Cutter - Hardcover

Laird, Thomas

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0786709448 ISBN 13: 9780786709441

Publisher: Carroll & Graf, 2001

Synopsis

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. The crime scenes he leaves behind are not pretty. Nor is the talk, in this tough, tautly plotted, and tersely written crime novel that sets Jimmy Parisi of Chicago Homicide, a strictly no-nonsense kind of Italian cop, on the gruesome trail of an elusive but very efficient—and alarmingly active—killer. The bodies are beginning to pile up. Death in fact is reaping so ghastly a harvest in the city’s parks and streets that the press and police are calling the merciless perpetrator “the Farmer.” When Parisi and his partner, Doc, a homicide cop with an unlikely Ph.D. in English literature, begin to zero in on their quarry, the Farmer abruptly alters his modus operandi. Turning his murderous attention away from attractive, vital young women, he focuses his formidably perverse intelligence instead on investigating detective Jimmy Parisi himself. At a pulse-popping pace, through unexpected twists and surprising turns, from the scenic precincts along Lake Shore Drive to the perilous criminal underbelly of Chicago, Parisi and the Farmer follow the paths that bring them inexorably to a shocking confrontation. The suspense is riveting, and the outcome—as explosive as it is unexpected—will leave the reader gasping.

About this title

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.

Edition details

• Publisher: Carroll & Graf
• Publication date: 2001
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0786709448
• ISBN 13: 9780786709441
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 288