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cmjwallace

cmjwallace

Currently reading

The Honourable Schoolboy (Smiley Versus Karla, #2)
John le Carré
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
J.K. Rowling
Nightfall
Stephen Leather
The Kite Runner
Khaled Hosseini
The Honourable Schoolboy
John le Carré

The Basement

The Basement - Stephen Leather The Basement is written from two points of view, a serial killer’s and an aspiring writer’s. Leather blends them into a whole that sets a harsh tone in keeping with the plot’s direction: capture of the murderer before he can torture his next target to death and dispose of her.

This book isn’t for the faint of heart: The tale relayed by the murderer speaks graphically of sexually sadistic desires and plans for the victim-to-be. One of the cops trying to nail the killer is vicious. The writer—and prime suspect—has an obsessive persistence in promoting his work that flirts with the line between salesmanship and stalking. The mix creates an uneasiness that carries throughout the book.

Leather likes to throw in twists at the end of his stories, and this one has a doozy.

There weren’t too many editorial problems. Subjunctives, spelling (e.g., “base line” [baseline]), comma splices (a fair few of these, though), and punctuation (e.g., “still hoped they’d be well-treated” [well treated]) were among them.