First Obsession

by Judith Reese

Carolyn Staley was happy at last. A new life, a new love, even a pretty house with a yard where her little Kathy could play. Then suddenly the yard was empty, and Carolyn's beautiful child was gone, the victim of a stranger's lethal fantasies.

The Police are doing everything to find the killer--before Carolyn does. Because a police detective has seen Carolyn's strange look before-- in her daughter's dead and sightless gaze.

Carolyn is... different, now. Purposeful, obsessed. She longs for peace again. She longs to slake her vengeance in a single, horrifying act, to sooth her pain in a murderer's agony, to hear his pleas for death... and smile. For she will grant no mercy...

Genres: Horror

280 pages, Paperback

First published August 9, 1987

Reviews

[oddo · Rating 4 out of 5]

First Obsession is a strange and violent mommy revenge thriller that follows a seemingly possessed mother of a slain child as she seeks to exact vengeance on the pedophile that left her with nothing. To start, the initial attack is described in 𝘣𝘳𝘶𝘵𝘢𝘭, 𝐠𝐫𝐚𝐩𝐡𝐢𝐜 detail, so word of warning to the parents. Which is ironic considering how the author's personal politics on pornography come into play throughout the book, like for instance, when she burns down an adult bookstore with the worker still inside, as a distraction, and the town just agrees that it's a good thing the smut peddler is no longer of this world. I couldn't shake the feeling that this felt like the first in a potential series, as it ends with a great vengeance and a new calling, like a fucked up feminist Darkman that hunts down and slaughters sex offenders. Many other bizarre elements to be found, like how she just absolutely wrote the stepdad off and mindfucked him into being a lobotomized house sitter. So weird, so fun!