The Chimney Sweeper: A Murder Novel

john payton cook made me want to meet the character

This is one of those novels that you will dig out years after reading it just to read it again. Cooke spins two great stories into one as he first gives the reader the smart aleck, homophobic younger character and the more self-confidant character a few years later. We then watch as both sides crash together with the discovery of the transvestite's corpse in a chimney flue.This book contains gruesome scenes of violence and attitude which makes it all the more a taught suspense thriller.

Mr. Cooke is one of my favorite authors and for a good reason: he writes an excellent story! In this one, the first-person character, Jesse James Colton, arrives in Isthmus City [a Manhattan-like city in Wisconsin], a place referred to by bigots as "Fairyland of the Dairyland", and immediately gets himself into serious danger after he murders a transvestite who tries to force sex upon him. After hiding the body in a dilapidated old house, he is later raped by a truck-driver, and then out of curiosity calls a number he finds on a bathroom wall at the bus station. The series of events that follow seem to convince him that he is being haunted by his deceased victim and that his action will be discovered. Mr. Cooke's story is very intricate and constantly interesting. The ending is a bit surprising, and I won't spoil it here. Read it. Just read it, and you won't be sorry.