Heartsick

HEARTSICK, a series debut from Chelsea Cain, is not a supernatural horror novel, but nonetheless a shadow haunts it — one cast by Thomas Harris and his creation of Hannibal Lecter. Even if your knowledge of Harris and Lecter is limited to its movie adaptations — especially THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS and RED DRAGON — you can’t get out from the shadow as you read Cain’s book.

Portland, Ore. detective Archie Sheridan spent several years as the lead investigator on the Beauty Killer task force, tracking down Gretchen Lowell, a stunningly beautiful and unspeakably brutal serial murderer. Then he stumbled into a trap and became Gretchen’s prisoner.

For weeks, she tortured him while his family and fellow investigators gave him up for dead. Then, abruptly and without explanation, Gretchen released Archie and turned herself in. Now she resides in a high-security prison cell. She agrees to reveal the burial site of her many murder victims, one at a time, and only to Archie. Their weekly Sunday meetings have become part of his life and his detrimental obsession with her.

Then, another series of murders plagues Portland, targeting high school-aged girls. Archie is called out of his semi-retirement to head a new task force to track down this new killer. But oddly enough, the group has agreed to allow a local newspaper reporter to tag along and record Archie’s every move and thought on the case. Aggressive and precocious Susan Ward is the journalist who learns the intimate details of his past while following the leads to the identity of the newly dubbed “After School Strangler.”

So pervasive is the Harris/Lecter shadow that you find yourself keeping track of the ways Cain’s story differs as often as you do the details of the procedural itself. Archie immediately reminds one of Will Graham, the investigator who caught Lecter and who, like Clarice Starling after him, consults Lecter behind bars for insight into the identity of the latest serial killer.

But unlike either Graham or Starling, Archie is a broken man, separated from his wife and children, and existing on a variety of pills and his obsession with Gretchen. More importantly, his weekly visits with her are not to learn about the After School Strangler as they are about Gretchen’s previous victims — and to fulfill Archie’s twisted desire to be in her presence again.

Even Susan, who at first seems like the biggest departure from the Harris/Lecter mold, serves mainly as a cop in reporter’s guise as she follows the task force and lends her own insights into the investigations. She eventually segues into a more pivotal role as the story moves toward its conclusion.

What’s so strange about all this — and sad in retrospect — is that Cain shows evidence of being a truly fine author. Her characters are all superbly drawn and her dialogue sharp and believable. And her descriptions of the dark, rainy Portland area add to the suspenseful ambience she creates. Then, too, her grisly inventiveness, especially when it comes to the details of torture and murder, are enough to make even hardcore gore lovers cringe.

All she lacks, however, is a character and plot concept that does not remind us of another author’s work so strongly and so often. And sadly, that’s enough to reduces her skills to the level of a talented but unimaginative writer in a strange sort of sub-sub-genre.

There are rewards to reading HEARTSICK, but they occur only when Cain briefly manages to throw off the shadow of the Harris model and demonstrate what she is capable of on her own. But it looks like her follow-up book, SWEETHEART, will continue to keep readers tracking where Harris ends and Cain begins. —Alan Cranis

Buy it at Amazon.