Gray Matter - Hardcover

Kennett, Shirley

3.64

115 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1575660792 ISBN 13: 9781575660790

Publisher: Kensington Pub Corp, 1996

View all copies of this ISBN edition:

St. Louis Police Department psychologist PJ Gray applies a new virtual-reality investigative technology to a new case involving a serial killer who mutilates his victims and finds that she must step into the mind of a murderer to prevent her own death.

"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly:

Of all the conflicts that drive Kennett's mercurial debut, none is more compelling than that between the very modern virtual-reality program designed to recreate a murder from the killer's point of view and the very primitive serial killer who calls himself Dog and who thinks that eating the brains of his victims will give him their special talents. In parallel fashion, Kennett's two protagonists also represent the new and the old: recently divorced computer expert Penelope Jessica ("PJ") Gray, working the freshly authorized Computerized Homicide Investigations Project in St. Louis, and leathery Detective Leo Schultz, who is having problems at home and is wary of anything digital. PJ also has a modern, i.e., smart-mouthed, son, who alternates between asking his mother to stop the mushy stuff and accusing her of sleeping with the first man she meets. The narrative can feel disjointed at times, and sometimes seems no more than a springboard to launch a pair of franchise characters. But eventually Kennett's storytelling talent wins out, so that even as PJ and Schultz are tracking Dog (with a little help from the FBI), the killer?with the voices of his victims competing for attention inside his head?is tracking them. At times shaky, at times fractured, this debut ultimately coheres into solid entertainment.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews:

Pauley Mac is a serial killer with brains--the brains of his victims, which he eats in order to absorb their particular skills. Right now Pauley Mac's interested in assimilating the brains of artists--a concert pianist, a painter, maybe somebody else before he moves on to his next phase, Childhood Innocence. It's the business of Dr. Penelope Jennifer Gray, a psychologist expert in computer simulation who's working with Det. Leo Schultz of the St. Louis Police Department, to make sure that Pauley Mac never reaches that next phase. Of course, PJ and Schultz don't know anything about Pauley Mac's phases; they don't even know who he is. But he knows who they are, thanks to a careless security leak that gives him a unique opportunity to eavesdrop on his predators, observing each nuance of the salt-and-pepper sparring between steadfast single mom PJ and neanderthal Schultz (an obvious Dennis Franz role) in the breaks in his domestic ritual (``With the two other heads already inside [the freezer], there simply wasn't room for a third unless he threw out some ice cream.'' Not many first-timers can convincingly plumb the mind of a serial killer, and Kennett isn't one of the few who can. Telemovie thrills may leave some readers sleepless, but not Thomas Harris. -- Copyright �1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.