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    The Killing Circle
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    The Killing Circle
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    The Killing Circle
    Ebook369 pages7 hours

    The Killing Circle

    By Andrew Pyper

    3/5

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    About this ebook

    A spine-chilling, mind-twisting new psychological thriller in which a writing circle is haunted by a serial killer, from the acclaimed author of Lost Girls.

    Some People Will Do Anything For A Good Story

    Nothing seems to be going right for journalist Patrick Rush. Recently widowed, he's now bringing up a young son by himself. At work, he finds himself demoted to anonymous TV critic. It's time to do something.

    So he joins a creative writing circle in hope of realizing a life-long dream – to write a novel of his own. But this circle is somewhat … unorthodox. The sessions are conducted in darkness, lit only by candles. Their shadowy leader has only recently come out of exile. And to make matters creepier, a gruesome serial killer is prowling the streets of Toronto – with an M.O. which bears more than a passing similarity to one circle member's tale about a child-snatcher called The Sandman.

    But how could one sinister story have an effect on the real world? Could there be a connection, and if so, who's involved? As the line between fact and fiction becomes increasingly hazy, Patrick decides to cut all contact with the circle – until he finds that once you're in this book group, there's only one way out…

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins UK
    Release dateOct 15, 2009
    ISBN9780007347544
    Unavailable
    The Killing Circle
    Author

    Andrew Pyper

    Andrew Pyper is the internationally bestselling author of ten previous novels, including The Demonologist, which won the International Thriller Writers award for Best Hardcover Novel, and The Killing Circle, which was selected a New York Times Best Crime Novel of the Year. He lives in Toronto. Visit AndrewPyper.com and follow him on Twitter @AndrewPyper.

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    Reviews for The Killing Circle

