Headhunter by Michael Slade

(hb; 1984: first novel in the fourteen-book Special X series. Followed by Ghoul.)

From the inside flap

“A headhunter is loose on the streets of Vancouver, British Columbia. The victims are everywhere─floating in the Fraser River, buried in a shallow grave, nailed to an Indian totem pole on the University of British Columbia campus.

“All are women. All are headless.

“Hysteria grows with each killing. Women look upon the men around them─police, neighbors, co-workers─with insidiously engulfing fear and suspicion.

“In the face of growing panic, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police launch a full-scale investigation, calling a renown detective, Robert DeClercq, out of retirement to head the force. But because of a terrible tragedy in his own past, DeClercq is profoundly troubled by the brutality of this new case. Other members of the force find their mental equilibrium in jeopardy as the killings continue and the investigation runs into one dead end after another. Yet there are no doors they cannot break down in their massive and thorough probe, they can never enter the mind of the murderer.”

Review

Headhunter is an above-average police procedural thriller, with lots of suspicious-history characters, character-based plot-twists, grisly shock scenes and a fast pace that does not lag. This is a blink-and-miss-points read, so enjoy this when you’re fully awake, not when you’re trying to fall asleep─this should be obvious, yes, but some books are written to put you asleep, even if the authors didn’t intend it (wink).

[*From the “About the Author” section: “Michael Slade is the pen name of Jay Clarke, John Banks, and Lee Clarke. . . Jay Clarke and John Banks are Vancouver lawyers who specialize in the field of criminal insanity.”]