Product Description

He thinks he sees a flash of emotion in her eyes. Sympathy?

Then it’s gone. ‘Whatever you think this is going to be like,’ she whispers, ‘it’s going to be worse.’

When beautiful serial killer Gretchen Lowell captured her last victim – the man in charge of hunting her down – she quickly established who was really in control of the investigation. So why, after ten days of horrifying physical and mental torture, did she release Detective Archie Sheridan from the brink of death and hand herself in?

Two years on, Archie remains driven by a terrifying obsession that was born during his time alone with Gretchen. One thing is clear – Archie does not believe he was ever truly freed.

Now Archie returns to lead the search for a new killer, whose recent attacks on teenage girls have left the city of Portland reeling. Shadowed by vulnerable young reporter Susan Ward, Archie knows that only one person can help him climb into the mind of this psychopath. But can Archie finally manage to confront the demons of his past without being consumed by them?

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #132628 in Books
• Published on: 2007-08-03
• Released on: 2007-08-03
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 320 pages

Review
Disturbingly good. --Marie Claire

About the Author

Chelsea Cain is a humour columnist for The Oregonian and reviews for the New York Times Book Review. She has written for a wide variety of publications and is currently writing her second Gretchen Lowell thriller, Sweetheart. Chelsea lives in Portland, Oregon.

Customer Reviews

Sick,. twisted . . . and absolutely BRILLIANT
I read a lot of thrillers - in fact, I devour them with voracious regularity. I especially like ones featuring serial killers, and I also keep an eye out for new talents in the genre.

So, I snapped up a copy of Heartsick as soon as I could get my hands on one, as it's a debut, and it stars one of the most frightening serial killers I've ever come across - Gretchen Lowell. Yes, Gretchen is a female, which for a serial killer is a rare thing in thriller fiction (and in real life!).

I won't give away too much of the plot, save to say that the book is a dual-narrative, featuring a truly chilling back-story involving Gretchen, and a detective - Archie Sheridan - who she is holding captive. These scenes are not for the faint-hearted, but represent some of the most powerful I've read in a long time.

The second strand of the story takes place a year or two later, and involves the hunt for a new killer, who Detective Sheridan is chasing. In a twist very reminiscent of the wonderful Silence of the Lambs, he enlists Gretchen's help (from her prison cell) in tracking down this killer. However, it becomes clear that Archie and Gretchen's relationship is even more complex than you first realise.

Heartsick really is cracking stuff - if you like your thillers with a dash of gore and a huge dose of page-turning suspense, do not miss it.

just cant give it five, sorry
Having read the other reviews i really can see why they like this book so much - but for me there was something a little contrived about the setup. this is not to say it is not a great book - you could happily while away a few hours reading it, but its not a classic.

Gretchen Lowell is a great pyscho but needed to be fleshed out a lot better than she was - i am aware she was to be a bare bones type of pyscho - no rambling speeches of how daddy abused me and thats why i kill people blah blah blah and i liked that - but we need more characterisation. Maybe in the next book.

Same with the periphery characters - harry and anne a detective and pyschologist - the mini glimpses we saw into their lives were utterley pointless - either expand the character and let their life explain them or leave it alone.

one highlight in the book was its main character Archie - fabulous - well rounded a real pyschological treasure. she truly showed she could write, did Ms Cain with Archie, we needed to see more of that.

Regards contrived - isn't it nice how all the charcters were interwined? granted you had a reason how it had happened but please?

In the end this is a nice book - it won't stretch you intellectually or morally and if Ms Cain continues with this series i do not doubt that they will get better - but this is a rather good try. For an emotionally squirming novel - which this aims itself as - try the first half of Retribution by Jillian Hoffman ( only the first half mind you) or anything by John Connolly or Karin Slaughter. But all in all this isn't bad just not great.

Heartsick
For nearly 10 years a serial killer, dubbed as The Beauty Killer, was on the loose, putting the victims through vicious torture and brutal mutilation before bringing them to their grisly end. A task force of detectives and profilers was put together to catch this sadistic killer, but all went wrong when the team's leader Archie Sheriden was also kidnapped and put through 10 days of terrible abuse and even surgery. This was when Archie Sheriden met Gretchen Lowell.

Now, over 2 years later, Archie is on the slow road to recovery from Gretchen and has been called back to help the rest of the Beauty Killer task force when a new killer is on the prowl, abducting, raping and finally murdering young girls on their way home from school. Gretchen is in prison after giving herself up, but Archie must still face this beautiful monster and visit her each Sunday, where she gives him names and locations of other people she had murdered over the years. Also, working in Archie's shadow is the young reporter Susan Ward who is writing a story on Archie but is also trying to work her way into the mind of the psychopathic killer, Gretchen.

If you take the genius yet insane mind of Hannibal Lector (The Hannibal Saga) mix it with the obsessiveness of Annie Wilkes (Misery), add the sick torture skills of Jigsaw (Saw) and the beauty and seductiveness of Catherine Tramell (Basic Instinct), you'll begin to get some idea of what Chelsea Cain's character Gretchen Lowell is like. For a debut novel this is very, very good. The book grips you from the first page with the first chapter being where Archie has nails hammered into his ribs to for a heart shape. It then fast forwards 2 years to the new after school killer and with Archie having to cope with the trauma that he has been through and knowing that Gretchen is still controlling him even though she is being held in a maximum security facility. The story also has quite a large focus on the reporter, Susan, being her first real big assignment, she is going all out to get the story, and the sense of excitement and fear around the crime scenes (and of course Grethen) adds a lot of realism to the mix. I read a lot of crime thrillers and this is easily one of the most gruesome and sickest I've ever read - giving even the likes of Karin Slaughter, Thomas Harris and Jonathan Nasaw a run from their money. Don't let that put you off though (unless you really can't stomach it!) as lying behind this gorefest is a very clever, very exciting and most importantly, very scary psychological thriller that will keep you thinking about it long after you have put the book down.

The only things that really stop me giving 'Heart Sick' the full 5-star rating is that at times it does feel a little bit like an introduction to the next book, building up Gretchen's character and giving her the ultimate serial killer status perhaps a bit prematurely, as although she does have similarities to Hannibal, Wilkes and Tramell (as well as dozens of other fictional killers), she still doesn't quite have the powerful presence that I felt when reading or watching the others for the first time, where they did actually scare the hell out of me.

This aside it is definitely still one of the best crime thrillers of recent years and Chelsea Cain is an author that I'll be keeping an eye out for in the future when she releases her next novel, and follow-up to Heart Sick, Sweetheart, later on this year. Overall, if you enjoy serial killer thrillers that are guaranteed to keep you engrossed from start to finish, and you can also stomach the disturbing and gory detail, then I highly recommend Heart Sick to you. It is a very entertaining read - just don't expect it to be a very pleasant one!