Status
Available
Call number
Genres
Collection
Publication
New York: Bantam Books, 1988
Description
Fiction. Mystery. Suspense. Thriller. HTML:NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER They call the ancient hills of Jerusalem the butcher�s theater. Here, upon this bloodstained stage, a faceless killer performs his violent specialty. The first to die brutally is a girl. She is drained of blood, then carefully bathed and shrouded in white. Precisely one week later, a second victim is found. �Crisp . . . suspenseful . . . intense.��The New York Times Book Review From the sacred Wailing Wall to monasteries where dark secrets are cloistered, from black-clad Bedouin enclaves to labyrinthine midnight alleys, veteran police inspector Daniel Sharavi and his crack team plunge deep into a city simmering with religious and political passions to hunt for a murderer whose insatiable taste for bloodshed could destroy the delicate balance on which Jerusalem�s very survival depends. BONUS: This edition includes an excerpt from Jonathan Kellerman's Guilt..… (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member bardin
My favorite Jonathan Kellerman book. It is a bit slow in the first 30 pages or so, but then, it gets extremely interesting and delivers more so than any other Kellerman book, most of which are quite good. Bad Love is the best Alex Delaware novel by Kellerman.
LibraryThing member debavp
This could have been a really great book. Instead it was too long, too gratuitous, basically too much bad stuff. The editing was far from top notch. While I really liked the premise, within the first fifty pages I had found too many vocabulary errors that I gave up and basically ignored them for
This is fiction, so historic license is expected. The geographical side of things ( I found a map of Old Jerusalem City that helped identify the locales) makes it interesting as does the cast of detectives and their relationships to each other and their own families, as well as the age old battle of Jew v Muslim v Christian. Those little side trips to learn about these detectives as individuals did take up a lot page space but were crucial to portraying the human side of these men and how this case affected their lives. The same formula didn't work with regards to the killer though and that's where Kellerman was really heavy-handed with the gory unending text.
Show More
the rest of the book. The basic plot was a good one, but Kellerman went way too far with the depravity. While reading twenty plus years later I wondered how people survived reading it when it was first published, it must have scared the bejeezus out of plenty of readers. Some of the negatives aside, it was one of his earlier books, so I'll take some of the mistakes as beginner's ego.This is fiction, so historic license is expected. The geographical side of things ( I found a map of Old Jerusalem City that helped identify the locales) makes it interesting as does the cast of detectives and their relationships to each other and their own families, as well as the age old battle of Jew v Muslim v Christian. Those little side trips to learn about these detectives as individuals did take up a lot page space but were crucial to portraying the human side of these men and how this case affected their lives. The same formula didn't work with regards to the killer though and that's where Kellerman was really heavy-handed with the gory unending text.
Show Less
LibraryThing member TicoCharlie
An extremely tedious read. Whew!
LibraryThing member bsquaredinoz
The first Jonathan Kellerman I ever read and still the best. Great character development and plot.
LibraryThing member wiccked
Slow, but OK
LibraryThing member whitewavedarling
I've read and loved a number of Kellerman's Alex Delaware novels, among other works he's written, so the first thing I must say here is that I'm simply glad this wasn't my introduction to his work. If it had been, early novel or not, I don't think I'd be seeking out more. So, starting with
This is probably what I would consider to be the definition of a pulp novel. Heavy on action and needless heat; over the top in so many scenes and moments, over and over again; twisty-turny (sometimes for the better, sometimes not); full of stock characters with just enough quirks to keep them interesting; overwritten; rife with moments that feel like they were included for shock value... there were so many moments when it occurred to me that I could simply not finish the book, but I kept going mostly because of the fast pace and because I've so enjoyed Kellerman's work in the past.
If some of the shock-value passages and moments were removed, and some of the 'butchery' taken down from the level of grotesque gore to a level that was slightly more believable in a given moment, I probably would have enjoyed this quite a bit more. As it was, I too often cringed away from what felt like needless gore and shock-value offense--and I saw this as someone who really enjoys slashers and horror novels, too. On top of that, the book is so full of needless sexism and offensive language (much of which would have been offensive even when the book was published in the 80s), the book felt as if it were begging to be labeled as pulp literature in a way that I've rarely seen happen.
Maybe Kellerman just wanted to go as over the top as possible, or maybe his early writing was, in general, just this overboard in terms of language and horror, but one way or another, I can't say I enjoyed this. Was the plotting smart? Sure. Were the characters sympathetic? Mostly. Did the writing move fast and keep me engaged? Yes. But did I enjoy it or feel like the book deserved nearly as many pages as it took up? Not remotely.
I can't recommend this one unless you want a pulpy, over-the-top thriller that delivers plenty of shock value as a thriller written in the spirit of a slasher horror film.
Show More
that....This is probably what I would consider to be the definition of a pulp novel. Heavy on action and needless heat; over the top in so many scenes and moments, over and over again; twisty-turny (sometimes for the better, sometimes not); full of stock characters with just enough quirks to keep them interesting; overwritten; rife with moments that feel like they were included for shock value... there were so many moments when it occurred to me that I could simply not finish the book, but I kept going mostly because of the fast pace and because I've so enjoyed Kellerman's work in the past.
If some of the shock-value passages and moments were removed, and some of the 'butchery' taken down from the level of grotesque gore to a level that was slightly more believable in a given moment, I probably would have enjoyed this quite a bit more. As it was, I too often cringed away from what felt like needless gore and shock-value offense--and I saw this as someone who really enjoys slashers and horror novels, too. On top of that, the book is so full of needless sexism and offensive language (much of which would have been offensive even when the book was published in the 80s), the book felt as if it were begging to be labeled as pulp literature in a way that I've rarely seen happen.
Maybe Kellerman just wanted to go as over the top as possible, or maybe his early writing was, in general, just this overboard in terms of language and horror, but one way or another, I can't say I enjoyed this. Was the plotting smart? Sure. Were the characters sympathetic? Mostly. Did the writing move fast and keep me engaged? Yes. But did I enjoy it or feel like the book deserved nearly as many pages as it took up? Not remotely.
I can't recommend this one unless you want a pulpy, over-the-top thriller that delivers plenty of shock value as a thriller written in the spirit of a slasher horror film.
Show Less
Language
Original language
English
Original publication date
1988
Physical description
627 p.; 25 cm