Monstrum - Softcover

James, Donald

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0804118914 ISBN 13: 9780804118910

Publisher: Ivy Books, 1999

Synopsis

He hunts in a landscape ravaged by war. In a country haunted by its past and a city built on tears, he leaves behind the disfigured bodies of young women. No one knows who he is or why he kills. But now the serial murderer they call the Monstrum is being pursued by a policeman who must find the truth: about his killer, his nation, himself--and the dark heart that beats within them all.

About this title

About the Author

Donald James is a veteran novelist, a successful writer for television--most recently, he was the scriptwriter of Russia's War, a ten-part PBS series--and a renowned historian whose works include The Penguin Dictionary of the Third Reich and the bestselling The Fall of the Russian Empire. He lives in England.

From the Back Cover

"One of the best books I've ever read . . .
my nominee for Thriller of the Year."
--Philadelphia Inquirer

"UNFORGETTABLE . . . MONSTRUM is more than a police procedural and more than a thriller. . . . You won't want to put [it] down."
--Detroit Free Press

"SOPHISTICATED . . . THOUGHT-PROVOKING . . . I read Monstrum at warp speed and with real pleasure."
--RICHARD NORTH PATTERSON
Author of No Safe Place

"MONSTRUM SUCCEEDS BRILLIANTLY AS A CRIME STORY, AS A POLITICAL THRILLER, AND AS PSYCHOLOGICAL SUSPENSE."
--Minneapolis Star Tribune

"THRILLING."
--People

"The thriller of the year. MONSTRUM combines the best of Fatherland and Gorky Park with a dash of Silence of the Lambs."
--The Times (London)

From the Inside Flap

a landscape ravaged by war. In a country haunted by its past and a city built on tears, he leaves behind the disfigured bodies of young women. No one knows who he is or why he kills. But now the serial murderer they call the Monstrum is being pursued by a policeman who must find the truth: about his killer, his nation, himself--and the dark heart that beats within them all.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Monstrum

By the time of the third murder, it was a word evoked by every shout of alarm, by every blast on a militia whistle, by every woman's scream in a district of Moscow where shouts and screams had never been uncommon. Within a week of the third murder there were the beginnings of a cult: the word appeared as elaborately worked graffiti on concrete walls; young men swaggered the streets with the word emblazoned across the back of their jackets; in the cellar discos, reckless girls wore T-shirts with the Monstrum's swollen hands engulfing their breasts. But on the streets all women are equal. At night they hurry home no longer thinking of footsteps and snatched purses. A new word -- Monstrum -- has entered their vocabulary of terror. Like a rising tide of infected river water, the word washes against the shanty houses of Red Presnya, swilling through the lives of the inhabitants of the dark alleys and ruined tower blocks, leaving a scum of fear. All this was happening in Moscow in the year 2015, the year Russians had begun to think of as the New Dawn.


From the Hardcover edition.

Edition details

• Publisher: Ivy Books
• Publication date: 1999
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0804118914
• ISBN 13: 9780804118910
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• Number of pages: 436