Heartsick (Gretchen Lowell #1)

Heartsick by Chelsea Cain

Age: Adult
Category: Crime
Rating: 5 stars

Helen Thinks: For ten years, the Beauty Killer haunted both America and Detective Archie Sheridan, racking up a body count that no one could ever believe. In a turn of unseen events, the Beauty Killer turned out not only to be a woman but a beautiful one that Sheridan had become close to as she had infiltrated the case and he was to became her last victim. What no one was expecting was for her to torture and abuse Sheridan for ten days before releasing him and handing herself in. The question on everyone’s lips was why? Heartsick is set two years after these events where Archie Sheridan is back leading a task force as another serial killer stalks the streets of Portland. Archie finds himself shadowed by young journalist, Susan Ward, who is doing a piece on the Detective that faced the Beauty Killer and lived to tell the tale but also finds himself dealing with his demons as he realises that only one person can help him understand the killer stalking his city...

Crime books are one of the biggest selling genres in the world and just when you think they’re about to become cliché, Chelsea Cain creates the Gretchen Lowell series that is introduced here in Heartsick. Never during my years of reading crime books have I ever felt myself being charmed by the serial killer and yet that’s exactly what Cain achieves with Gretchen. Stockholm Syndrome is a mysterious and intriguing phenomenon for most people and I believe that Cain creates it perfectly by illustrating the surreal relationship between Detective Sheridan and Gretchen as well as how he struggles to form bonds with the people already in his life and new relationships he makes.

Cain has created a page-turner in Heartsick with an original plot, characters that are perfectly flawed making them three dimensional, and it’s the introduction to a series that I know will have you hooked with every installment. Heartsick is a captivating novel that I have found myself reading over and over again, enjoying it just as much as if it was the first time.