Swimsuit’s
author James Patterson has around 50 books to his name and rates 13 lines as
an introduction. The book, however, has another author, a Maxine Paetro who
gets her name in very small type on the cover in a non-contrasting color,
and rates only two lines in the introduction. There is probably a good tale
there somewhere!
However, Swimsuit (ISBN 978-0-0995-3897-4, Arrow
Books, 2009) is indicated on the cover as being James Patterson’s “most
shocking and seductive story yet.” (So just what did Mrs Paetro do, I
wonder?)
The book’s theme is around a serial killer who decides he
wants his life story made into a book and blackmails Ben Hawkins, a writer,
to write it and get it published. That blackmail includes watching video
tapes made by the serial killer of the executions, but done in such a way
that Hawkins cannot go to the police.
The story unfolds very quickly, with the first murder
completed by page 37, and then goes on from there. With the very short
chapters (some of them merely a page and a half) this keeps the action
bounding along at a quick pace. And the action consists of several more
horrific murders.
The ‘swimsuit’ is the super model who leaves the book on
page 37, but at that point the hero, Hawkins, comes on the scene, but
Patterson (or Paetro?) then leads the reader on a goose chase with the
parents of the murdered model. This ploy completely confuses the reader and
you are left wondering just in which direction you are being led - until the
parents become victims as well.
The author(s) use the device of successive chapters to
describe the scene from the writer’s point of view and then again from the
killer’s take on it all. At those points you somehow want to warn Ben of the
danger he is in.
What compounds the dangers is the fact that the serial
killer is the master of disguises and takes on different personalities which
confuse anyone looking for the last iteration. Not only a master of
disguises, but also a meticulous planner so that the executions go totally
according to plan, and are such that they instil extreme fear in the victim
before death. The killer believing that the seconds between living and dying
are important.
It then becomes apparent that the killer is actually
videoing the executions on behalf of a world-wide ring of voyeurs of snuff
movies. Members of this group are financially very off and the serial killer
is leading a life of luxury paid for by the voyeurs. A very sick society.
At B. 385 on the Bookazine shelves it is a bargain for
the followers of thrillers, but for me, some obvious glaring errors in the
forensics spoiled it. The villain, for example, cleans everything in the
hotel room where he commits a murder, so that there is no DNA evidence. I’m
afraid that wiping doorknobs is not enough. He would have to collect every
single hair that he might have shed to ensure there was no DNA to lead the
police to him.
