Messiah (Paperback)

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• This item: Messiah by Boris Starling

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Storm (Windsor Selection) by Boris Starling 4.0 out of 5 stars (24)  £16.99

Vodka by Boris Starling 3.5 out of 5 stars (25)  £5.49

Visibility by Boris Starling 4.5 out of 5 stars (18)

Messiah : Complete BBC Series 1 & 2 [2001] [DVD] DVD ~ Kieran O'Brien 4.0 out of 5 stars (7)  £7.98

Messiah - Series 3-4 - Complete [DVD] [2005] DVD ~ Ken Stott 4.6 out of 5 stars (5)  £7.98

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Product Description
A stunning, shocking, wonderfully well written debut reminiscent of James Patterson and one that will catapault Boris Starling to the front rank of thriller writers. London is in the grip of a heatwave: airless days, strange steamy nights and a killer stalking the streets. Wealthy men are being murdered to some mysterious pattern, with no clues left behind, only corpses with silver spoons in place of their tongues...Set against this merciless butcher is DCI Red Metcalfe, an investigator with a celebrated ability to get under the skin and into the minds of the deranged killers he hunts. But as the city swelters and the body count rises, Red's own tortured past begins to turn against him -- and the city is safe for no one. Sometimes, it is said, it takes a killer to catch a killer...The most compelling and suspenseful British thriller to come along in years, and Boris Starling is a startling and powerful talent to watch. Messiah is guaranteed to haunt your dreams...

From the Author
Makes 'Silence of the Lambs' look like 'Alice in Wonderland'
The first two corpses are found within an hour of each other. One man hanged with his hands trussed behind his back, the other beaten to death on his living-room floor. Both stripped to their underpants. Both with their tongues cut out. Both with silver spoons jammed into their mouths. For the first time in his career as the Metropolitan Police's leading exponent in solving serial murders, Red Metcalfe is baffled. Their deaths apart, the victims have no connection with each other. The killer has left no traces at either scene, and he makes no effort to communicate with the police. For three months, Red and his small hand-picked team - the athletic Jez Clifton, the sassy Kate Beauchamp and the irascible Duncan Warren - chase their own tails. They call the killer Silver Tongue, because that is the only name they have for him. Then Silver Tongue strikes again, and again. He beheads his third victim and flays the fourth alive. And still he never makes a mistake. Never leaves forensic evidence on the bodies, and never lets himself be seen. Five men have been killed by the time Red works out could ever have imagined. Red and his team try everything they know to catch the monster. Their journey takes them through the circles of evil which beat under the heart of London. They are sucked into the madness of millennial cults and spat out into the choking reality of media hysteria and broken marriages. More corpses appear, found sawn in half or rotted away in hermetically-sealed flats. With every successive murder, they narrow the parameters of their search further. But still Silver Tongue slips effortlessly from their grasp. As Red's desperation deepens and his self-esteem is worn away, so his own demons rise. The traffic accident which he never reported. The decision to turn over his brother Eric to the police for murder. The urges to kill and maim like the criminals he pursues. And then the killer begins to play directly on Red's diminishing grip on sanity. Silver Tongue puts hunted and hunter on a collision course towards a shattering climax, when he and Red play out a macabre re-enactment of the most famous betrayal in history. Messiah is far more than your standard thriller. It is a novel which deals on several levels with complex issues of treachery and faith, while never letting the pace flag. As a hero, Red Metcalfe is empathetic but deeply flawed, a man demonised by his past and running scared from his future. As his nemesis, Silver Tongue is one of the most chilling murderers ever to have appeared in print. Messiah is a potent cocktail of suspense, theology, philosophy and human nature, and it captures the essence of the unsettled times in which we live. Messiah is a W.H. Smith 'Fresh Talent' title for 1999.

