Heartsick by Chelsea Cain.
Title: Heartsick.
Author: Chelsea Cain.
Genre: Fiction, crime, thriller, mystery, romance.
Country: U.S.
Language: English.
Publication Date: 2007.
Summary: Portland detective Archie Sheridan spent years tracking Gretchen Lowell, a beautiful and brutal serial killer. In the end, she was the one who caught him, tortured him, and then let him go. Why did Gretchen spare Archie's life and then turn herself in? This is the question that keeps him up all night, and the reason why he has visited Gretchen in prison every week since. Meanwhile, another series of murders is tearing up the Portland streets. Archie seems to be getting closer to solving this high-profile case. until he finds himself in a fatal collision course with the killer, and Gretchen may be the only one who can help do justice. The only thing she can't do, this time, is save Archie's life.
My rating: 8/10.
♥ It was dark and wet in the backyard. The back porch light illuminated a half circle of muddy grass and dead sedum planted too close to the house. The straw man was in the copper fire bowl. Bliss leaned over and set the straw on fire with a plastic lighter and then stood back. The straw crackled and burned and then the flames crept up the little straw man's torso until they engulfed him fully. His little arms were splayed wide, as if in panic. Then all human shape was lost to the orange blaze. Susan and Bliss burned Susan's father every year so that they could let him go, start fresh. At least that was the idea. Maybe they would stop if it ever took.
Susan's eyes filled up with tears and she turned away. That was the thing. You thought you were emotionally steady, and then your dead father went and had a birthday and your crazy mother went and set a straw doll on fire in his memory.
♥ But Archie didn't mind being around grief. Even the most blatant assholes seemed to function in a state of grace when confronted with the brutal loss of a loved one. They moved through the world differently than other people. When they looked at you, you had the feeling that they were really seeing you. Their entire universe was just this one thing, this one event, this one loss. They seemed, for a few weeks, to have things in perspective. Then inconsequential shit of their lives would start to seep back in.