The Postcard Killers by James Patterson and Liza Marklund

I picked this book at a mom and pop trade-in paperback store. These types of stores are endlessly fascinating for me and even though I wasn't itching for a read, I picked this one up for 4 dollars.

The story centers on four characters: two killers, a brash NYPD detective abroad, and an unwillingly involved hot-to-trot journalist. The story takes place mostly in Sweden, despite the novel having an Eiffel tower on the cover.  The killers were a couple of sexually charged young adults named Syliva and Mac who bewitch other young couples into date shenanigans abroad only to leave their throats cut and bodies gruesomely posed. The killers then send a postcard to a local newspaper for press.

The NYPD detective has a hat in the ring because his own daughter was one of the victims. He flounces around all emotionally charged and making brash stupid decisions. I can tell by the end of the book that we are supposed to see him as a Captain Kirk figure, the type where they get their strength from their humanness, but I just saw him as an incredibly unethical police officer working WAY WAY out of his jurisdiction. The characterization felt forced because his personality was not consistent. The book decided that he was emotionally unattached and terrible with intimacy about 3/4ths the way through the book. He sounded incredibly emotionally open before this point.

The lady journalist, whats her name? Dessie? I think the Swedish Bestselling co-author got a chance to shine with this one, but it was really too bad that Dessie was incredibly boring. Dessie spent the whole book regretting stuff and worrying. She did nothing to drive the plot forward. She was the ambassador to Sweden, translating for the Detective, connecting him to all the right people, and eventually having sex with him when he needed to crash for the night. But I got to learn some neat little Swedish tidbits through Dessie, like about local texture of the Swedish Countryside and the international fanfare caused by the Arctic circle Ikea. (as a sidenote, it complete cracked me up that the Ikea was a central part of this book about Sweden. Its like if we went to France and everyone is eating french fries and wearing berets.)

The fun part of the novel was trying to figure out what the motive of the murders were. The book shined when we got into Syliva and Mac's back story.  The tension pacing of the book was a little thrown off because of it, but I think I understand what they were going for. You see, when they released Syliva and Mac from police interrogation because they were ruled out of the case, the story was really picking up and it was terrifying that the real killers were being set free. Then the detective drops everything and flies back home to relax with his buddies in the United States. He had to do it because Syliva and Mac were from the LA area and he needed some hometown investigation. It felt like he ducked out of harms way and took a vacation. Sure, the book still remained interesting because we learned the entire UCLA backstory at that point, but still, the pacing was chaotic. 
A key point in the novel is when the newspaper company tries to draw the killers out by offering money for an interview. The key was to entrap them into revealing thier identies so they can be arrested. Syliva and Mac do not take them up on that offer. Then they somehow make a "mistake" in their crime pattern which leads to their identities being revealed. In the book it is implied that the paper caused the break up in crime pattern, but I don't get it. Sounds like they didn't take the bait to me.

So I understand the reviews for this book were bad. I didn't think it was that terrible. It was quite entertaining I thought. All I expected was a frothy read to pass my time in incredibly short bursts. I packed this baby in my massive purse and got it read in 3 days. Perhaps all the reviewers did not like how the killers were revealed right off the bat?

Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer


I just read Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer. The book chronicles the now infamous Chris McCandless, the young man that died during a romantic extended camping trip in the Alaskan wilderness in 1992.  His life has been much considered as there have been numerous essays about his life and motivations.

Here is the plot, briefly. Chris graduates Emory college with honors and defies his parents by not continuing onto Law School.  He instead decides to travel across the United States, taking on the moniker Alex Supertramp. His transition to independence from society is a slow one, as he spends a few years taking on odd jobs under the radar and finding shelter when it comes. His ideals (and ego) are fueled by the fictional loners penned by Jack London and Henry David Thoreau. He eventually hitchhikes up to Alaska to live off the wilderness with embarrassing low provisions. He dies after an impressive 112 days.

The book is written so carefully, so respectfully. The author frequently mentions other writers and outdoorsman who bash McCandless’s inexperience and arrogance who imply that such a lack of respect for nature deserves death. Krakauer goes completely the other way asking us to remember what it was like to be young and idealistic, when we were ready to die for our beliefs. Well, this young man did.

Chris dislikes his parents. The reasoning is abstract and I’m sure the actual relationship is more complicated than the book could even describe. What is for sure is that Chris didn’t have a solid reason to not like his parents. He grew up privileged with loving parents who gave him everything he ever needed and encouraged positive behaviors and life paths. It would be nice if there were a cut and dry reason for Chris to set out on his own, but there wasn’t. If it were me and I had the inkling to do a life adventure like that, I just wouldn’t be able to take myself seriously. That is definitely something Chris could do, and that was take himself seriously.

It is sad that he died. What makes it worse is that he was ready to go back into society with renewed vigor when he realized that he couldn’t. He planned out this romantic trip because he had a problem with his world view that made relationships unbearable. He planned a trip so he could get away from it all for while. And it worked. That’s the crazy part. It worked.  He felt more grateful for the things he had, he missed his family, and he was ready to enjoy being a productive member of society.

My only qualm with the book is that the author spends a little too much time talking about other explorers that met the same fate. He takes it too far  when the author includes his own climbing adventure to the list of other great blunders. That unnecessary portion made the exactly 200 page book a little irksome, like he was rushing to meet his page quota.  It doesn’t help that the few lines of text that the author managed to scrape up from McCandless’s post cards and diaries are repeated multiple times in the book, sometimes to exhaustion. I realize this was necessary to ground the timeline in a circular plot, but after reading the same post card for the 4th time, it felt like just poor writing.

I definitely recommend this book. In a world where life is so cut and dry, where actions and consequences rule our every decision and foresight trumps every plan, it is amazing to read about someone who rejects the worldview of the ever shrinking room. Sure he dies. I bet that gives us the affirmation we need to stay trapped in our comfort zone.