Some of the background history of the killer comes out, how he was horribly abused by his father and put into psychiatric care by his mother. He has blackouts and strange dreams, or maybe they are memories. But who is the killer? It seems that there could be more than one, or maybe a copycat, and for a while it becomes confusing.Īnne’s husband also starts behaving strangely following his recovery from his heart attack. Naturally the killings do start again, the bodies are cut open and organs removed in a familiar pattern, and a signature mark that resembles black lightning is found cut into the victims. This is where the story starts to get interesting.
As Kraven dies so does Glenn, just for a couple of minutes. While Kraven is being strapped into the electric chair Anne’s architect husband Glenn is suffering a massive heart attack. Kraven continues to deny responsibility for the murders and says: “When I’m dead, and it all starts again, how will you feel?” But Anne has no doubt at all that justice is being done and the real killer is to be executed. Anne Jeffers is granted one last conversation with the killer before he goes to the electric chair. Set in Seattle the book begins with the execution of serial killer Richard Kraven, closely observed by the police and the journalist who pursued his story in the media.
With ‘Black Lightning’ he looked like he was tackling something different.
He seemed to do this over and over again: ‘Suffer The Children’, ‘Punish The Sinners’, ‘Comes The Blind Fury’ etc all come to mind. I’ve not read a John Saul novel for years, often finding him fairly predictable in his plots – usually an isolated small town/community haunted by a dead child/youth etc.
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