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A review by hectaizani
IM by Rick R. Reed
4.0
The Internet is the new meat market for gay men. It’s easy and anonymous to hop online, browse a website and pick out a partner. So what if the descriptions are misleading and the pictures are ten years out of date, as long as the sex is hard and hot?
Then a predator starts using Men4HookUpNow.com as his hunting grounds. Chameleon-like he knows how to seduce his prey by becoming any man’s fantasy. They invite him over, let him in, and wish they hadn’t when the blood starts flowing as he satisfies his own dark and depraved lust.
After the first killing, openly gay Chicago Police officer Ed Comparetto is called in to investigate. He is well aware the opportunity is less about his skill as a detective and more because he’d publicly outed himself. Maybe his homosexuality could somehow help him to figure out why a young man is dead, the victim of a brutal murder. Even after two years on the force, it was difficult for Ed to remain composed when confronted by the bloodied corpse floating in its bathtub of gore. His mind busy cataloging the gruesome details, the missing fingers, the phone cord wrapped tightly around the corpse’s neck, the severed penis inserted into the victim’s rectum. Finally after taking in all that he still has to interview Timothy Bright, the dead man’s best friend and the one who reported the crime. What leads will Timothy give him to help him catch the killer?
The following day Ed gets yet another early morning phone call from his boss. This time it’s his day off, and he’s being called into the supervisor’s office. Ed knows it’s going to be bad, but doesn’t realize just how bad. He’s off the case, but not just the case; he’s off the force. Fired! For fabricating witness statements! It seems that Timothy Bright doesn’t exist, or rather he doesn’t exist anymore. Timothy Bright has been dead and buried for two years. Ed knows he didn’t interview a ghost or fabricate anything, but he has to prove it if he wants his job back.
The hunt is on. Will Ed figure out the truth in time? How many more men will be savagely murdered before the killer is caught? Ed is on his own, the Chicago PD isn’t interested in his “crazy theories.” It’s a non-stop race to catch the killer before Ed loses everything, his boyfriend, his career, his life itself.
If you like page-turning psychological thrillers with clever dialogue, you’ll probably like IM. An intense read, not for the faint of heart. Plenty of gory details to excite the most jaded aficionado. There are a few minor flaws, a few mistakes that have been overlooked in the editing, and the ending was a touch anticlimactic, but otherwise it’s one hell of a ride.
In their October 2006 issue, Unzipped magazine said about Rick R. Reed: “You could call him the Stephen King of gay horror.” Rick R. Reed is also the author of the novels Obsessed, Penance, and In the Blood. Most recently his short story collection, Twisted: Tales of Obsession and Terror was published in 2006.
Then a predator starts using Men4HookUpNow.com as his hunting grounds. Chameleon-like he knows how to seduce his prey by becoming any man’s fantasy. They invite him over, let him in, and wish they hadn’t when the blood starts flowing as he satisfies his own dark and depraved lust.
After the first killing, openly gay Chicago Police officer Ed Comparetto is called in to investigate. He is well aware the opportunity is less about his skill as a detective and more because he’d publicly outed himself. Maybe his homosexuality could somehow help him to figure out why a young man is dead, the victim of a brutal murder. Even after two years on the force, it was difficult for Ed to remain composed when confronted by the bloodied corpse floating in its bathtub of gore. His mind busy cataloging the gruesome details, the missing fingers, the phone cord wrapped tightly around the corpse’s neck, the severed penis inserted into the victim’s rectum. Finally after taking in all that he still has to interview Timothy Bright, the dead man’s best friend and the one who reported the crime. What leads will Timothy give him to help him catch the killer?
The following day Ed gets yet another early morning phone call from his boss. This time it’s his day off, and he’s being called into the supervisor’s office. Ed knows it’s going to be bad, but doesn’t realize just how bad. He’s off the case, but not just the case; he’s off the force. Fired! For fabricating witness statements! It seems that Timothy Bright doesn’t exist, or rather he doesn’t exist anymore. Timothy Bright has been dead and buried for two years. Ed knows he didn’t interview a ghost or fabricate anything, but he has to prove it if he wants his job back.
The hunt is on. Will Ed figure out the truth in time? How many more men will be savagely murdered before the killer is caught? Ed is on his own, the Chicago PD isn’t interested in his “crazy theories.” It’s a non-stop race to catch the killer before Ed loses everything, his boyfriend, his career, his life itself.
If you like page-turning psychological thrillers with clever dialogue, you’ll probably like IM. An intense read, not for the faint of heart. Plenty of gory details to excite the most jaded aficionado. There are a few minor flaws, a few mistakes that have been overlooked in the editing, and the ending was a touch anticlimactic, but otherwise it’s one hell of a ride.
In their October 2006 issue, Unzipped magazine said about Rick R. Reed: “You could call him the Stephen King of gay horror.” Rick R. Reed is also the author of the novels Obsessed, Penance, and In the Blood. Most recently his short story collection, Twisted: Tales of Obsession and Terror was published in 2006.