A Mountie Always Get His Man, Except When They Don't

Outside of reading X number of books for the year, I never really participated in reading challenges that required you to read certain sub categories within the genre. I'd start them, then fall off because some of the categories never interested me. Last year was the first year I was determined to get through an entire challenge. One of the categories was "Slasher," and preferring to read creature features, eco horror, and tales that include monsters or other supernatural creatures, I turned to Google to direct me to popular slasher fiction. One of the titles that came up was Michael Slade's Headhunter. I was familiar with the author's name, but had never read anything by him, and since the story idea appealed to me, I decided this would be the one.

In addition  to being a slasher, Headhunter is also classified as a police procedural, another genre I'm not well versed in, so this was going to be a few firsts for me. The story is about a serial killer preying on women in Canada, raping and beheading the victims, then taunting the police by sending them photos of the women's heads on stakes. Along the way, there are detours to New Orleans (past and present), as well as trips through time, to the point where I felt at times like the book was was a jumbled mess, scattered all over the place and there was no way the dots were going to connect. That's one of the challenges I like about this particular genre (I have read some, just not a lot): trying to piece together the clues to try to figure out who the killer is. However, this turned out not to be that kind of book. For me, the dots never connected, and by the time I got to the end, I felt it came out of left field. Here, the cops are celebrating because the finally got their man, but the reader is left scratching his/her head because the pieces don't fit unless you hammer them into place with a sledgehammer. You begin to feel like maybe you missed something, you go back to check only to realize you didn't miss anything because it just isn't there. Don't get me wrong; I enjoyed the book, but it was just frustrating not being able to follow the trail of bread crumbs, because there wasn't any to follow.

I also wish the reader was a witness to more of the killings (yes, I'm a gore hound) and not brought in after the fact. Towards the end, we're allowed to see through the eyes of the killer, so why not earlier?  And I know this isn't the type of book where you become attached to the characters and want to see them survive until the end, but at least make some of the characters likable. I don't think any of the characters are truly likable. We're supposed to see DeClercq as a somewhat sympathetic character, a retired cop pulled out of retirement for one more case who suffers from PTSD after his wife and daughter were both killed years ago, but his stellar reputation quickly becomes tarnished when you witness him popping pills to get through the day. And any character you begin to warm up to and start thinking, Well, this one seems like a nice person, is quickly dispatched.

After all this, you might think I didn't like the book, and you'd be wrong. The journey is an enjoyable one; it's the destination that leaves a lot to be desired, which is why what started out looking like a 5-star read ended up being a 4-star read.