From the international bestselling author of Blood Men comes a gripping new thriller that paints a brutally vivid picture of a killer's mind. People are disappearing in Christchurch. Cooper Riley, a psychology professor, doesn't make it to work one day. Emma Green, one of his students, doesn't make it home. When ex-cop Theodore Tate is released from a four-month prison stint, he's asked by Green's father to help find Emma. After all, Tate was in jail for nearly killing her in a DUI accident the year before, so he owes him. Big time. What neither of them knows is that a former mental patient is holding people prisoner as part of his growing collection of serial killer souvenirs. Now he has acquired the ultimate collector's item-an actual killer. Meanwhile, clues keep pulling Tate back to Grover Hills, the mental institution that closed down three years ago. Very bad things happened there. Those who managed to survive would prefer keeping their memories buried. Tate has no choice but to unearth Grover Hills' dark past if there is any chance of finding Emma Green and Cooper Riley alive. For fans of Dennis Lehane's Shutter Island, Thomas Harris' Silence of the Lambs, and Jeff Lindsay's Dexter series, Collecting Cooper is another "relentlessly gripping, deliciously twisted, and shot through with a vein of humor that's as dark as hell" (Mark Billingham) novel by this glimmering new talent in the crime thriller genre.
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""Collecting Cooper" roars on at breakneck speed, pitting not two, but three deadly adversaries against an inexorably ticking clock." --"Bookpage"
About the Author
Paul Cleave is the author of six internationally bestselling thrillers, including Blood Men, Collecting Cooper, and The Laughterhouse. He lives in Christchurch, New Zealand. Find out more at PaulCleave.com.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
There's a significant change in Paul Cleave's latest dark thriller. For those who've read and enjoyed Cleave's internationally bestselling crime novels, don't worry - Collecting Cooper is still packed with his usual crackling prose, taut pacing, compelling characters, moments of brutal violence, dashes of black humour, and undercurrents of unease. It's just that this, his fifth novel, sees the return of troubled ex-cop turned private investigator Theo Tate (from Cemetery Lake); the first time Cleave has had a recurring `hero', as such.
While supporting characters and storylines have overlapped and intertwined, each of Cleave's previous books have been told through the eyes of a different troubled character, with troubled being a huge euphemism in many cases: serial killer Joe masquerades as a developmentally-challenged police janitor in The Cleaner; Charlie tries to uncover whether he witnessed or perpetrated a brutal double-murder in The Killing Hour; Tate spirals into alcoholism and worse in Cemetery Lake; and accountant Edward fears he's inherited his imprisoned father's violent streak as he chases his wife's killers in Blood Men.
Cleave has become an absolute master at getting readers inside the head of someone with a view well and truly askew, of getting us to care enough about such people (or at least be fascinated by them), despite their failings and faults, to keep us engaged and the pages whirring as we follow their viewpoint throughout his helter-skelter storylines.
Collecting Cooper opens with Tate walking free from Christchurch Prison, where he found himself thanks to bad choices made in Cemetery Lake, into a sweltering heatwave on the outside. Broke and directionless, his plans of avoiding his past life come to nought when first an ex-colleague, Detective Schroder, then the father of the girl a drunken Tate hurt in a car crash, come to him for help finding people who've disappeared. Schroder wants Tate to help track a murderer known as Melissa X, an associate of the Christchurch Carver (Joe in The Cleaner). Lawyer Donovan Green wants Tate to find Emma, the girl Tate went to prison for almost killing. Emma's disappeared, as has her university psychology professor, Cooper Riley. As Tate takes up the trail, he discovers a link to an abandoned mental institution on the outskirts of the city; a place where very bad things happened, years ago.
Cleave's work definitely sits at the darker end of the crime fiction spectrum, far away from the cosy country house killings of Agatha Christie or fellow New Zealander Dame Ngaio Marsh, whose name and likeness adorns the New Zealand crime writing award that Cleave won for his fourth novel, BLOOD MEN, last year.
Despite the darkness, Cleave is no schlock-meister; the blood and brutality amongst his pages is merely one part of a compelling tale (although it may be too much for some). He even raises important issues such as violence against women, the lack of support for those with mental difficulties, and the public's fascination with serial killers - but rather than screaming such issues from the rooftops, they're just woven through a tale that fizzes with ferocity. They're texture, not message, in an exciting book where characterisation, such as Tate's stumble vaguely towards some sort of redemption, shines brightest of all.