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54 Reviews 5 star:  (35) 4 star:  (10) 3 star:  (6) 2 star:  (1) 1 star:  (2)           Average Customer Review 4.4 out of 5 stars (54 customer reviews)		Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
Most Helpful Customer Reviews   5 of 5 people found the following review helpful: 5.0 out of 5 stars Fantastic! Brilliant! You will not forget this book!, 4 Jun 2001 By  "k_wareham" - See all my reviews This review is from: Messiah (Paperback) I bought this as a quick and easy holiday read, and accidentally started to read it before I went away, it was finished within days. And has since been passed on to numerous people. It is probably one of the most gruesome books I have ever read, and this is echoed in everyone else's opinions. But don't let this put you off, it is written brilliantly, and really does drag you in. It will leave you trapped until you finish it (this won't take long). The characters are there, the plot, the heart stopping moments. It's got everything! The only problem, it had to end! If you're going to pick a good psychological thriller, and feel like reading a one-off that isn't by the likes of James Patterson, Patricia Cornwell (as good as they are), and crew then read this. You will not regret it. Amazing! Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)   7 of 8 people found the following review helpful: 3.0 out of 5 stars Average Thriller, 15 May 2004 By  L. Davidson (Belfast, N.Ireland) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)       There is nothing particularly original about "Messiah"; it is an adequate serial killer novel, not quite in the same league as the likes of Patterson, Lawrence, James, Strong et al. The best way I can describe it is as a badly written Mo Hayder. For example, I found the repeated use of the Third Person Present Continuous in Part One of the novel particularly annoying and unnecessary and Starling's London just didn't come alive for me. But perhaps I'm being a little too harsh. The dialogue is somewhat prosaic and predictable, the characters mostly cliched ; Red Metcalfe and Jez Clifton are a bit like Regan and Carter from the Sweeney, without the humour and Ford Cortina's. The serial killer, Silver Tongue, is a thoroughly nasty creation and some of the descriptions of the murders range from the repulsive to the obscenely gratuitious and seem at times a substitute for genuine suspense and plot development.I also thought that the detectives investigating the serial killing were possibly the most inept I have ever encountered in crime fiction.They certainly didn't come across as the creme de la creme of Scotland Yard . However on the plus side, I found it hard to put "Messiah" down as it roared to its dramatic ,gruesome finale in exciting style and the character of Red suddenly took on greater depth and substance as the final ,horrible denouement took place. "Messiah" is not a bad read and it certainly gets the pulse racing , but "Birdman" or "Monstrum" it isn't. Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)   2 of 2 people found the following review helpful: 3.0 out of 5 stars Predictability, 27 April 2004 By  "paulclifford4" - See all my reviews hmmmm ..... an utter utter shame how this book ended. I really wasdisappointed with the last 100 pages. up to then it was superb and i waslooking forward to a riveting ending as all truly great books should have.it is all too easy to predict this ending as with each page turn anotherobvious so called 'twist' was unveiled. for anyone who has a slight bit of creativity then read this book with theknowledge that you'll most likely call the ending before 2/3's of the bookis over. an awful shame!! Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this) Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review › See all 54 customer reviews...		Ad feedback   Most Recent Customer Reviews 4.0 out of 5 stars Gripping! An amazing and gripping read. A great exercise in how to write a thriller. Although not exactly super-original , it does manage to captivate the reader in such a way that, not... Read more Published 6 months ago by P. Ferreira 5.0 out of 5 stars It is the Messiah! Among a crowded genre this book truely stands out from the crowd. As good as the TV series that it spawned was (and which I would recommend) this book is even better. Read more Published 8 months ago by A. J. Powell 4.0 out of 5 stars impressive debut This isn't really the kind of book I would normally read but I came across it in a charity shop and thought it sounded like just the thing the wife likes, she read it in 2 days... Read more Published 8 months ago by An avid reader 5.0 out of 5 stars Gruesome, gripping and intricate I found it impossible to put this book down. Starling has woven a story which is both shocking, gruesome and thrilling, taking the time to explore the psychology of both the... Read more Published 19 months ago by Nancy Williams 3.0 out of 5 stars An ok book about chasing down a psychopath I really don't know what to think of the book. It should probably seem as another object lesson in not reading things out of order or seeing the tv show before you read the book... Read more Published 20 months ago by J. Bowen 5.0 out of 5 stars Messiah I have just read this book on holiday and I couldn't put it down I was griped from the bottom of page 1. I'd never read this author before but I can't wait to read more now. Read more Published on 17 May 2007 by Dodaday 4.0 out of 5 stars Better than the TV If you liked the TV series "Messiah" buy this book. It was obviously sculpted for the BBC and lost some of it's bite in the process. Read more Published on 27 Jul 2006 by lmhh 4.0 out of 5 stars "Silence of the Lambs" it's not!! "Silence of the Lambs" it's not!! But that's not to say that Boris Starling's first novel, "Messiah," is not worth reading. Read more Published on 17 April 2006 by Jana L. Perskie 3.0 out of 5 stars Not bad This book is ok, was a little boring and slow at some points, but the endof the book saves it in my opinion. Read more Published on 28 April 2004 by janaid 4.0 out of 5 stars One of the best crime thrillers out there The promise on the front cover is that it "will haunt your dreams". And Boris Starling's first novel has all the potential to do exactly that. Read more Published on 22 April 2004 by Mr. N. Papageorgiou Search Customer Reviews Only search this product's reviews › See all 54 customer reviews...

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