    3/5

    27 ratings26 reviews

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    • 3/5
      I was really into this book for the first half and then it took all my willpower to finish the book. It starts with a bang and an interesting premise but then it looses steam. Mediocre thriller at best.
    • 3/5
      Patrick Rush, a journalist who wants to try his hand at writing fiction, joins a local writer's circle. A woman is found murdered in Patrick's neighborhood and on a note found the killer has taken his name from a character in a fellow student's work. When Patrick''s son goes missing, it becomes personal. Explores the dark side pf a writer's mind.
    • 4/5
      Patrick Rush is a widow who is bringing up his son Sam. He decides to join a writing group which has a mixed bag of members. One by one the members start to end up dead or missing. Then there is only Patrick left.This book I found quite different. For a change it was a crime story but not police procedure. At times I felt that the book was bordering on horror /fantasy. I enjoyed Patricks narrative of events and was really into the story. I was hoping for a satisfactory ending and was not disappointed on that score at all. I enjoyed the story and didnt guess who was the perp and was even more pleased with the twist as it gave the book that final edge. There were a couple of events in tne book that I felt were slightly unbelievable but it didnt detract from the story.I haven't read any books by this author before and having read this one I would read more by this author
    • 3/5
      The writing itself kept me really engaged, and there are a LOT of exquisitely rendered and thought provoking moments in this novel. But for me, the plot just became too ludicrous and by the end it had stretched my willingness to suspend belief way beyond breaking. But I would definitely keep an eye out for other titles by this author.
    • 4/5
      Well, I finally finished this thriller about a bunch of writers and a serial killer set in modern-day Toronto, and it only took me a month. (Fair's fair: it took the publisher over a year to get the ER copy to me. :) While I was reading it, it went fast and I enjoyed it, but each time I put it down I found it hard to pick up again. At least until I was 4/5 though, when I read to the end in one sitting.This is a story within a story within a story, and as a plot device it works okay. I didn't figure out the killer before the ending, although I can't say I cared enough to try. I thought some of the twists in the plot were a bit out there and had to work hard to suspend my skepticism as to the actions of certain of the characters, especially the main character and narrator, a wanna-be writer and, at least in the beginning, a TV critic for a newspaper who twigged early on to the danger he and his son were in but who never seemed to do anything in particular to save himself and his son. As a matter of fact, I never quite connected with any of the characters, even the main character's son, who could have been great but who was never quite real to me, and the ending was somewhat implausible and unsatisfying. Finally, I never really got a feeling for Toronto and feel the story could have been set in any big city in North America. As a disclaimer, thrillers are not my favorite subgenre, although I do read them and number a few of them among my top 100 favorite novels. Could be I'm just too picky.
    • 4/5
      I couldn't put this book down! It was wonderfully creepy and every time I started to think I had it figured out along came another twist.
    • 4/5
      Roared through in two days. The end felt anticlimactic, but I sure liked the ride. I liked how Pyper played with the protagonist's desires for writing and audience, which felt grossly familiar to me. I read this right before Richard Price's Lush Life, which interestingly also plays with the question of writing and identity and failure in a thriller setting.
    • 5/5
      This book was fantastic! I couldn't put it down. At first I wasn't real sure I would enjoy. I in't like the iea of it. Seeme kind of unrealistic. But as I read it the drama and emotions made it really feel realistic. The emotions were so real. You could really relate to everything the character was feeling even if you hadn't been in the situations before. Great book. Deffinately recomend it.
    • 4/5
      I almost didn't get started on the book after the first couple of slighty confusing pages. I stuck it through though, and did partially figure out the ending early, but not everything. Overall the book does maintain a certain tension through a dream-like, somewhat surreal attitude. It follows a mind that is looking for solutions and a protection for his son, at any cost. The hallucinatory aspects of the principal character's mind, darting off in different directions, do show someone who formulates a possible answer to what they're going through, no matter how off the wall it might be, then discards it for another. All the while, people are dying around him.Not a book I would normally read, but I did, and I enjoyed it. Don't read it in a skimming way though, because the language used was obviously formulated to show the confusion and pathways a person under extreme stress would take.
    • 5/5
      This book was fantastic. The drama the excitment I couldn't put it down. The story woven was something I felt as if I was there. I couldn't wait to see what was going to happen next. Not my usual genre and I am so glad I read it. Sending it to all my friends to read and get a taste of "The Killing Circle".
    • 1/5
