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Critics' Opinion:
Readers' Opinion:
First Published:
Jun 2004, 320 pages
Paperback:
Jun 2005, 416 pages
Book Reviewed by:
BookBrowse Review Team
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Thundering to a stark and chilling revelation, The Hundredth Man marks the arrival of an author who raises the stakes on every page.
Recalling Michael Connelly's taut storytelling and James Patterson's searing narrative twists, The Hundredth Man introduces a daring new talent. From its explosive first pages to its startling conclusion, this novel creates a world where heroes can't succeed without madmen, and the dead are the most dangerous of all.
When bizarre and cryptic messages are found on a pair of corpses in Mobile, Alabama, junior police detective Carson Ryder and veteran cop Harry Nautilus find themselves in a mysterious public-relations quagmire pitting public safety against office politics. With the body count growing, Ryder must confront his family's terrifying past by seeking advice from his brother, a violent psychopath convicted of similarly heinous crimes. Ryder finds himself falling for Ava, the striking pathologist processing the gruesome corpses. But Ava's past holds its own nightmarish secrets.
Chasing false leads while their boss relentlessly undermines all progress, Ryder and Nautilus come to realize someone close to them is the killer's ultimate target.
Thundering to a stark and chilling revelation, The Hundredth Man marks the arrival of an author who raises the stakes on every page.
Prologue
Seconds before one of the most long-awaited events of Alexander Caulfield's adult life, an event he'd spent years planning and pursuing, an event marking his ascension into professionalism, a decent salary, and the respect of his peers, his left eye started winking like a gigolo in a third-rate Italian film.
tic
Caulfield cursed beneath his breath. A physician, he recognized a manifestation of transient hemifacial spasms: eye tics or flutters in response to events sparking anxiety or posing a threat.
tic
Anxiety was ludicrous, he lectured himself, squeezing the offending eye shut; he'd performed or assisted with hundreds of autopsies during his internship. The only difference was this was his first professional autopsy. She was sitting twenty feet away.
tic
Caulfield slowly opened his eye . . .
tic
He angled a glance at Dr. Clair Peltier. She was opening a letter in the autopsy suite's utility office, apparently absorbed ...
The Hundredth Man got me, and got me good - I thought I'd skim a few pages before bed and before I knew it, it was two o'clock in the morning and I was sitting in a once hot, but now barely tepid bath tub, turning the final pages. Although there are a number of gruesome murders in The Hundredth Man the violence didn't seem gratuitous - something that has turned me off a number of thriller writers. Instead there was a purpose behind every taut and structured page - making for a thrilling detective mystery. The characters are fascinating with plenty of development room for sequels and possibly even a prequel...continued
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(Reviewed by BookBrowse Review Team).
David Baldacci, New York Times bestselling author of Split Second
The Hundredth Man has a crackerjack plot and wonderfully original rapid-fire prose. Jack Kerley is a writer to watch. And read.Jack Kerley spent twenty years in advertising before writing The Hundredth Man, his first novel. In talking about himself he says, 'I enjoy playing guitar, and will fish for anything, anytime, anywhere...I spend a goodly amount of time in Fairhope, Alabama, on the eastern shore of Mobile Bay, and a fine place for writing and fishing....All things considered, I’d prefer being buried in a bookstore than a cemetery, but suspect zoning codes prohibit that sort of thing, more's the pity'...
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