Minotaur Books, September 1, 2009
ISBN 13: 978-0-3112-36848-7
Hardcover, 320 pages
$24.99
$31.99, Canada

Reviewed by Larry W. Chavis

According to those who study the subject, female serial killers are very rare compared to their male counterparts and overwhelmingly kill for personal gain of some kind. They are generally close to their victims–spouses, children, lovers-cultivating relationships with them before committing murder, often using low-profile methods such as poison over a period of time.  Naturally, exceptions have always existed, the bloody Countess Báthory in history and Aileen Wuornos in modern times being two notable examples.

In HEART SICK, Chelsea Cain introduced the world to Gretchen Lowell, strikingly beautiful, charismatic, and sadistically deadly, with hundreds of butchered victims to her credit. Her prize, however, was Detective Archie Sheridan, head of the task force charged with her capture, and her torture-and-sex relationship with him drives  the story through HEART SICK and SWEETHEART, the second book in the series.

Now comes EVIL AT HEART, opening with Gretchen still at large and Archie a patient in a hospital psych ward, having admitted himself two months prior. With Gretchen on the loose bodies can be expected, and they begin to turn up in sites associated with Gretchen’s former crimes, all marked by her characteristic brutality. Even Archie appears to be at risk in the nominally safe-guarded mental ward. He faces the question of remaining, or of checking out of the hospital and back into his life in order to stop Gretchen–or surrender to her.

Perhaps the most remarkable thing about Cain’s sultry murderess is the fast grip she has on the emotions of her victims, and the apparent ease with which she can shape others into tools. Archie both hates her and desperately longs to be possessed by her, and this inner struggle informs most of his actions in the book, some of which would cause a rational being to pause and scratch his or her head. But Archie is merely emblematic of Portland society, whose infatuation with the blonde serial killer expresses itself in Gretchen tours, Gretchen billboards, Gretchen tee-shirts and Gretchen fan clubs. At first look, a reader might question the plausibility of such goings-on in a modern city, but then one remembers the Charles Manson sites and groups that have existed ever since that horrific night in 1969, and wonders if, in fact, expecting otherwise is the real implausibility.

The primary characters from the preceding books are present, and some growth can be seen, particularly in Susan Ward, reporter and hair-color experimentalist. She may be the most interesting figure in this episode of the story. Certainly she seems to grow more.

While serial killer books are a bit wearisome to some, owing to the vast number that make it to the bookstores, one that’s well-done is still worth your while. In EVIL AT HEART Ms. Cain has offered, and I think delivered, an entertaining read.

Copyright ©2009 Larry W. Chavis