Tag Archives: Chelsea Cain

Chelsea Cain returns with ‘One Kick’

Starting a new series can be a tricky thing for an author. Will readers follow you to another series, especially one that’s very different from the old familiar one?

Chelsea Cain needn’t worry. Since 2007, she’s been writing a series of twisty and twisted thrillers about Portland cop Archie Sheridan and Gretchen Lowell, the serial killer who seduced and nearly killed Archie. Cain’s books are grim and fun at the same time, throwing great characters like young newspaper reporter Susan Ward into the horrific dance between Sheridan and Lowell to lighten the tone occasionally.

Cain is trying something very different with “One Kick,” a new books that kicks off a new series following Kit “Kick” Lannigan, a 21-year-old with a horrifying past. As a child, she was kidnapped by a stranger who held her in captivity for five years, molesting her and making her the star of many child pornography movies that live on a decade after she was rescued from Mel, her captor.

As a 21-year-old, Kick is training her body and gathering weapons for … something. She doesn’t know quite what, but she goes into high alert every time a child turns up missing.

Finally, after the disappearance of a young boy named Adam, Kick is approached by Bishop, a frustratingly smug and enigmatic man, apparently independently wealthy, who recruits her to help him find Adam and other missing children.

With the life of Kick’s brother threatened by a predator from their childhood – and Kick’s life and sanity in the balance – Kick goes to work, an emotionally frayed but lethal avenging angel, striking out to save children from the same fate that befell her.

Cain’s readers will find some familiar elements in “One Kick,” including an annoying mother and some unhealthy relationships. And there are some queasy moments of visceral gore.

But “One Kick” and Kick Lannigan are very different animals from Archie or Gretchen or Susan. As personal as Gretchen’s assault was to Archie, there’s nothing as horrible, as cruel, as the toll that child exploitation takes on its victims. It’s to Cain’s credit that her story adequately conveys this weight at the same time it turns the characters and situations into fodder for a gripping crime novel.

Chelsea Cain’s fun, twisted mysteries

If you haven’t checked out author Chelsea Cain’s series of crime novels centering on Archie Sheridan and Gretchen Lowell, you’re missing one of the most interesting and offbeat partnerships in crime fiction.

But if you think Archie and Gretchen are a crime-solving duo like Patrick and Angie in Dennis Lehane’s series, you’re wrong.

Archie is a Portland cop and Gretchen is the infamous Beauty Killer, a stone-cold beautiful female serial killer.

Gretchen, in years pre-dating most of the books, killed dozens – maybe even hundreds – of people. And in the most gruesome ways imaginable. We’re talking neckties made of intestines here.

She also very nearly killed Archie, who as the series began was recuperating from the double-whammy laid on him by Gretchen. Archie and other cops consulted with Gretchen on a series of slayings and Archie cheated on his wife with the blonde bombshell. Only afterward did he find out that Gretchen was the killer. And he found out when Gretchen drugged and kidnapped him.

Gretchen tortured Archie for days, keeping him barely alive and getting him hooked on powerful pain killers. During their time together, Gretchen left Archie with permanent scars, including one heart-shaped one carved into his chest. It’s a Beauty Killer trademark.

Although Gretchen is eventually captured and put in prison, Archie’s dealings with her don’t end. That’s because she prolongs their meetings by parceling out information about other killings. It’s an opportunity for Archie to close cases and give some relief to still-grieving families.

But it’s also Archie’s opportunity to be near Gretchen. Archie has a very real fatal attraction to the Beauty Killer. It’s an attraction that threatens to ruin any chance of reconciliation with his wife, wreck a budding relationship with Susan, an endearing if oddball young newspaper reporter, and harm his relationship with his stalwart and supportive partner, Henry.

Cain writes with a level of gore and kink that will drive some readers away and appeal to many others. Her characters are totally sympathetic – well, not Gretchen. Not much anyway – and compelling.

Cain has a new book in the series due out this summer, but I just finished the most recent, “Kill You Twice,” and there’s a Hannibal Lecter element to the book that most of the entries in the series don’t have. (And don’t need.) It’s a great yarn about another serial killer on the loose and that murderer’s ties to Gretchen.

If you have a taste for some twisted mystery, check out Cain’s books. I recommend reading them in order, though, starting with 2007’s “Heartsick.” There are five so far, and you might find yourself racing hungrily through them.

Mysteries not for the faint-hearted

Chelsea Cain’s mysteries are not for the weak of heart, and that’s not just a play on the “heart” element of most of their titles: “Heartsick,” “Sweetheart” and “Evil at Heart.” Cain’s tales of a Portland, Oregon cop and the love of his life — a beautiful female serial killer — are often filled with grisly, bloody moments.

At one point in the books, serial killer Gretchen Lowell takes police detective Archie Sheridan captive and, besides carving a heart in his chest, removes his spleen, for pete’s sake.

But gore isn’t the point of Cain’s books. And it’s an afterthought in her latest Archie Sheridan book, “The Night Season.”

Although Gretchen Lowell — nicknamed “The Beauty Killer” not because she is beautiful but because of the gruesome nature of her killing style — is a presence in this book (don’t worry, I won’t spoil how), Cain’s latest novel is really about Sheridan and the core of supporting characters the author has built up around him.

There’s Susan Ward, a newspaper reporter trying to survive the upheaval in her industry as well as encounters with homicidal maniacs; Henry Sobol, Archie’s partner on the force and a rock in his life; and a cast of characters that, four books into the series, feels as familiar and beloved as any in fiction right now.

Sheridan is an enormously flawed man. His infatuation with Lowell in the earlier books cost him his marriage and nearly his life. Far more realistically than might be expected for a thriller series, the books emphasize the toll that Sheridan’s bad decisions and his noble intentions have taken on him.

But readers who, in the past, might have thought Sheridan was a little too close to the edge might be happy to know that in the latest book, the only edge he’s in danger of stepping over is the banks of the swollen Willamette River.

Torrential rains have flooded the river and threaten Portland, and Susan Ward finds herself pursuing a new story: The discovery of a skeleton that might be left over from 1940s flooding that wiped out a small section of the city.

Meanwhile, Sheridan and Sobol and crew realize they’re dealing with more than a series of accidental drownings due to floodwaters. They are, in fact, dealing with a serial killer, one whose weapon of choice might seem over the top but is nonetheless pretty cool.

While Susan and Archie pursue their investigations, they’re thrown together and endangered — like the rest of the city of Portland — by the ever-rising floodwaters.

I’m glad I wasn’t reading “The Night Season” during our own winter thaw/spring rains. Cain vividly portrays the unrelenting rain, the tumultuous river and the dangerous nature of floodwaters. It made me want to check my crawlspace for rising water.