      It took me 6 days to force myself to read this book. The firstchapter was about the only interesting read. From there it became more and more confusing. I got the gist of the story. A widower with a young son who is a newspaper columnist wanna be novelist joins a writer's workshop only to discover he doesn't have anything to contribute to the group. The group is made up of some rather strange characters, and as the weeks pass, there are abductions and murders in the area that may be connected to the group. There is a jump in time of several years and the main character is now a successful novelist whose first book has made him a household name although he apparently stole his material from one of the writers in the workshop he attended in the past. Slowly the members of that workshop turn up dead and our author becomes a person of interest to the police in these homicides. Meanwhile, the real killer kidnaps his son and he pursues the one he suspects responsible. How that happens and how it ends is all that's left to tell, but took me forever to reach. I will pass this on to other family readers to see if it is just me or something lacking in this book.
    • 2/5
      Who am I to question the NY Times reviewer who commented that this book was “gorgeously written and thoroughly unnerving.” This is, after all, my first attempt at a book review. I’m not even an avid reader. I did not find The Killing Circle to be gorgeously written or at all unnerving. Some of the writing I found to be in the style of old, radio, detective melodrama. That I am familiar with since I listen to it daily.Phrases like “the void that yawns between the doorway and the window” and “candles oozing wax” are amateurish. I can’t even relate to “A low grinding, like air forced through wet sand.” Under what circumstance is that descriptive? Rosemary’s Baby was unnerving. The Exorcist was unnerving. All of Poe and most of Steven King keeps the reader in a state of fear, panic, suspense. I can still hear Poe’s beating heart and see the face of Cujo dripping saliva and blood. Perhaps I should not have read the cover remarks of this book first. Perhaps I would have had lesser expectations. I found the pace to be slow. I was easily past the 200 page mark before any interest in the characters was sparked. I did like the detective, Ramsay. He seemed to have the most character development and interest. I would have liked to hear more from him. I liked the story but the “who done it” devices were flat and obvious. I was not able to figure out the ending in advance, however. It is an easy gimmick to fool the reader with…well you can read that for yourself if you are so inclined. This was not a compelling or moving read. Would I recommend it? Well, I am giving the book to my colleague along with these comments. The choice is hers. And yours.P.S., She declined.
    • 2/5
      A blurb readsA spine-chilling, mind-twisting psychological thriller — Andrew Pyper’s most gripping novel yet — in which a writing circle is haunted by a serial killer.I seem to be the only reader who did not enjoy this book. I am not a fan of writing negative reviews of fiction: the things that can turn a reader off from a book are so subjective that they wouldn't necessarily apply to anyone else, and I would hate to discourage another reader from taking a chance on what is almost universally praised as "Frightening and action-packed" (Los Angeles Times), "Spookily terrific" (Winnipeg Free Press), "One great read: darkly lyrical and atmospheric, it's as haunting as it is gripping. Highly recommended" (Harlan Coben).I'll just note that there were stylistic elements that did not agree with me, and that unfortunately harmed what is undoubtedly a good read.
    • 4/5
      Pyper has a talent for creating creepy scenarios which somehow seep into real life. This time, he uses a story within a story creating a mirror effect to loose the reader in the possibilities of horror. I particularly enjoyed walking down the streets of Toronto - it makes the story that much lively. Pyper has a vivid imagination and although this is not his best, it's definitely a thrill.
    • 3/5
      Just ok. I sped read through last half just to finish it. Author's wife dies and he's left w/their young son to pick up the pieces. Joins a writing circle 'cause he's always wanted to be a published writer. Steals someone's story from the circle and publishes it as his own. Body count mounts.
    • 2/5
      The Killing Circle is a typical Whodunnit crime thriller, centring around a writer's circle. The highly susceptible nature of the writers mind is the propellant for the story, and as such is able to twist the story at any turn. This is also used to blend the lines between what is real and what is imaginary (or potentially supernatural). However, the story itself is never gripping enough, and subsequently these factors above are easily identified as the drivers of this book, rather than content and suspension of disbelief. Ultimately, the book is frustrating and never builds any likeable characters and as a result is quite forgettable.
    • 3/5
      Patrick Rush, a journalist who wants to try his hand at writing fiction, joins a local writer's circle. A woman is found murdered in Patrick's neighborhood and on a note found the killer has taken his name from a character in a fellow student's work. When Patrick''s son goes missing, it becomes personal. Explores the dark side pf a writer's mind.
    • 2/5
      I couldn't finish it... It was too slow, nothing spectacular happening, probably too long to build up. Yet I had this nagging feeling that it would turn up to be a great book.... Saddly, I got bored before the end and couldn't get myself to finish it.
    • 1/5
      This was a difficult read for me to complete. Although I share Patrick Rush's desire to be a writer I don't think I would be able to do what he eventually did. He was a very unlikeable person, the only part that somewhat redeemed him was his relationship to his son.
    • 3/5
