Cruel

Jacob Stone

Sep 2018 · A Morris Brick Thriller Book 4 · Lyrical Press

About this ebook

“Rarely is an author so skilled at portraying such unremitting evil and the poignant, human side of his characters in a single tale.”
—Jeffery Deaver

“Jacob Stone is equal parts Thomas Harris, Michael Connelly, Jo Nesbo, and Stephen King. CRUEL will leave you shaking . . . with fear, excitement, and the uncontrollable compulsion to keep on reading.”
—Lee Goldberg, #1 New York Times bestselling author of True Fiction

“17.” L.A. detective Morris Brick knows the number all too well. It was the gruesome signature the Nightmare Man left next to his victims’ bodies. Brick’s father was the first to investigate the killings. Five women were butchered before the perpetrator vanished. Seventeen years later he resurfaced—to kill again in the same depraved ways. Now another seventeen years have passed. Brick knows in his gut that it’s time for the Nightmare Man to reawaken. But even Brick can’t imagine the madman’s true agenda. Or just how terrifying the sleepless nights are going to get in the City of Angels . . .

Ratings and reviews

Serial killer mysteries are not everyone’s cup of tea but for some reason I do enjoy such stories once in a while. I also like to read a wide variety of authors and genres and at this time I was ready for a new-to-me author and a murder mystery with an edge – this book happens to be the one that came my way. Not having read the first three books in the series makes me wonder if those who have are more in tune with Morris, his family and the people he works with. I found him an interesting character though rather laid back and less communicative than I might have liked…wanted to know him better than I did by the end of the book. That said, I learned that he loves his wife and daughter and dog, Parker. He has good men that he works with that are also good friends that joined him when he left the police force. He is invested in solving cases and it seems he is called in to consult with the police from time to time though most of his work sounded to be mundane private investigator type work. That said…he seems to be one who has managed to catch more than one serial killer that has come into his neighborhood. In this book there is a rather demented person on the loose - a person that kills every seventeen years and does so in a depraved and painful way…painful for the person who dies anyway. The first group of murders occurred in 1984 when Morris was young and his father was assigned the case. The second set of murders occurred in 2001 and Morris was a young man on the police homicide team looking for the killer. As this story begins it is nearing the time for a third round of murders to occur and Morris is concerned – and rightly so. The mystery is ongoing... * Who is the murderer? * Why are the murders occurring as they do? * Is there symbolism or reason behind the murders? * Is there only one person killing people? * Why every seventeen years? * Will they catch the murderer in 1918 or not? So, Morris steps in and leads a team of his investigators and some of the police force in hopes of finding the killer before he finishes killing the five women slated to die. As murders begin clues also start to trickle in. When all is said and done…it is a story that is different than most I have read before in this genre. There was torture and enough written about it to know how horrible the experience was for the person who dies without actually having to live through each moment with her. There were not really any suspects to speak of at first though there were hunches from time to time. There was eventually a connection made that provided a tip that that lead to the first concrete steps in figuring out the puzzle of the Nightmare Man but it wasn’t until nearly the end that all the pieces were put together. I have mixed feelings on this one. I never really identified with Morris and am not sure why. And, I wonder again if I had read from book one if that might be different. I liked the women that were murdered and wished they had not died and perhaps that is a sign of a good writer and writing style to so invest the reader in the murdered. I also worried about a dog that went missing and hoped it ended up okay. In the end I did enjoy the book enough to read another one but it did not grab me, make me love Morris and end the book eagerly waiting for the next book to come out. Perhaps that is in part due to the gruesome nature of the murders and my hope that nobody else like the Nightmare Man will show up again. An aside – with so many serial murderers around in books and on television shows I wondered how many there are actually are out there AND I learned that a person who kills two (I thought it was three or more) is considered a serial murderer so there are no doubt more serial killers around than I thought AND interestingly enough there is a good possibility that there are more on the loose than there are that have been captured…creepy to think about isn’t it? Thank you to NetGalley and Kensington Books-Lyrical Underground for the ARC – This is my honest review.

About the author

Jacob Stone is the pseudonym chosen by Dave Zeltserman, an award-winning author of crime, mystery, and horror fiction, for his Morris Brick thriller series—Deranged, Crazed, Malicious, Cruel, and Unleashed. His crime novels Small Crimes and Pariah were both named by the Washington Post as best books of the year, with Small Crimes also topping National Public Radio's list of best crime and mystery novels of 2008. His horror novel, The Caretaker of the Lorne Field, was short listed by the American Library Association for best horror novel of 2010, a Black Quill nominee for best dark genre book, and a Library Journal horror gem. His Frankenstein retelling Monster was named by Booklist as one of the 10 best horror novels of the year, and by WBUR as one of the best novels of the year. His mystery fiction is regularly published by Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, has won Shamus and Derringer awards, and twice has won the Ellery Queen’s Readers Choice award. Dave’s novels have been translated to German, French, Italian, Dutch, Lithuanian, and Thai. His novel Small Crimes has been made into a film starring Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Molly Parker, Gary Cole, Robert Forster, and Jacki Weaver, and can be seen on Netflix. His novels Outsourced and The Caretaker of Lorne Field are currently in development.