Heartsick by Chelsea Cain

Chelsea Cain's debut suspense novel, Heartsick is a scary, disturbing tale. Archie Sheridan is a police detective kidnapped and tortured for days by the beautiful serial killer Gretchen Lowell. The book brings Archie back into police work to run yet another serial killer task force, this time hunting down the rapist/murderer of teen aged girls. A young reporter has been asked to profile Detective Sheridan during this manhunt, and the author very deftly weaves the reporters young experiences into the story.

The author does an excellent job of involving us in the lives of all these characters. Certain passages were quite disturbing, its almost hard to imagine these scenes of torture and torment coming from the mind of a young female author. In the after word, the author reminds her young daughter that she isn't allowed to read her mother's work until she turns 21. That's a good idea, I wouldn't let my daughter read it either..it would give her nightmares.

All in all, a great debut novel, and I'll look forward to Chelsea Cain's next book.

(Posted on LibraryThing May 4, 2008)