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Library | Material Type | Shelf Number | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
Searching... Belmont | Book | FICTION KATZENB | Searching... Unknown |
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Summary
Summary
Happy 53rd birthday, Doctor. Welcome to the first day of your death. When a mysterious letter bearing these threatening words is delivered to Dr. Frederick Starks, his predictable life is thrown into chaos. Suddenly, the psychoanalyst is plunged into a horrific game designed by a man who calls himself Rumplestiltskin. The rules: in two weeks Starks must guess Rumplestiltskin's identity and the source of his fury. If he succeeds, he goes free. If he fails, one by one, Rumplestiltskin will destroy fifty-two of Dr. Starks' loved ones--friends, relatives, children--unless the good doctor agrees to kill himself. You ruined my life. And now I fully intend to ruin yours. Ignoring the threat is not an option. When one of his patients dies under the wheels of a subway train and a detective investigating the case is struck by a hit-and-run driver, Starks knows his tormentor means business. And then there are the messengers sent to guide Starks on his descent, from the seductive woman in a trench coat who calls herself Virgil to a lawyer named Merlin weaving a spell of havoc and lies. His bank account rifled, his credit ruined, and his reputation dragged through the mud, Starks must rouse himself from the cocoon of his life, unlock the secret of Rumplestiltskin, and find a way to stop the madman--before he himself is driven mad. One thing of which you can be absolutely certain: My anger knows no limits. A mesmerizing thriller that gives a wicked new twist to the doctor-patient relationship, The Analyst's Last Days weaves a blistering race against time with a tale of identities shattered and chosen, disguises taken and discarded. With his trademark style, breathless plots, and brilliantly realized characters, John Katzenbach proves once again why both critics and fans alike have crowned him the master of suspense.
Reviews (1)
Kirkus Review
Katzenbach's finest hour is the tale of a widowed New York psychotherapist roused from the cocoon of his habitual rounds by an anonymous letter-a letter threatening him with a fate worse than death. The plot unfolded by Dr. Frederick Starks's nemesis, who calls himself Rumplestiltskin, is startlingly simple. In revenge for Ricky's neglect of one unnamed patient of the hundreds he's treated, Mr. Skin is going to "destroy"-maybe kill, maybe ruin, maybe damage irreparably-one of his dozens of relatives in exactly two weeks, unless Ricky either identifies his malign correspondent or kills himself in the meantime. Just to make things more fun, Rumplestiltskin throws out a few hints to his identity and offers to answer three yes-or-no questions about himself over the allotted time (the detail that most decisively marks the ensuing thrills as synthetic, however intense). Persuaded of his adversary's bona fides by a nasty incident involving a nephew's daughter, Ricky sets to work figuring out who he is, but he's taunted and terrified at every turn by repeated run-ins with two employees of his nemesis, a lawyer with the magical name of Merlin and a woman calling herself Virgil, after Dante's guide to Hell. Meanwhile, Rumplestiltskin has lost no time isolating Ricky from the rest of the world by driving one of his current patients to suicide, arranging to have charges of sexual abuse brought against him, canceling his credit cards, seizing his financial assets, stealthily invading his apartment, and finally driving him out of the city. Facing an impossible deadline in a paranoid frenzy, Ricky takes the only way out he can imagine, setting the stage for an equally breathtaking, though rather more predictable, second act. Hokey, gimmicky, and flatly unbelievable-but even readers immune to the erratic charms of Katzenbach's earlier thrillers (Hart's War, 2000, etc.) will find themselves powerless to stop after page ten. Author tour