      As I read this book I felt like some of the pages had been left out. I had missed something along the way. I could never get into the skin of Patrick, could never see the characters through his eyes, feel his emotion. When you can't feel emotion for characters in a book it becomes a chore and reading should never be that. The book started out an entertaining journey, but ended up a rainy literary trip.
    • 3/5
      Let me be frank. I love fiction of almost all kinds, but what really hooks me into any book is its characters. Without well-drawn, richly layered characters, I find it very difficult to connect with any story, be it never so well-plotted. I am an avid mystery reader, and I love the thrill of trying to keep up with the intricacies of an unfolding plot. But I found it very hard to keep my attention focused on this book. There was simply nothing in any of the characters I could grab hold of – they seemed more like hollow shells than real people I cared about. That may be why the murder mystery itself failed to engage me. The first part of Andrew Pyper’s latest murder mystery THE KILLING CIRCLE, races right along. Literary critic Patrick Rush has always dreamt of writing a novel, of being a published author instead of the one who reports on other people’s work. Rush has been waiting all his life for that magical first line, “the way in” to the book he feels it is his destiny to write. He’s worked his way up in the world of journalism, from writing freelance articles for little read periodicals to a regular position as a columnist at a national newspaper. But all is not well in Patrick Rush’s world. After a brief period of married happiness and new fatherhood, Patrick’s wife dies and leaves him to cope with the myriad issues of single parenting; and he sees his job at the newspaper shrinking from literary critic to entertainment reporter to TV show reviewer. Since Rush despises television and popular culture in general, this is anything but his ideal job. He still dreams of opening the New York Times Review of Books to see a review of his yet unbirthed novel.Rush joins a neighborhood literary circle – a small group of would be writers who meet weekly under the auspices of an older, published literary name, to listen to each others’ work in progress and engage, not in criticism, but in conversation with each other.The literary circle has more than its share of odd, and even frightening characters. There’s the hulking, almost silent giant, who work is painfully banal and whose very presence is menacing. There’s the subway train driver who is too shy to make eye contact, but dreams of making the people he glimpses on train platforms live as individuals through his words. Add in the rich divorcee for whom the literary circle is another attempt at self-improvement, and the overweight, blubber-lipped twenty-something geek, who likes to write because it allows him to become different people, and the elusive, wraith-like Angela, whose very appearance eludes description. As the circle begins to operate, Patrick discovers that not only has he still not found his magical “way in” to his dreamed of novel, but his writing talent pales in comparison to Angela’s. Not only that, but people in his neighborhood start turning up dead; and folks in his literature circle begin to report strange stalking incidents. Rush believes his own home may be a target of the stalker.THE KILLING CIRCLE has all the ingredients of a terrific murder mystery – even if many of these have already been used by other authors in other books. And Pyper is a skilled writer. But I felt oddly distant from all the characters peopling this book. Even Rush, the bereaved single father, who ends up both unemployed and later on a famous published author, seems oddly unrealized. For a single parent, Patrick Rush seems strangely unconcerned with both the daily nuts and bolts of fatherhood, and the normal concerns of any unemployed person with a mortgage to meet, grocery bills to pay, and childcare to arrange. Even his major moment of moral turpitude is strangely devoid of any real emotional turmoil. Considering he’s the novel’s protagonist, Patrick Rush seemed strangely removed from everything going on his life. Repeated questioning of his own sanity and observations don’t add the needed depth to this oddly incomplete character. Even an unreliable narrator should be interesting enough, real enough to keep the reader’s interest, but Patrick Rush seems more like a roughly drawn sketch than a fully realized human being. And the rest of the novel’s cast is equally obscure, when they’re not simple caricatures. There simply was no character in this novel whose fate I cared about.So there you have it. This book has all the ingredients for a great thriller, but even the clever plot could not compensate for its one and two dimensional characters. The book reads much more like a screenplay than a fully fleshed out novel. I was not at all surprised to read that THE KILLING CIRCLE has already been optioned for a feature film. It will probably make a better movie than it did a novel.
    • 3/5
