Tangled Web UK Review July 2008
Eye of the Beholder by
David Ellis
hbk out January 08
Published by Quercus
at £14.99
It is said that there are more lawyers in the United States than in all the rest of the world – and it also seems that, especially since John Gresham’s success, most of them write crime novels! This is another American book with the formula ‘attorney - old cases- serial killer - retribution’, but given the old familiar recipe, this is a very good one.
The author is an eminent Chicago attorney, counsel to the Speaker of the Illinois House of Representatives, but now he also has five of these novels under his belt.
This one concerns Paul Riley, a successful criminal attorney who made his reputation fifteen years earlier by obtaining a conviction for Terry Burgos, a serial killer who dispatched, with horrible mutilation, six girls on a college campus, where he was a handyman. His crimes were linked to the words of a popular but violent song. Burgos paid the ultimate penalty in the gas chamber, but a decade and half later, more killings began with exactly the same characteristics. As Burgos was dead, it seemed that matter was settled, but Riley realises that the MO is similar. In the description of the execution in the gas chamber, Burgos had mouthed at Riley the words ‘I’m not the only one’ and the book takes it from there, following Riley’s determined and dangerous saga of trying to solve the mystery.
He becomes embroiled in the police investigation, but is also a suspect himself and it becomes apparent that the new killer is at least as interested in Riley as he is in his murderous spree.
A tense, often gruesome story, but good grist for the mills of those who like a tight plot and a no-punches-barred dialogue.
(
Bernard Knight
ex Home Office Pathologist and author of the highly acclaimed Crowner John series)
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