Graziunas and Starlin’s: Predators

Graziunas, Daina and Starlin, Jim: Predators

Okay, I’ve got to admit up-front that the premise is hokey: What do you get when a telepath suffers the loss of his family to a serial killer’s madness? You get this book—which initially reads like a first-novel, but does pick up somewhere along the way. The plot is adolescent, but the character development isn’t too bad, and by the end of the novel I was really into it. Part of it may be a continuing childhood fantasy that I can read minds. (No, I know that I can’t, but I think my wife can…. And the cats? Don’t get me started.)

This book reminded me that it wouldn’t be such a great trip to have that ability. It would be a curse.

The primary protagonist is a little hard to identify in this story; I guess, really, there are two. The elusive telepath (who hunts down serial killers), David Vandemark, and the FBI agent wasting his career by tracking him down, Ira Levitt. In the first half of the book the antagonist almost appears to be the FBI agent, but later (after discovering a truly evil malignancy in New York—surprise?) they team up against an antagonist of governmental proportions.

Overall, it’s a decent, fast read. There’s a lot of violence (we’re talking about serial killers and a guy who hunts them down) and at least one sex scene that I can remember. In a critical scene, one protagonist believes he’s on mission from God, but the author doesn’t take that anywhere and Judeo/Christian “worldview” never shows up again (despite Ira Levitt’s yiddishims).