April 9, 2018
Australian YA author Heath (500 Minutes of Danger) makes his adult debut with a thriller marred by preposterous plot twists and excessive violence. Timothy Blake, who developed a perverse taste for human flesh during a period when he was homeless, reaches an unlikely agreement with Peter Luzhin, a cop who discovers his secret. When Luzhin becomes the director of the Houston Field Office for the FBI, he volunteers the extremely observant Blake to aid the bureau in its cases. When the cases lead to the death penalty, the FBI unrealistically rewards Blake with the bodies of the executed criminals. The story line goes in even more improbable directions after Blake partners with an attractive agent, Reese Thistle, who falls in love with the repellent Blake, on the missing-person case of 14-year-old Cameron Hall. Readers will find it difficult to stomach Blake’s behavior—such as convincing his roommate that the human meat in their freezer is bear meat—and will be disappointed in the book’s groanworthy conclusion. Heath’s fans will hope for better next time. Agent: Daniel Kirschen, ICM.
May 15, 2018
Australian author Heath's U.S. debut is a grisly one. Timothy Blake is an unofficial consultant to the FBI, where he uses his knack for putting fine details together to solve crimes that stump local agents. Blake is young, uneducated, and . . . strange. How does someone like him get such a gig, you wonder? By blackmailing Peter Luzhin, the coke-addicted Houston field-office director, of course. It gets better?the two men met when a high, off-duty Luzhin stumbled across a homeless Blake eating a man who had just tried to rob him. The two come to an interesting agreement, in which Blake assists on hard cases in exchange for the bodies of death-row killers. And that's not even the weirdest part of the story. There's a kidnapped boy with a possible twin brother (also kidnapped), Blake's drug-dealer roommate who has no idea there are human limbs in their freezer, and Blake's growing attraction to the Houston detective he's working with on the kidnapping case. Every chapter brings something more bizarre, but Heath manages to make everything fit together, just so. An enjoyable, fast-paced read perfect for readers with strong stomachs.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)
October 23, 2017
In the age of the anti-hero, morally ambiguous characters compel readers to empathise with and root for them, despite their troubled natures and character flaws. Enter Timothy Blake, the Hangman, a civilian consultant with the FBI, who, in exchange for aiding investigations, is permitted access to death row inmates to temporarily satisfy his voracious appetite for human flesh. Yes, the hero of Jack Heath’s debut adult novel is a cannibal detective. Readers able to abide this grisly affliction will easily lose themselves in this dark, bone-rattling thriller. Those with queasy stomachs, not so much. In Hangman, Blake and FBI agent Reese Thistle face a ruthless kidnapper who has abducted a 14-year-old boy. But it’s Blake’s malformed ambitions and determination to hide his bloodlust that drive the narrative rather than the complexity of the mystery, which commits the sin of having its supposed genius protagonist solve the case by bumbling into the path of the criminal rather than using his cleverness. Readers’ enjoyment will hinge on how invested they become in Blake’s moral conflict, but Hangman is ghoulish fun, and fills the Dexter- and Hannibal-shaped holes in our lives.
Simon McDonald is a bookseller at Potts Point Bookshop