{"id":57,"date":"2011-12-28T13:34:43","date_gmt":"2011-12-28T19:34:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/?p=57"},"modified":"2011-12-28T13:35:48","modified_gmt":"2011-12-28T19:35:48","slug":"r-j-ellory-the-anniversary-man","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/r-j-ellory-the-anniversary-man\/","title":{"rendered":"R.J. Ellory: The Anniversary Man"},"content":{"rendered":"
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There are so many serial killer novels, so little time.\u00a0 There are so many that I gave up reading them long ago, and yet \u2013 when I come across one that seems to have a different twist, I can\u2019t help but pick it up.\u00a0 I\u2019ve read a couple others in the past few years that offered a twist \u2013 A Curtain Falls<\/em>, by Stefanie Pintoff, which used a historical perspective; and Children of the Street<\/em> by Kwei Quartey, which seemed to be (and was) a commentary on the street children of Accra, Ghana, but turned out also to be a twisty serial killer story.\u00a0 R.J. Ellory\u2019s joins that company, though his book is the most traditional of the three.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Ellory\u2019s book most resembles an extended Law and Order<\/em> episode, though his \u201cLenny\u201d stand in, Ray Irving, lives a more solitary life, and seems to work without a partner.\u00a0 His solitary life is a thread that runs through the book, which on the surface is a precise and careful police procedural.\u00a0 The twist comes from two sources:\u00a0 one is the prose, which is far more poetic than typical thriller novel prose, and the other is the entire premise of the novel.<\/p>\n

The book opens with a terrible recounting of crimes attributed to the \u201cHammer of God\u201d killer, someone who kills courting couples.\u00a0 The only victim to escape, 17-year-old John Costello, wakes up to the nightmare discovery that his girlfriend has been murdered.\u00a0 Though the killer is apprehended and dies in prison, John Costello must learn how to deal with life as a survivor.<\/p>\n

Fast forward from 1984 to 2006, and John Costello is a newspaper researcher, one with an encyclopedic knowledge of serial killers.\u00a0 He works with a reporter who gets the first hint that a series of killings being investigated by different precincts are tied together; the man who puts the case together, Ray Irving, has figured out that they\u2019re related and eventually heads up the entire investigation, which proves to be one of frustration.\u00a0 The only thing coming his way in the \u201cclue\u201d department are John Costello\u2019s messages indicating that each killing is a replica of an earlier and famous serial killer (Zodiac, Shawcross, Gacy, etc.).<\/p>\n

The careful way this story is told almost dilutes its horror, but the last killing is so terrible and sad that the story telling can\u2019t mask it, even though Ellory gives it a try.\u00a0 As the solitary lives of both Costello and Irving \u2013 who nevertheless seems to be getting closer to the reporter, Karen \u2013 are illuminated as different ways of dealing with trauma (in Irving\u2019s case, the grief of losing a life partner).<\/p>\n

To me what makes any mystery worth a read are the characters.\u00a0 The characters in this novel make reading it worthwhile, as does the original story telling method.\u00a0 If you\u2019re queasy even thinking about serial killers don\u2019t pick it up, but if not, this surprisingly thoughtful book is well worth a look.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There are so many serial killer novels, so little time.\u00a0 There are so many that I gave up reading them long ago, and yet \u2013 when I come across one that seems to have a different twist, I can\u2019t help but pick it up.\u00a0 I\u2019ve read a couple others in the past few years that … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[8],"class_list":["post-57","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","tag-police"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":60,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57\/revisions\/60"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}