The Roberts by Justin Shady

[katekintailbc]

The Roberts
by Justin Shady
http://www.bookcrossing.com/journal/10451183

I picked this up in Boston at the BookCrossing meetup I attended. One of the characters is the Boston strangler. It seemed appropriate.

The concept (two "masked" serial killers meeting each other in a retirement home) is interesting and dark, which I like. I'm reminded a bit of an episode of Angel: the series that involved a baddie in a retirement home. Anyway, it took me a little while to warm up to the book. The artwork is a little darker than I like (literally--there's a lot more black on the page) but I enjoyed the POV and the little visual details/fixations. The story picked up for me when the two serial killers meet and recognize each other for what they are. I REALLY should have seen the bet coming a mile away--where else could the story have gone? But I didn't and the twists definitely tricked me, which is sometimes easy to do and sometimes really hard. So bravo to the storytellers.

I did really like the characters as well. Yes, they're both murderers, and I don't normally like murderers even in fiction, but there's something likeable in these guys. You get a sense of their passions and can respect them for that. They consider it a craft, an art form, something that takes brainpower and work. It was also interesting to have them discuss their lives--whether or not they have family/friends or cut themselves off from society. Either way, they both ended up in a retirement community, surrounded by people.

I also thought it was interesting that the idea came out of one that's similar to an idea I had once for a story (and gave up on it on its own for the same reason--it was boring on its own). It was sort of spooky and horrible and sort of neat that the writer used his grandfathers' name to name the serial killers here.

The letters from actual serial killers were both interesting and off-putting. Maybe it's because I'm in the middle of a marathon of Oz episodes, but I was fascinated to read the letters... but ultimately disappointed because instead of being as interesting as I'd hoped, the letters just creeped me out. It also took me an absurdly (embarrassingly) long time to try to figure out what the words were; I don't do well with sloppy handwriting (my own included) so that took a bit of the fun out of the experience; despite the fact that I do very much like looking at people's handwriting, I would have liked a transcription as well.

On a whole, this was a worthwhile read that made me think and imagine more complexly; I really can't ask for much more than that from a book.