Review
Matt McBride's life has never been the same since junior high, when pretty classmate Marcey Mason disappeared and was later discovered mutilated and murdered on swamp land. Matt took on guilt for her death, feeling in some way he could have prevented it. Now married with two sons, he feels the past return when another woman, the elfine artist Duana Zolle, vanishes, and McBride goes into such a sweat of horror and guilt that he is considered a suspect by the police. Did he abduct and murder her? He seems to half believe that he did, especially as she documented a love affair with him in her diary, calling him 'Nighthawk'. With his marriage disintegrating, McBride decides to do some detective work of his own, discovering links between a number of unsolved murders. He realizes - in his gut rather than his head, at first - that he knows the killer, and has done since adolescence. Joseph Gavin, thought of as a harmlessly crazy and unkempt artist, calls himself NAME UNKNOWN and graduated from McBride's college in Industrial Art. He is the serial killer, a psychopath who uses body parts from his victims in the making of gross defeminised sculptures of women which he keeps in a creepy barn. When Matt confronts Gavin he puts his own life in great danger. The two men stalk each other and only one can be victor. Right from the first page this eerie book has a hysterical jumpy style that perfectly evokes the man crucified by a guilt that is not his. Breathless in pace, this is no simple murder mystery. It explores guilt, perverted lust, obsession and human darkness in a strange staccato story which fascinates and repels throughout. (Kirkus UK)
Product Description
In this compelling new novel from one of the most powerful and original voices in contemporary American literature, Joyce Carol Oates (writing as Rosamond Smith) turns her remarkable skills to the complex story of a serial killer and the people his crimes touch and transform. Matt McBride remembers the first victim. He was barely out of junior high when the mutilated body of the popular, pretty teenager was uncovered in the desolate New Jersey Pine Barrens and the horror haunts his memory still. Although Matt had hardly known the girl, he has long felt guilty at not having been able somehow to prevent the atrocity. Now another attractive young woman has disappeared. Matt knew this victim, too. Just possibly he knew her more intimately than he can admit. By degrees Matt becomes obsessed with a guilt he can neither comprehend nor allay. The fabric of his seemingly happy marriage begins to unravel. His increasingly erratic behaviour heightens police suspicions. It also draws official attention away from an artist - a man of tortured memory - to a shattering confrontation.
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