Tuesday, February 9, 2010

The Bride Collector-Ted Dekker

The Bride Collector
Ted Dekker
Center Street, Apr 2010, $24.99
ISBN 9781599951966

In Denver, Quinton Guild believes young beautiful women need to be the Brides of Christ. To insure they accept their destiny to be with God, he murders them. However, he glues his chosen ones to a wall and slowly drains them of their blood.

FBI Agent Brad Raines is assigned the investigation into ending the killing spree of this Brides of Christ psychopath. He is getting nowhere in his efforts to find the serial killer until he decides to discuss the case with unique consultants. Brad visits the Center for Wellbeing and Intelligence, an institution filled with gifted but insane people such as schizophrenic Paradise who can see the final moments of life of a dead person. Now The Bride Collector wants to marry forensic psychologist Nikki Holden to Christ.

This is an exciting serial killer thriller that is fast-paced when the psychopath is front and center especially performing the macabre marriage rituals and when Brad meets the institutionalized insane. The story line slows down when Brad introspectively overly philosophizes whether it is better to love or not to love as loved ones die; yet ironically his discourse on who is mentally healthy vs insane is brilliant; albeit also slowing down the pace. Still Ted Dekker provides his audience with a terrific thought provoking whodunit as readers will wonder who is locked away and why.

Harriet Klausner

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