LOVERBOY

Loverboy
by Michelle Jaffe
448 pages
ISBN: 0-345-45923-7
Random House
June 1, 2004
$ 14.95

When you begin a book, you try to predict what will happen during the first few pages. The reader attempts to connect with the book by searching for hooks to snag onto previous books they have read, or to new twists to a predictable situation. Loverboy is not a predictable novel and is constantly shifting gears, without suffering from motion sickness. Michelle Jaffe is masterful at playing with your mind. Your begin to think something will happen, and then…well, I’ll let you find out yourself.

Imogen Page, known by her friends as, Gigi, has recently quit the F.B.I. Her brother was dying and she wanted to spend whatever time he had left with her. Her brother, Sam, could have been anything with his intelligence, internal drives, athletic ability, and good looks, but he chose to be a sixth-grade teacher. He wanted to make a difference to others. Imogen had always been close to him since their parents died. All she has left of her brother is his goldfish, Rex.

Imogen recently worked on a case where the killer sent the F.B.I. clues in the form of a collage. Even though Imogen figured out the clues, the F.B.I. went a different direction and unfortunately, this serial killer murdered again. This discouragement, along with her brother’s sickness, caused her to leave her career. When you meet Imogen she is recuperating and realizes that she does need time to heal from both.

Dr. Rosalind Carnow has been abducted by this killer known as the Hide-and-Seek Killer. This killer enjoys giving the F.B.I. the collage to help them solve, and hopefully, save the unfortunate victim. This is the sixth time that one of his collages, loaded with clues, has been sent to the F.B.I. The center of the collage is always a chalk outline of a body with a date at the top, which would be the date that the victim would be killed. The killer also knows who will be investigating the case and trying to stop the murder. The killer then adds to his game by playing with the head investigator and purposely leading and misleading them to the evidence.

To complicate matters, Imogen feels obligated to work on this case, but only if she has the complete case and is not bothered by the local authorities or any other agency. Her boss at the F.B.I. realizes that Imogen is the only one who can save Rosalind. He does give her appropriate support staff, but Imogen has a wonderfully verbal manner of taking care of overbearing males.

There aren’t many books that remind the reader of The Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris. This one definitely is similar in that the criminal has the F.B.I. agent figured out and turns his crimes into a game with the agent being the prize catch. Loverboy is perfect then for the people who just can’t get enough of the psychotic, super-intelligent, criminal mastermind.

Michele Jaffe spends time in Venice, Italy and the United States. Previous books she has written are Stargazer, The Water Nymph, Lady Killer, Secret Admirer, Dragonfly, Bad Girl, and The Story of O: Prostitutes and Other Good for Nothings in the Renaissance from her comparative literature studies at Harvard.