Heartsick: A Thriller (Archie Sheridan & Gretchen Lowell Book 1) by Chelsea Cain (Epub)

Description

Damaged Portland detective Archie Sheridan spent ten years tracking Gretchen Lowell, a beautiful serial killer, but in the end she was the one who caught him. Two years ago, Gretchen kidnapped Archie and tortured him for ten days, but instead of killing him, she mysteriously decided to let him go. She turned herself in, and now Gretchen has been locked away for the rest of her life, while Archie is in a prison of another kind—addicted to pain pills, unable to return to his old life, powerless to get those ten horrific days off his mind. Archie’s a different person, his estranged wife says, and he knows she’s right. He continues to visit Gretchen in prison once a week, saying that only he can get her to confess as to the whereabouts of more of her victims, but even he knows the truth—he can’t stay away.

When another killer begins snatching teenage girls off the streets of Portland, Archie has to pull himself together enough to lead the new task force investigating the murders. A hungry young newspaper reporter, Susan Ward, begins profiling Archie and the investigation, which sparks a deadly game between Archie, Susan, the new killer, and even Gretchen. They need to catch a killer, and maybe somehow then Archie can free himself from Gretchen, once and for all. Either way, Heartsick makes for one of the most extraordinary suspense debuts in recent memory.

User’s Reviews

Review Advance Praise for Heartsick and Chelsea Cain “Heartsick has it all: a tortured cop, a fearless and quirky heroine, and what may be the creepiest serial killer ever created. This is an addictive read!”—Tess Gerritsen “With Gretchen Lowell, Chelsea Cain gives us the most compelling, most original serial killer since Hannibal Lecter.”—Chuck Palahniuk “Chelsea Cain’s novel is completely entrancing and totally original—what a read. Between the humanity of Portland cop Archie Sheridan and the chilling and twisted design of his beautiful nemesis, Gretchen Lowell, Heartsick is utterly unforgettable. Cain is a wonderful—and terrifying—storyteller.”—Dominick Dunne From the Inside Flap Damaged Portland detective Archie Sheridan spent ten years tracking Gretchen Lowell, a beautiful serial killer, but in the end she was the one who caught him. Two years ago, Gretchen kidnapped Archie and tortured him for ten days, but instead of killing him, she mysteriously decided to let him go. She turned herself in, and now Gretchen has been locked away for the rest of her life, while Archie is in a prison of another kind—addicted to pain pills, unable to return to his old life, powerless to get those ten horrific days off his mind. Archie’s a different person, his estranged wife says, and he knows she’s right. He continues to visit Gretchen in prison once a week, saying that only he can get her to confess as to the whereabouts of more of her victims, but even he knows the truth—he can’t stay away.When another killer begins snatching teenage girls off the streets of Portland, Archie has to pull himself together enough to lead the new task force investigating the murders. A hungry young newspaper reporter, Susan Ward, begins profiling Archie and the investigation, which sparks a deadly game between Archie, Susan, the new killer, and even Gretchen. They need to catch a killer, and maybe somehow then Archie can free himself from Gretchen, once and for all. Either way, “Heartsick” makes for one of the most extraordinary suspense debuts in recent memory. –This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. From Bookmarks Magazine Chelsea Cain, the author of Confessions of a Teen Sleuth, a well-reviewed Nancy Drew parody, and Dharma Girl, a memoir about life in a hippie household, now offers a thrilling crime investigation interspersed with graphic, sexually charged torture scenes. The flashbacks to Gretchen’s stomach-turning treatment of Archie turned off some critics, as did the novel’s too-neat-to-believe conclusion. And while Gretchen is nowhere near as memorable a character as Hannibal Lecter, the young reporter Susan Ward adds an unexpected twist to the now-clichéd story line. Since Heartsick is the first novel in a trilogy, most critics are looking forward to reading more, with a request by the Washington Post: more Susan, less Gretchen.Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc. –This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition. From Publishers Weekly McCormick delivers an uneven performance in her reading of Cain’s bestselling debut thriller. Gretchen Lowell, The Beauty Killer, was one of the most prolific serial killers in history, claiming over 200 lives. Her only surviving victim was Archie Sheridan, the lead detective on the task force set up to apprehend her. Archie was tortured for days until Lowell inexplicably turned herself in. Two years later Archie is still a victim, on leave from the force, estranged from his family, addicted to pain pills and obsessively visiting Gretchen weekly. When a new killer begins murdering teenage girls, Archie is called back into action. By his side is an ambitious, pink-haired news reporter who may become her own page-one headline. The usually reliable McCormick has a rocky start with the first few chapters. Her clipped, overarticulation of each line keeps listeners at a distance instead of immersing them in the mesmerizing events taking place. However, she does improve as the story moves forward, and her rich, throaty portrayal of Gretchen Lowell is the perfect blend of predator and seductress. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. –This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition. From Booklist *Starred Review* It’s a long way from a Nancy Drew parody (Confessions of a Teen Sleuth, 2005) to one of the most original serial-killer thrillers to appear in several years, but Cain makes the leap unscathed. Throw out all your assumptions about the sameness of serial-killer novels; this one breaks the mold. Yes, the notorious Gretchen Lowell is behind bars throughout the novel (a la Hannibal Lecter), and, yes, she counsels the Portland, Oregon, cop who is chasing a new sociopath, but unlike in Silence of the Lambs, Archie Sheridan, Cain’s detective hero, was one of Lowell’s victims. (After kidnapping and killing more than 200 people, Lowell captured and tortured Sheridan, then inexplicably let him live.) So two plotlines unfold alternately, each feeding the other: the grisly backstory of what Lowell did to Sheridan (“Whatever you think this is going to be like,” she whispers, “it’s going to be worse”), and the real-time account of Sheridan’s search for a new serial killer who is preying on teenage girls from Portland’s high schools. The plots are thickened by costar Susan Ward, a pink-haired, punky reporter, and by Sheridan’s addiction to prescription drugs—and his unbreakable emotional attachment to Lowell, his torturer and savior. Cain never misses a beat here, turning the psychological screws ever tighter for both Sheridan and Ward while drawing us deep into the nightmare that lives inside Gretchen Lowell’s head. Sheridan will remind thriller fans of Ridley Pearson’s Lou Boldt, and Cain’s use of Portland as a setting—contrasting the charm of the city against the horror of the crimes—echoes Pearson’s similar use of Seattle. But Heartsick is in no way deriviative. This could well be the thriller of the year. Ott, Bill –This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition. From AudioFile Detective Archie Sheridan maintains a relationship with serial killer Gretchen Lowell, whom he sent to prison, but not before she tortured and nearly killed him. Now he joins a task force that is looking for a new serial killer in Portland, Oregon. Flashbacks to Archies suffering at the hands of Lowell wrap the two sadistic killers together in a horrifying package. Carolyn McCormicks narration contrasts the brutality of the killers with their otherwise general ordinariness. She also accentuates the tension in the complex relationship between Lowell and Archie, and its impact on his relationships with the other characters. McCormicks skillful control of the suspense is gripping. J.E.M. © AudioFile 2007, Portland, Maine– Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine –This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Chapter 