Heartsick by Chelsea Cain

Heartsick by Chelsea Cain
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Heartsick is the first book in Chelsea Cain's Archie Sheridan & Gretchen Lowell series. Archie is a Portland Oregon detective and Gretchen is the serial killer from his first case. Gretchen captured Archie and tortured him for ten days before turning herself in and turning him over to the authorities when he was near death.

I was expecting the woman who had tortured Archie to help with his current case, but she did very little of that. She was more of an addiction, like the pills were, the ones she offered him after she inflicted pain. Their relationship was a type of Stockholm Syndrome, like Patty Hearst, only worse, since she was kidnapped and possibly raped, but not brutalized the way Archie was.

So this novel had two stories going on, Archie dealing (or not dealing) with his issues and the current case he was trying to solve. This new mystery involved the murders of a series of high school girls. The two plots were connected in a few ways, mostly through a young reporter, Susan Ward, who was writing about Archie's issues while following his new case.

I liked the way Heartsick grabbed me and kept me reading. There were a few too many coincidences for me to give it five stars, but it's a good read for thriller fans who don't mind graphic violence.

Steve Lindahl – author of Motherless Soul, White Horse Regressions, Hopatcong Vision Quest, and Under a Warped Cross


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