KILLING RED
Henry Perez
Pinnacle
Thriller
ISBN: 9780786020324
A reporter in the Chicago area, Henry Perez has published a number of short stories and now makes his debut as a novelist with KILLING RED, a tale that promises great things and fulfills them.
The book begins with the arrest of Kenneth Lee Grubb, who is responsible for the kidnappings and deaths of several children. The instrument of his capture is 10-year-old Annie Sykes, who escaped from his deathtrap and lived to tell the tale. Years later, Grubb is about to face the ultimate justice for his grisly deeds. His last wish before his execution is to be interviewed by Alex Chapa, a Chicago newspaper reporter who cemented his reputation by breaking the story on Sykes’s escape and Grubb’s imprisonment. His request is fulfilled, and six days before his execution, Chapa interviews him in a room on Joliet Prison’s death row. What is expected to be a newsworthy but ultimately routine interview explodes when Grubb hints to Chapa that someone on the outside is finishing his unfinished business --- “completing the circle,” in Grubb’s words --- through a series of murders as a tribute to him. The last victim will be Sykes herself, the girl Grubb has nicknamed “Red,” who will be murdered just prior to his scheduled execution.
The revelation sends Chapa on a frantic investigation to find Sykes before the unknown killer can. This is a difficult task, rendered more so by the fact that Sykes, now an adult, is trying to put her traumatic past behind her; she has changed her name and location to dissociate herself from the evil that has been done to her. Chapa has assistance, the most formidable being that of Joseph Andrews, an FBI agent with whom he has a longstanding if unlikely friendship. Chapa’s greatest asset, though, is his dogged determination and well-developed reporter’s instinct for honing in on information. Luck, intuition and plain old hard work lead Chapa to Sykes, who has a prickly relationship with him due to his reporting of her original abduction years before. But Sykes is in terrible danger, and Chapa finds himself in a race against time to save her from a terrible fate that she narrowly avoided years before.
The plot races right along, and is well-supported by interesting characterization and secondary plot situations. While Chapa is constantly at loose ends and a fashion disaster, Andrews is organized at right angles and is the picture of sartorial splendor. The exchanges between the two friends are by turns instructive and entertaining. Given that Chapa is not a tough guy, he nonetheless does not hesitate to interject himself into a dangerous situation when called upon to stand up and be counted, so that on at least one occasion he needs Andrews to function as a de facto deus ex machina to pull him out of a troublesome sling. The subtle threat of the loss of Chapa’s job due to downsizing also provides a real-world subplot to the book, with Chapa dodging a meeting with his editor even as he pursues a deadly killer. In addition, Chapa is coping with the apparent estrangement of his beloved daughter, who is living with his ex-wife in Boston. Dealing with multiple pressures, he utilizes the strengths that he has to become a quietly inspiring protagonist on a dangerous quest.
Along the way, Perez will really push your fear buttons, particularly if you are claustrophobic or acrophobic. He begins the novel with an account of 10-year-old Annie Sykes being buried alive and left to die; if you don’t feel the walls closing in on you while you’re reading this, you should check your pulse. And near the end, Chapa performs a daring feat by breaking into a seventh floor apartment through an outside window. I somehow managed to read the passage with my eyes closed. But I won’t be getting on a stepladder anytime soon.
KILLING RED is more than a promising debut; it is a signpost of an author to watch and follow, as he keeps raising his own bar with successive novels.
--- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub
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