1 Archie doesn’t know for sure that it’s her until that moment. There is a dull bloom of warmth in his spine, his vision blurs, and then he knows that Gretchen Lowell is the killer. He realizes that he has been drugged, but it is too late. He fumbles for his gun, but he is ham-fisted and can only lift it awkwardly from his belt clip and hold it out as if it were a gift to her. She takes it and smiles, kissing him gently on the forehead. Then she reaches into his coat and takes the cell phone, turning it off and slipping it into her purse. He is almost paralyzed now, slumped in the leather chair in her home office. But his mind is a prison of clarity. She kneels down next to him, the way one might a child, and puts her lips so close to his that they are almost kissing. His pulse throbs in his throat. He can’t swallow. She smells like lilacs.“It’s time to go, darling,” she whispers. She stands then, and he is lifted from behind, elbows under his armpits. A man in front of him, red-faced and heavy, takes his legs, and he is carried into the garage and laid in the back of the green Voyager—the vehicle Archie and his task force have spent months looking for—and she crawls in on top of him. He realizes then that there is someone else in the van, that she wasn’t the one behind him, but he doesn’t have time to process this because she is straddling his torso, a knee pressing on either side of his waist. He cannot move his eyes anymore, so she narrates for his benefit.“I’m rolling up your right sleeve. I’m tying off a vein.” Then she holds up a hypodermic in his sight line. Medical training, he thinks. Eighteen percent of female serial killers are nurses. He is staring at the ceiling of the van. Gray metal. Stay awake, he thinks. Remember everything, every detail; it will be important. He thinks, If I live.“I’m going to let you rest for a little while.” She smiles and puts her flat, pretty face in front of his so he can see her, her blond hair brushing his cheek, though he cannot feel it. “We’ll have plenty of time for fun later.”He cannot respond, cannot even blink now. His breath comes in long, shallow rasps. He cannot see her push the needle in his arm, but he assumes she has, because then there is only darkness. He wakes up on his back. He is still groggy, and it takes him a moment to realize that the red-faced man is standing over him. In this moment, the very first moment of Archie’s awareness, the man’s head explodes. Archie jerks as the man’s blood and brain matter blow forward, splattering Archie’s face and chest, a vomit of warm, clotted fluid. He tries to move, but his hands and feet are bound to a table. He feels a piece of something hot slide down his face and slop onto the floor, and he pulls hard against the bindings until his skin breaks, but he cannot budge them. He gags, but his mouth is taped shut, forcing the bile back into his throat, making him gag again. His eyes burn. Then he sees her, standing behind where the man’s body has fallen, holding the gun she has just used to execute him.“I wanted you to understand right away how committed I am to you,” she says. “That you are the only one.” And then she turns and walks away.He is left then to contemplate what has just happened. He swallows hard, willing himself to remain calm, to look around. He is alone. The man is dead on the floor. Gretchen is gone. The driver of the van is gone. Archie’s blood is pulsing so violently that it is the only sensation. Time passes. At first, he thinks he is in an operating room. It is a large space, walled with white ceramic subway tiles and well lit by fluorescent lights. He turns his head from side to side and sees several trays of instruments, medical-looking machinery, a drain on the cement floor. He strains again at his binds and realizes that he is strapped to a gurney. Tubes are coming in and out of him: a catheter, an IV. There are no windows in the room and a faint earthy smell skirts the edge of his consciousness. Mildew. A basement.He starts to think like a cop now. The others had been tortured for a couple of days before she dumped the bodies. That meant that he had time. Two days. Maybe three. They could find him in that amount of time. He