      The Killing Circle by Andrew Pyper is an ambiguous novel. The novel opens with Patrick Rush, a widowed father and successful novelist going to a drive-in movie with his eight year old son. When his son disappears, we learn of Patrick’s past, when he was still an aspiring author and joined a writer’s workshop called the Kensington Circle. After a woman goes missing in his neighborhood, he and the other attendees believe there is a connection between a story being written by one of the would-be authors and these crimes. Patrick struggles with his roles as widower, father, failing journalist and would be author. He must examine the darker workings of his own mind and his past in order to understand who has taken his son and why. I really had a hard time getting into this novel. However, I don’t think it was the books fault, I think the failing was all mine. It is very well written, the narrative flows very well, the story is paced so to not give away anything and really keep the reader guessing. I think the problem was that I just couldn’t connect at all with the main character. I really didn’t like him very much. In fact I didn’t actually like anyone in the book, with the exception of Sam, Patrick’s son. I had a bit of trouble with Sam, I found him immensely likeable, but way too precocious for a kid his age. But I also understand that a boy raised from infancy by a single man, a reader, may just be that well spoken. I think I was supposed to like and empathize with Patrick, however, and I just couldn’t. Its hard to feel involved in a novel like this when there is a disconnect of sorts between the character and the reader. I would like to find fault with the ending of the novel, it is quite ambiguous and could be taken two ways. But I actually thought that was the best part. It appeals to the Pollyanna nature of readers such as myself, we can assume a happy Hollywood ending, and yet it would also appeal to readers who prefer darker and more realistic endings. I think I just wasn’t in the mood for this type of novel. This might have been a perfect read for a dreary stormy week, when after a long, cold, wet day, I could have curled up by the fireplace and read for hours. I can see how this book could have the ability to almost cast a spell over the reader at such times. Unfortunately, I was reading in the bright, hot and sunny dog days of summer, with lots of distractions. The atmosphere and mood just wasn’t right, and my enjoyment of the novel suffered because of it.The Killing Circle will be released on Sept. 16, 2008
    • 3/5
      A widower with a young son joins a writing group. A handful of people who want to be writers, along with the group's leader, share their stories. At the same time, a series of disappearances occur in the neighborhood. While I found the plot of the book intriguing - a group of strangers sharing choice bits of their stories to one another gathered closely in the dark - I found the book lacking the focus and engagement I was looking for.Not much is revealed about the main character, other than that he's a devoted (though not terribly engaged) father, and a journalist. Mostly though, what's told about the main character doesn't make him particularly real or likable, and the story's momentum and ending suffer for it.In retrospect, I think the story would have been far more interesting and engagin if told from the point of view of the young woman who originally tells the story of "The Sandman".
    • 4/5
      This is not your typical thriller. While there is certainly a mystery afoot, we are viewing so much of it through the internal lens of the narrator.It's a very creepy book, and I certainly wanted to keep turning the pages! It was impossible to be sure of what was going on at all times, since the narrator himself was uncertain. The idea of the Sandman is so central to the plot that at times you think maybe it really is a paranormal mystery.An interesting read and an interesting book, I'd definitely check out more books by this author.
    • 4/5
      Andrew Pyper wrote a wonderful first book called Lost Girls. I remember thinking how proud I was that he was Canadian. So, of course, when his most recent book became available for review, I jumped on it. The Killing Circle is a "thriller/mystery/whodunnit". What I like about Pyper is that you can never really categorize his books in just one area.In this newest entry, our main character Patrick Rush is an ordinary guy, who is down on his luck. His wife just recently died and somehow, his writing career at the paper seems to be on a downward spiral. He longs to write "that" novel, but somehow does not seem to have much to say.In an attempt to get some ideas and rejuvenate himself, he joins a writing circle - which at first glance appears to be a mistake - until he meets Angela. Angela is a mother, but she tells tales of this Sandman - a horrible man who comes into the night and does horrible things. Rush finds himself fascinated and returns, week after week to hear more. The only problem is - the Sandman appears to be real - a dark man has appeared and is re-creating the grisly scenes that are "imanaged" and "told" by Angela.Rush gets this idea - should he offer to write the "true story" of these murders? and why do they sound so familiar? how can this be happening? It is very difficult to write this review without giving anything away. As always, Pyper does not use the standard thriller ploys to get the story moving along. We remain unsure of the intentions of ALL of the players until the end of the storyline. There are some serious twists along the line (one in particular that I really did not expect). I kept asking myself, is it possible that Rush has lost his mind? Pyper writes with style, he often uses poetic storytelling that lures you into a different world - only to yank you right back out with a grisly scene. He is unlike any other writer of this(ese) genre(s) I have read.On some level Pyper is the Paul Auster of the mystery world. You start off one place with the storyline and you end up at a completely different place and you never know how you got there - except that the ride was exceptional.What a wonderful read
    • 4/5
