The Torturer

This novel marks the second and final outing for the elite team of serial killer hunters known as the Psycho Squad, and reading it through doesn't leave much mystery as to why they never got around to putting out a third. It isn't that the book is of poor quality, but rather that it misses it's own mark. The initial concept of the launch novel (a group of dedicated men hunting down mass murderers and serial killers where the law can't find them) was a great idea, especially back before broadcast television was flooded with CSI clones and Catch a Killer retreads. However, this second installment seems to be more concerned with competing with the other men's adventure paperbacks on the market, which ends up diverting it into hopelessly show more rehashed territory.

A brutally disfigured woman is fished from the waters down in Florida, an apparent torture/murder victim. The Psycho Squad contacts the local police connects the death to a similar body found in California, and arrive on the scene to assist in the manhunt. Things escalate quickly (very quickly) as Mace, Flint, and Santiago become entangled in a web of prostitution, blackmail, gun trafficking, and yes, more torture. With main characters being kidnapped, interrogated, ambushed, and otherwise assaulted at least once per chapter, and the scope of involved parties growing to include warring drug cartels, third world crime lords, and covert intelligence operatives bearing a striking resemblance to the Delaney character from the Burt Reynolds film Malone, the idea of hunting serial killers seems to get lost among the setup for a compound raid finale that would make Mack Bolan proud. The novel eventually resorts to occasionally reminding the reader, in between picking up an assortment of attractive/comic relief characters, that there's a serial killer involved in all of this somehow. When we finally get done mimicking The Executioner at the end and return to the hunt for The Torturer, big reveal turns out to be a little lackluster as it blurs the lines between "serial killer" and "organized retaliation."

When all is said and done, Psycho Squad #2 is a fun read full of all the guns and guts you'd expect from a potential adventure series, but the rapidly diminishing presence of the one aspect that promised to set this apart from the others, actual serial killer hunting, doesn't inspire enough regret that a third installment in the series never came to be. show less