had told Henry where he was going, that he had a psych consult about the newest body. He had wanted to see her, to get her advice. He was not prepared for this. But they would connect it. Henry would connect it. It would be the last place to which he could be traced. He had made a call to his wife on the way. That would be the last point of contact. How much time had passed since he had been taken?She is there again. On the other side of the table from where the body still lies, thick, dark blood seeping onto the gray floor. He remembers when she had first introduced herself—the psychiatrist who had given up her practice to write a book. She had read about the task force and had called him to see if she could help. It had been hell on all of them. She offered to come in. Not counseling, she had said. Just talk. They had been working on the case for almost ten years. Twenty-three bodies in three states. It had taken a toll. She invited those who were interested to come to a group session. Just talk. He had been surprised at how many of the detectives had shown. It might have had something to do with the fact that she was beautiful. The funny thing was, it had helped. She was very good.She pulls the white sheet covering him down so that his chest is exposed, and he realizes that he’s naked. There is no self-consciousness attached to it. It is merely a fact. She places a hand flat on his breastbone. He knows what this means. He has memorized the crime photos, the abrasions and burns on the torsos. It is part of the profile, one of her signatures.“Do you know what comes next?” she asks, knowing that he does.He needs to talk to her. To stall. He makes a garbled noise through the duct tape and motions with his head for her to take it off. She touches her finger to his lips and shakes her head. “Not just yet,” she says softly.She asks it again. A little more harshly. “Do you know what comes next?”He nods.She smiles, satisfied. “That’s why I prepared something special for you, darling.” She has an instrument tray beside her and she turns and withdraws something from it. A hammer and nail. Interesting, he thinks, amazed at his ability to detach from himself, to remain clinical. So far the victims had been seemingly random, male, female, young, old, but the torso damage, though it had evolved, had been notably consistent. She had never used nails before.She seems pleased. “I thought you’d appreciate some variety.” She lets her fingertips dance up his rib cage until she finds the rib she is looking for and then she places the point of the nail against his skin and comes down hard with the hammer. He feels the explosion of his rib breaking and gags again. His chest burns with pain. He fights to breathe. His eyes water. She wipes a tear from his flushed cheek and caresses his hair, and then she finds another rib and repeats the process. And another. When she is done, she has broken six of his ribs. The nail is wet with blood. She lets it drop with an innocuous clink back on the instrument tray. He can’t shift his body even a millimeter without a searing pain, like none he has ever felt. His nasal passages have clogged with mucus, he can’t breathe through his mouth, he has to brace himself for agony with every lung expansion, and still he can’t make himself breathe shallowly, can’t slow the panicked, heavy pants that sound like sobs. Maybe two days was optimistic, he thinks. Maybe he would just die now. Copyright © 2007 by Verite, Inc. All rights reserved. –This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition. From the Back Cover A LIVING NIGHTMARE 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…and 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.A DEADLY OBSESSION…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―one that inevitably leads him back to his former captor. 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.”HEARTSICK IS COMPELLING and ORIGINAL.” ―Chuck Palahniuk”Brilliant.”― New York Post –This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Reviews from Amazon users, collected at the time the book is getting published on UniedVRG. It can be related to shiping or paper quality instead of the book content:

