Monday, January 27, 2020

19. Dark Pattern by Andrew Mayne

#4 Dr. Theo Cray/The Naturalist
listened to Audible
narrated by Will Damron
2019 Thomas & Mercer
316 pgs.
Adult Mystery/Serial Killer
Finished 1/27/2020
Goodreads rating: 4.21 - 2317 ratings
My rating: 4.5
Setting: Contemporay Texas, St. Lucia, and other points on the map....

First line/s: "Nora watched the doorway.  This was when the Night Lady usually stopped at her room and stared inside."

My comments:  Serial killer hunter extraordinaire!  Whenever I go into one of the Theo Cray books now, I know I have to suspend reality checks.  I'm sure most of - or at least many -  of Cray's technological "inventions" are still science-fiction, but they are what makes these mysteries so different.  You know that he's going to get himself into some stupid cray situations and you roll your eyes at most of his antics, but that's also what makes these books so much fun, as well as his definite Asperger's/Autistic tendencies and his cognition of them.  It also cracks me up how much he irritates people.  A huge part of the plot comes off as comic relief for me, I wonder if it affects others in the same way?  To write this combination of grizzly deaths and this extraordinary character is quite genius.  A real breakdown should be coming for this man!  Or has he had it?  ti's hard to tell from the ending of this book, which did seem a little rushed compared to the rest of it.

Goodreads synopsis:  Dr. Theo Cray is on the hunt for a killer nurse, and redemption, in a mind-bending psychological thriller by the Wall Street Journal bestselling author of The Naturalist.
          Dr. Theo Cray has a legendary mathematical knack for catching serial killers. Until his exposure to a mind-altering pathogen knocks him off his game. It has upended an investigation, destroyed his reputation, and left him to question his own sanity. One person still trusts him to finish the job. His former professor Amanda Paulson is helping point Cray down a logical path to his prey: a nomadic health-care worker whose murder spree stretches back decades and whose victims number in the hundreds.
          Never more desperate to save innocent lives, and to save himself, Cray follows each new lead around the world. But with his own grip on reality slipping away, Cray knows that to follow the pattern of an elusive killer, he must also confront his own dark side. In those dangerous shadows, he can find what he’s hunting. For Cray, venturing into a world without reason is going to be the most frightening journey of his life.

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