Third Victim

by Collin Wilcox

Stalked by a nighttime killer, a woman does whatever it takes to surviveHe calls himself Tarot. His first victim was a mother, killed while her daughter slept in the next room. His second was a truck-stop waitress, murdered--like the first woman--while she slept. After each one, he sent letters to the newspapers, boasting of his crimes and promising more to come. The third victim will die soon, he tells them. But first, she must be warned.Joanna is drinking her morning coffee when she finds the switchblade on the floor, dropped through her newspaper slot in the middle of the night. Was it left there by a neighborhood prankster with a dark sense of humor? Or is this the warning of Tarot? Her husband has left her, making Joanna the sole caretaker for their son. Until Tarot is caught, neither of them can count on a good night's sleep.

192 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1976

About the author

Aka Carter Wick

Collin Wilcox was an American mystery writer.

Born in Detroit, Michigan, his first book was The Black Door (1967), featuring a sleuth possessing extrasensory perception. His major series of novels was about Lieutenant Frank Hastings of the San Francisco Police Department. Titles in the Hastings series included Hire a Hangman, Dead Aim, Hiding Place, Long Way Down and Stalking Horse. Two of his last books, Full Circle and Find Her a Grave, featured a new hero-sleuth, Alan Bernhardt, an eccentric theater director. Wilcox also published under the pseudonym "Carter Wick".

Wilcox's most famous series-detective was the television character Sam McCloud, a New Mexico deputy solving New York crime. The "urban cowboy" was played by Dennis Weaver in the 1970-1977 TV series McCloud. Wilcox wrote three novelizations based on scripts from the series: McCloud (1973), The New Mexican Connection (1974), and The Park Avenue Executioner (1975).

Reviews

[Daniel Dod · Rating 3 out of 5]

Simple, visceral, and small in scale, this is a crime thriller that had my attention the whole time. Drawing me in with the provocative cover image of the gun-weilding woman, the book didn't match my expectations since no female character (nor any character) held or fired a gun. However, the plot nonetheless provided an engaging, if simple story that's really at its essence about a man's belated coming-of-age acknowledgement of responsibility through his protection of his wife and embracing his role as a husband and father. This message is really a refreshing one, and though delivered in a roundabount way, comes across with striking clarity and conviction at the conclusion of the novel without being stated in a blunt, hamfisted manner.

The grounded, realistic dialogue presented characters with real problems, doubts, and fears, and showed, most importantly, their difficulty in communicating with one another. Wilcox's writing style of short, choppy, stream-of-consciousness narration provide a rapid-fire form of delivery that keeps readers taut and waiting for the next development. That said, it starts to feel a little gimmicky after a while, with the villain's overuse of short, unexpected phrases becoming a unique but eventually tiresome parlour trick of the book.

As stated above, the book is essentially about Kevin, which is in no small part due to the relative two-dimensionality of the villain. Some other may have felt that Leonard provided an engaging and interesting take on the serial killer archetype, but I found his sexual obsession with killing women almost a cheap ploy to excite readers with fear, like a poorly used jump scare from a horror movie or an extra dose of violence thrown into a movie for when the plot gets a little slow. More explanation about him would not have hurt. Reading his numerous thoughts written as narration in staccato bursts, I wondered if I was reading the thoughts of someone on the autism spectrum. Having to ask this question about the villain speaks more of incompetence of the writer than skill in this area.

Many references to sexuality, sex, or characters' bodies in this book felt a little unnecessary. Some situations clearly called for it, such as interactions between Cathy and Kevin, which effectively served to illustrate Cathy's sexual domination and emasculation of Kevin, but many scenarios that simply describe characters by their breasts or stirring of genitals just left me feeling uncomfortable. This is not an incorrect or necessarily wrong way of describing characters, but there seemed to be a real overabundance of it in this book.

In conclusion, this book has much in common with its characters: though it aspires to literary greatness, it must content itself with a simple, manly theme: family matters, enough to protect at all costs. And that is more than I would have expected from something that looks like a trashy summertime beach read.