Grave Markings

I'm honestly not much of a reader, infact it normally takes me weeks to finish a novel. But for the first time I found a novel that I couldn't put down. "Grave Markings" pulled me in and captured my imagination at page one. I read it in record time for me and have decided to read it again. It is a very tight and intelligent thriller. I'm not sure what to write in a review, but if you want a book that will grab your attention, then I suggest "Grave Markings". Mr. Arnzen is a very creative writer and I will be ordering some of his other work.

Grave Markings is the story of Mark Michael Kilpatrick, tattoo artist and serial killer. Mark, the victim of horrendous child abuse, is tortured by horrible visions. His deranged mind conceives of a plan to share his visions with "the public", using human beings as his canvases. Unfortunately, Michael's unwilling subjects usually wind up dead. Kilpatrick's bizarre escapades attract the attention of three friends--Roy Roberts, a writer, Dan Schoenmacher, a TV weatherman, and Lockerman, a cop. Of the three, Roberts is the most active, entering the world of body art, befriending a tatoo artist, and even getting a "tat" himself. Fittingly, it is Roberts who eventually confronts the madman at the novel's harrowing conclusion. This book is an interesting piece of work. How to describe it? It is disturbing, unnerving, dark, suspenseful, and original. It probably could have benefitted from some tighter editing, but this quibble can be ignored in light of the overall quality of this gripping first novel.

Aside from the brilliantly-conceived, dipsomaniac, halitosis-soaked narrative and dialogue, what really makes Mike Arnzen's "Grave Markings" a once-in-a-lifetime read is his exploration of the tatooing motif, which is simply a metaphor of the writer's craft. Arnzen challenges his readers to entertain the possibility that writers scar their readers; the act of inscribing words on a page becomes an excoriation of the reader's imagination. What makes this notion even more compelling is that the writer works in a medium that is typically considered non-visual, and yet Arnzen pokes, scrapes, and stains his readers' eyes with every word. As readers progress through the book, they find that Kilpatrick's sick world becomes more and more vivid in the imaginative eye, thus brutally undercutting the notion that we are simply taking in a story--the more we see, the more we believe. And seeing the world through Kilpatrick's eyes, we become accomplices to his mutilations. By the time we close the book, Arnzen is surely daring us to wonder whether or not we've found pleasure in what we see from Kilpatrick's point of view; after all, suggests Arnzen, we are somewhat responsible for what we've come to see. Indeed, if readerly noncompliance were simply a matter of putting down the books that shock us, then "Grave Markings" wouldn't be as good as it is. Arnzen implies that it only takes one peek into the pages of a good book and we're already culpable. If you enjoy Will Self's ironic depravity and T.C. Boyle's narrative cunning, then Michael Arnzen's "Grave Markings" deserves a read. Even though you might feel your gullet rise in disgust, don't be surprised find yourself enjoying what you see.

This book caught me from the first line to last period. People usually have nightmares about getting tattoos.. Well if you have Kilpatrick as your tattoo artist, you have reason to worry! Basically the story revolves around Kilpatrick's killings by excessive tattooing (or just body mutilations) and the cops trying to catch him. This book could make you totally insane! A MUST READ!