12 bodies, 12 states. What no one knows is that the "Highway Killer" is also a gifted psychiatrist who lures his victims into a false sense of security with his miraculous ability to understand their darkest emotional secrets. He is their confessor, but he is also their executioner. When the killer writes to The New York Times, challenging famed forensic psychiatrist Frank Clevenger to heal him through an exchange of open letters on the front page, he opens his diabolical mind to the one man with the courage to cure him-or die trying...
2008 read: Yet another crime fiction / detective series that I picked up mid-serial with this being the fourth book in the Frank Clevenger series. My 2008 book review was rather glowing compared to the rather drab 5 out of 12 I awarded this book at the time--> 'Compelling page turner - hunt for a serial killer and his rationale from the viewpoints of hunter and huntees.' I'll have to assume that the well intended approach of the writer didn't sit that well with, or work for me. 5 out of 12, it is!
This is a disturbing book. The author has used psychological examples as a basis of the brilliance of Wrens who is insane. His protagonist Clevenger another psychiatrist is hunting him and also flawed. The allowing of the two of them swapping letters via The Times is so farfetched its laughable.
What was particularly disturbing to me was a viewing of the body of a brutalized victim and Clevenger compared the victim with his love interest beside him and wanted to kiss her. That is just very disturbing and weird. Personally if I was looking at the body of a person mutilated the last thing I would be interested in is kissing my girlfriend!
The side story of Billy’s stepson is also out there. The author is a psychiatrist and I cannot help thinking he might need therapy himself. I was also wondering whether there was CCTV in 2003 especially at the diner. Overall I will not be rushing out to buy more of this authors novels.
There was so much potential to this book, in fact it was the first two chapters that I read for free online that convinced me to check this out at my local library. I thought finally an original, or at least new, approach to a serial killer and the inevitable trophies. But oh how was I mistaken...
The opening of the book leads the reader to believe that Jonah Wrens, the Highway Killer, is collecting an unusual type of trophy from his kills, something untraceable and what would have been brilliant. Instead I was left kind of on the cusp of a great idea amidst the scraps of other famous fictional serial killers messily spliced together to make the inconsistent character of Jonah Wrens.
This book is badly in need of a real editor and not some friend that was there to hold Ablow's had through the completing of this horribly inconsistent mush he calls a book. The character of Frank Clevenger is just impossible to track with; as soon as you start to get a feel for his purpose within the book he goes from a hardened cop type of person to this overly insightful and annoyingly sensitive hold your hand and cry with you psychiatrist. And don't get me started on the "son" Billy who is so over done as a "rebellious teenager" that it's no wonder that lo and behold he too comes out of this with a grand view of the world and becomes the model son.
The author is aggravating beyond belief! How can you create characters like this? People do not develop like this or come out the other side with great revelations that completely change them and they never make a mistake again because they have inevitably had their "Hallmark moment" and are on the straight and narrow for the rest of this impossibly happy ending.
And what's with all the winking!?!?
My advice read the first two chapters and stop because there's nothing worth reading beyond that point. You are better off speculating on what happened because anything would be better than what actually happened.
Awesome book. very well written. I felt sorry for Jonah, even as I wanted him to stop killing. I wanted him to stop and not be caught. Very good at making me feel for the killer. I loved the letters written back and forth between Jonah and Clevenger. I also liked how Clevenger was trying to do the right thing by a kid from a previous case. Good second story line. As the bodies continue to pile up the FBI calls in Clevenger to help catch a killer. The killer writes to the NY times inviting Clevenger to an exchange of letters in the times and the change to heal him. Awesome character development. I will definatly be reading more by this author and would for sure recommend it and own it.
This book was recommended to me as an example of an antagonist done well--in other words, a three-dimensional bad guy. And I agree, the reader really gets into the guy's head. In the novel, a psychiatrist who's a serial killer seeks the help of a well-known forensic psychiatrist, Frank Clevenger, who the FBI has hired to find him. The cat-and-mouse nature makes for a page-turning read.The fact the author is a forensic psychiatrist himself makes the characterization even more riveting. I could have done without the romance between Clevenger and another FBI agent--seemed a bit quick and unnecessary--but the storyline of the developing relationship between Clevenger and the troubled son he adopted was well done.
It is not often that you can say a book saved your life. Yet, ironically, that is what happened to me where this book is concerned.
