Book Review: The Postcard Killers

The Postcard Killers, by James Patterson & Liza Marklund

 

The Postcard Killers is a story about a couple, Mac and Sylvia Rudolph, who go on a killing spree through Europe, targeting young couples that are often on their honeymoon.  Jacob Kanon, an American police officer from New York, is in Europe trying to track down the couple because he suspects them of killing his daughter, Kimmy, while she was vacationing in Europe with her fiancé.  As is their pattern, the killers send a postcard to a newspaper reporter that is local in the town the most recent killing took place.  After local news reporter Dessie gets one of their infamous postcards, Jacob teams up with her to solve the case and catch the killers.

Warning: Spoilers follow here.

After Jacob and Dessie team up, they put together a lot of information in a short amount of time.  They find out that the killers are representing art whenever they kill their victims.  The killers lay the victims out in weird positions after they are dead.  These positions are depicting actual famous paintings.  Upon further investigation back in the states, Jacob learns the couple are actually twins and not lovers (both, actually), and they both attended UCLA as art students.  They were expelled for having intercourse in public as a form of art.  Afterwards, they began their killing spree in Europe to "justify" their perception of art.  This is all happening while the twins have come forward to clear their name and are being held temporarily in prison.  Jacob and Dessie are now in a race to convict the twins before the escape for good under false innocence.  While the twins are in jail, another postcard comes to another reporter.  This only aids the twins in clearing their name, as they couldn't have done it while in jail themselves.  Jacob and Dessie eventually find out that there are several Postcard Killers and not just the twins acting alone as originally thought.  The Killers all communicate through a website the twins set up while in college, where they celebrate and showcase their killings in the name of art.  Once the site is found, the IP addresses are tracked and the additional killers are all found and convicted.  Because Swedish police found the twins innocent after the mysterious postcard popped up, they are now trying to escape before anyone gets wise again.  Dessie calls in a favor to a criminal cousin of hers and a watch is set up for the twins at the border to Russia.  They find the twins and a chase ensues.  Jacob finally gets his revenge by killing Sylvia, the killer of the two twins with Mac being her lacky, and getting a knife in his lung courtesy of Mac.  Dessie shots Mac and the killers have finally been brought to justice.  In the epilogue, Dessie is finishing her doctorate and she and Jacob have moved back to New York together, now a couple.

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This book had so much potential.  You look in the jacket.  It tells you this is James Patterson's most enthralling thriller yet and the premise is good, too.  This book didn't live up to that potential for me.  The book is in large print, which makes it easy to read, but the number of chapters drove me crazy.  The book has 140 chapters and 420 pages.  There's generally a new chapter every other page.  It helped to break up the book, but it was almost overkill in my opinion.  The cover claims the book to be "The scariest vacation thriller ever," and it really wasn't.  As a matter of fact, I didn't find the book scary at all.  I of course found it grisly, but not scary.  I didn't lie in bed at night afraid of the Postcard Killers.  The last hundred pages or so are the best part of the book.  As everything is coming together and Dessie and Jacob are exploring their relationship, the book gains some character.  Until then, I found it to be pretty dead.  It had a good ending and epilogue, but not a very strong middle.  I give it a 3/5.

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For Next Time

The Time Traveler's Wife, by Audrey Niffenegger

"The Time Traveler's Wife is the story of Clare, a beautiful art student, and Henry, an adventuresome librarian, who have known each other since Clare was six and Henry was thirty-six, and were married when Clare was twenty-three and Henry thirty-one. Impossible but true, because Henry is one of the first people diagnosed with Chrono-Displacement Disorder: periodically his genetic clock resets and he finds himself misplaced in time, pulled to moments of emotional gravity in his life, past and future. His disappearances are spontaneous, his experiences unpredictable, alternately harrowing and amusing.

The Time Traveler's Wife depicts the effects of time travel on Henry and Clare's marriage and their passionate love for each other as the story unfolds from both points of view. Clare and Henry attempt to live normal lives, pursuing familiar goals--steady jobs, good friends, children of their own. All of this is threatened by something they can neither prevent nor control, making their story intensely moving and entirely unforgettable."

-barnesandnoble.com