Detective Archie Sheridan spent ten years trying to capture the Beauty Killer, unfortunately it was the Beauty Killer, Gretchen Lowell, who caught him first and tortured him in unimaginable ways for ten days before deciding to set Archie free and turn herself in. Two years later Archie is damaged goods and is barely hanging on with a serious painkiller addiction and a long standing date with Gretchen every Sunday where she parcels out details about where the bodies are buried while making sure he is thoroughly ensorcelled in the unhealthiest relationship on the planet.

Now Archie has been called back to duty when a new serial killer starts abducting and killing high school girls. During the investigation Archie is accompanied by Susan, a newspaper reporter who is doing a series on him which creates a complex four way connection between Archie, Susan, the killer and Gretchen.

Author Chelsea Cain grew up in Washington State with the Green River killings filling her childhood. Gary Ridgway’s eventual capture in 2001 inspired her to write this book. Funnily enough my childhood was the same except I was a bit further south. I can still recall the horror on my mother’s face when, as a wee lass, I matter-of-factly informed her that a local auto body shop worked on car bodies, not on the dead bodies from the river. It wasn’t something you could escape and I’m sure it had a lot to do with how I turned out.

HeartSick is probably one of the best thrillers I’ve ever read. Seriously. It’s definitely one I’ll be reading again but not anytime soon, its way too disturbing for that. It actually took me a couple of days to read because I had to put it down at times to get the dark out of my head. The emotions of the characters are raw and real and the scenes of torture and death were unflinching and relevant. The story moves briskly but is full of character development and depth. I was far more interested in the story of Gretchen and Archie, told in flashback and in the present than I was in the new killer but not enough to become impatient with how the story was unfolding. The capture of the new killer was somewhat rushed at the end and he wasn’t really very menacing when compared to Gretchen but really, she’s kind of a hard act to follow.

Many critics are comparing this book to Thomas Harris’ Silence of the Lambs because of the obvious parallels but it’s very much its own book. Is it as good as Silence of the Lambs? No, but really how many other thrillers are? If this is your type of thing I don’t think you will be disappointed. If you’re from the Northwest with its penchant for churning out serial killers you’ll probably love it like I did.