No Sale

Patrick Conrad

If you're bored reading conventional crime novels and seek something different then this is worth a try. A serial killer is murdering young women, all the deaths modelled on murders that have occurred in films. This leads the police to suspect Victor Cox, a professor of film history, whose own wife is the first victim. The constant references to classic American movies can become slightly irritating, but, even so, this is well worth reading.

Extract

He strolls back to the living room to turn off the television, but waits for the sequence in which Gloria Wandrous wanders round Liggett's flat in a beige satin nightgown. She gives a disapproving look at the banknotes that the lawyer has left on the dressing table in the bedroom and writes on the mirror in lipstick. Cox holds his breath as he reads the first word: NO. He shuts his eyes, he dares not look. Waits a couple of seconds. He holds his hands to his face, then peeps through his fingers and reads: NO SALE. He runs to the bathroom. Even the handwriting matches: just as in the film the O that Starr has left is not completely closed.

Parallels