Evil at Heart

I think this horribly addictive series has finally found a balance - Archie has pulled his head out of Gretchen's backside, the bitch is back (in jail), and Susan goes from strength to strength. The copycat storyline was also well played and fast paced. Onto book four!

Gretchen's on the run, but she promised poor Archie she'd murder no more. But murders occur, weird and terrible one with eyeballs and spleens and stuff. Will poor Archie be allowed to recuperate his mental health without being dragged into the grand guignol? No! Each book so far has added a few more wounds to poor Archie's body, and this is no exception - guess what sort of bizarre and terrible wounds are inflicted on the long-suffering guy, and win a prize.

This is such excellent and entertaining trash that the nastily transgressive body-horror bits sneak up on you, but it's well within the sick logic of Gretchen's world.

There is a special pleasure to reading several entries in a series one right after the other. Part of it is delayed gratification: despite the arrival of a book you’ve hungered after a year ago, or even several books over the past several years, you haven’t read it/them; you’ve waited. Now you have a book or two (or three or more) all set in the same universe, and you can live there for days on end while you read all the books. At times like these, the real world fades out and you are more alive in the fictional world of the books you hold in your hands.

After reading Sweetheart (reviewed here), I immediately picked up Evil at Heart. I was hard-pressed to imagine how Chelsea Cain would keep the Archie Sheridan/Gretchen Lowell show more relationship going for another book without going completely over the top. (Sweetheart was already rather uncomfortably Hannibal-ish for my taste – that is, the good guy had too much seemed to become a willing pawn of the sociopath who drives the action.)

Cain succeeds admirably in this new novel by introducing the possibility of copycat killers out there in a world that’s infatuated with the idea of Gretchen Lowell. Despite the fact that the woman is one of the most truly vicious serial killers I’ve ever come across in fiction, huge swaths of the public are delighted that she has escaped from prison. They wear tee shirts urging, “Run, Gretchen, run!” They have websites extolling her praises. And, very possibly, some of them take their anti-hero worship to the next extreme by killing in her style.

When the book opens, Archie has been a patient at the Providence Medical Center psych ward for two months, kicking his addiction to Vicodin and overcoming his suicidal tendencies. In fact, though, his addiction is long gone, his liver is recovering, and he doesn’t feel particularly suicidal any longer; but he refuses to check himself out of the hospital, insisting that he is still a danger to himself in order to prolong his stay. It’s much easier than dealing with the fact that his marriage will not be resurrected, Gretchen will not become a woman he can love and live with, and his career is verging on destruction if the full extent of his relationship with Gretchen becomes known. Archie moves himself to leave the ward for a day, though – or at least his partner, Henry Sobol, moves him – when body parts are discovered in the toilet at a Columbia River Gorge rest stop.

The discovery of eyeballs in the tank of a public toilet can sure kick-start a thriller. Archie isn’t certain that Gretchen is the killer they’re searching for, but there is no doubt that he not only wants to catch the murderer who separated those eyeballs from their owners, but also Gretchen – and this time he wants Gretchen dead.

Archie teams up this time as much with Susan Ward, a journalist who wants the crime beat at the local paper, as he does with his long-suffering partner. Susan finds herself with more scoops than she can handle, and more physical danger than she had really imagined was possible for a scribbler. Her hair is purple this time around, but that doesn’t detract from her competence. It’s been fun to watch her grow over the course of three books, and now she is truly a force to be reckoned with.

As is my habit when I write about thrillers in this space, I’ll stop short of giving you any more information for fear of spoiling all the nice traps Cain lays for her readers. I will say only that I thought this a better book than Heartsick, with a more realistic denouement. Evil at Heart is a great thriller. show less

Gretchen Lowell, America’s most gorgeous, insane and sexy serial killer has escaped. The camera loves Gretchen and so, it seems, does America. Her picture graces magazine covers, t-shirts with “Run Gretchen” appear on our teenagers, coffee mugs with “I’d Kill for a Cup of Coffee” and her visage appear in break rooms throughout offices, women read articles on how to “get Gretchen’s hairstyle” in fashion magazines. Gretchen Lowell fan clubs are springing up across the country. Archie Sheridan had hunted her for years, and found right beside him, involved in the case. The horrific injuries she inflicted upon him are nothing compared to the psychological damage she left in her wake. Archie has suffered and bled and show more survived, and now, after he has been hospitalized for months and just starting to heal, he’s being drawn back into the hunt. People are once again dying in gruesome ways, and it seems that Gretchen has returned and began killing once more. Archie is forced to begin his hunt again to discover if the Beauty Killer has returned or if this is the work of a bizarre cult of her followers.

