The good news is, Chelsea Cain is slowly moving out from under the shadow of Thomas Harris/Hannibal Lecter that so dominated her debut, HEARTSICK, last year. The bad news is, there is not a lot left, as sadly demonstrated in SWEETHEART, a lopsided, throughly disappointing sequel. (There’s worse news, but that’s for later.)
It’s been a little over two years since Detective Archie Sheridan broke his last serial killer case. Since that time, he’s trying to patch things up with his estranged wife, Debbie, and their two children. But Archie is still addicted to pain pills, and to thoughts of Gretchen Lowell, the beautiful serial killer who trapped and tortured him, only to release him and surrender herself to a prison sentence.
Archie has even cut out his weekly visits to Gretchen’s cell, where she teases him with revelations of where she disposed the bodies of her many murder victims. But he misses her painfully, and it’s eating him up alive. He is temporarily distracted from his obsession with Gretchen when bodies begin showing up in the bushes of Forest Park in Portland. He and his fellow investigators track down the identities of the bodies, and the elusive reasons for their deaths.
Meanwhile, newspaper reporter Susan Ward — another returnee from the previous book — is about to publish a story that will publicly expose and disgrace a popular and celebrated senator. But suddenly, the senator and a veteran reporter from the same newspaper are killed in what appears to be a drunk driving accident. Susan’s story is immediately shelved, and she suspects that the deaths were arranged.
And in the midst of all this, Gretchen escapes from prison during an attempted transfer to a more distant facility. She phones Archie and threatens his children and everyone else he loves. At once, the officers who previously were investigating the bodies in Forest Park — including, of course, Archie — are shifted to tracking down and capturing her before she resumes her killing spree.
Cain shifts back and forth between these two unrelated storylines, after taking way too long to get them both off the ground. But short of a spurt of suspense as Archie and his team lock down the school where his children attend, there is little to no tension to either of the narratives. Instead, they plod along at their established plateaus with alternating chapters serving no purpose other than adding bits of information and culminating in flat one-liners.
By the time Archie catches up with Gretchen, which is inevitable, scenes that ought to risk papercuts by rapidly turning pages become drawn-out and dull, especially after all the time devoted to those bothersome bodies in the park and whether they connect to the death of the senator or not. Cain even tries to liven things up with what is intended to be a Big
Revelation about Archie and his original investigation of Gretchen, but it comes as no real shock and adds precious little to what we already know or have guessed. Like everything else in this novel, it falls hopelessly on its face.
Cain does tie up the loose ends in the senator story, and even strains to involve Archie in that whole mess. But by that time, it’s really difficult to care anymore. And the few promises that shone through in HEARTSICK — Cain’s characterizations and her descriptions of the rainy, foreboding Portland settings — are left unfulfilled.
The best thing for Cain is to dump the entire Gretchen Lowell concept and start fresh. Even if it means also dumping Archie Sheridan, who remains the only character in the series with any faint hope of development. But all indicators say that’s not likely to happen. And that’s the worse news. —Alan Cranis
OTHER BOOKGASM REVIEWS OF THIS AUTHOR:
• HEARTSICK by Chelsea Cain
