Out of Nowhere

The murder is almost too easy. Cutter, a hired killer with ice water for blood, calmly walks up to his target...then strolls away. Moments later the target, Aaron Spencer, and his bodyguard are found dead. The disembodied digital voice of the person who hired Cutter calls Reginald Spencer, Aaron's father, reminding him that he has another daughter, and that she, too, will die if Spencer doesn't recall the workers he recently laid off from his company. Cindy, whose name was changed when her mother divorced Reginald, for fear that Reginald would try to find them or worse, is going home from school when a pair of men kidnap her.

Detective Jim Stanton doesn't know these details when he goes to investigate the murder of Aaron Spencer. Just back after a two week bereavement leave, he has a new partner, Shelly McGuire. She's a tough young woman, desperate to prove herself in a world where most female detectives are suspected of having used more creative measures to get their promotion. She and Jim get off to a rocky start, but soon become good partners, working well together, teasing each other easily despite the guilty attraction he feels for her.

Very few things creep me out, but somehow Cutter, with his cold ways and casual cruelty, does. There are times when you're living the book through his thoughts, and you begin to kind of like him. Just when you think, "Hey, he's not bad!" he'll do something so entirely reprehensible, that it really shocks you. He is very silent, able to sneak up on people -- including our main characters -- with frightening ease. He decides that he wants to know who hired him, and so he begins feeding clues to our detectives. Our detectives, who are amazingly quick and good at their jobs, find themselves in a cat and mouse game, slowly closing in, while their prey follows them, trying to be there when they find the identity of his boss. This is particularly neat because Stanton and McGuire get so close to catching him several times...so in a way it's an equal contest between two very capable rivals, who test each other's mettle with every turn.

I found the narration particularly effective. Miller goes back and forth between characters, we have the first victim's thoughts, then we have the victim being stalked by the killer, from the Cutter's point of view. Mostly, we go back and forth between Jim and Cutter, and these twin perspectives are fabulous, giving us an unprecedented look into the mind of the killer, and adding a lot of dramatic tension. I've seen writers attempt this pov trick before, but never have I seen it used as effectively. I don't think anyone else could have pulled it off...it works so well, on so many levels, making the story even more compelling.

This is one of those rare books that is truly impossible to put down. It has all the elements that make for the very best in reading experiences, characters that are strongly drawn, and impossible not to care deeply about, a nemesis of cruel cunning, a fast paced story line, and a twist at the end that will shock even the most jaded reader.

5 out of 5
Cindy Lynn Speer, GWN Book Reviewer
11/22/2002