possible perpetrators to three - and then just one. And the more involved Parisi becomes in the case, the more he fears that he is not dealing simply with a rapist-killer out to satisfy his psychopathic itch but rather with a depraved entrepreneur in the business of supplying fresh organs to the medical black markets of Europe and Asia. What's more, he strongly suspects that Mafia agents are acting as the Farmer's brokers." Parisi begins to zero in on his quarry, and the path he follows leads him ultimately to a confrontation as unforgettable as it is shocking. For Parisi finds himself in not only his own neighborhood but his own backyard, where the Farmer has set his sights on a beautiful young redhead - Jimmy Parisi's wife.
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About the Author
Thomas Laird has had over twenty short stories published in US literary magazines. He teaches creative writing and literature at a high school in Peoria, Illinois. He lives with his wife Janet and their dogs Rocco and Mike. Laird is currently working on another Jimmy Parisi novel.
Review
Thomas Laird has a knack for taking the reader into a very disturbing world. Jimmy Parisi is a successful cop, riding high with the Chicago PD and enjoying his family (two kids he has raised single-handedly) and his beautiful young fianc e. But in the city, someone is raping and murdering young women, and mutilating their corpses unspeakably. The killer, nicknamed The Farmer, becomes an obsession with Jimmy, who is convinced that this is not the work of a psychopath, powered by random impulses. His business is the supplying of fresh organs to the medical black markets. And his brokers are a very sinister group indeed. Familiar territory, yes, but handled with a degree of freshness and innovation. As Parisi and his new wife find their lives on the line, the reader will find that putting the book down is a difficult task.
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