There is a killer loose on the streets of Seattle, dubbed, gruesomely enough, the Street Butcher.  The Street Butcher seems to strike at random.  For newspaper photographer Nick Wilder, it hits close to home.  He never expected he would be the one to make headlines, but that is just what happens when someone attacks him and his older, more successful, brother, Sam, in a parking lot late one night.  Nick is rendered unconscious, waking to find his shoes stolen and Sam dead, stabbed multiple times.

In the days and weeks that follow Sam’s death, Nick is nursed back to health and consoled by his new girlfriend, Sara.  But Sara, try as she might, can’t really give Nick the help he needs.  Not only is he being eyed as a suspect in his brother’s death, but as a suspect in the Street Butcher’s other murders.  And he is having a pesky problem of blacking out, and trouble with discerning what’s real and what’s hallucination.  The people he, himself, are investigating turn up dead as well.

It doesn’t look good for Nick.  The police are after him; his editor is out to take down the newspaper’s owner, who happens to be Sara’s stepfather.  Plus the more he learns about his brother Sam, the more he learns that Sam wasn’t that nice of a guy- people hated him for good reasons, and that widens the field of suspects.  And as Nick’s mental state worsens, he is also remembering more of his childhood that he had repressed; he begins remembering some incidents that paint a very black picture of his departed brother.

How well do you know the people around you?  Mania explores that territory to winning results.  When I picked up my copy of the book, I wasn’t expecting much, and in fact it was quite some time before I cracked it open, but Mania is the best book I’ve read so far this year, and that surprised me.  To say it exceeded my expectations is an understatement.

To read Mania‘s description, it sounds like another middle of the road, run of the mill thriller, but author Craig Larsen has written a novel that is a little left of ordinary.  The structure of the book had me, at first, wondering what I was getting into, but, although its plot is a little convoluted, it all, satisfyingly, pans out.  There is a certain exhilaration in reading it as the pieces begin to fit together in your head and Nick’s.

Larsen has filled the book with, mostly, smart characters.  It’s a leap of faith to believe certain plot twists, but Mania is well written, and not knowing where exactly it was going was very welcome.  This is a real treat for thriller fans.

4.5 out of 5
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