“Irresistible” by Ethan Black
The beginning of “Irresistible” sucked me right and and I could not put the book down. The book starts from the killer’s point of view. A woman is naked, drunk and talking into a tape recorder. She’s raging and rambling and you can’t quite figure out what’s happening. Then she dresses, goes out into the New York City night and picks up a man, but not just any man – a very specific one. Of course she’s drop dead gorgeous but she also seems to know a lot about the man. They have a few drinks, he invites her back to his place, they have sex and…kills and mutilates him. She showers and cleans the apartment then writes on the bathroom wall in the man’s blood, “I know you.”
The point of view switches to the police detective in the sex crimes division who will work the case. His name is Conrad Voort and he comes from a long line of cops and he’s also incredibly wealthy. He’s a series character and I’ve read a previous book with him in it. To me, it never made sense why Voort (he’s always referred to by his last name) would continue to put himself in danger being a cop, when he doesn’t have to. He could retire or do something else.
Voort is an interesting character but at this point the book slows down because there is a lot of author intrusion. I really do not care about his ancestors, when they arrived in the new world, how they made there money, etc. All that exterraneous information deviated from the plot and I started skimming. The author also has a weird penchant for describing what everyone is wearing! I really didn’t care and it added nothing to the story.
The female serial killer has a list of four men’s names and she intends to kill them all. Voort’s is the last name on the list. We get to see her picking up number two and then killing number three. The pace of the book slows toward the middle and doesn’t really pick up until the end. We find out what motivates the killer and how she’s come by all that information – and it’s interesting. While I enjoyed the book, I think it would have been better if Voort had been humanized a bit more. A lot of the story was tangled up with him, his girlfriends, past and present and all the Dutch history.
I’m not sure I’d ever read another Voort book but “Irresistible” did keep me interested until the end.
