Cut Paste Kill: Crime Fiction and… Scrapbooking?

Full disclosure: I’m not a voracious reader of crime fiction novels even though a quick list of my top five favorite television shows will reveal that I may possibly be addicted to crime and police dramas.

The dearth of crime fiction novels in my reading resume can be squarely attributed to one Mr. Thomas Harris.  Back when the movie version of The Silence of the Lambs (1991) came out, I, like any devotee of books, chose to read the book first.  Long story short, I finished The Silence of the Lambs and Red Dragon in less than a week.  They were wonderfully written.

However.

They are (1) really, really dark (2) totally creepy and (3) made me eye every single strange man that came anywhere within a ten mile radius of me as though he was planning to boil my face off.

While not nearly as poetic as Harris’s work, Marshall Karp’s Cut Paste Kill injects just enough humor through both dialogue and circumstance to lighten the serious topic of serial murder.  In addition to quick smile inducing one liners, the novel includes fantastic plot twists and an ending that, despite my extensive experience of having personally solved at least 1,200 television crimes, completely surprised me.

It starts off fairly simple: a notable British diplomat’s wife is found in the bathroom of a high end Hollywood hotel in the highly undesirable situation of having been murdered with a pair of scissors.  Hollywood homicide detectives Mike Lomax and Terry Biggs are interrupted at a family barbeque to investigate the scene, and when they get there they’re awestruck by the odd presence of a memento left by the murderer:  a scrapbook.

Yeah, a scrapbook… like the kind craft stores give lessons on how to make and that they sell specialty paper for.  The scrapbook at the scene proves sparse in terms of helping the detectives  find the perpetrator, however it does prove that the victim kind of had it coming.  As the tale unfolds, more bodies accompanied by painstakingly crafted scrapbooks start appearing on the Hollywood homicide scene, and the detectives realize that they have a serial killer with a penchant for vigilante justice and acid free paper on their hands.

Whether you’re an aficionado of the crime fiction genre or a novice, I’m wholeheartedly recommending Cut Paste Kill.  The serious nature surrounding the subject matter of a serial killer proves challenging, and that challenge is answered cleverly by Karp with a subtle and light style of writing that promises to keep readers engaged, while not totally creeping them out.

I was also pleased to find out that this is the fourth in a series of novels using the Biggs and Lomax characters, (The Rabbit Factory, Bloodthirsty and Flipping Out) and I’m very excited about reading them.

I’m further relieved that, due to my reading choices, I won’t have to check my car’s rear view mirror obsessively to make sure a knife wielding lunatic isn’t about to pounce on me.

I would also like to add on an unrelated note that I am very happy to have found a new novel series to read that does not involve vampires.

Or werewolves.

Or shape shifters.

So far.

Feature Image by art_es_anna

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