The Serial Killers Club - Jeff Povey
The Serial Killers Club - Jeff Povey
When our unlikely hero stumbles into the path of a serial killer, he has no choice but to defend himself - and ends up killing the killer. Shocked by his own strength, he then goes through the dead man's wallet and finds the damndest thing: a personal ad inviting the killer to join a party hosted by Errol Flynn. Errol Flynn? Isn't he dead?
What begins with passing curiosity soon becomes uncontrollable obsession, forcing our hero to fly to Chicago to join the party. From the moment he steps into Grillers and meets eighteen "skillers" - serial killers, to the uninitiated - his life is never the same. Their name: The Serial Killers Club. Their game: to share the thrill of the hunt and to make sure no two members target the same victims. With the monikers of old Hollywood stars masking the skillers' identities, their ranks include "William Holden," "Tallulah Bankhead," "Richard Burton," and before long, "Douglas Fairbanks Jr.," our hero himself.
But "Dougie" has no intention of wasting innocent victims. Instead, with a government agent on his tail, he devises a perfect plan to knock off the members of the club one by one. But what will happen when they notice their numbers dropping? Dougie doesn't have an MO and he's not a bloodthirsty killer. Or is he?
Introducing a brilliant, witty new voice to the world of thrillers, THE SERIALS KILLERS CLUB is fresh, frightening, and darkly funny.
In other words, a killer.
OK, for starters, I kind of feel like the "Killers" in the title should have an apostrophe. But it is one of those situations that can go either way, so I won't belabour the point.
That said, I kind of enjoyed this book's premise more than I enjoyed the book itself. I think this was largely due to the unlikeability of the main character. Dougie is precisely the sort of unknowingly sexist jackass that is so intolerable to me. He's one of those guys who is honestly so oblivious and delusional that he thinks he's god's gift to women, and cannot take a hint. If the woman he's just randomly hit on blows him off or ignores him, she either didn't hear him, or she's just shy, and he will not just leave it alone and move on. He needs to continue the "conversation." Anything sort of a "Fuck off; I'm not interested," to him is a sign of, as I said, shyness or something. Heck, even the "fuck off" is probably just the woman playing hard to get. Or perhaps he's a lesbian and/or frigid bitch. He's one of those guys, and personally, I find such guys utterly infuriating, all the more so because I don't fell that they're worth even that much of an emotional response, but they piss me off anyway. All of which makes it extremely difficult for me to like, relate to, or care about what happens to him, short of a vague hope that he'll just go die in a fire. No one else was particularly likable either.
Oh, and to Mr. Delusional: When a woman you know to be a serial killer, whose MO is to sleep with men and then burn their bits off, tells you explicitly that she feels like a spider, and compelled to do this, you should consider very carefully which of your heads you'll let respond when she comes on to you. You should also really not feel flattered, since she's told you that the men she chooses to sleep with (and kill) are invariably men she basically finds repulsive. Just a friendly word of advice.
On the good side of things, there were some twists that I didn't predict, and I guess I must have been at least somewhat into it, because I chewed through it pretty quick.
Again on the negative, though, Mr. Povey has placed himself among the ranks of the uninformed who insist on spreading the misconception that schizophrenia is the same thing as multiple personality disorder. Way to go, dumbass.
Anyway, so this is clearly not going to be the most intellectual of my book reviews, but then, it wasn't the most intellectual book I've read, either. It's unfortunate, because I did have high hopes for it. Not intellectually, per se, but I did hope it would be better than it was. If you like delusional, arrogant, sexist jackasses, though, then is this the book for you!
Next up: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time, by Mark Haddon
When our unlikely hero stumbles into the path of a serial killer, he has no choice but to defend himself - and ends up killing the killer. Shocked by his own strength, he then goes through the dead man's wallet and finds the damndest thing: a personal ad inviting the killer to join a party hosted by Errol Flynn. Errol Flynn? Isn't he dead?
What begins with passing curiosity soon becomes uncontrollable obsession, forcing our hero to fly to Chicago to join the party. From the moment he steps into Grillers and meets eighteen "skillers" - serial killers, to the uninitiated - his life is never the same. Their name: The Serial Killers Club. Their game: to share the thrill of the hunt and to make sure no two members target the same victims. With the monikers of old Hollywood stars masking the skillers' identities, their ranks include "William Holden," "Tallulah Bankhead," "Richard Burton," and before long, "Douglas Fairbanks Jr.," our hero himself.
But "Dougie" has no intention of wasting innocent victims. Instead, with a government agent on his tail, he devises a perfect plan to knock off the members of the club one by one. But what will happen when they notice their numbers dropping? Dougie doesn't have an MO and he's not a bloodthirsty killer. Or is he?
Introducing a brilliant, witty new voice to the world of thrillers, THE SERIALS KILLERS CLUB is fresh, frightening, and darkly funny.
In other words, a killer.
OK, for starters, I kind of feel like the "Killers" in the title should have an apostrophe. But it is one of those situations that can go either way, so I won't belabour the point.
That said, I kind of enjoyed this book's premise more than I enjoyed the book itself. I think this was largely due to the unlikeability of the main character. Dougie is precisely the sort of unknowingly sexist jackass that is so intolerable to me. He's one of those guys who is honestly so oblivious and delusional that he thinks he's god's gift to women, and cannot take a hint. If the woman he's just randomly hit on blows him off or ignores him, she either didn't hear him, or she's just shy, and he will not just leave it alone and move on. He needs to continue the "conversation." Anything sort of a "Fuck off; I'm not interested," to him is a sign of, as I said, shyness or something. Heck, even the "fuck off" is probably just the woman playing hard to get. Or perhaps he's a lesbian and/or frigid bitch. He's one of those guys, and personally, I find such guys utterly infuriating, all the more so because I don't fell that they're worth even that much of an emotional response, but they piss me off anyway. All of which makes it extremely difficult for me to like, relate to, or care about what happens to him, short of a vague hope that he'll just go die in a fire. No one else was particularly likable either.
Oh, and to Mr. Delusional: When a woman you know to be a serial killer, whose MO is to sleep with men and then burn their bits off, tells you explicitly that she feels like a spider, and compelled to do this, you should consider very carefully which of your heads you'll let respond when she comes on to you. You should also really not feel flattered, since she's told you that the men she chooses to sleep with (and kill) are invariably men she basically finds repulsive. Just a friendly word of advice.
On the good side of things, there were some twists that I didn't predict, and I guess I must have been at least somewhat into it, because I chewed through it pretty quick.
Again on the negative, though, Mr. Povey has placed himself among the ranks of the uninformed who insist on spreading the misconception that schizophrenia is the same thing as multiple personality disorder. Way to go, dumbass.
Anyway, so this is clearly not going to be the most intellectual of my book reviews, but then, it wasn't the most intellectual book I've read, either. It's unfortunate, because I did have high hopes for it. Not intellectually, per se, but I did hope it would be better than it was. If you like delusional, arrogant, sexist jackasses, though, then is this the book for you!
Next up: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time, by Mark Haddon