Author: Alex Chance
What it is about:
Karen Wiley, recent qualified San Fransisco psychologist, thought she understood moral dilemma. Then an anonymous child cries to her for help via letters: "O God help me hes going to hurt me if you don't do what he says". No one Karen knows is in trouble, but the letters keep coming. Then something far worse: "He knows where you are now I had to give it to him". Until the horror in the Trueblood trailer, Ella McCullers, police chief of Canaan, Utah, believed she knew crises of faith. Abruptly promoted to senior investigator of the state's most high-profile kidnapping case, her only leads are a decaying tombstone, a missing cat and a little mute girl with ghastly formless nightmares. "Daddy says go to the church of the final days" was also another letter sent by the child. In truth , it began with the Cult of the Final Days, and a long-buried history of murder. Now Karen Wiley must cross the desert wilderness to play a deadly game disguised as a righteous quest for the truth.
Personal opinion:
I think that this is a very interesting book for a few reasons, namely the suspense that is created, the different viewpoints and language that is used to show the characteristics of each character, and the eerie atmosphere created by the letters
The suspense in the book was built up gradually, unlike most of the other thrillers that I have read, which does not have this element of suspense in the plot. The books starts out with the mind of a madman, which leaves the readers in suspense, as we gasp in horror at what he does at the start of the book. This suspense is built gradually as he starts to talk about his fetish for phone books to target his new victims. We do not know who he really is at the start of the book and are left in suspense as why he was introduced as the first chapter is not immediately revealed to us. Such an introduction entices us to read on. No one except for Karen trusted the letter and this also builds up the suspense gradually as it isolates her from the rest of the world. This gives us the feeling that she is the only one who was in danger, and this builds up the suspense, as part of us actually worry for her while reading the book.
The choice of words and scenes in the book is also something that I enjoy in the book, as it clearly depicts the characteristics of each specific character. The first character that is introduced in the story is Jon Peterson. He is introduced as a madman and this is clearly shown in his weird fetish for phone books. He is further depicted as such by him targeting his random victims by using the phone books. However, the diction changed when introducing Karen Wiley, and the choice of words give us the impression of a slightly confused but reliable adult instead of the delusional madman introduced earlier. The diction was then changed again to show the innocence of a young child of the two divorced couple, when she just wanted to make her father happy. This change of diction to introduce the character's characteristics is interesting and allows us to fully grasp the atmosphere.
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