Eye of the Beholder

Starred review from May 21, 2007
Nothing is as it seems in this stunning tale of illicit sex, murder and betrayal from Edgar-winner Ellis (Line of Vision
). The brutal murders of six young women by Terry Burgos, a Mansbury College janitor, in June 1989 seems self-evident. After all, Burgos confessed, and then–assistant county attorney Paul Riley found enough evidence, including the song lyrics that inspired the murders, to get Burgos the death penalty. In June 2005, Riley's in private practice working for the father of one of the six victims, Cassie Bentley, when someone begins duplicating those murders. Odd notes come to Riley in the mail from a disturbed man who may be a copycat killer. To complicate matters, Riley had, under pressure from Cassie's prominent family, not charged Burgos with her murder in 1989. This fact comes back to haunt him when detectives find links between Cassie and the current murders. Juggling multiple viewpoints, Ellis keeps perfect control of his labyrinthine plot as it builds to a satisfying twist ending. Author tour.

July 30, 2007
Some books aren't natural fits for audio. Edgar-winner Ellis's new novel, for example, has a complex plot that hops back and forth between the arrest, conviction and execution of serial killer Terry Burgos in 1989 and 16 years later when Burgos's prosecutor, Paul Riley, is drawn into the investigation of a very similar series of murders, involving many of the same characters. Complicating things even more, the contemporary sections jump from Riley's point of view to that of the demented new killer. Ellis uses chapter breaks, posted dates, italics and a shift from present tense narration to past tense for 1989, efforts that clarify matters in print but are a bit subtle for audio. Even an accomplished and inventive narrator like Dick Hill can only do so much—a pause before announcing a time shift, the use of a distinctive accent for the killer—to keep listener confusion to a minimum. But there's not much any reader could do with a key ingredient of the novel—the nonsense messages left at the crime scenes that contain a coded text that is near-impossible to distinguish by ear. Hill handles the dramatic sequences and thriller elements effortlessly and if one is willing to overlook several perplexing time-warped moments and the impossibility of deciphering the clues before Riley explains them, this audio provides a fair amount of entertainment. Simultaneous release with the Putnam hardcover (Reviews, May 21)