      Ah, the life of the lowly author who realizes that his output is not one that reaches the subjective level of high art, but rather belongs quite snugly under that dreaded (and equally subjective) label of popular fiction. What a crushing blow to the psyche it must be to aspire to join the esteemed ranks of Bellow, Roth, and Findley, and instead find oneself lumped in with the likes of Grisham, Koontz, and Patterson. Canadian author Andrew Pyper has been battling with this conundrum for quite some time now. A writer with a poet’s eye for atmosphere and an entertainer’s skill at building crackerjack entertainments, Pyper has found himself more often than not consigned to the shelves of popular fiction. But a) why should that be considered a bad thing, and b) who ever said an author couldn’t be both? It’s a hoary old chestnut (but true nonetheless) that Charles Dickens wrote his stories to entertain the masses, and his artistry was only truly understood and appreciated through the passage of time.Take Pyper’s debut novel Lost Girls, a story initially marketed as a John Grishamesque legal thriller. Using the well-worn plot device of a lawyer, Pyper wove a story far more thrilling than anything Grisham ever produced, layering on the themes of death, loss, grief, and memory with an artist’s touch. Lost Girls was an ‘entertainment’ in the sense that it followed a linear plot, had exciting characters and plot twists, and was in every sense a ‘page-turner’. But it was ‘literary’ in its complexity of character, its crafting of mood, its evocation of dread. Lost Girls was to a John Grisham construction as a microbrewed lager is to a can of Busch Lite; the ingredients are more or less the same, but only one shows care, craft, and character. Only one, in other words, is really any good.Pyper belongs to the rarified sphere of thriller authors who bring far more to the table than a performer’s understanding of how to draw an audience in. Like Walter Mosley and George Pelecanos, Pyper writes novels that exhilarate first and foremost, yet explore themes that would cripple lesser writers. No one of any sense would write that Mosley’s Easy Rawling novels were simply mysteries that, once solved, were to be tossed aside. They aren’t confections filled with empty calories. They stick with you; big juicy three-course meals.But maybe I’m reading too much into it. Or maybe I’m overcome with gratitude that finally, someone has written a novel with a book reviewer as the main protagonist. Either way, The Killing Circle, Pyper’s fourth novel, is his best to date.The hero is Patrick Rush, a former National Star book reviewer who has slowly descended the hierarchy of the newspaper to become what is surely the nadir of journalistic identity, the television reviewer. Stuck watching taped programs with titles such as Falling from Buildings! and Animals that Kill!, Patrick longs for what every book reviewer secretly wants; “I longed to be an embossed name on a spine, to belong to the knighthood of those selected to stand alongside their alphabetical neighbours on bookshop and library shelves. The great and nearly so, the famous and wrongly overlooked. The living and the dead.” Patrick suffers from a malady common to the frustrated author; “I could no longer open the Book Review of the Sunday Times without causing physical pain to myself. The publishers. The authors’ names. The titles. All belonging to books that weren’t mine.” No self-respecting book reviewer (or wanna-be author) will be able to resist Pyper’s accurate and caustically funny depictions of the deep-seated cravings for fame common to every person who has attempted to pen a story of their own.The problem for Patrick is not the drive to write, but rather the fact that he has nothing to say − although if you consider that he is now writing his story (or is he?), you must then assume that something interesting must have happened. Patrick joins a writing circle to help jumpstart his writing, but instead of finding an avenue into his own stories, he finds himself entranced by the disturbed writings of Angela, a member who tells stories of a childhood tragedy and a “terrible man who does terrible things.” While Patrick worries that assuming that Angela’s tales were based on fact would reveal himself as “that most lowly drooler of the true-crime racks, the literal-minded rube who demands the promise of Based on a True Story! from his paperbacks and popcorn flicks,” there are eerie parallels in the story to certain news items making headlines. It spoils nothing to reveal that the terrible man does show up and begin committing terrible things, as Pyper expertly turns the screws on the suspense, and takes a few unexpected turns along the way. The Killing Circle offers some sick and twisted fun, especially when Patrick realizes that he is living “[not] the life of one who writes or even writes about books, but a malingering lowbrow who wrongly thinks he deserves better. No wonder, when his life decides to assume the shape of literature, it isn’t a novel of ideas, but a chronicle of murder and suspicion… A bloody page-turner.” An author becoming a part of his own personal horror story is not exactly a new literary theme − Stephen King has created an entire cottage industry around the conceit − but Pyper layers his serial killer tale with a meta-layer on the importance of stories themselves to the individual. Are the stories we live important to others? When is a story truly our own? Are we even the main characters in our own lives? As Patrick muses, “Nobody lives their life as though they’ve only been cast in a grisly cameo.” Pyper takes full delight in keeping the reader guessing as to the true identity of the killer, so much so that Patrick himself cannot guarantee that he’s not making the whole thing up. He might not even be telling the story, if it’s his to tell at all.Pyper does a splendid job of lampooning the literary types who dismiss popular fictions while at the same time straddling both worlds. The Killing Circle is a terrific thriller for those who want it simple, and an exploration into personal myths and stories for those who demand a little more meat on their bones.