Reviews
Once I got started I couldn't stop reading, and I confess to having sweaty palms a few times. A thrill ride that will have your attention from start to finish! This one is 4.5 stars., Hillier's third thriller fairly shudders with tension. [She] sends her reader into a labyrinth of creepy twists and grotesque turns…The secrets of the past refuse to keep quiet in this disquieting, taut thriller., As she ably proved in her debut ( Creep , 2011), [Hillier] has a fine knack for creating hideous killers. This time she turns the formula whodunit on its head… A tense, suspenseful, thoroughly creepy thriller., The Butcher is a clever, twisted thriller about genetics, faith, and death . . . The greatest thing about The Butcher is its uncanny ability to trump the narrative conventions of the conventional serial killer novel over and over again . . Jennifer Hillier's prose remains fast paced and immensely readable as her content becomes quirkier and more cerebral with every novel., Hillier's third thriller fairly shudders with tension. [She] sends her reader into a labyrinth of creepy twists and grotesque turns...The secrets of the past refuse to keep quiet in this disquieting, taut thriller., As she ably proved in her debut ( Creep , 2011), [Hillier] has a fine knack for creating hideous killers. This time she turns the formula whodunit on its head... A tense, suspenseful, thoroughly creepy thriller., The Butcher is a clever, twisted thriller about genetics, faith, and death . . . The greatest thing about The Butcher is its uncanny ability to trump the narrative conventions of the conventional serial killer novel over and over again . . Jennifer Hillier's prose remains fast paced and immensely readable as her content becomes quirkier and more cerebral with every novel., [A] rapid-fire thriller of dark, unsettling proportions with some very surprising twists. With the turn of each new page, the suspenseful plot is tense and gripping...a skillfully penned tale of murder and cover-up that will keep readers enthralled until the powerful finish. Thriller fans should not miss The Butcher!|9781476734231|, Hillier writes beautifully horrific stories... Readers will be immersed until the final page, thanks to the velocity at which this unique thriller is told., Replete with plot twists and surprises, The Butcher is an engrossing tale that piques the reader's interest immediately and then holds on to it like an angry pitbull., Hillier writes beautifully horrific stories… Readers will be immersed until the final page, thanks to the velocity at which this unique thriller is told., "As she ably proved in her debut ( Creep , 2011), [Hillier] has a fine knack for creating hideous killers. This time she turns the formula whodunit on its head... A tense, suspenseful, thoroughly creepy thriller."
Synopsis
From the acclaimed author of Creep and Freak whom #1 bestselling author Jeffery Deaver praised as a "top-of-the-line thriller writer," a high-octane novel about lethal secrets that refuse to die--until they kill again. A rash of grisly serial murders plagued Seattle until the infamous "Beacon Hill Butcher" was finally hunted down and killed by police chief Edward Shank in 1985. Now, some thirty years later, Shank, retired and widowed, is giving up his large rambling Victorian house to his grandson Matt, whom he helped raise. Settling back into his childhood home and doing some renovations in the backyard to make the house feel like his own, Matt, a young up-and-coming chef and restaurateur, stumbles upon a locked crate he's never seen before. Curious, he picks the padlock and makes a discovery so gruesome it will forever haunt him... Faced with this deep, dark family secret, Matt must decide whether to keep what he knows buried in the past, go to the police, or take matters into his own hands. Meanwhile Matt's girlfriend, Sam, has always suspected that her mother was murdered by the Beacon Hill Butcher--two years after the supposed Butcher was gunned down. As she pursues leads that will prove her right, Sam heads right into the path of Matt's terrible secret. "A tense, suspenseful, thoroughly creepy thriller" ( Booklist ), The Butcher will keep you guessing until the bitter, bloody end. Don't miss this "thrill ride that will have your attention from start to finish" ( Suspense Magazine )., In this " skillfully penned tale of murder and cover-up that will keep readers enthralled until the powerful finish" ( Fresh Fiction ), family secrets and a serial killer from the past converge in this electrifying thriller. In 1985, Edward Shank famously gunned down the Beacon Hill Butcher, ending the serial killer's reign of terror over the city of Seattle. But now in his eighties, Edward's action-packed glory days are long behind him. The decorated former Seattle police chief has given up his high-maintenance Victorian home to his grandson Matt for a quiet life at the nearby Sweetbay Village Retirement Residence, where mac-n-cheese Wednesdays have become the highlight of his week. Though it's hard to watch his grandfather get older, Matt is thrilled to inherit the large house he grew up in. Already an accomplished chef with a popular restaurant and a TV show in the works, Matt's dream life is finally within reach...until he discovers a crate buried in the backyard that holds a secret about his grandfather so terrible, it threatens to ruin all their lives if it ever gets out. Especially his girlfriend Sam's, whose mother was killed when she was only two years old. As Matt struggles with his dark family secret, Sam's obsession with solving her mother's murder continues to grow. A true crime writer now working on a book about the Butcher, Sam has always suspected her mother was one of his victims, even though she was killed two years after the Butcher was supposedly gunned down. But when new victims begin to turn up, their murders eerily similar to the Butcher's all those years ago, Sam realizes she might be right. The more she digs into the old murders, the more dangerous it gets...and the truth is closer to home than she ever could have imagined. "A tense, suspenseful, thoroughly creepy thriller" ( Booklist ), The Butcher sinks its teeth in you from the very first page.