| Early on a September morning, a Cabernet bottle slips through Margaret Gordon's fingers and shatters on the floor of her Tampa home. She giggles. Red wine on linoleum is no laughing matter. Her lover displays his brutal intolerance for imperfection and beats her to death, bathes his latest victim, and cleans her house until it sparkles.
Days later, Charlotte Gordon discovers her sister was last seen in a seedy St. Petersburg bar with the Braves' hotheaded relief pitcher, Torch Traynor. When the police dismiss her amateur allegations, Charlotte becomes as obsessed with her sister's bizarre murder as the killer is with perfection. She abandons a lucrative career and poses as a freelance journalist to hunt the killer loose within the Atlanta Braves organization. The relentless female protagonist pursues the manipulative murderer through baseball. A gruff ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION reporter helps Charlotte piece together the dreadful trail to a jet-setting neat-freak serial killer, suffering from severe obsessive-compulsive disorder. He preys on newfound lovers and one-night stands to calm enraged bouts of anxiety brought on by flawed performances on the field that fall below his rigid expectations. Has Charlotte's obsession blinded her judgment? Charlotte is mugged on a dark Atlanta street, run off a desolate Georgia highway, and narrowly evades death as a SWAT sniper takes down a deranged gunman. | ||
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Plot & Themes Tone of story - suspenseful (sophisticated fear) How difficult to spot villain? - Difficult, but some clues given Time/era of story: What % of story relates directly to the mystery, not the subplot? - 70% Special suspect? - chronically deranged person Misc. Murder Plotlets - character killed during/after sexing Kind of investigator Kid or adult book? - Adult or Young Adult Book Any non-mystery subplot? descript. of violence and chases - 20 % Planning/preparing, gather info, debate puzzles/motives - 40 % Feelings, relationships, character bio/development - 20 % How society works & physical descript. (people, objects, places) - 20 % Crime Thriller Yes Murder Mystery (killer unknown) Yes Main Character Gender - Female Profession/status: Age: - 20's-30's Main Adversary Identity: - Male Age: - 20's-30's Profession/status: Eccentric: Yes Motive of antagonist - insanity How sensitive is this character? Sense of humor - Cynical sense of humor Intelligence - Very much smarter than other characters Setting United States Yes The US: - Deep South City? Yes City: - dangerous Writing Style Accounts of torture and death? - moderately detailed references to deaths Explicit sex in book? Yes What kind of sex: - vague references - descript of kissing - touching of anatomy - descript. of breasts - descript. of male nudity Amount of dialog - roughly even amounts of descript and dialog |
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