Handyman

A television news anchorwoman becomes the target of a crazed serial killer stalking the streets of Tampa, Florida, while the FBI searches for a method to the killer's madness

A pair of plucky heroines adds interest to this otherwise predictable, and graphically violent, suspense novel by Heller (Maximum Impact), an investigative reporter for the St. Petersburg Times. Eugene Rickey, it's quickly revealed, is a serial killer. In his day job, he is a talented and conscientious Tampa, Fla., handyman?a master of the building trades with a solid reputation. But he is also a homicidal maniac who tortures his female victims before killing them. The police and county sheriff's experts follow a series of clues and red herrings as Rickey is shown stalking his targets, first a TV newswoman and then a female architect. Heller's vivid imagination of this demented man's psyche is offset, unfortunately, by some clunky clues and distracting subplots, including one involving sexual harassment in the newsroom. While the author writes taut, powerful prose, moreover, readers may be turned off by the uses to which she puts it: the opening chapter, for all its skillful renderings, is little more than a sustained exercise in literary sadism.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

The first chapter of this latest serial-killer thriller offers a murder so graphic and disgusting that the reader may want to take a shower and a Valium before going further. The tale then settles in as a fairly routine police procedural, with the point of view moving from the detective who is leading the investigative task force to the killer to two of his potential victims. There is little violent action in the rest of the novel, but author Heller builds the tension with supreme skill, drawing a portrait of the killer that makes him understandable, although never sympathetic. Heller, a newspaper reporter, presents a TV news anchorwoman as one of the potential victims, and she uses this character to roast the broadcast news business to a turn. This is a particularly chilling entry in the ongoing Dahmer-thon that has become the serial-killer subgenre. Fortunately, there aren't as many serial killers in real-life America as there are in mystery novels. George Needham

Only after all the doors and windows have been locked is it safe to begin reading Handyman. Eugene Rickey is an honest and dependable jack-of-all-trades. For fun and relaxation, though, he rapes, tortures, and kills. The first chapter of this novel is so realistically bloody and gruesome that it could turn the most ardent opponent of the death penalty into an advocate. Thankfully, this is the tale's only episode of out-and-out gore. The rest of the book describes the fast-paced hunt for the Handyman by Det. Benjamin Britton and Cynthia Diamond, a television journalist. Heller's (Maximum Impact, Forge, 1993) writing is consistently good, and she kindly gives the reader an occasional respite from fear through her subplots. Highly recommended, but read only with the lights on.?Dawn L. Anderson, North Richland Hills P.L., Tex.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.