Chelsea Cain’s new book, Evil at Heart is a high speed adrenaline pumping, pulse pounding, dry-mouthed thriller. Do you remember the times you’ve gone to a really good scary movie, and someone, usually a girl, goes into a dark scary building? And you’re saying….”don’t go in…don’t go in..” because you just know that no good can come of it if she does? That’s what this book does.

At one point, while I’m reading as fast as I can, my right brain is screaming, “No, don’t go in there, run…run…. don’t you watch scary movies…get out get out get out….” At the same time, my left-brain is saying, “Uh…imaginary character in a novel…get a grip…” After my right-brain got done slapping the crap out of my left-brain, I continued reading and freaking out. A few more minutes of reading with my fingers splayed in front of my eyes, and I made it to the end of this particular chapter…whew…now I could go to bed. It was late, and then, yup, I’m sucked back in. It was the old “just a few more pages” bit. My recommendation: don’t start this book when you have enough time to read it in one sitting. You don’t want to dream about it, that would be scary and bad, and you sure as heck don’t want to wait and see what happens next.

Cain understands that too much of the unrelenting fear factor might not be manageable to us weaker hearted readers. She lets us see moments of humor in the thoughts of her protagonists that can elicit a chuckle from us, even though we know we probably shouldn’t giggle.

Chelsea Cain is the Queen of Creepy as far as I’m concerned. Her first two novels, Heartsick and Sweetheart were good, and I liked them enough that I was interested in reading her third. If you're a person who hates coming in partway through a series, (like me) you might want to check them out, but I don't think you'd have to read them first to "get" Evil at Heart. I expected to like this one as well as the last, but I was wrong. It’s the best of the three, Cain just keeps getting better and better. Okay…. creepier and creepier too. My 14-year-old daughter asked what I was reading, and all I could say was, “nothing you’re allowed to read yet.” (She gets nightmares really easily, doesn’t watch scary movies either.) I hope Queen Chelsea of Creep is hard at work writing another novel, this is one loyal reader who can’t wait to have the bejeebers scared out of me again by this talented, albeit, often frightening author!

Evil at Heart goes on sale on September 1. If you're a fan of the genre...get this book! Thriller suspense at its best. But be warned, its a gruesome and graphic page turner, with a strong "ewwww" factor. (I'm as warped as the author must be, I loved it!) show less

Remember in Alien, how every time you expected something to happen, that darn cat would pop up and then you would relax and THEN something would happen. I kept expecting Gretchen to appear here and kept getting that darn cat. Pretty impressive story when you can keep the audiences attention even when one of your main characters is not in a good chunk of the book.

The book starts with Detective Archie Sheridan having voluntarily committed himself to a psych ward. He is there and Gretchen is everywhere, she has become a celebrity, she is everywhere we would see Jon and Kate. She torments Archie without actually coming in contact with him. Archie, Henry and Susan investigate a series or crimes that might or might not have been committed by show more the Beauty Killer. Chelsea Cain incorporates a discussion on celebrity and why society focuses so much on serial killers. This is a thoroughly engrossing book that makes me look forward to the next book in the series. show less

I received an ARC of Evil at Heart through the LibraryThing Early Reviewers Program. And the timing of it was perfect for me because I had to read it for LibraryThing AND it fits in with the R.I.P. Reading Challenge I recently joined.

Evil at Heart is Book 3 in the Archie Sheridan/Gretchen Lowell series by Chelsea Cain, preceded by Heartsick and Sweetheart. Archie Sheridan is a police detective originally in charge of the task force put in place to catch The Beauty Killer, a serial killer on the loose in the Portland Area. In the first two books, we learned Gretchen (the Beauty Killer) had manipulated herself into the investigation and got close to Archie. In the end, she kidnapped and tortured him. In Book 2, she escapes from prison and show more continues to torment him, this time taking a newspaper journalist Susan Ward along for the ride. Now, in Book 3, we find Archie has checked himself into the mental ward of a hospital voluntarily. He could leave at any time but prefers to stay closed off from the "real" world and hopefully out of Gretchen's clutches. But dead bodies start appearing around Portland again in signature Gretchen Lowell sites. The city has gone crazy with their fascination with the Beauty Killer and the police don't know if she has resumed killing or some crazy Beauty Killer cult has taken up where she left off. Trying so hard not to be involved, Archie can no longer resist and checks himself out to try and figure out what is going on and journalist Susan Ward is again long for the ride.

I like this series more with each book. I started out with the first book thinking it was just sort of "meh". And I also wondered how long Cain could drag the cat and mouse game of Archie and Gretchen out. It's sort of like one of those television shows where two main characters like each other, but find for one reason or another they can't be together even though they long to be. And you keep watching to see just when the show's producers will finally let them get together and then you continue to watch to see the aftermath of the relationship. Well, in Book 3, Cain has found a way to have Gretchen be central, but then again not really. I won't say anything more because I don't want to spoil the story for you. In the end you really don't know just how much Gretchen was involved in the whole story or not. I really liked how Book 3 evolved and I liked that throughout the book Archie finally seemed to mentally be on the road to recovery.

