Head Games

This is my first Eileen Dreyer thriller and what a ride it was. Molly, a 52-year old Vietnam vet, is an emergency room nurse in St. Louis who begins to get messages from a serial killer - likely someone from her past. The thing is, she isn't sure who it is. With the help of her collegues and a love interest that Molly isn't sure she's interested in, Molly tries to piece together the mind of a killer in the hopes of discovering who it could be. With elegant twists and turns, Dreyer's prose weaves a tantalizing tale of emotional disfuction, obsession and abuse into an intriguing novel that will keep readers turning the pages. And Dreyer's technique - not so heavy on medical terminology that it gets dry - allows the author to join the plot and subplot with a twist at the end that will leave some readers gasping. This review is deliberately vague because I don't want to give anything away. Dreyer is dead on in her description of a serial killer's thought processes and the measures law enforcement - and one desperate woman - will take to catch the killer. (speaking as a former journalist who covered crime)

As a long-time reader of Stephen King, James Patterson, Dean Koontz, Ann Rice, etc., I'm not new to the creepy or shocking. But this book was one of the best I've read in a long time. The ending will give anyone who loves this stuff a satisfying thrill...I think I need to go smoke a cigarette after this one!

Kenny, as we discover immediately, is a serial killer. He kills more for pleasure than for attention, and to fill a void left from a bad childhood. Molly is an emergency room nurse, and has been for years. She's seen abused kids come in and out of the ER, helpless to help them. Sure, she tried when she was young and idealistic, but these days, she knows that most are beyond helping. Kenny was one of the ones that she tried to help in her younger days. He remembers and he wants to thank her. Thank her for noticing him, for being the only one who did. He begins sending her gifts, special gifts, human gifts. If there is one thing Molly has learned through her life, it's that nothing is certain, nothing is how it seems. Following that logic, she can't be sure that she's not his next intended victim. Thus begins her frantic search to find him, while still maintaining two jobs, being in the middle of an odd courtship and becoming the unwilling guardian to a troublesome, and quite charming, nephew. Molly has too much on her plate, and more keeps getting added. At times, it seemed that Molly was getting more than even a fictional character could handle, and I felt overwhelmed with it myself. But, it was the type of "overwhelmed" that required further reading. And fast. This is a book that starts off fast and ends breathless, with the reader whirling in a happy state of fear, shock and pure book-loving pleasure. Dreyer, herself a former St. Louis ER nurse, writes convincingly of nursing, the city and murder. The clues are all there. There is not one discovery that left me feeling cheated. Everything was spelled out for me. But it was so cleverly done that every revelation was still a surprise. I'd slap my hand to my forehead and say "HOW did I miss that?", and then bury my nose right back into the book. I only came up for air a few times while reading Head Games. It was so good, I read it straight through one night. And, after I finished at 2 pm, I woke my husband up and made him stand in the door of the bathroom while I showered. I was seeing killers in every shadow. It was that good of a book! The book-induced fear wore off with morning, but not the book itself. It was a stunning book, with some shocks that I never anticipated and an ending that while satisfying, was still unsettling--and caused me to question some unconcious prejudices. I give Head Games the highest recommendation.

Molly Burke is a complex character; it helps to have read "Bad Medicine" to understand some of her background. The action in this book is non-stop, and the ending is thought provoking - it challenges you to reconsider what you think you know about how someone becomes a monster.

Very few people have lived through the trauma Molly Burke has and remained sane but somehow she has managed it. Her parents were emotionally distant (some might call them abusive). She did a tour of duty in the hell that was South Vietnam and came home to discover she couldn't have any children thanks to the effects of Agent Orange and to this day still suffers from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Yet with all that she is one of the best trauma nurses in St. Louis because she cares about her charges.Working two jobs just to stay above the poverty line Molly is doing her best to deal with the threatening letters she is receiving. Her troubled nephew Patrick comes to stay with her while she is trying to cope with her stalker who is now sending her human skulls and femurs. The killer informs Molly that she knows him so she is in the middle of a very dangerous homicide investigation, trying to identify the perpetrator before he strikes against. Molly also deals with her rambunctious nephew and a media onslaught that turns her home into a glass house.Although the heroine thinks she is a head case, she is one of the sanest characters to walk the pages of a crime novel. After what life has thrown at Molly, she somehow not only manages to cope but also has become a stronger person. Eileen Dreyer is a superb writer who manages to keep surprising the reader with one unexpected revelation after another. Fans of Patricia Cornwell and Robin Cook will love HEAD GAMES.Harriet Klausner