⭐ I am not into bloody, gory, serial killer novels, with the exception of Thomas Harris’s Hannibal Lecter – a real favorite of mine, although I wouldn’t want to have lunch with him! However, author Chelsea Cain has come up with a new take on the genre. Her psychopath is a woman, Gretchen Lowell, and an extremely beautiful, brilliant woman at that.We don’t hear about many female serial killers, and that may be partly because women aren’t as prone to commit this type of crime as men. Criminologist, Eric Hickey, has assembled the most extensive database on demography of serial murder. He states that, “88% of serial killers are male, 85% are Caucasian, and the average age when they claim their first victim is usually around 28.5. Women account for 15% of violent offenders (men are 6 times more likely to commit violent crimes).” Gretchen Lowell makes Ted Bundy look like a pussycat!Detective Archie Sheridan is a hero in Portland, Oregon. Sheridan headed the so-called “Beauty Killer Task Force,” and solved the case two years before the novel begins. It was proved, in a court of law, that Gretchen Lowell was responsible for the deaths of 26 victims. She claims she has murdered over 200 people, brutally torturing each one first. She has no profile and is an equal opportunity killer – blacks, whites, Hispanics, young, old, men, women – it doesn’t matter. However, she does not victimize children. She is called “The Beauty Killer,” not because she is beautiful, but because when the medical examiner was asked to categorize the condition of the first of many corpses, he whistled and said, “It’s a beauty!” Autopsies are usually boring, according to the ME – mostly drownings and suicides. He is positively “tickled” by Gretchen’s original work. It is just a coincidence that she’s a “looker.”Archie was the lead detective on the case. He was also Gretchen’s last victim. The FBI profiler was sure the killer was a man, an opinion which almost cost Sheridan his life. Ms. Lowell, posing as a psychiatrist, (she was an operating room nurse, in actuality), insinuated herself into the task force by claiming that she gave up her practice to write a book about the killings. She is clever enough to have created a portfolio of credible information which could be backed up when investigated. She told members of the team that she read about the gruesome murders and believed she could be of help. The case had been hell for the detectives, and Lowell “believed” she could talk with them – not counsel – just talk to ease their anxiety. They had been working on the case for ten years and their lack of success was really getting to all of them – all the dead, mutilated bodies, all the grieving, traumatized families waiting for closure, all the dead ends.One afternoon, two years before, Archie visited Lowell in her office. His supposed colleague gave him coffee with milk, sugar and drugs. When he awakened he was strapped to a gurney in a basement, outfitted like an operating room, with medical-looking machinery, and a drain on the cement floor. His captor cooed in his ear, “Whatever you think this is going to be like, it’s going to be worse.” Now, two years later, Archie remembers all too clearly what was done to him. His spleen was removed without the benefit of anesthetics, nails were hammered into his rib cage, he was given enough drugs, when he wasn’t being physically tortured, to become addicted to an impressive cocktail of medication – uppers, downers, you name it. His tormentor doodled on his chest with a scalpel, including a drawing of her signature, a heart…need I go on??However, Gretchen did something different with Archie than she had done with other victims. She allowed him to live for 10 days, although he longed for death. She only gave her other victims 3 days before she mercifully killed them. When Archie began to die, she called 911, reported the situation and asked for immediate medical attention. Then she turned herself in to the police.Archie lives, but after an extensive stay in the hospital, he is placed on long-term medical leave. He is too damaged psychologically to maintain his marriage to his childhood sweetheart, although he loves her and adores their two sons. The couple finally decide to separate. However the worst after effect of his kidnapping and torture is his compulsion to visit Gretchen Lowell in jail every Sunday. His excuse for these weekly visits is that she occasionally divulges another victim’s name and place of burial. Her only condition for these revelations is that Archie maintain these weekly visits – thus she continues to exert control over him. Worse still, he is drawn to her sexually. His problem is perhaps a version of the Stockholm Syndrome, “a psychological response sometimes seen in abducted hostages, in which the hostage shows signs of loyalty to the hostage-taker, regardless of the danger or risk in which they have been placed.”I haven’t included any spoilers, as this background information is divulged at the beginning of the novel. The plot of “Heartsick” involves a series of murders occurring in Portland, Oregon. Someone is killing and raping teenage girls. Gretchen Lowell does have a role here also, although she is in prison. The police reconvene the “Beauty Killer” task force and Archie is asked to come out of “temporary” retirement to be lead detective on the case. Although he maintains a professional demeanor, he is dysfunctional. To look at him, to work with him, no one would know. He is careful to keep his condition a secret, and, in fact, coming back to work helps keep him sane. He shovels drugs down his throat as if they were candy – just enough medication to relieve his physical and emotional pain, but not enough to really damage his kidneys and liver.Pink-haired Oregon Herald reporter Susan Ward is assigned to the case and is allowed complete access to the murders, crime scenes, and to Archie – she is to work alongside him. Her goal is not only to write a series of articles, but to write a book also. Why does Archie allow a reporter complete access to the case? Why did Gretchen allow him to live? You will have to read the novel to find out.This is a “can’t put it down” read. The author writes well, the narrative clips along at a good pace, and Ms. Cain’s characters are quite compelling. She really brings them to life on the page. The storyline is told in a series of flashbacks, from the present to the time when Archie was a captive. This book gives the term “psychological thriller” a new meaning.”If you like thrillers, you will love this one. Even the gory details are not a real deterrent, given the exciting plot, the depth of the characters and what makes them tick. Highly recommended.JANA

