Stillhouse Lake by Rachel Caine Review

After wandering through multiple locations under forged identities Gina Royal and her two children settle in a new home by the side of Stillhouse Lake. Since The Event they have been hounded by trolls both inside and outside the internet. Living like a fugitive is draining. It turns Gina jumpy and paranoid. They want to live, like normal people. Here Connor and Lanny do something they once thought was too dangerous to do. They make friends. So does their mother Gina. Taking root is risky, she knows. But one has to settle some time. With strong allies like Sam, Javi and Absalom on her side she now has a sense of security. Maybe it’s time to reach closure. She needs it. Connor and Lanny need it even more. Suddenly something happens. The mutilated body of a young woman is found floating in Stillhouse Lake. She realizes, no matter how hard she tries, she can’t outrun the dark, ominous shadow of Mel Royal.

The Event took place long ago, a long time before they made Stillhouse Lake their home. Mel, back then, was not an ex-husband yet. He was a good husband, a great father and a hard-working, amiable human being. Gina used to be a dutiful housewife, mostly busy with their children among other things. One day there was an accident. A SUV crashed into their garage, exposing the entire place Mel called ‘his workshop’. Inside, was dangling the mutilated corpse of a woman. The place they once called home suddenly turned into a crime scene. Later they found out, the dead woman in the garage wasn’t the only one Mel killed. This was followed by his arrest, trial and a death sentence. Gina was also arrested on the charge of being an accomplice, but was later acquitted. The Event – a name she’d used to refer to those gruesome memories – had wrecked their lives and turned them into fugitives. People weren’t happy with the acquittal of Mel’s Little Helpers. The punishment isn’t complete, as some of them had suggested, as long as Mel’s family is still alive. To protect herself and the children from this all-consuming hatred, she had no other option but to go into hiding.

It doesn’t matter if Mel’s in prison. He’s got people watching them, he tells Gina. His letters aren’t meaningless blabbers of an unhinged mind. They are filled with threats, deliberate and detailed. Back in Stillhouse Lake, among the familiar faces, there must be someone who’s working secretly to destroy Gina, leaking information on her whereabouts. She doesn’t know whom to trust. If Mel wants to reach her, he’s probably going to do it through her children. Mel’s psychopathic manipulations turn Stillhouse Lake into a cord that starts tightening around her neck. Mel Royal’s very own Modus Operandi.

Rachel Caine’s gripping tale is about a serial killer, yet it has nothing similar to anything I’ve read – fiction or non-fiction – on the subject. The story of Stillhouse Lake starts after the arrest. The public opinion, the mob mentality, the displaced anger, the revenge-mongering – they take control over human reasons. It shows, how some of us, innocent as we’d like to think ourselves to be, could very well turn into killers without the restraint of law. It was clear that Mel Royal controlled several individuals who worked for him, killed for him. But why and when exactly did they decide to help him? How could he wield such power over them, sitting in a small prison cell? What did he have to offer in return? He surely had no money and not everyone who helped him, worshiped him as a hero. These questions were not clearly dealt with. But this is the first book in Rachel Caine’s Stillhouse Lake series. I hope more explanations will follow in the next book. It took me less five hours to finish. Treat yourself with a big-Mac before you start. Once you get past The Event, you may not want to take a break.

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Killers The Most Barbaric Murderers of Our Time

Book Review of Killers: The Most Barbaric Murderers of Our Time by Nigel Cawthrone

Killers The Most Barbaric Murderers of Our Times by Nigel Cawthrone is not about ordinary homicide that one comes across every other day in daily newspapers. The murderers mentioned in this book are not political assassins killing public figures due to some political rivalry. They are no commonplace robbers who obstinately kill a cop while escaping.

In Killers The Most Barbaric Murderers of Our Times, Nigel Cawthrone gives detailed accounts of the crimes committed by infamous serial killers such as Starkweather, Ted Bundy, Boston Strangler etc. They are killers who kill just for the sake of killing. They are brutal - driven mostly by their indomitable urge to kill. These are the stories about men hunting men, then slaughtering them as if they are nothing more than pigs. They are nightmares who lived among us.

Here are some excerpts from Killers The Most Barbaric Murderers of Our Times,

Charles Starkweather (Victim Count: 11, MO: Shooting and stabbing, Execution: 25/06/1959)

This book not only describes the life and crime of these criminals but also tries to bring some insight into a psychopath in making. Violence seems to be very fundamental human trait that often remains suppressed. A moment of impulse, rage and vengeance - especially vengeance - can bring out the killer in the most amicable looking men.

His main motive was to take 'general revenge upon the world and its human race'.

Charles Starkweather confessed. In his childhood he was often ruthlessly mocked at for his speech impediments. He was hurt badly, repeatedly. He had never forgiven those who were involved. Regarding this he formed a very strong generalisation.

'The people I murdered had murdered me,' he said. 'They murdered me slow, like. I was better to them. I killed them in a hurry.'

Poverty is also one of the reasons. It gave him an intense feeling of being deprived. The treatment he received in his childhood continued even after adulthood. The intensity increased. Insults became more overt and nonsensical. He reacted,

 'They had me numbered for the bottom,' he said. He blamed the world and was sure that other people hated him 'because I was poor and had to live in a goddamned shack'. But there was a way out of this class trap - 'all dead people are on the same level,' he said.

Boston Strangler aka Albert DeSalvo (Victim Count: 13, MO: Strangulation, He was never caught or formally identified)

Behind every serial sex offender there is almost always a disturbed childhood. 

DeSalvo was the son of a vicious drunk. When he was 11, DeSalvo watched his father knock his mother's teeth out then bend her fingers back until they snapped. This was nothing unusual in the DeSalvo household.

... and not to mention the unhealthy exposure to sex at a very early age.

His father would also bring prostitutes back to the apartment and make the children watch while he had sex with them.

The first murder of a serial killer is the most important incident in his life. Before it the criminal activities remain limited. The very first murder is the line that defines their sanity. When that happens all possible avenues of return close down. The aim of his life becomes steady.

...(DeSalvo) added murder to his repertoire, killing 55 year old Anna Slesers in her apartment on 14 June 1962. DeSalvo had left her body in an obscene pose, with the cord he had used to strangle her tied in a bow around her neck. This was to become his trademark.

They have no qualms. That they mutilate or murder a living human being - doesn't alarm them anymore. It becomes their obsession. The primal impulse to subjugate, to assert one's power overpowers their conscience. They often do it merely out of compulsion and later forgets everything about it.

DeSalvo admitted later that he did not know why he had killed Joan Gaff. 'I wasn't even excited,' he said. After he left her apartment, he went home, played with his kids and watched the report of Joan Gaff's murder on TV. Then he sat down and had dinner, without thinking of her again.

Ted Bundy ( Victim Count: 20, MO: Rape and Strangulation, Execution: 1989)

In the dark world of serial killers very few are as notorious as Ted Bundy who killed no less than 20 women. His libido was so strong and overpowering that he often lost the touch of reality. He was also a necrophiliac. 

Ted Bundy had the power to charm women. Many of them paid with their lives. He claimed his sexual impulses were so strong that there was no way he could control them.

Extraordinary crime gets extraordinary attention. But what shocked me here was these lines, 

On death row... He also received sacks full of post from young women whose letters dwelt on cruel and painful ways to make love. Even on death row he had not lost his charm.

It is said that when Ted Bundy went to chair (Electrocution) there was an enigmatic smile on his face.

There are many more cases discussed in Killers The Most Barbaric Murderers of Our Time. But if one's heart is weak, one should avoid such books. Reading about the lives of these killers may actually make you lose all your hopes in humanity.

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