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Chicago police Lieutenant Jacqueline "Jack" Daniels is having her toughest week ever. Her insomnia is kicking in, her boyfriend Don left her a "Dear John" letter, her aging mother has suffered a fall, her partner Herb Benedict sliced his tongue on a tampered candy bar, and bodies of murdered young women are being found in garbage cans outside area 7-Elevens. Kind enough to staple notes to the victims, the murderer has identified himself as The Gingerbread Man, leaving a lacquered brown cookie with each corpse.
Comforted only by her loneliness, Ed McBain novels, an occasional shot of whiskey and a game at Joe's Pool Hall, the pretty yet mature Jack Daniels takes the lead on the Gingerbread Man case only to discover that the killer wishes to get a little closer to her as well. First time novelist J.A. Konrath makes readers want to triple-bolt their doors and windows by exploring the mindset of the Gingerbread Man in alternating chapters that follow the Chicago police investigation and the killer's personal justification for his vicious crime spree --- lamenting his father's abuse, his termination from a job, the embarrassing breakup from his wife on a nationally televised tabloid TV show, and his discovery that murder, "like any drug, the more you get, the more you need later to feel the same high."
Daniels finds that, in addition to the psychopath, the FBI, a man she arrested years ago named Phin Troutt, and Harry McGlade, a former member of the force, are also following her around. As he breaks into Daniels's car and apartment, and even gets close enough to shoot her in the leg, the Gingerbread Man shows the cops that he is an experienced killer, a former convict who covers the evidence and his trail as if he never existed --- except for the videotapes he makes of the torture he inflicts on each victim.
With lightening fast action, chilling suspense and biting humor, Konrath shows that the mean streets of Chicago are a lot meaner than even the most experienced detective novel fan could imagine, as his Gingerbread Man leaves a legacy of terror and blood on the city few could forget, explaining in horrifying detail how "easy" it is to stalk, kidnap, torture, kill and repeat, without so much as raising an eyebrow of potential witnesses.
Comic relief is provided by Daniels's decision to contact a dating service to find the man of her dreams, as well as by the two FBI profilers who suggest that Daniels and her investigators follow the trail of a mother-obsessed, cross-dressing French Canadian man who may own a horse. WHISKEY SOUR is upsetting, powerful and quite sinfully impossible to put down until that last deadly drop. Konrath has begun an exciting mystery series with Jack Daniels. Bartender? Another round for the house!
--- Reviewed by Brandon M. Stickney
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