What do you think?
Rate this book
Butcher of Dreams
Lee Fairchild has realized every actor's dream-a theater of her own. The dream is about to turn into a nightmare. Who-or what-lives on the third floor?
The theater was an abandoned burlesque house where the homeless lived-until Lee and her staff scrub it out. It doesn't matter, she tells herself, that the theater sits in Hell's Kitchen on the seedy fringes of Times Square, that it's under-budgeted and understaffed and that she (as Administrative Director) will play only one role this first season. It's an Equity theater, offering five plays in repertory. Times Square redevelopment makes the property desirable.
With her husband recently dead and her daughter away at college, Lee falls into a passion¬ate affair with a younger man. Bizarre, seemingly unrelated events-beginning with a homeless man found dead on the third floor of the theater-escalate to ritual murder. Qualities that make her a good actress-imagination, empathy-pull her through the looking glass into a nightmare world, to the brink of death. Over all hovers a Mexican mask, stolen from the tomb at Monte Alban, its eyes glittering with secrets of the ancient Aztecs and sacrifice.
The characters are drawn from the authors' years of experience in theater and film: Alan Dunbar, Lee's brilliant but erratic artistic director, with mysterious gaps in his resume; Ernst Kromer, guest director from Europe, tyrannical, rigid and uncooperative; Michael Day, Lee's sexy and mysterious assistant; wraithlike Fleur Mahoney, whose first role is a dead girl-and she almost is; Barry Blackwell, talented actor, compulsive practical joker; Harry O'Brien, company stage manager, who'd kill for a role. Characters from the "real" world include Alan's lover, Walter Kaplan, eccentric psychiatrist and medical anthropolo¬gist; Heather, Lee's 18-year-old daughter, who has a surprising secret life; pock-marked, cynical NYPD Detective Mordecai Green, who moonlights as an actor.
"Butcher of Dreams is original, creative, and suspenseful. The ending made me breathless and I stayed up until 3 am finishing the dramatic last third of the novel! However, it is quite amusing in places as well, creating comic relief. One of the talents of the authors is to cast suspicion on almost all the players. The insight one gains into the mind and motivations of a psychopath and the descriptions of the occult are truly captivating and gripping, a reflection of excellent research. Butcher of Dreams is so much more than mystery. With its original metaphors, similes and lyrical descriptions, it is an enthralling and creative novel. I loved it!" Mara Stark, retired teacher of Advanced Placement Composition
The theater was an abandoned burlesque house where the homeless lived-until Lee and her staff scrub it out. It doesn't matter, she tells herself, that the theater sits in Hell's Kitchen on the seedy fringes of Times Square, that it's under-budgeted and understaffed and that she (as Administrative Director) will play only one role this first season. It's an Equity theater, offering five plays in repertory. Times Square redevelopment makes the property desirable.
With her husband recently dead and her daughter away at college, Lee falls into a passion¬ate affair with a younger man. Bizarre, seemingly unrelated events-beginning with a homeless man found dead on the third floor of the theater-escalate to ritual murder. Qualities that make her a good actress-imagination, empathy-pull her through the looking glass into a nightmare world, to the brink of death. Over all hovers a Mexican mask, stolen from the tomb at Monte Alban, its eyes glittering with secrets of the ancient Aztecs and sacrifice.
The characters are drawn from the authors' years of experience in theater and film: Alan Dunbar, Lee's brilliant but erratic artistic director, with mysterious gaps in his resume; Ernst Kromer, guest director from Europe, tyrannical, rigid and uncooperative; Michael Day, Lee's sexy and mysterious assistant; wraithlike Fleur Mahoney, whose first role is a dead girl-and she almost is; Barry Blackwell, talented actor, compulsive practical joker; Harry O'Brien, company stage manager, who'd kill for a role. Characters from the "real" world include Alan's lover, Walter Kaplan, eccentric psychiatrist and medical anthropolo¬gist; Heather, Lee's 18-year-old daughter, who has a surprising secret life; pock-marked, cynical NYPD Detective Mordecai Green, who moonlights as an actor.
"Butcher of Dreams is original, creative, and suspenseful. The ending made me breathless and I stayed up until 3 am finishing the dramatic last third of the novel! However, it is quite amusing in places as well, creating comic relief. One of the talents of the authors is to cast suspicion on almost all the players. The insight one gains into the mind and motivations of a psychopath and the descriptions of the occult are truly captivating and gripping, a reflection of excellent research. Butcher of Dreams is so much more than mystery. With its original metaphors, similes and lyrical descriptions, it is an enthralling and creative novel. I loved it!" Mara Stark, retired teacher of Advanced Placement Composition
416 pages, Paperback
First published July 1, 2007
5 people want to read
About the author
Kay Williams
61 books1 follower As well as a successful author, Kay Williams is a professional actress who has played a wide range of leading roles at theaters around the U.S. For several years, Kay worked behind-the-scenes with an independent filmmaker in New York, traveling with him to Leningrad in 1991 where she received the idea for The Matryoshka Murders. Anything could happen here, she thought, in this city at this desperate time.