I first read "Psychopath" at 15, at a moment when I, like the eponymous psychopath Jonah Wrens, was suffering from deep-seated anger over abuses in my past. Needless to say, I was not driving around the country killing people, nor were my experiences quite as harrowing as his are. But like him, my anger was still directed at one of my parents for a profound betrayal that has resonated in my life ever since in sometimes ugly ways. It's cheesy to say, but "Psychopath" was the first book that made me feel seen, and its resolution felt like a vicarious healing experience, which I realize is a weird thing to say about a thriller, but nonetheless remains true. This is doubly hilarious seeing as I first picked up the book by chance at a bus station, looking for something to read. But since then, I have read it at least a dozen times, or listened to it. It simply had that profound an effect.
And no, despite what you might think, my identifying Jonah Wrens as the psychopath in this book does nothing to spoil it, because he is literally the first person you meet in the book, and you learn his name shortly thereafter. The point of this book is not "whodunit," but rather "why has he done it?" And while catching and stopping Jonah, a serial killer who picks up hitchhikers, slits their throats, and then takes their blood like a proto-Dexter Morgan, is the main point of the book, the actual mystery that the book revolves around is why he does what he does, and how to stop it.
I should add, by the way, that before reading this, I had never once encountered a Keith Ablow book, let alone the Frank Clevenger series writ large. Nor would anyone picking this book up have to be familiar with its context. Any connections to past books, such as the presence of Frank Clevenger's adopted son Billy Bishop, are explained expeditiously and thoroughly enough to make those previous books themselves an afterthought. Which, I suppose, is a sign that the author's craft worked too well, since I suppose he would ideally prefer that one read the rest of the series, too, if only for the paycheck.
Structure-wise, the book owes much to "Red Dragon" by Thomas Harris, insofar as it pulls the same trick of having its deuteragonists be a serial killer and the man charged with finding him. In "Red Dragon," those protagonists were Francis Dolarhyde, and Will Graham. Here, they are the already-mentioned Jonah, and Frank Clevenger, Ablow's regular protagonist. However, unlike in "Red Dragon," these men share a commonality that makes their game of cat and mouse that much more interesting: both are psychological professionals. In fact, one of the most interesting elements of Jonah's pattern is that his uncanny powers as a psychologist are inextricably linked with his compulsion to kill. In the course of this book, Jonah acts as a hero in multiple stories of other afflicted patients, and this tragic idea of a good man both cursed and blessed in his empathy makes him one of the most complex antagonists in modern thrillers.
But, of course, a killer is still a killer, and so Clevenger must find a way to catch Jonah, in a psychological dance reminiscent of Valjean and Javert from Les Miserables, if they were confronting each other over a therapist's couch. This battle, and what it unearths, builds into the novel's overarching theme, which is nothing less than a meditation on the power of parenthood, and the malignity of parental abuse, and how dispositive both can be in shaping a person's soul. It is not just Jonah and Clevenger whose parents come under the microscope in this respect: multiple other characters for whom both men are responsible reflect this theme, albeit in refreshingly different ways, which lends the novel a particularly effective focus. In fact, one almost suspects "Psychopath" of trying to make Freudians of its readers. If so, it may accomplish its task too well, because by the time this book is over, not only is the mystery of its plot solved, but the mystery of the human psyche feels just a little bit less impenetrable.
this guy's supposed to be good? Blah. Blech. I love schlocky fiction, but this isn"t well done. Slow in parts that shoudl be fast and fast in parts that shoudl be slow. Implausible in ways that even a huge sci-fi fan like myself couldn't overlook.
Filled with psycobabble that even I could tell was poorly written.
I dont know maybe I expect too much. It's not a bad story but about 300 pages in the unforgivable happens. I dont know why any FBI female character in these mysteries always has to go all rogue but it happens here. It's so cliche it's funny. The murderer in this case has killed at least 14 people 2 quite brutally and one of the key investigators has to prove her self worth by talking checking on a lead all by her lonesome. I call it the Clarice syndrome and Harris did it better. Nice try but this just missed me
Oh my God, so boring! When I looked for psychological thriller, I didn't really imagine it would be too, uh, psychological. This book is about a brilliant killer and a psychologist who pretty much are hunting each other, and they challenge each other and heal each other through letters on a newspaper. A public newspaper psychological consultation, in other words. The only thing worth paying attention to is the actual murders and the search of this murderer. A lot of bull.
