On, Off

I had my doubts that an author who had written on Rome or the First Fleet (Morgan's Run) could write a good murder mystery. I was astounded by this story. The suspects are varied, the detective is intelligent while human, and the overall effort is cleaver. This is an excellent book.

Where to start? I've been reading thrillers and detective novels for many years, and I tend towards the ones written by men, as some female writers tend to the frilly and cutesy, which I can't abide. I was fascinated by McCullough's Rome novels (an excellent way to understand what's going on with HBO's ROME) But this new one! "On, Off"!! Dear Lord, I could NOT put it down, and the very last paragraph is a shocker. She's also created some great characters that I'd like to hear more of. I sure hope she writes some more in this vein...she's got the magic touch.

The Thorn Birds remains one of my all time favorite `big' novels. It was published in 1978 and in the intervening time, I'd lost track of Colleen McCullough as she'd concentrated on serious historical fiction based on ancient Rome. OFF, ON is a departure for McCullough, Australia's most famous novelist, as she plunges into a serial killer thriller of the highest order. I'd never realized that McCullough had been a neuroscientist at Yale during the turbulent 1960's. ON, OFF highlights the reality of the racially charged turmoil of those times across America and the author's scientific and medical background. Anyone who read ON, OFF should also read SHADOW OF DEATH, another thriller by a medical scientist. Patricia Gussin, M.D. has intermingled medicine, race, the chaos of the sixties and frightening suspense into a non-stop read all the way to the shocking conclusion. I'd like to see more of the intelligent, even if gruesome, fiction that both McCullough and Gussin have fashioned.

In 1965 in Holloman, Connecticut, Chubb University Professor Robert Smith calls Police Captain Danny Marciano to inform the cop that the Hughlings Jackson Center for Neurological Research assistants have found part of a body of a woman in their dead animal refrigerator. Danny assigns his best detective, Lieutenant Carmine Delmonico to lead the investigation at Hughlings Jackson Center affectionately known by the research staff as the Hug. Having just come off of solving a domestic double homicide, Carmine knows he will miss breakfast unlike his two Sergeants, Corey Marshall and Abe Goldberg since they ate already. Carmine, Corey, and Abe head to the Hug to meticulously search for clues left behind by an apparently vicious killer, but find little evidence left behind by the clever culprit. As the cops keep digging, Carmine learns of other recent victims of mixed racial females by a rapist-killer who severs the heads of his victims probably as some form of a trophy. As he dubs his target as being the "Ghost" because he leaves nothing remotely identifying who he is, the media goes on "the Connecticut Monster" frenzy. ON, OFF is always on target as a terrific 1960s police procedural that showcases an investigation into a serial killer at a time when the forensic information database age was at best in diapers. The background, for instance the outage in the Black communities over the profile of the targets adds a sense of the era. Carmine is a fabulous lead character struggling with an impossible case that he begins to believe has historical roots while the killer seems frighteningly real and particularly vicious. Colleen McCullough provides a superb historical serial killer thriller.