Final Victim

A ghastly serial-killing internet genius is taken on by three flawed, vengeance-seeking people. Gripping story that pulls you along. I was almost put off by the crippling flaws described for two of the heroes set out in the book's opening chapters (which suggested these might poisonously saturate the plot) but I'm glad I continued. Not as blood-soaked as a story about a sexually-driven killer story would suggest. I found it a very good story with a satisfying ending.

This is the first book I have read by this author. It caught my attention immediately. The author chose a very unlikely team and threw them together to use their skills to catch a serial killer. In some ways it is your typical serial killer/cop novel but the author really focused on the profiling and technical aspects of solving the crimes. Throughout the book, I was rooting for this team to succeed despite everything standing in their way. This was a quick and easy read and I look forward to more books by this author.

In this novel, irreverent US customs agent John Lockwood assembles a team including a beautiful PhD and a computer whiz ex con to track down a Florida serial killer. Leonard Lane, is a little different than the average serial killer. He’s an obese man of genius level intelligence. There is a good bit of violence as they reach the killer and John has to rescue Karen, one of his team members, from a certain death.

This novel was a big disappointment after having read some of Cannel’s previous work. It was not nearly at the same level. The plot was not coherent and the narrative had a bit of a rambling quality to it. It seemed like the author was trying too hard to make Lockwood cool, and not fit the norm of typical protagonists in show more thrillers. I would avoid this novel and instead read White Sister, which was a much better novel from Cannel.

Carl Alves – author of Blood Street show less

This is a good one. A renegade customs agent, a brilliant forensic psychologist and an imprisoned computer hacker team up to find out who's been dicing up women and shipping the body parts around. This is a good one.

BIBLIOGRAPHIC DETAILS:
(Available in Print: COPYRIGHT: 6/1/1996; PUBLISHER: William Morrow & Co—1st edition; ISBN 978-0688147755; PAGES 405.)
* This edition: Audio: COPYRIGHT: 2/6/2007; PUBLISHER: Phoenix Books, Inc.; DURATION: 5:14:31; PARTS: 6; Abridged
(Available as Digital: Yes.)
(Available as/on Feature Film or tv: Not that I know of.)

SERIES: No

SUMMARY/ EVALUATION:
No, I didn’t like this one. I even wondered if it was read by the author because no one else was willing to narrate it. I hadn’t realized I’d selected an abridgement, but I’m pretty glad I didn’t have to listen to a longer one—I checked to see how long that would be, and it doesn’t appear that it was recorded in its entirety. I suspected from the first show more paragraph that it was going to be violent, graphic, and creepy throughout, but I liked Stephen’s later works, so I held out hope. I kept hoping we’d get off the creepy bad guy and move on to the people who would stop him, but it took way longer than I’d hoped. I prefer mysteries and detective stories that spend little to no time describing the perpetrator or their crimes.

AUTHOR:
Stephen Cannell (February 5, 1941 – September 30, 2010). According to Wikipedia, Stephen “was an American television producer, writer, novelist, and occasional actor, and the founder of Cannell Entertainment (formerly Stephen J. Cannell Productions) and the Cannell Studios.

After starting his career as a television screenwriter, Cannell created or co-created several dozen successful TV series from the 1970s to the 1990s, often with his creative partner Frank Lupo. Cannell's creations included The Rockford Files, The A-Team, The Greatest American Hero, 21 Jump Street, and The Commish. He also wrote novels, notably the Shane Scully mystery series.”

NARRATOR:
Stephen Cannell. (see above).

GENRE:
Mystery; Fiction; Thriller; Detective; Suspense; Crime; Murder; Psychology; brutality; violence; child abuse

LOCATIONS:
Florida; California; Washington D.C.

TIME FRAME:
Contemporary

SUBJECTS:
Murder; Psychology; Religion

DEDICATION:
"For my best friend.
My father,
Joseph K. Cannell.”

SAMPLE QUOTATION:
From Chapter 1: “The Rat”
“His mother, Shirley, had transformed him into The Rat. When he was bad or woke up with an erection, she would take him into the basement and light the Trinity candles she got from the church. She would hold his hand in the flame until his flesh burned. Fire would cleanse him, she said . . . and, for a while, it did. When he was The Rat, he was pitiful and ugly, but he knew everything. The smallest details were vivid and sharp. His skin irritated him when he was The Rat, except for the last few days before he transformed, when his nipples and skin burned, but he didn’t have to wear silk. When he was The Rat he never got erections.”

RATING:
2 stars. I can’t say it wasn’t written well, I just didn’t care for how graphic it was.

STARTED READING – FINISHED READING
3-24-2022 to 3-30-2022 show less

First edition as new