I've read this one before, but it's been years. I wish Keith Ablow would have continued this series...I think it is the some of the best in phychological thrillers! This one is no exception and deals with catching the Highway Killer. Great story and the maturing of the characters is great. I think he only did one more Frank Clevenger novel after this one...more's the pity.
This book was fun. I liked the idea of psychiatrist versus psychiatrist. However, psychiatrist as a psycho killer is unnerving in the most uncomfortable way. I like this book until the last 45mins. It was rushed at the end. It like Ablow got impatient with his own story and decided to move it along when he should have drawn it out a little. I wanted more of Jonah versus Fletcher. I wanted more McCormick and Fletcher, too. It was just rushed at the end. Otherwise it was enjoyable. I even like Ablow's narration.
Excellent read. Fast pace interesting characters. 3 stars is an author doing his/her job of entertaining the reader. 4 stars is an author who goes beyond entertaining and allows the readers to lose self for a short time in the characters. 5 stars in an author who has the talent to completely take us to another place or time,and/or enter the thoughts and movements of his characters and haunt our memories thereafter.
Any of these books with the character Frank Clevenger are awesome!!! A forensic psychiatrist with great empathy, uses these skills to become close to the killer emotionally to understand their minds. With each case, comes huge personal growth for our lead character that you come to love for all his human shortcomings. Highly recommend.
If you're interested in psycho thrillers and mind games, this one's for you. This book just don't want to be put down, you have to read it to the end once you've started it.
This was a fairly random selection from my library, and I wasn't sure what I was going to think of it, but in the end, I really liked this. I found myself thinking about it and itching to pick it back up every time I put it down, which is honestly more than I can say for a lot of books.
I won't pretend that the writing in this novel was flawless. Ablow didn't really seem to grasp the concept of limited POV and would often slip information into the narration which the current POV character didn't actually know. However, he didn't really seem to be purposefully writing omniscient, either.
I will also warn you that this book is very obviously written from the white/cis/hetero perpective. It felt like young female coworkers only existed to act as love interests for the protagonists, and some pretty cringe-y descriptions were used (such as referring to a biracial woman as "exotic"). There were also just generally a few isolated passages that were written in slightly less than ideal ways. However, a lot of the sentences that rubbed me the wrong way were written from the antagonist's perspective, which made them a little more tolerable. In fact, the antagonist's whole attitude, viewing himself as god's gift to psychiatry, women, and honestly humanity in general, would have been incredibly annoying had it been from any other character, but since it was Jonah, I could chalk it up to being a part of his pathology.
Despite those minor annoyances, I felt very invested in the actual story of this novel, and I definitely plan to read more in the series. I will also comment that this is the earliest book in the series which my library stocks, so if you are wondering whether you can pick up the series in the middle without feeling lost, you absolutely can! I suspect it would spoil you for major life events that happen for the protagonist earlier in the series, but to be honest, I couldn't even really tell that other books came before this one, so it worked very well as a stand-alone.
