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Searching... Beale Memorial Library (Kern Co.) | Searching... Unknown | Adult Fiction | FIC CLEAVE PAU | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... Bear Mountain Branch (Fresno Co.) | Searching... Unknown | Mystery Area | CLEAVE PA Trust | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... Gillis Branch Library (Fresno Co.) | Searching... Unknown | Mystery Area | CLEAVE PA Trust | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... Tehachapi Branch Library (Kern Co.) | Searching... Unknown | Adult Fiction | FIC CLEAVE PAU | Searching... Unknown |
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Summary
Summary
A "powerhouse novel." -- Booklist
"This thriller is one to remember ." -- New York Journal of Books
"Cleave's whirligig plot mesmerizes ." -- People magazine ( People Pick)
"This outstanding psychological thriller forces the reader to reconsider what is real." -- Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"A vivid, jangled exploration of mental illness, dark imagination, and the nowhere territory in between." -- Kirkus Reviews
In this exciting psychological thriller by the Edgar-nominated author of Joe Victim , a famous crime writer struggles to differentiate between his own reality and the frightening plot lines he's created for the page.
Jerry Grey is known to most of the world by his crime writing pseudonym, Henry Cutter--a name that has been keeping readers at the edge of their seats for more than a decade. Recently diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer's at the age of forty-nine, Jerry's crime writing days are coming to an end. His twelve books tell stories of brutal murders committed by bad men, of a world out of balance, of victims finding the darkest forms of justice. As his dementia begins to break down the wall between his life and the lives of the characters he has created, Jerry confesses his worst secret: The stories are real. He knows this because he committed the crimes. Those close to him, including the nurses at the care home where he now lives, insist that it is all in his head, that his memory is being toyed with and manipulated by his unfortunate disease. But if that were true, then why are so many bad things happening? Why are people dying?
Hailed by critics as a "masterful" ( Publishers Weekly ) writer who consistently offers "ferocious storytelling that makes you think and feel" ( The Listener ) and whose fiction evokes " Breaking Bad reworked by the Coen Brothers" ( Kirkus Reviews ), Paul Cleave takes us down a cleverly twisted path to determine the fine line between an author and his characters, between fact and fiction.
Author Notes
Paul Cleave was born on December 10, 1974 in New Zealand. His first novel, The Cleaner, was published in 2006. His other novels include Cemetery Lake, Collecting Cooper, The Laughter House, Joe Victim, and Five Minutes Alone. He has won several awards including the Ngaio Marsh award for best crime novel in New Zealand for Blood Men and the Saint-Maur book festival's crime novel of the year in France. In 2015 he won the Ngaio Marsh Award with his title Five Minutes Alone. He also made the New Zealand Best Seller list with his title Trust No One. He was also named an Honorary Literary Fellows in the New Zealand Society of Authors' annual Waitangi Day Honours 2016. In 2016, he won his third Ngaio Marsh Award for Best Crime Novel for his book, Trust No One.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Edgar-finalist Cleave (Joe Victim) may not be the first to use the epitome of an unreliable narrator-a man suffering from Alzheimer's-in a murder mystery, but he makes the most of the concept. In a Christchurch, New Zealand, police station, Jerry Grey, whose mind tends to wander, recounts committing his first murder to a woman whom he fantasizes about strangling with her own hair. To his horror, Jerry learns that she's not a police woman, as he assumed, but his daughter, Eva, who tells him that his memory of the savage knifing of an attractive neighbor, Suzan, was actually from his first in a series of crime novels written under the pseudonym Henry Cutter. Jerry is further unsettled to hear that he had been found wandering around Christchurch and that he now lives in a nursing facility. In another creepy twist, Jerry believes that he actually killed Suzan, "before he wrote about it." On almost every page, this outstanding psychological thriller forces the reader to reconsider what is real and what is only a product of Jerry's derangement. Agent: Jane Gregory, Gregory and Company. (Aug.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
The horror of early-onset Alzheimer's deepens even further for a man who isn't sure whether he's a killer. All the time he was writing his 12 thrillers, New Zealand novelist Jerry Grey kept his personality carefully separate from that of Henry Cutter, the pseudonym under which he published those booksand the shadow self whom Jerry created to write them. Jerry's ability to distinguish what he's imagined from what's really happened, however, has already abandoned him at the fade-in, which finds him confessing a series of killings to the Christchurch police. No dice, they tell him; the Suzan he says he's killed was only a victim in his first novel, A Christmas Murder. They turn Jerry over to his daughter, Eva, who takes him back to the nursing home he's wandered away from. But it's clear from Jerry's entries in his Madness Journal that his memory mingles freely with his professional imagination ("write what you know, and fake the rest," he tells himself and anyone else who'll listen) and a fathomless sense of dread. Why has he been committed to a nursing home? What unforgivable thing did he do on Eva's wedding day? Why is his wife, Sandra, so eager to be rid of him? And if he didn't kill all those women whose last moments haunt him, who didand are they even dead? Cleave (Five Minutes Alone, 2014, etc.) spins one nightmare scenario after another out of Jerry's homely malady, leaping with such fiendish lan between past and present tense and first-person, second-person, and third-person narration that you may wonder if you've killed someone yourself. A vivid, jangled exploration of mental illness, dark imagination, and the nowhere territory in between . Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
This powerhouse novel plays with the subtexts at the core of the mystery genre. What's real? Whomcan we trust? Is nothing as it seems? These questions hit Jerry Grey with unusual force. He's a successful crime novelist with a glamorous wife and a beautiful daughter. But darkness is coming for him. At 49, he's in the early stages of dementia. He makes a grasp at sanity by struggling to get his remaining memories into a journal. Why do they sound like the plots of his novels? Fresh murders are happening, with familiar details, and the authorities blame him. Only one person Jerry's pal, Hans notices that the facts don't add up. But why has Jerry written don't trust Hans in his journal? He can't remember. Sometimes this thicket of fact and fancy is befuddling in the wrong way some editorial pruning would have helped but the author's gin-clear prose brings the tale to a convincing and disturbing finale. This is a demanding and very dark novel, but readers with a yen for the strong stuff will love it.--Crinklaw, Don Copyright 2015 Booklist
Library Journal Review
New Zealander Cleave is the author of eight previous suspense novels (Joe Victim; Five Minutes Alone), some with recurring characters, but this stand-alone psychological thriller is a radical departure from his norm. Mystery author Jerry Grey, diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's at 49, begins a Madness Journal for the Future to rely on for his memory. Alternating between normal and forgetful, Jerry believes he has shot his wife and may have killed several young women, whose murders he recounted in his fiction. His family and caretakers try to convince him that it's all in his head, but Jerry frequently escapes the nursing home, with no memory of how he got free. Signs point to him as the possible culprit in a series of new killings, but is Jerry being set up? Cleave cleverly plays on the in-and-out lucidity of Alzheimer's to keep us and Jerry guessing about whether he is a killer and, if not, who might be framing him. In the end, we know, but it's not clear if Jerry does. VERDICT Readers willing to forsake the traditional detective/mystery format will find this an absorbing and generally successful experiment.-Roland Person, formerly with Southern Illinois Univ. Lib., Carbondale © Copyright 2015. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.