While supporting characters and storylines have overlapped and intertwined, each of Cleave's previous books have been told through the eyes of a different troubled character, with troubled being a huge euphemism in many cases: serial killer Joe masquerades as a developmentally-challenged police janitor in The Cleaner; Charlie tries to uncover whether he witnessed or perpetrated a brutal double-murder in The Killing Hour; Tate spirals into alcoholism and worse in Cemetery Lake; and accountant Edward fears he's inherited his imprisoned father's violent streak as he chases his wife's killers in Blood Men.
Cleave has become an absolute master at getting readers inside the head of someone with a view well and truly askew, of getting us to care enough about such people (or at least be fascinated by them), despite their failings and faults, to keep us engaged and the pages whirring as we follow their viewpoint throughout his helter-skelter storylines.
Collecting Cooper opens with Tate walking free from Christchurch Prison, where he found himself thanks to bad choices made in Cemetery Lake, into a sweltering heatwave on the outside. Broke and directionless, his plans of avoiding his past life come to nought when first an ex-colleague, Detective Schroder, then the father of the girl a drunken Tate hurt in a car crash, come to him for help finding people who've disappeared. Schroder wants Tate to help track a murderer known as Melissa X, an associate of the Christchurch Carver (Joe in The Cleaner). Lawyer Donovan Green wants Tate to find Emma, the girl Tate went to prison for almost killing. Emma's disappeared, as has her university psychology professor, Cooper Riley. As Tate takes up the trail, he discovers a link to an abandoned mental institution on the outskirts of the city; a place where very bad things happened, years ago.
Cleave's work definitely sits at the darker end of the crime fiction spectrum, far away from the cosy country house killings of Agatha Christie or fellow New Zealander Dame Ngaio Marsh, whose name and likeness adorns the New Zealand crime writing award that Cleave won for his fourth novel, BLOOD MEN, last year.
Despite the darkness, Cleave is no schlock-meister; the blood and brutality amongst his pages is merely one part of a compelling tale (although it may be too much for some). He even raises important issues such as violence against women, the lack of support for those with mental difficulties, and the public's fascination with serial killers - but rather than screaming such issues from the rooftops, they're just woven through a tale that fizzes with ferocity. They're texture, not message, in an exciting book where characterisation, such as Tate's stumble vaguely towards some sort of redemption, shines brightest of all.
0 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Cleave's Collecting Cooper starts interesting. but as long you read, the tempo slackens, and the reader starts to get bored. The characters are fairly well structered, but tend to be tedious in the long run.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
4.7 out of 5 stars
15 reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars
Slow starting episodic thriller
20 Sep 2011
By J. M. Cornwell
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Paperback
Detective Inspector Schroder meets Theodore Tate at the Christchurch prison the day Tate gets out of jail after a six-month incarceration. He has a favor to ask and needs Tate's expertise in getting inside serial killers' minds.
Melissa X has been terrorizing Christchurch for three years, teaming up with and killing another serial killer. She targets men in uniform, first crushing one of their testicles and then killing them. The money for information leading to her arrest would help Tate out and that would help Schroder--off the books. Schroder cannot help the ex-felon get his job back as a PI, but he will use Tate's help as often as possible.
The same day Donovan Green shows up on Tate's doorstep. Green was Tate's lawyer and he had his own issues with Tate, for instance a drunken Tate crashing into his daughter's car and nearly killing her. Green feels Tate owes him and he wants the best to help find his daughter. She has been missing for 48 hours and that means time is running out.
When Cooper Riley is kidnapped, Tate wants in on the case. What neither he nor the police know is that all three incidents are connected and Tate is in the middle.
There are thrillers that, even those at more than eight hundred pages, fly by in a few hours, and those that take a while to find their stride. Collecting Cooper is of the latter variety.
Paul Cleave moves between several points of view and it is difficult to discern during the first two-thirds of the book who is speaking without a program. Adrian, the collector, sounds like Cooper, the professor and collector of serial killer memorabilia, who sounds like Tate, the ex-cop, and Schroder, a DI with an eye towards the margins of the law, and they all sound like what little there is of Emma Green. To add to the confusion, which of the kidnapped girls is murdered is confusing and none of the story comes together until the book is more than half done. The weather is as much a character as the rest of the cast, and mentioned repeatedly, offering no real contribution to the rising tension. Action rises very slowly, tempers almost flare, and the heat goes on.
When the book did at last get going, Collecting Cooper did offer some pulse pounding moments; however, the book also showed more than its share of flaws. Cleave spends too much time bouncing from character to character and situation to situation. The technique does not really work until all the characters are in place and the game begins in earnest. There is little sense of time even though the clock is ticking. Cleave could have used a clearer focus and should not have buried some of his high points, but once he got rolling, Collecting Cooper was satisfying and surprising and had a different perspective on the serial killer and his pathology.
The characters were a bit flat and two-dimensional, more like first draft sketches than rounded characters deeply involved in the action, but they finally began to round out and become much more interesting and realistic. Cleave tied up all the loose ends admirably, which is a definite feat in a book with such scattered elements. While Collecting Cooper is not a standout thriller, it does have its moments and Cleave is worth watching as his technique and storytelling skills mature in future installments.
Melissa X has been terrorizing Christchurch for three years, teaming up with and killing another serial killer. She targets men in uniform, first crushing one of their testicles and then killing them. The money for information leading to her arrest would help Tate out and that would help Schroder--off the books. Schroder cannot help the ex-felon get his job back as a PI, but he will use Tate's help as often as possible.
The same day Donovan Green shows up on Tate's doorstep. Green was Tate's lawyer and he had his own issues with Tate, for instance a drunken Tate crashing into his daughter's car and nearly killing her. Green feels Tate owes him and he wants the best to help find his daughter. She has been missing for 48 hours and that means time is running out.
When Cooper Riley is kidnapped, Tate wants in on the case. What neither he nor the police know is that all three incidents are connected and Tate is in the middle.
There are thrillers that, even those at more than eight hundred pages, fly by in a few hours, and those that take a while to find their stride. Collecting Cooper is of the latter variety.
Paul Cleave moves between several points of view and it is difficult to discern during the first two-thirds of the book who is speaking without a program. Adrian, the collector, sounds like Cooper, the professor and collector of serial killer memorabilia, who sounds like Tate, the ex-cop, and Schroder, a DI with an eye towards the margins of the law, and they all sound like what little there is of Emma Green. To add to the confusion, which of the kidnapped girls is murdered is confusing and none of the story comes together until the book is more than half done. The weather is as much a character as the rest of the cast, and mentioned repeatedly, offering no real contribution to the rising tension. Action rises very slowly, tempers almost flare, and the heat goes on.
When the book did at last get going, Collecting Cooper did offer some pulse pounding moments; however, the book also showed more than its share of flaws. Cleave spends too much time bouncing from character to character and situation to situation. The technique does not really work until all the characters are in place and the game begins in earnest. There is little sense of time even though the clock is ticking. Cleave could have used a clearer focus and should not have buried some of his high points, but once he got rolling, Collecting Cooper was satisfying and surprising and had a different perspective on the serial killer and his pathology.
The characters were a bit flat and two-dimensional, more like first draft sketches than rounded characters deeply involved in the action, but they finally began to round out and become much more interesting and realistic. Cleave tied up all the loose ends admirably, which is a definite feat in a book with such scattered elements. While Collecting Cooper is not a standout thriller, it does have its moments and Cleave is worth watching as his technique and storytelling skills mature in future installments.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Better and better
3 Aug 2011
By Caroline Castle
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Paperback
This is my fourth Paul Cleave book (having read The Cleaner, Cemetery Lake and Blood Men), and I was thrilled that not only does this book have the trademark darkness and powerful, bloodily poetic, storytelling that I look forward to from this author - along with the unexpected humour and charm laced throughout - but that this book shows the author is still developing and growing. I think Collecting Cooper is gutsy, bold, pacey, intense, twisty, disturbing and satisfying. The author clearly has a vivid imagination and the reader is taken on a brilliant dark carnival ride. Thoroughly escapist and refreshingly different in the thriller/ crime genre - I recommend this book to anyone who is looking for a thought provoking, memorable and entertaining thriller.