🙆 Sonunda kitabı bitirdim. İnanılmaz güzel bir kitap. İçerisindeki psikolojik bakış açısı çoğu yerde şaşırmama sebep oldu. Olaylara farklı bir açıdan bakmanıza kesinlikle katkıda bulunuyor. Tabii günümüzde çoğu kişi çocukluğunda yaşadığı şiddetli travmalar sonucu şu anda katil, hırsız ve tecavüzcü olabiliyor. Sadece ebeveyn olmak değil, asıl anne-baba olmak çok önemli. Yetiştirdiğimiz çocukların sağlıklı birey olmaları bizim elimizde. Dünyada ki çoğu kişinin empati yoksunu olmasının çoğu nedeni aileden kaynaklanıyor bence. Dr. #KeithAblow çok güzel konulara değinmiş. Bir insanın korkularından kaçmak için doğru yoldan sapmasını ele almış. Betimleme ve anlatım olarak gayet güzeldi. Ortalara doğru heyecan azalmaya başladı fakat sonları inanılmaz heyecanlıydı. Biraz konudan bahsedelim o zaman; Jonah işinde oldukça başarılı bir psikiyatrist. Fakat çocukluğunda yaşadığı travmalar sonucu kişiliği ikiye bölünmüş durumda. Kurbanlarının psikolojik sorunlarını gün yüzüne çıkartıp acılarından kurtulmaları için tek bir kesik ile hayatlarına son veriyor. Polisiye sahneleri, olay incelemeleri, deliller vs. Gerçekten mantıklıca yazılmış bir kurgu. Söyleyecek fazla birşeyde yok açıkçası. Ben #KeithAblow'u geç keşfettim ama okumaktan vazgeçeceğimi sanmıyorum. İyi günler. 😁
A bit of a disclaimer: I didn’t know this was a part of a series (that appears to have ended), but honestly, not having read the previous stories in the series did not impact my reading of this book much at all. The first several chapters were really great: the titular psychopath is really the main character of this story. His psychosis was interesting, if very disturbing, and his motivations for killing and the dichotomy with his profession were fairly creative. My issue is actually with our “hero,” forensic psychiatrist, Frank Clevenger: Clevenger is a character that reads, at times, as a hard boiled cop, a psychiatrist, a caring adoptive father, an amazing lover, a part time comedian, seemingly clairvoyant, able to teleport, and not a realistic character at all, as are several of the minor characters as well. Deus ex machina reigns supreme in the latter chapters of this book, and the final courtroom scene was just…silly. Yet, even with all of these issues (and my issues with the author, having read a bit about him), as I mentioned earlier in my review, the actual pay path was a pretty interesting creation. Look, if you are looking for something in the same vein as “Silence of the Lambs,” one could do worse, but this isn’t a series that I will necessarily continue to read.
I picked this book up in a box from a used bookstore going out of business. While the novel is labeled psychological thriller or suspense I'm not sure either label fits. The suspense and thrills are short lived. Although the blurbs on the cover try to compare with Thomas Harris's works I think it falls short. To me the novel is a psychological character study, both of the killer as well as the book's protagonist, the forensic psychiatrist Frank Clevenger. In this regard the novel succeeds.. This is the forth novel in the Clevenger series. I should probably look for #1 in order to give the author a fair chance, still I did like the novel
I have read all of the Frank Clevenger books by Keith Ablow. This one was very interesting as it played a Psychiatrist against a serial killer who is also a psychiatrist. We learn early in the book the Highway killer is Jonah Wrens, a gifted doctor who lures his victims into a false sense of security to open up and tell him their most intimate thoughts. He works as a traveling psychiatrist who kills randomly his victims are young,old, women, men for all walks of life in different states. The FBI is stumped they hire Frank Clevenger to help catch this killer.
Lise yıllarında böyle kitaplara denk gelmek güzel bir şey.
'Otaban Katili' , insanlara, kurbanlarına güven duygusu pompalayarak kendilerini mıknatıs gibi kendisine çeken bir kurnaz. Acayip bir romandı, böğrüme böğrüme saplanan, gırtlağıma dayanan bıçağı kaç kez hissettim sayamadım. Bir insanın başka bir insana olan ihtiyacı bu kitapla soğuyor, şüpheyle yaklaşmaya sebep oluyor, aslında aksiyon-macera dışında sosyolojik bir roman konumunda da olabilir, en azından böyle düşünmüştüm. Her şeyden kaçınan, hiçbir şey de kabullenme duygusu olmayanlar yakınanlar galip gelebilir.
A compelling journey into a warped and crippled mind. It caught me up in the disturbing contortions of a brilliant psychiatrist who has the power to heal and the compulsive need to kill. Well done. The ending was hokey and although probably the only possible solution, I had hoped for a some different outcome.
As a huge fan of Patricia Cornwell I really enjoyed this book. Looking forward to actually going back and start reading this series from the beginning. I think Ablow is a talented writer and I highly recommend this book if you are a fan of serial killer stories and can handle a book with heavy intricate character descriptions.
Keith Ablow is amazing. His insight into so many different careers, characters, details of how things work. This forensic psychiatrist Frank Clevenger series is outstanding. Twists and turns don't happen only at the end, but throughout. Keeps you guessing, and as they say "couldn't put it down" kept flipping the pages. Sad when book ended, but wait, there's a #5....
I have read that people think this one was too much like his others, but to me it was not at all. I really enjoyed this psychiatrist against psychiatrist theme. He is so evil, yet so not evil. lol and the budding relationship between parent and child, if you call it a relationship. I look forward to the next one.