A sophisticated serial killer tale spotted with extraordinary asides on cannibalism which are factual and although slowing the plot on occasions, they add to the general feeling of unease which creeps up on you throughout the book. It’s bloody, it’s unusual, it’s clever and it’s brilliant. Not for the faint-hearted.
From the monuments of Italy, through literary New York and rural Maine, to the dusty ranches of Mexico, twenty-three-year-old Katherine Shea is propelled on a restless journey of discovery. But her free-spirited movements are shadowed by a string of unexplained murders, and as the victims pile up slightly too close by for comfort, she finds relief and inspiration in the gory manifestations of cannibalism in literature, art and history. With mounting dread, Katherine closes in on the real reason for her own obsession with aberrant, savage behaviour...
Sabina Murray grew up in Australia and the Phillippines. She is the author of the novel Slow Burn. Her stories have appeared in Ploughshares, Ontario Review, New England Review, and other magazines. She has also written a screenplay titled Beautiful Country, commissioned by Terence Malick and starring Nick Nolte. Murray is the Roger Murray Writer in Residence at Phillips Academy, Andover, Massachusetts.
