‘Sweetheart’ by Chelsea Cain
Break out the body bags, serial killer Gretchen Lowell is back in Chelsea Cain’s new novel “Sweetheart,” a follow-up to her best-selling “Heartsick.”
As readers rejoin Portland detective Archie Sheridan, he has moved back in with his family, is still struggling with pills and is going through withdrawal from the sadistic Gretchen, who he quit visiting in prison.
Archie is investigating a murder case after the body of a young woman turns up in a park.
“The woman had been dead awhile. Her skull was exposed; her scalp had been pulled back, a tangle of red hair separated from the hairline by several inches. Animals had eaten her face, exposing her eyes and brain to the forces of putrefaction. Her nose was gone, revealing the triangular bony notch beneath it; her eye sockets were concave bowls of greasy, soaplike fat. The flesh of her neck and ears was blistered and curdled, peeled back in strips to frame that horrible skull face, mouth open like a Halloween skeleton.”
OK, so maybe you shouldn’t eat while reading this book.
Reporter Susan Ward also returns to the scene in the follow-up, pursuing a story about a corrupt senator. When the politician turns up dead, along with one of Susan’s co-workers, she and Archie’s paths again cross. Soon after though, both reporter and cop become distracted when Beauty Killer Gretchen Lowell escapes from prison. Eventually, of course, Archie gets a call on his cell phone ... “Hello, darling.” She’s back. He’s obsessed.
What follows is a wild ride of a novel. Archie wants to catch Gretchen. Susan wants to get a good story. They both are in danger.
I usually don’t read thrillers, but I did read “Heartsick” and enjoyed it. I picked up “Sweetheart” in hardback and tore through it. It’s certainly a page-turner.
I hope Cain continues to write about Gretchen, who has been compared to Hannibal Lecter. She herself has a different comparison.
“So you’re a feminist homicidal psychopath,” Archie said.
“The Betty Friedan of serial killers,” she said.
