What if the world’s worst serial killer…was your dad?
Jasper (Jazz) Dent is a likable teenager. A charmer, one might say.
But he’s also the son of the world’s most infamous serial killer, and for Dear Old Dad, Take Your Son to Work Day was year-round. Jazz has witnessed crime scenes the way cops wish they could–from the criminal’s point of view.
And now bodies are piling up in Lobo’s Nod.
In an effort to clear his name, Jazz joins the police in a hunt for a new serial killer. But Jazz has a secret–could he be more like his father than anyone knows?
About Barry Lyga
Barry Lyga is the author of several acclaimed young adult novels, including his debut, The Astonishing Adventures of Fanboy and Goth Girl. He knows way too much about how to dispose of a human body. Barry lives and writes in New York City. His website is www.barrylyga.com.
Editorial Review
After witnessing many of the crime scenes of his father’s 123 official kills in ways the police wish they could, 17-year-old Jasper “Jazz” Dent is glad his father’s in prison. Life with crazy Gramma, who raised “Dear Old Dad,” is hard enough, and now it’s in jeopardy thanks to Jazz’s social worker. When police discover a body in a field near town, Jazz becomes certain it’s a new serial killer. In spite of the objections of Lobo’s Nod Sheriff G. William Tanner, Jazz and his best friend, hemophiliac Howie, run their own investigation and uncover a pattern as bodies quickly pile up. Can Jazz help the cops find this new monster without becoming a suspect himself? YA rebel-author Lyga switches from goths and superheroes to serial killers and sociopaths with this grisly teen thriller. Jazz’s heightened self-consciousness is both believable and entirely in tune with regular teens. Readers of Dan Wells’ John Wayne Cleaver novels (I Am Not a Serial Killer, 2010, etc.) will find echoes of them here, though the writing is not as tight and the creep factor is lower. Also, the certain-sequel open ending is a bit of a letdown. – Kirkus Review
Not Just for Kids: ‘I Hunt Killers’ by Barry Lyga
The Chicago Tribune Book Review – April 1, 2012 (Excerpt)
A generation ago, young horror fans had to “read up” to adult authors such as Stephen King. Now novelists such as Barry Lyga are tailoring gore for a teen audience.
In “I Hunt Killers,” Lyga attempts one of the more daring concepts in recent years by a young-adult author. His multiple-murder mystery focuses on the son of a notorious serial killer who is forced to confront his fears that he will follow in his dad’s footsteps and must also reconcile his attraction to grisly deaths.
This extreme and utterly alluring narrative about nature versus nurture opens with the discovery of a naked woman’s body in a field on the outskirts of town. Seventeen-year-old Jazz Dent is observing the investigation from afar using a pair of binoculars he received as a gift from his dad before he was locked up — after committing 123 murders over a span of 21 years — for consecutive life sentences.
Jazz’s upbringing was alarmingly unusual. Raised on a steady diet of murder, he “had witnessed crime scenes the way the cops wished they could — from the criminal’s point of view.” The “trophies” in the Dent household included a lipstick, an iPod, a driver’s license and other mementos that were stashed in the basement rather than displayed on the mantle. Jazz’s brain felt “like a slasher movie.” [Read the full article...]
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THE BLEEDING HILLS A Novel by Wilfried F. Voss
I have fought a good fight,
I have finished my course,
I have kept the faith. - 2 Timothy iv. 7
The Irish War is officially a part of history, but not for Finnean Whelan, an IRA veteran of almost 40 years. British Intelligence has produced evidence that he is the mastermind behind a conspiracy to assassinate the First Minister of Northern Ireland. For Whelan this is not only a mission of revenge, but marks the beginning of a journey into the past and the return to the one true love: Ireland. [More...]
We are the only country that makes guns, including military-style assault weapons, available to anyone who wants to buy them. This is not freedom. It is a tyranny of death and destruction — a tyranny of which the National Rifle Association is proud. The Washington Post
THE BLEEDING HILLS
