The Anniversary Man

by R.J. Ellory

Twenty years ago John Costello's life, as he knew it, ended. He and his beautiful girlfriend, Nadia, became victims of the deranged 'Hammer of God' killer who terrorised New Jersey City throughout the summer of 1984. This murderer went after young courting couples in an attempt to 'save their souls'. Nadia was killed by the first blow of the hammer. John survived, but was physically and psychologically scarred to an extent that few people could comprehend. He withdrew from society, hid in his apartment and now only emerges to work as a crime researcher for a major newspaper. Damaged he may be, but no one in New Jersey knows more about serial killers than John Costello. So, when a new spate of murders starts - all seemingly random and unrelated - John is the only one who can discern the complex pattern that lies behind them. But could this dark knowledge be about to threaten his life?

• ISBN10: 0752898752
• ISBN13: 9780752898759
• Publish Date: 3 September 2009
• Publish Status: Out of Print
• Out of Print: 6 August 2010
• Publish Country: GB
• Publisher: Orion Publishing Co
• Imprint: Orion (an Imprint of The Orion Publishing Group Ltd )
• Format: Paperback (UK Trade)
• Pages: 400
• Language: English

Reviews

[ibeforem]

For a long time John Costello tried to forget what happened.
Perhaps pretended that it had not.
The devil came in the form of a man, around him the smell of dogs.

I didn’t find this to be as lyrically beautiful as A Quiet Belief in Angels was, but it was still quite good. Ellory doesn’t write crime novels like you expect them to be written. The book is really more about the people involved than it is about the crime. In this case, you have a triumverate of main characters: Detective Ray Irving, journalist Karen Langley, and John Costello, a researcher who works for Karen who also happens to be the survivor of a serial killer.

John has spent his adult life reading about and researching serial crimes, so when there’s a series of seemingly unrelated murders in NYC that happen to mimic earlier serial murders, he is the only one who recognizes what is going on. It’s brought to Ray’s attention via an article that Karen plans to publish, and Ray slowly comes to realize that he can’t solve this crime without their help.

With the exception of John, whom Ray refers to as "the fucking Rainman" at one point, our main characters are refreshingly normal. Ray is a bit lonely (his girlfriend suddenly passed away a few months before), but he doesn’t have any of the gigantic flaws you would expect from our down and out detective. The one thing about the novel that did bug me was that every time Ray thinks of his deceased girlfriend, she is referred to by her full name: Deborah Wiltshire. We only need her last name once. It’s not like there was another Deborah in the book.

I think Ellory does a great job of capturing the feel of New York. I’m always impressed when a foreign author is is able to portray the U.S. so well. I think it shows their dedication to the story they write. I was a little surprised by the ending of the book, but it wasn’t completely unexpected. And I thought it was fitting.

Overall, this was a book I really enjoyed. Ellory is a master of the character-driven crime novel.