Thrillers, Women Detectives - Fiction, Police Stories, Other Mystery Categories

Top Ten

Name: Top Ten
Author: Ryne Douglas Pearson
ISBN: 9780515129038

by Ryne Douglas Pearson

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Overview

Michaelangelo is an unusual killer, a man tortured by a painful past, mesmerized by a bizarre artistic vision, who believes he is an artist of transcendent and consummate talent. The FBI, frantic to discover something about his motives after he strikes at a small-town post office in upstate New York, assigns Ariel Grace to its task force. When Ariel sees the security video taken at the crime scene, she is convinced she's found the twisted logic behind his rage: his all-consuming shame at appearing at number ten on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted List.. "Unknown to either Michaelangelo or Grace, a deep-undercover FBI agent is posing as criminal number five, and he appears next in Michaelangelo's sights. Once the chase ensues and Grace learns she is the only one who can save her fellow agent, all three become desperate to catch their quarry before they are caught themselves.

Upset at being named public enemy No. 10--far too low in his opinion--a killer proceeds to murder criminals who outrank him. Lady FBI agent Ariel Grace goes after the killer, a budding artist who made a mobile from one of his victims.

About the Author, Ryne Douglas Pearson

Ryne Douglas Pearson is the author of several novels, including Cloudburst, October’s Ghost, Capitol Punishment, Simple Simon, Top Ten, The Donzerly Light, All For One, and Confessions. He is also author of the short story collection, Dark and Darker. His novel Simple Simon was made into the film Mercury Rising. As a screenwriter he has worked on numerous films. The film Knowing, based on his original script, was released in 2009 and opened #1 at the box office, going on to gross more than $180 million worldwide.

He lives in California with his wife, children, a Doberman Shepherd and a Beagle Vizsla.

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Editorials

Kirkus Reviews

Between Red Dragon and The Silence of the Lambs, Thomas Harris has a lot to answer for, having invented the serial-killer monster who specializes in ultragory, agonizing deaths. This latest from Pearson (Simple Simon, 1996, filmed as Bruce Willis's Mercury Rising) is a pale copy of Harris's method and characters, without a syllable of his stylishness. The Jodie Foster character here is FBI agent Ariel Grace, 29, who's working on Task Force Five when she's reassigned to Task Force Ten. Ariel considers this a terrible drop in prestige, but it happens because she got too close to unmasking the FBI's fifth most wanted killer on its list of the Top Ten. Number five is Mills DeVane (Teddy Donovan), an agent working undercover as a serial killer to help nab narcotics traffickers. Number ten on the list is Michaelangelo, a madman who prides himself as an artist at murder and sends descriptions of his "work" to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Who is this well-spoken villain? About halfway through, we discover that Michaelangelo is Mickey Strange, the victim of a drunken doctor who missed with his snippers when he went for the umbilical cord. Mickey's million-dollar award for his departed penis has grown to $11 million and will thus support his artistic endeavors, although he can't get over the childhood pain of being called "Mickey Dickless" and now likes to cut off, cut up, and creatively re-member his victims: one female postal worker's bloody parts, for instance, become a Calder mobile in her post office. And that's maybe the one death we can tell you about without getting laughably grotesque. You see, Mickey has set out to murder everyone on the Top Ten list, so he can be top serialkiller, as opposed to number ten. Not without storytelling energy. Sold to Warner Brothers, with a nod from the book clubs, and with foreign rights going like hotcakes.