I'll definitely read the next one to see where Cain takes the story from here. My only problem with the book is the gory-ness of it. There are some extremely graphic parts and I tend to read while I'm eating lunch and whatnot. Not a great book to read while you're eating. But if you can look past it or gore doesn't bother you then read this series! The back of the ARC touts, "Stephen King placed both Heartsick and Sweetheart on his 10 Best Books List of 2008, and praised Cain's "ferocious" writing." I have to say this book certainly evokes classic Stephen King with its torture theme and Cain doesn't hold back ata all. Anyone who has read Misery, this is definitely in the same category as that. I think Mr. King would approve of Book 3 just as much as he did of Book 1 and 2.
http://hollybooknotes.blogspot.com/2009/09/evil-at-heart-by-chelsea-cain.html show less

Let me just say that I absolutely LOVED HeartSick and Sweetheart, the first two books in the Gretchen Lowell/Archie Sheridan series.

Having been a fan of the Hannibal Lecter books, and equally fascinated by abnormal psychology (including serial killers), those were what I considered "perfect" books. (Perfect for my tastes, that is.)

I already had Evil at Heart on my Amazon Wish List. Come hell or high water, I was buying book 3 when it came out in September 2009! So imagine my surprise when it came up on Amazon Vine...

My hands were shaking. No WAY! I was so afraid that I would click the "send me this item" button, only to have it say "sorry, out of stock".

But it wasn't!

So I greedily read Evil at Heart and...

I'm a bit disappointed. show more

Yes, it's a page turner. And yes, Chelsea Cain is an incredible writer. But the premise is starting to stretch thin.

Those of us familiar with the series know that serial killer Gretchen Lowell manipulates men with her beauty and charm (and who knows what else), even to the point of having them kill for her.

But c'mon! How can you be such a famous serial killer--a striking beauty whose face is plastered on the side of buses, graces every magazine cover, and arises on tabloid TV shows--and not be recognized! Hiding right there in Portland, for crying out loud!

And, even if you can get a few sickos to help you out--do your crazy dirty work for you--how can you control their "placement"? Prevent their "detection"?

(SPOILER ALERT: What I mean by this is that, in Evil at Heart, an orderly--supposedly under Gretchen's thumb--has infiltrated the nuthouse that Detective Archie Sheridan is housed within. He not only kills a patient, but SURPRISE!, keels over right after...somehow given a drug that kills HIM.)

And where is Gretchen? She can just waltz in anywhere she wants? Give people shots to silence them? Have minions placed in a locked facility and within killing distance of Archie Sheridan himself? C'mon.

Yes, Evil at Heart has a compelling premise: people are getting their eyeballs carved out, and these eyeballs are showing up in other corpses and even in the toilet tanks at public rest stops (ewwww!). Is it the work of Gretchen on the loose (in violation of her promise to Archie not to kill)--or is it a copycat serial killer? And what of the fan clubs cropping up?

With themes of self-mutilation, sexual-erotic obsession, and serial-killer fanatacism, I felt that Chesea Cain was trying to outgore herself. Hey, I don't mind gore. But if it reads/feels like "shock and awe" writing effects rather than furthering the story, well...it seems orchestrated.

Of course, a mysterious flash drive with a supposed dossier on a "child killing apprentice" shows up in the last 3/4 of the book, setting up yet another sequel. And yes, this book pretty much ends like the first: Gretchen caught, and Archie relieved...(we think).

Susan Ward is one of the main characters here, with the rest taking a major back seat (compared to the earlier books). Archie's friend/fellow partner, Henry, is pretty much reduced to rubbing his neck, squinting, dressing in black (as always) and about to blow a gasket. More than once, Claire is described as wearing an oversized shirt to the crime scene (read: she's still sleeping with Henry).

Even though the premise of the entire Heart series is a bit "out there", the first two books make it entirely believable. But now that Gretchen is omni-present in the media (they are even offering Gretchen Lowell manicures with red tips!), it becomes even MORE of a stretch that this beauty can slink around Portland, smuggle cellphones, and employ minions...all without being spotted.

If I were you, I'd get Evil at Heart at the library. Unless Chelsea Cain can figure out a way for Gretchen and Archie to face off again--with the crazy psycho-sexual tension and Stockholm Syndrome intact--then Gretchen becomes mostly a peripheral character. And, quite frankly, Cain is going to have to rely on more than shock-value and her engaging writing to keep her fans wanting more...

Janet Boyer, author of Back in Time Tarot show less