The Straw Men: Book 1 (The Straw Men Trilogy) - Softcover

Marshall, Michael

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0006499988 ISBN 13: 9780006499985

Publisher: HarperCollins, 2003

Synopsis

Michael Marshall's unique voice adds a chilling intensity to the serial-killer plot, combining dazzling narrative, a white-hot pace and a deeply disturbing backdrop of conspiracy.

Sarah tries to struggle, but the man holds her. The scream never makes it out of her throat. 'Nobody watching,' the man says with hateful calm. 'I made it this way. I can walk where nobody sees.’

Sarah Becker is the fifth girl to be abducted by this maniac. Judging from the state of the bodies that have been found, her long hair will be hacked off and she will be tortured. She has about a week to live.

Former LA homicide detective John Zandt has an inside track on the perpetrator – his own daughter was one of his victims two years ago.

But the key to Sarah's whereabouts lies with Ward Hopkins, a man with a past so secret not even he knows about it. His parents have just died in a car accident, but they leave Ward a bizarre message that leads him to question everything he once believed to be true.

As he begins to investigate his own past Ward finds himself drawn into the shadowy, sinister world of the Straw Men – and into the desperate race to find Sarah, before her time runs out.

About this title

Review:

With The Straw Men, Michael Marshall Smith moves impressively from being a promising author of surreal mid-list novels which draw equally on sf, fantasy and noir thriller into new and even darker territory.

Teenage Sarah is kidnapped in LA and subjected to the endless mad rants of the man who has nailed her under the floorboards, who is slowly starving her as he has others before. Burned-out cop Zandt, whose own daughter was taken and never seen again, is called back into the investigation by his FBI ex-mistress. Drunken, off-the-rails, ex-CIA Wade investigates the things which do not add up in the deaths of the parents he did not know as well as he thought he did. This is a book whose ambiguously heroic heroes share an almost comic ruthlessness with its villains and yet which never ceases to draw a clear line between the merely wrong and the profoundly wicked. Along the way, both the nature of the underlying conspiracy and the smart moves needed to track it down are created with remorseless ingenuity.

Marshall Smith has the skill to create motives and moves that are at once insane, plausible and contemporary. --Roz Kaveney

Review:

‘Just when you think there’s nothing new under the sun in the world of the suspense novel, along comes one hell of a nasty spider call The Straw Men. It’s brilliantly written and scary as hell. Be the first on your block to stay up all night with this one; it’s a masterpiece, reminding us that even paranoids really do have enemies.’ STEPHEN KING

'A staggering, suspenseful journey through the darkness of American crime ... succeeds in revitalising the serial killer novel with assured gusto... A new beginning for a major British writer, whose crime debut instantly moves him into the Thomas Harris division' Guardian

‘Brilliantly plotted, stunningly written ... I read this in one go ... if this isn't a hit, I am a monkey's uncle. And I don't think I am’. Independent on Sunday

‘Marshall’s descriptions of people and places are memorable and evocative and he has produced and absorbing mystery with a chilling denouement’ Sunday Telegraph

‘The Straw Men is a genuinely original thriller that combines the imagination and darkness of his previous work with bolts of nerve-screaming tension ... Think “The X-files” meets “Hannibal”.’ Time Out

About this edition

• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0006499988
• ISBN 13: 9780006499985
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 496