⭐ It’s an interesting storyline with a diverse group of characters. I like the switching of POV throughout the story; however, I wish the flash backs were in past tense. As the entire story is written in present tense it can get messy reading something and then realizing “oh wait this is what did happen”. I personally found the “big reveal” interesting but it didn’t seem plausible tying the killer back to Gretchen. I think the story could’ve done without the flashbacks to Gretchen and without her character all together, it was interesting enough on its own.

⭐ As a book about serial killers, for me, it was very different from any others that I have read previously. There were quite a few differences and I would have to go into details to explain, which I will not do, for the sake of a potential reader. My advice is to read the book and see for yourself.I will say that, in parts., the book is pretty graphic. With that being said, I felt that everything in the book was essential to make the impression on me that it did..Thanks for reading this review. I am now hooked and on to the authors next book. My fingers are crossed hoping it will be as good as this one!

⭐ I thought about this book for about two days after I finished it. I liked it. Once I started I couldn’t stop. The book’s mystery was well plotted but it’s the characters that hold you. The author makes you root for the good guys even though all are flawed/off in someway. Her writing style keeps things moving very fast. And by the end I wanted all the main characters to somehow get better. Well, except one! SHE is CREEPY and SICK! And the author is so good that I really ended up hating her and wanting her to suffer more. All in all , a very good book. 4 stars. But I will not read the rest of the books that continue the characters stories. One visit with HER is enough for me.

⭐ I don’t often read crime thrillers, but I’m aware of many of the tropes. And Cain pulls a lot of the standard ones out of the box for this story. However, while I found the serial killer plot line rather weak, I also got the feeling that Cain was simply using it to gradually build up the story of Gretchen and Archie, which is by far the most interesting aspect of the book. Gretchen is a sufficiently creepy and perceptive psychopath, made even creepier by the fact that she is a very pretty woman who seems more suited to beauty pageants than ruthlessly torturing and murdering people.Basically, Cain takes a different approach to a well-worn story: instead of a crack detective furiously hunting down his arch-serial-killer-nemesis, you have the repercussions of the end of that hunt — a broken detective, a world still filled with other evils, and a crazy killer who seems to have the ability to keep pulling stings even after she’s been caught. She frames the classic cop-killer relationship from an interesting and fresh (and creepy) perspective.Despite the overall weakness of the crazy teacher plot, I get where Cain is coming from, and I appreciate her attempt to try something different. I think she just needs to work on the depth of the “killer of the week” plots while building up the beautifully frightening interactions between Gretchen and Archie. In other words, she needs to concentrate on making sure all her plots and sub-plots are the same quality. With Heartsick, I found myself quickly skimming through some of the crazy teacher guy chapters so I could back to the Archie-Gretchen parts — one plot was noticeably stronger than the other. Balance, Cain. Balance.Other than that, I found the story pretty enjoyable. The characters are well-characterized. Her settings are adequately described. Her style isn’t anything to write home about, but the pacing works well for a semi-standard crime novel.

⭐ Despite the fact that several developments in this novel concerning a new serial killer are at least one degree too convenient, it is an interesting introduction of struggling Portland detective Archie Sheridan who two years prior had blundered into the grasp of the strikingly beautiful serial killer Gretchen Lowell, finally managing to escape her control with many lingering psychological and physical scars. But it is this latest string of killings that lures Archie off of medical leave to head a special task force with many of his previous associates.The earlier case still consumes Archie. He lives a secluded life, keeps himself heavily medicated to fight his demons, and visits Gretchen in prison weekly, partly in the hope that she will reveal details about her killings. This time around, to deflect public pressure, the police department permits a feature’s writer Susan Ward with the only Portland daily to have access to Archie and the investigation. This perky, punky, spunky female vies easily with Archie and Gretchen as being the most interesting character in the book.The story alternates between Archie’s ordeal at the hands of Gretchen and following leads on this latest case. There is a sense that author permits only glimpses of the main characters. Minimal background information is provided. There is plenty of space left to explore these characters. It will be interesting to see if Susan’s appeal will be allowed to expand. As said, the plotting is not particularly impressive, but the story moves along well enough to hold interest.

