Christchurch Noir Crime
2 primary works • 7 total works
Book 3
What began as a routine exhumation of a suspected murder victim quickly turns complicated for private investigator Theodore Tate...
Theo Tate is barely coping with life since his world was turned upside down two years ago. As he stands in the cold and rainy cemetery, overseeing the exhumation, the lake opposite the graveyard begins to release its grip on the murky past.
When doubts are raised about the true identity of the body found in the coffin, the case takes an even more sinister turn. Tate knows he should walk away and let his former colleagues in the police deal with it, but against his better judgement he takes matters into his own hands.
With time running out and a violent killer on the loose, will Tate manage to stay one step ahead of the police? Or will the secrets he has buried so deeply be unearthed?
Book 6
Theodore Tate never forgot his first crime scene-ten-year-old Jessica found dead in "the Laughterhouse," an old abandoned slaughterhouse with the S painted over. The killer was found and arrested. Justice was served. Or was it?
Fifteen years later, a new killer arrives in Christchurch, and he has a list of people who were involved in Jessica's murder case, one of whom is the unfortunate Dr. Stanton, a man with three young girls. If Tate is going to help them, he has to find the connection between the killer, the Laughterhouse, and the city's suddenly growing murder rate. And he needs to figure it out fast, because Stanton and his daughters have been kidnapped, and the doctor is being forced to make an impossible decision: which one of his daughters is to die first.
In The Laughterhouse, the city of Christchurch becomes "a modern equivalent of James Ellroy's Los Angeles of the 1950s, a discordant symphony of violence and human weakness" (Publishers Weekly). Fast-paced, dark, and intensely clever, this exciting thriller represents a brilliant new chapter in the career of a world-class crime writer.
'Cleave uses words like lethal weapons' New York Times Book Review
'Dark, bloody, and gripping ... classic noir fiction' John Connolly
An international bestseller and one of the top-selling novels in New Zealand's history, Paul Cleave's dark thriller is a brilliant, bloody masterpiece.
Joe is in control of everything in his simple life - both his day job as a janitor for the police department and his "night work." He isn't bothered by the daily news reports of the Christchurch Carver, who, they say, has murdered seven women. Joe knows, though, that the Carver killed only six. He knows that for a fact, and he's determined to find the copycat. He'll punish him for the one, then frame him for the other six. It's the perfect plan because he already knows he can outwit the police.
All he needs now is to take care of all the women who keep getting in his way, including his odd, overprotective mother and Sally, the maintenance worker who sees him as a replacement for her dead brother. Then there's the mysterious Melissa, the only woman to have ever understood him, but whose fantasies of blackmail and torture don't have a place in Joe's investigation.
Someone is helping rape victims exact revenge on their attackers, and it's hard to investigate when everyone on the police force seems to be rooting for the killer. But when innocent people start to die, Tate and Schroder find themselves with different objectives, and soon they're battling something they never would've expected-- each other.
Meanwhile, clues keep pulling Tate back to Grover Hills, the mental institution that closed down three years ago. Very bad things happened there. Those who managed to survive would prefer keeping their memories buried. Tate has no choice but to unearth Grover Hills' dark past if there is any chance of finding Emma Green and Cooper Riley alive. For fans of Dennis Lehane's Shutter Island, Thomas Harris' Silence of the Lambs, and Jeff Lindsay's Dexter series, Collecting Cooperis a dark, entertaining crime thriller from a glimmering new talent.
'Anyone who likes their crime fiction on the black and bloody side should move Paul Cleave straight to the top of their must-read list' Mark Billingham
'Pulse-pounding' Publishers Weekly
'Cleave uses words like lethal weapons' New York Times Book Review
Cleave keeps us guessing until the last page of this fantastic psychological thriller.
Imagine waking up covered in blood - but it's not your blood. There's a nasty bump on your head, and you can't remember a thing about last night. The morning paper reports that two young women were brutally murdered. You recognize their names. Pieces of the night before come back to you through the haze. And now you're the suspect in their grisly deaths. Welcome to Charlie's world.
In this heart-pounding thriller, only the dead know what happened last night. On the run, Charlie suspects a man named Cyris, but no one believes that Cyris exists. Not the police and not Charlie's ex-wife Jo, though she wants to trust that the man she once loved is innocent. Soon, Charlie has Jo bound and gagged in the trunk of his car, fleeing across the countryside while the killing hour approaches yet again.