Teaser Tuesday: “The Night Bird”

This week’s Teaser Tuesday comes from The Night Bird, by Brian Freeman, in which a serial killer starts targeting the patients of a psychiatrist whose therapeutic technique involves replacing her patients’ traumatic memories with new, non-traumatic ones, thus curing them of their phobias or whatever. Sort of like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, only without the attractions of any actual science fiction or Kate Winslet.

I guess this is a sort of serviceable mystery, if you overlook the fact that all the characters in it are kind of stupid, just about every other sentence drops the name of a brand or popular (at the time) entertainer in an attempt to seem hip, and the main detective behaves in ways that would probably get him kicked off the force. Oh and also it’s full of stuff like this:

“You talked to the cat?”

“Yeah. I told him I was sorry that the woman was gone, that it was brave of him to want to protect her, but there was nothing he could do anymore. Eventually, he got off her body and walked over to me. He climbed up my leg, curled up on my shoulder, and wouldn’t leave. Right then and there, he adopted me.”

Lucy blinked back tears. Cat stories did that to women.

Uh, okay.

Anyway, by the time I neared the end, I was pretty much skimming the book, which is why I got to read some twists towards the end that were actually pretty neat, so I’m glad I didn’t give up on the book outright. It’s unfortunate that the rest of the story didn’t live up to its twists, sort of like if the only good thing in The Sixth Sense had been the fact that … Wait, you did see The Sixth Sense by now, right?

Meanwhile, proofreading continues on Father’s Books!

Richard went into it all the way to the far wall, took a few deep breaths, then leaned forward and aimed the flashlight into the corner between the water heater and the furnace. The open sump, eternally full of water, gleamed blackly, like a troll blinking in the face of unaccustomed illumination.

I say “proofreading” rather than “editing” because this pass is just for fixing typos, not for real editing. I’m done editing and changing things. No really. I swear!

Although maybe I should add a scene with a cat. You know, for the women.