⭐ Heartsick is the first book in a series featuring Archie Sheridan, a Portland Oregon detective and Gretchen Lowell, a twisted psychopathic serial killer. At the beginning of the story Gretchen is in prison after being captured after a ten year period when Archie was heading the task force assigned to the case.After a two year absence from the police force recovering from the physical and mental torture inflicted on him by Gretchen he is back on the task force assigned the task of capturing another serial killer of young girls. Susan Ward, a newspaper reporter is assigned to the task force to do a series of stories on Archie and in the process uncovers a lot of troubling information about the past and the sordid relationship between Archie and Gretchen who continues to control his entire life from prison. I found the ongoing relationship between these two protagonists to be very erotic and twisted but it makes for a fascinating story undermining the solving of the new serial murder case. I found the characterization of all three of the main characters to be outstanding, each with their own set of mental and emotional problems. This book is very original and unlike any serial killer book you have read before. It is mesmerizing and I look forward to the subsequent novels in this series. This book is a damn good read!

⭐ I wanted to thoroughly love this book. I thought a large part of it was very good, with great characters and writing. It was actually the direction the story took and the relationship with Archie & Gretchen that started changing my mind. I could understand to a degree why Archie felt compelled to visit her once a week, in order to recover more bodies from Gretchen’s years of killing. I just don’t like the attraction he is feeling towards her and had a very hard time with that aspect. I had planned to read the series, but I’m not feeling like that’s going to happen. From reading the plot lines for following books it looks like these two are lovers and that’s just not something that I can stomach. Gretchen is a monster and supposedly the most brilliant mind in the world. She’s always a step ahead without making a mistake. Maybe I’ll change my mind & try another one down the road, but for right now, I think I’m done.

⭐ Well, all my authors are busy writing books. So I thought a great time to pick up another author; I read alot and sometimes my authors don’t write fast enough. I had high hopes for Chelsea Cain, I mean female authors that aren’t afraid to delve into writing about a serial killer; well Karin Slaughter (my favorite author), she’s not. This book made little sense. I loved the characters, however the concept wasn’t well put together: come on a cop falls for a murderess? He leaves his family? It just didn’t resonate with me. I would probably read the first one again since it is hard to find a good book…. I had such high hopes I bought the second one of the Archie/Gretchen series, I almost refused to read it, but to expensive, lol. The characters were really good, and this one is much better than the next one, however I do believe Ms. Cain takes way to many liberties in fiction genre.

⭐ As a Portland resident, I was intrigued by the idea of my city as the setting for a thriller – Portland is hardly the “big city” and there is a benign calm about the place. (Must be the rain.) The story itself – of a dysfunctional relationship between a Vicodin-addicted cop, the serial killer he put behind bars, and a new rash of murders the addicted detective is trying to solve – warrants three stars: while the writing was entertaining, it wasn’t of the caliber of Hammett The Maltese Falcon , Christie, Murder on the Orient Express (Hercule Poirot Mysteries) or even Tallis Fatal Lies: A Novel (Mortalis) or Indridason Jar City: A Reykjavik Thriller . Yet I’ve a soft spot for my hometown, and Cain (a former writer for the local paper) does Portland well. A reluctant fourth star.The story’s strength is in the intertwining of the personal histories of the characters: Archie Sheridan worked a serial killer case for years before he was finally abducted by the killer (Gretchen Lowell, the “Beauty Killer”), held captive and tortured before he was finally released by her, the killer put in prison. Working with Sheridan (and covering the latest string of murders) is Susan Ward, a young reporter for the local paper. As the plot unfolds we learn the grisly details of Sheridan’s time with Lowell, of the source of his addiction, and of secrets held in Ward’s past that have some bearing on the case. As an added bonus for locals were references to real scandals (an affair a fromer mayor – later elected governor – had with a teenager) and thinly veiled references to other notable personalities. Much of this minutate and nuance will be lost on the general reader, sadly.For a freshman book, it is a solid effort. There were no red herrings or new characters or plot twists added the last chapter, which is always a relief when the curtain is finally pulled aside, the murderer revealed and the crime solved. I will certainly read more by Cain, but I can only giver her a lukewarm recommendation for those outside the Great Northwest.

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Free Download Ebook Heartsick: A Thriller (Archie Sheridan & Gretchen Lowell Book 1)