I've given this five stars because I thought the cast of characters were diverse and three-dimensional (even the 'baddies'!) and I really felt as if I was there in that baking hot Christchurch as it all happened... (but happily from a safe distance!)
If you have not read Paul Cleave before it doesn't matter if you read this one first, but if you have read the others as well you'll probably enjoy the references to previous events/ characters.
I've given this five stars because I thought the cast of characters were diverse and three-dimensional (even the 'baddies'!) and I really felt as if I was there in that baking hot Christchurch as it all happened... (but happily from a safe distance!)
If you have not read Paul Cleave before it doesn't matter if you read this one first, but if you have read the others as well you'll probably enjoy the references to previous events/ characters.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Top quality writing at the darker end of the crime spectrum
4 Aug 2011
By Craig Sisterson
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Paperback
Cleave has become an absolute master at getting readers inside the head of someone with a view well and truly askew, of getting us to care enough about such people (or at least be fascinated by them), despite their failings and faults, to keep us engaged and the pages whirring as we follow their viewpoint throughout his helter-skelter storylines.
Collecting Cooper opens with Tate walking free from Christchurch Prison, where he found himself thanks to bad choices made in Cemetery Lake, into a sweltering heatwave on the outside. Broke and directionless, his plans of avoiding his past life come to nought when first an ex-colleague, Detective Schroder, then the father of the girl a drunken Tate hurt in a car crash, come to him for help finding people who've disappeared. Schroder wants Tate to help track a murderer known as Melissa X, an associate of the Christchurch Carver (Joe in The Cleaner). Lawyer Donovan Green wants Tate to find Emma, the girl Tate went to prison for almost killing. Emma's disappeared, as has her university psychology professor, Cooper Riley. As Tate takes up the trail, he discovers a link to an abandoned mental institution on the outskirts of the city; a place where very bad things happened, years ago.
Cleave's work definitely sits at the darker end of the crime fiction spectrum, far away from the cosy country house killings of fellow Cantabrian Dame Ngaio Marsh, whose name and likeness adorns the New Zealand crime writing award that Cleave is a finalist for this year.
Despite the darkness, Cleave is no schlock-meister; the blood and brutality amongst his pages is merely one part of a compelling tale (although it may be too much for some). He even raises important issues such as violence against women, the lack of support for those with mental difficulties, and the public's fascination with serial killers - but rather than screaming such issues from the rooftops, they're just woven through a tale that fizzes with ferocity. They're texture, not message, in an exciting book where characterisation, such as Tate's stumble vaguely towards some sort of redemption, shines brightest of all.
Collecting Cooper opens with Tate walking free from Christchurch Prison, where he found himself thanks to bad choices made in Cemetery Lake, into a sweltering heatwave on the outside. Broke and directionless, his plans of avoiding his past life come to nought when first an ex-colleague, Detective Schroder, then the father of the girl a drunken Tate hurt in a car crash, come to him for help finding people who've disappeared. Schroder wants Tate to help track a murderer known as Melissa X, an associate of the Christchurch Carver (Joe in The Cleaner). Lawyer Donovan Green wants Tate to find Emma, the girl Tate went to prison for almost killing. Emma's disappeared, as has her university psychology professor, Cooper Riley. As Tate takes up the trail, he discovers a link to an abandoned mental institution on the outskirts of the city; a place where very bad things happened, years ago.
Cleave's work definitely sits at the darker end of the crime fiction spectrum, far away from the cosy country house killings of fellow Cantabrian Dame Ngaio Marsh, whose name and likeness adorns the New Zealand crime writing award that Cleave is a finalist for this year.
Despite the darkness, Cleave is no schlock-meister; the blood and brutality amongst his pages is merely one part of a compelling tale (although it may be too much for some). He even raises important issues such as violence against women, the lack of support for those with mental difficulties, and the public's fascination with serial killers - but rather than screaming such issues from the rooftops, they're just woven through a tale that fizzes with ferocity. They're texture, not message, in an exciting book where characterisation, such as Tate's stumble vaguely towards some sort of redemption, shines brightest of all.
›
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4.7 out of 5 stars
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