Title: The Bride Collector
Author: Ted Dekker
Publisher: Center Street/Hachette Books
My synopsis/thoughts: We meet Brad Raines, FBI agent, and his partner Nikki after the serial killer takes his fourth victim. All have been beautiful women, left behind with only a bridal veil - hence the serial killer has been dubbed The Bride Collector. With the fourth victim, however, comes a note that gives Brad his first glimpse of what the killer is really like. This note leads them to the Center for Wellbeing and Intelligence.
This Center is home to mentally ill patients who are also highly gifted individuals. There we meet a group of patients who Brad calls on to give him a different aspect of his killer. Paradise is a young girl - schizophrenic and agoraphobic - who appears to have the ability to see someone's last moments if she touches their dead body. Roudy has a brilliant mind that works at a much greater pace than anyone's around him. Allison is the ex-nun who facillitates the meeting up of her patients and Brad. She enables us to see the patients for their abilities and not their "illness".
We also meet the killer early on in the book. I love the fact that you don't go through the thriller trying to figure out who is doing the killing - but instead, you get to try to figure out WHY he is killing and how everyone is connected. Especially after the killer starts making it personal with Brad.
I noticed in someone else's review that they brought up that Mr. Dekker is able to write these wonderful thriller's with very graphic portrayals and yet can do so without using any profanity. Well done! I love thrillers, and sometimes feel that the use of profanity is a "lazy" effort to portray "bad" people or situations. (Ok - I feel the wrath of some authors coming on here - and no, I am not a writer so this is just MHO.) I can still remember a poster from my highschool English class (and we are going back a ways here!) that said something to the effect "Profanity is a strong effort of a weak mind to express itself forcefully." I will get off my soapbox now...
I'll just finish by saying I loved this book. Highly recommend it - and can't wait to read another my Ted Dekker. I actually have Burn smoldering in my TBR pile!
The Bride Collector is not due out until April 13 - but if you preorder - you can receive a free PDF of Ted Dekker's first unpublished novel.
Hook up with Ted Dekker on these sites:
Website
The Bride Collector
Publisher/Publication Date: Center Street, April 13, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-59995-196-6
416 pages
2 comments:
So glad you loved this book. I was taught that people use profanity because they don't know a better word. If it really fits in a book, I'm okay with it, but it seems to be added just to be added sometimes.
I rather like the idea of reading to find out why rather than who. I keep reading about this book - must really try to read it sometime.
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