Eileen “Jo” Wyman, Kay’s writing partner, helped organize photos and notes collected from the trip, and together they drafted a plot and wrote this thriller that begins in Russia and jumps across an ocean to New York City.
Eileen, known to friends as Jo, an amazing, talented woman, tragically passed away on Sept. 6, 2013, just after The Matryoshka Murders was completed. Jo worked in radio-TV and began her writing career in comedy, crafting jokes for speech writers and comedians, humorous fillers for magazines, and captions for cartoonists. She loved humor—from punch line jokes to surreal comedy to wit and word play—filling file box after file box with her wry, pithy descriptions.
The authors’ move into the crime-ridden, sleazy Hell’s Kitchen of 1977 provided the catalyst for their award-winning thriller, Butcher of Dreams. Kay’s wide ranging acting credits and theater experience gave focus to this character/plot driven mystery that centers around the struggling 42nd Street repertory theater where much of the action takes place.
Kay is also a co-author of the comic romance One Last Dance:It’s Never Too Late to Fall in Love, started by her journalist father Mardo Williams, and finished by her and her sister Jerri Lawrence. One Last Dance has won several awards, including an Ohioana Award (to Jerri and Kay) for writing and editing excellence.
Coming next (dedicated to Jo) - Part One of a Series: New York City, Collected Letters, 1956-57: Were We Ever That Young?, the hilarious, heart-breaking and hair-raising adventures of two starry-eyed girls from the Midwest (Jo and Kay) who arrive in New York City with big dreams of success. Part Two of the Series will be San Francisco, Collected Letters, the Sixties.
Eileen “Jo” Wyman, Kay’s writing partner, helped organize photos and notes collected from the trip, and together they drafted a plot and wrote this thriller that begins in Russia and jumps across an ocean to New York City.
Eileen, known to friends as Jo, an amazing, talented woman, tragically passed away on Sept. 6, 2013, just after The Matryoshka Murders was completed. Jo worked in radio-TV and began her writing career in comedy, crafting jokes for speech writers and comedians, humorous fillers for magazines, and captions for cartoonists. She loved humor—from punch line jokes to surreal comedy to wit and word play—filling file box after file box with her wry, pithy descriptions.
The authors’ move into the crime-ridden, sleazy Hell’s Kitchen of 1977 provided the catalyst for their award-winning thriller, Butcher of Dreams. Kay’s wide ranging acting credits and theater experience gave focus to this character/plot driven mystery that centers around the struggling 42nd Street repertory theater where much of the action takes place.
Kay is also a co-author of the comic romance One Last Dance:It’s Never Too Late to Fall in Love, started by her journalist father Mardo Williams, and finished by her and her sister Jerri Lawrence. One Last Dance has won several awards, including an Ohioana Award (to Jerri and Kay) for writing and editing excellence.
Coming next (dedicated to Jo) - Part One of a Series: New York City, Collected Letters, 1956-57: Were We Ever That Young?, the hilarious, heart-breaking and hair-raising adventures of two starry-eyed girls from the Midwest (Jo and Kay) who arrive in New York City with big dreams of success. Part Two of the Series will be San Francisco, Collected Letters, the Sixties.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
February 4, 2008
This book was quite different from One Last Dance, a book the author, along with her sister, finished for her dad after he passed away.
It has been a while since I finished the book, and what sticks out in my mind is that the author provided excellent descriptions of places. I felt as if I were there along with the characters, hearing the sounds they heard and seeing the objects they saw.
The character development was also very good. The reader was given enough information about each character to feel as if those characters were actual acquaintances of the reader.
This is not the type of book that I usually read, but I did enjoy stepping into the world of New York actors for a short while. However, I didn't like walking to that New York parking lot alone late at night when I knew it was a high-crime area.
It has been a while since I finished the book, and what sticks out in my mind is that the author provided excellent descriptions of places. I felt as if I were there along with the characters, hearing the sounds they heard and seeing the objects they saw.
The character development was also very good. The reader was given enough information about each character to feel as if those characters were actual acquaintances of the reader.
This is not the type of book that I usually read, but I did enjoy stepping into the world of New York actors for a short while. However, I didn't like walking to that New York parking lot alone late at night when I knew it was a high-crime area.
May 19, 2017
Didn't really know whether to give this 2 or 3 stars as I liked parts of it but other parts were ok at best.
A believable whodunnit that takes place at a theater. Even though I'd guessed the culprit almost from the very begining, the authors did a good job of making me second-guess myself as conflicting pieces of evidence rose to the surface. A very disturbing read.
A believable whodunnit that takes place at a theater. Even though I'd guessed the culprit almost from the very begining, the authors did a good job of making me second-guess myself as conflicting pieces of evidence rose to the surface. A very disturbing read.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews