Birdman: A Novel

This crackling psychological thriller introduces police detective Jack Caffery, who is on the hunt for a serial killer the British tabloids have nicknamed "The Millennium Ripper." The Ripper is behind the murder of five prostitutes, whose bodies are unearthed beneath the rubble of a Greenwich landfill. All the victims have been raped and their bodies horrendously mutilated--but not until after being killed by a dose of heroin injected directly into their brainstems. What stuns Caffery even more is the one detail of the murders the public doesn't know; the hearts of the women have been replaced with live birds sewn into the victims' chests. Caffery himself is a tortured man, still burdened by guilt over the decades-old murder of his younger brother and frustrated because he cannot bring the man he knows is responsible to the bar of justice. When the Millennium Ripper confesses to the prostitute killings just before taking his own life, Caffery faces his own limitations and begins to make peace with his past. But then another prostitute is found dead, her body ravaged in the same way, a bird where her heart was--and Caffery realizes that his past may never truly be put to rest. A solid page turner, this gripping debut by a young Englishwoman introduces a complex and fascinating protagonist destined for another appearance. Meanwhile, Birdman will enthrall readers who just can't get enough of Hannibal Lechter. --Jane Adams From Publishers Weekly Treading the grisly path blazed by Thomas Harris in 1981 with Red Dragon, promising newcomer Hayder crafts a blood-curdlingly creepy debut thriller set near the Millennium Dome in Greenwich, England. When Det. Insp. Jack Caffery is called in to investigate the puzzling murder of a young woman, he is confronted by a host of ghastly details, not the least of which is a live bird sewn inside the brutally mangled corpse. The timing of the case could not be worse: DI Caffery's relationship with his girlfriend is on the rocks; there's a new DI from CID who's trying to usurp Caffery's Golden Boy status with the superintendent; and Caffery's obsession with his next-door neighbor, a convicted pedophile who Caffery believes may have murdered Caffrey's own long-missing brother, has reached a confrontational stage. The detective and his good-natured partner, Paul Essex, focus the murder case on a seedy local pub, which is both the locus of the area's illegal activities and the watering hole for workers at a nearby hospital, one of whom, Caffery thinks, must be the surgically trained killer. Caffery's CID competitor targets a local black drug dealer, which ups the political and media ante uncomfortably. Caffery's more methodical approach leads him to the man he believes is the killer, whose suicide convinces him he's right. But when more bodies turn up with the same trademark mutilations, Caffery must start all over again, and his new findings lead him to an altogether more appalling conclusion. Hayder is impressively successful in appealing to a broad, multigenre fan base (mystery/police procedural, thriller, horror). She displays a good working knowledge of forensics and English police procedures, and Birdman's plot has more twists than a surgeon's knot. But the weak of stomach are forewarnedAher graphic imagination knows no bounds. Literary Guild, Doubleday Book Club and Mystery Guild featured selection. (Dec.) Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Library Journal Hayder's publisher is comparing the first-time British author to John Sandford, which is something of a stretch. Her hero, Detective Inspector Jack Caffery, is as sympathetic as Sandford's Lucas Davenport, and at times the level of suspense is comparable, but her character and plot development fall short. Other than Caffery, few of the characters are fully realized, and the explanation for the serial killings that occur is unbelievable. The newest member of the Area Major Investigation Pool, Caffery is called to examine the deaths of five women, each found with a bird in her chest cavity. When other investigators take the case in a wrong direction, Caffery risks his new position to find the truth. His search is at times gruesome but always compelling. As a first book in a potential series, Birdman is recommended for larger public libraries. -AJane Jorgenson, Madison P.L., WI Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Kirkus Reviews Britains best actors are probably already queuing up to audition for the TV miniseries that will inevitably (and rightly) be made from this top-notch debut thriller, a deftly plotted assault on the nerves whose only serious weakness is its over indebtednessfor crucial horrendous detailson Thomas Harriss already seminal The Silence of the Lambs. Protagonist Jack Caffery, a streetwise and burnt-out detective inspector in his early 30s, is introduced to us as the bearer of several potentially crippling burdens, including relationships with a lover he cant bring himself to abandon (she being a recovering cancer patient), a rival detective dedicated to putting Caffery in his place, and the haunting memory of his brothers unexplained disappearance and probable murder, years earlier, by Jacks grinning next-door neighbor, who seems perpetually to dare the detective to accuse him. Then, a series of grisly murders of strippers and prostitutes, whose surgically mutilated bodies are discovered near the millennium dome in Greenwich, sets Jack and colleagues in pursuit of the target, immediately dubbed the Millennium Ripper. The story zips along energetically, helped enormously by Hayders gift for introducing colorful peripheral characters at virtually every stage. Then a highborn, emotionally disturbed loner enters, and Hayder juxtaposes his murderous memories and fantasies against Cafferys ongoing investigationbefore springing another trap that suggests the possibility of an accomplice, and the final hundred pages gather terrific intensity, leading to a powerfully ugly finale. Genre clichs are not entirely avoided: Jack falls for the tough-but-tenderhearted girlfriend of one of the victims, and of course it is she who walks into the monsters lair at precisely the worst moment . . . . No matter. Birdman preys on the readers expectations expertly, and Hayder handles her storys (perhaps unnecessarily?) complicated time scheme with enviable assurance. Graphic, disturbing, splendidly readable. (Literary Guild alternate selection; author tour) -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. From the Inside Flap ightmare is his dream come true....A relentless debut novel filled with cutting-edge forensic and investigative detail, Birdman marks the arrival of a uniquely talented writer.Detective Jack Caffery--young, driven, and seemingly unshockable--catches a career-making or career-breaking homicide in his first case as lead investigator with London's crack murder squad.xa0xa0A young woman's body has been discovered, dumped on wasteland near the Millennium Dome site in Greenwich, England. It's the most brutal degradation of the human form that the squad has ever uncovered. Caffery's well-deserved reputation is that of the most stoic of detectives, but his initial inspection of the corpse will forever sear his psyche.One by one, four more corpses are discovered only steps away from the first. Five bodies, all young women, all ritualistically murdered with cunning precision. And when a postmortem examination reveals a singular, macabre signature link Mo Hayder was born in Essex, England. After leaving school at fifteen, she worked as a barmaid, security guard, filmmaker, hostess in a Tokyo club, educational administrator, and teacher of English as a foreign language in Vietnam.xa0xa0She now makes her home in London. Birdman is her first novel. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. NORTH GREENWICH. Late May. Three hours before sunup and the river was deserted. Dark barges strained upstream on their moorings and a spring tide gently nosed small sloops free of the sludge they slept in. A mist lifted from the water, rolling inland, past unlit chandlers, over the deserted Millennium Dome and on across lonely wastelands, strange, lunar landscapes--until it settled, a quarter of a mile inland amongst the ghostly machinery of a half-derelict construction yard.A sudden sweep of headlights--a police vehicle swung into the service route, blue lights flashing silently. It was joined moments later by a second and a third. Over the next twenty minutes more police converged on the yard--eight marked area cars, two plain Ford Sierras and the white transit van of the forensic camera team. A roadblock was placed at the head of the service route and local uniform were detailed to seal off riverside access. The first attending CID officer got onto Croydon exchange, asking for pager numbers for the Area Major Investigation Pool and, five miles away, Detective Inspector Jack Caffery, AMIP team B, was woken in his bed.He lay blinking in the dark, collecting his thoughts, fighting the impulse to tilt back into sleep. Then, taking a deep breath, he made the effort--rolled out of bed and went into the bathroom, splashing water onto his face--no more Glenmorangies in standby week, Jack, swear it now, swear it--and dressed--not too hurried, better to arrive fully awake and composed--now the tie, something understated--CID don't like us looking flashier than them. The pager, and coffee, lots of instant coffee--with sugar but not milk, no milk--and above all, don't eat, you just never know what you're going to have to look at--drank two cups, found car keys in the pocket of his jeans and, bolted awake now on caffeine, a roll-up between his teeth, drove through the deserted streets of Greenwich to the crime scene, where his superior, Detective Superintendent Steve Maddox, a small, prematurely gray man, immaculate as always in a stone-brown suit, waited for him outside the construction yard--pacing under a solitary streetlight, spinning car keys and chewing his lip.He saw Jack's car pull up, crossed to him, put an elbow on the roof, leaned through the open window and said: "I hope you haven't just eaten."Caffery dragged on the handbrake. He pulled cigarettes and tobacco from the dashboard. "Great. Just what I was hoping to hear.""This one's well past its sell-by." He stepped back as Jack climbed out of the car. "Female, partly buried. Bang in the middle of the wasteland.""Been in, have you?""No, no. Divisional CID briefed me. And, um--" He glanced over his shoulder to where the local CID officers stood in a huddle. When he turned back his voice was low. "There's been an autopsy on her. The old Y zipper."Jack paused, his hand on the car door. "An autopsy?""Yup.""Then it's probably gone walkabout from a path lab.""I know--""A med student prank--""I know, I know." Maddox held hands up, stalling him. "It's not really our territory, but look--" He checked over his shoulder again and leaned in closer. "Look, they're pretty good with us usually, Greenwich CID. Let's humor them. It won't kill us to have a quick look. Okay?""Okay.""Good. Now." He straightened up. "Now you. How about you? Reckon you're ready?""Shit, no." Caffery slammed the door, pulled his warrant card from his pocket and shrugged. "Of course I'm not ready. When would I ever be?" They headed for the entrance, moving along the perimeter fence. The only light was the weak sodium yellow of the scattered streetlamps, the occasional white flash of the forensic camera crew floods sweeping across the wasteland. A mile beyond, dominating the northern skyline, the luminous Millennium Dome, its red aircraft lights blinking against the stars."She's been stuck in a bin-liner or something," Maddox said. "But it's so dark out there, the first attending couldn't be sure--his first suspicious circumstances and it's put the wind up him." He jerked his head toward a group of cars. "The Merc. See the Merc?""Yeah." Caffery didn't break step. A heavy-backed man in a camel overcoat hunched over in the front seat, speaking intently to a CID officer."The owner. A lot of tarting-up going around here, what with the Millennium thing. Says last week he took on a team to clear the place up. They probably disturbed the grave without knowing it, a lot of heavy machinery, and then at oh one hundred hours--"He paused at the gate and they showed warrant cards, logged on with the PC and ducked under the crime scene tape."And then at oh one hundred hours this A.M., three lads were out here doing something dodgy with a can of Evostick and they stumbled on her. They're down at the station now. The CSC'll tell us more. She's been in."Detective Sergeant Fiona Quinn, the crime scene coordinator, down from the Yard, waited for them in a floodlit clearing next to a Portakabin, ghostly in her white Tyvek overalls, solemnly pulling back the hood as they approached.Maddox did the introductions."Jack, meet DS Quinn. Fiona--my new DI, Jack Caffery."Caffery approached, hand extended. "Good to meet you.""You too, sir." The CSC snapped off latex gloves and shook Caffery's hand. "Your first. Isn't it?""With AMIP, yes.""Well, I wish I had a nicer one for you. Things are not very lovely in there. Not very lovely at all. Something's split the skull open--machinery, probably. She's on her back." She leaned back to demonstrate, her arms out, her mouth open. In the half-light Caffery could see the glint of amalgam fillings. "From waist down is buried under precast concrete, the side of a pavement or something.""Been there long?""No, no. A rough guess"--she pulled the glove back on and handed Maddox a cotton face mask--"less than a week; but too long to be worth rushing a "special.' I think you should wait until daylight to drag the pathologist out of bed. He'll give you more when he's got her in the pit and seen about insect activity. She's semi-interred, half wrapped in a dustbin liner: that'll've made a difference.""The pathologist," Caffery said. "You sure we need a pathologist? CID think there's been an autopsy.""That's right.""And you still want us to see her?""Yes." Quinn's face didn't change. "Yes, I still think you need to see her. We're not talking about a professional autopsy."Maddox and Caffery exchanged glances. A moment's silence and Jack nodded."Right. Right, then." He cleared his throat, took the gloves and face mask Quinn offered and quickly tucked his tie inside his shirt. "Come on, then. Let's have a look." Even with the protective gloves, old CID habit made Caffery walk with hands in pockets. From time to time he lost sight of DS Quinn's flagged forensics torch, giving him moments of unease--this far into the yard it was dark: the camera crew had finished and were shut in their white van, copying the master tape. Now the only light source was the dim, chemical glow of the fluorescent tape the CSC had used to outline objects either side of the path, protecting them until AMIP's exhibits officer arrived to label and bag. They hovered in the mist like inquisitive ghosts, faint green outlines of bottles, crumpled cans, something shapeless which might have been a T-shirt or a towel. Conveyor belts and bridge cranes rose eighty feet and more into the night sky around them, gray and silent as an out-of-season roller coaster.Quinn held a hand up to stop them."There," she told Caffery. "See her? Just lying on her back.""Where?""See the oil drum?" She let the torch slide over it."Yes.""And the two reinforcing rods to its right?""Yes.""Follow that down."Jesus."See it?""Yes." He steadied himself. "Okay. I see it."That? That's a body? He'd thought it was a piece of expanding foam, the type fired from an aerosol, so distended and yellow and shiny it was. Then he saw hair and teeth and recognized an arm. And at last, by tilting his head on one side, he understood what he was looking at."Oh, for Christ's sake," Maddox said wearily. "Come on, then. Someone stick an Inci over her." Read more