Nothing Human - Softcover

Munson, Ronald

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1514283123 ISBN 13: 9781514283127

Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2015

Synopsis

Inspired by Raymond Chandler’s telling phrase, Ronald Munson has depicted a criminal as shocking as “a tarantula on a piece of angel food cake.” Drawing form actual profiles of serial killers, he has created a bone-chillingly accurate portrait of a psychopath’s mind and methods. In the conviction that nothing human is truly alien to another human being, he offers a novel of three lives inextricably joined – cop, killer and potential victim – each dramatically different, yet linked by similarities they can’t escape. A powerful story that introduces a refreshing maverick to the gallery of fictional police operatives, NOTHING HUMAN marks the impressive debut of a talented new suspense writer. HUNT IN PROGRESS: JILL BRENNER This attractive female is polite and friendly, although reserved. She seems self-possessed and competent, but she has an appealing air of vulnerability. She is of above average intelligence and education and so should offer a challenge worth undertaking. So writes John Haack—a.k.a. the Jaguar—a man whose diary reflects the mind of a violent and absolutely merciless sexual sadist. Haack is a man who has studied everything from autopsy reports to Mayan mythology. In the sheltered community of Cambridge, Massachusetts, Jill Brenner will be his next victim. Highly educated, charming and attractive to women, Haack keeps a part of his personality hidden – like a snake in a box. He’s already killed twice and left no clues. In twenty days it will be time again to let out the snake.... Driven by a cold fury and his own meticulous plans, Haack fails to notice that he’s up against a different kind of cop – Lieutenant Eric Firecaster, a brilliant detective who just can’t leave this case alone. Harvard graduate, former Congressional aide, Firecaster has found his true calling in the grand principles and gritty details of police work. Now he’s tracking a killer more devious and experienced than any he’s ever known. The psychopath is at home in Cambridge’s genteel world of jogging paths and leafy streets – and in the gore-stained labyrinth of an urban hospital’s charnel hosue and dissection rooms. He’s sent a shocking message to Jill, a young woman of striking vitality and intellectual keenness. Firecaster’s job is to protect her, and she’s starting to mean more to him with each passing day.... But Jill is proving too independent to guard effectively, and the Jaguar’s working down his list toward the hunter’s ancient, ultimate victory: 1. Locate prey 2. Study behavior 3. Flush 4. Chase 5. Kill

About this title

About the Author:

Ronald Munson is the author of a dozen books of fiction and nonfiction. Raising the Dead was named a National Library Association Best Book in Science and Medicine, and Intervention and Reflection is the nation’s most widely used bioethics book. His novel Fan Mail received a starred review in Kirkus, was a best seller in German translation, and was produced as a radio play. His three previously published novels have been translated into various languages, including Japanese, Swedish, and Dutch. He received his Ph.D. in Philosophy from Columbia University. He was a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow at Harvard University, as well as a Scholar in Residence at Harvard College’s Lowell House.

From Kirkus Reviews:

Here's an unusual fiction debut: a formulaic but tight and swift serial-killer thriller--by a professor of philosophy of science and medicine (at the Univ. of Missouri). Munson's background, which also includes teaching at Harvard Medical School's Dept. of Psychiatry, shows in his rich display of forensic detail and in his careful construction of the bent mind of the killer, John Haack. Calling himself ``the Jaguar,'' and believing himself some sort of Mayan god, Haack, a formerly abused child now working in a Cambridge bookstore, has been terrorizing that town by stalking young women, then scattering their headless corpses. Leading the hunt for Haack is Lieutenant Eric Firecaster, an appealingly thoughtful hero who once studied philosophy at Harvard, while caught between the two is Haack's unwitting next mark, Jill Brenner, a free-lance journalist who, like the killer's past victims, patronizes his bookstore. After Haack begins toying with Jill--following her, breaking into her apartment--she goes to the cops and meets Firecaster, who immediately falls for her (the feeling is mutual) and pegs her as a likely Jaguar target. But Firecaster isn't around to protect Jill when Haack smuggles an apparently deadly snake into her bedroom, or comes after her at Firecaster's house--two suspenseful attacks that Jill escapes by dint of her refreshingly resilient wits. A would-be suitor of Jill's fares less well when a jealous Jaguar kidnaps him to his lair beneath an abandoned hospital wing, to torture and kill; the same lair provides the spookily gothic setting for a long, tense climax as Haack, disguised as a character from Dune, lures Jill out of an sf convention she's covering--with Firecaster in close pursuit.... Lacks the psychological depth of, say, Thomas Harris, but vivid characters and a hurtling plotline add up to sleek and sure escapist entertainment, just right for its beach-time publication date. -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 1514283123
• ISBN 13: 9781514283127
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 410