The Murder Channel

Rating:
Summary: The Murder Channel
Review: A shlocky style is featured here to tell what is actually a fairly well-conceived mystery. Oh yes, despite all the noise and pyrotechnics, there's a puzzle to try and figure out.

Felix Zrbny is AWOL for his day in a Boston courtroom, because he's busy escaping from an overturned truck. In fiction, so many criminals benefit from a flipped vehicle, it's amazing. Anyway, he had killed three people fifteen years earlier, and a forensic psychiatrist named Lucas Frank--no longer required in the courtroom, because the hearing will be indefinitely postponed--becomes Boston's best bet for figuring out Zrbny's next moves. Lucas Frank also comes to realize that the facts of the fifteen-year-old case jes doan add up right (no one else seems to have questioned a few blatantly obvious inconsistencies).

Felix Zrbny has a specific agenda that ties him to a TV channel called Boston Trial Television; it seems there may be a few people working there who don't just want to report the news, they want to make the news...while getting exlusive rights to Zrbny, of course. Well, psychokillers in these novels have a tendency to turn on their sanctimonious allies, don't they?--be they fast-talking lawyers, bad cops, or yes, greasy tabloid TV producers.

Author Philpin is never able to excise the unreal, high-concept feel of this outlandish tale. But he saves himself with a surprisingly clever plot, where it slowly becomes clear how many of these colourful characters all link up in regards to what happened when three people died fifteen years earlier. Our hero Lucas Frank comes across more as a former Viet Nam vet type--a hot-headed toughguy with attitude, this forensic psychiatrist. And I leave it to you to decide where Zrbny fits in among the ranks of the pyschokillers inhabiting these novels; his sociopathic speeches are definitely intriguing. Does he really see the fall of humanity exemplified in overuse of backpacks. I admit that I too have wondered what people feel they need to carry so incessantly, in all these things they strap to their backs, but really!

Read it for the mystery, and the shlock.

Rating:
Summary: Philpin does it again...
Review: Fifteen years ago teenager Felix Zrbny finished his paper route, picked up a knife and slaughtered three woman in his neighborhood. Since that time he has been institutionalized. On the way to a hearing for his release, Felix is accidentally allowed to escape. Now he is loose in the streets of Boston, getting ready to take up where he left off. Lucas Frank, a retired forensic psychiatrist, was brought in to testify at the hearing, and now finds himself drawn into the search for Felix by his old friend Ray Bolton. In the meantime Zrbny is hiding under the cover of a record snowstorm that has blanketed Boston.

Frank and Bolton quickly discover that there are other forces at work, that other agendas are interfering with their manhunt. Wendy Pouldice, owner of Boston Trial Television has kept in touch with Felix since his sister was kidnapped, two years before his first murder spree. BTT cameras seem to appear wherever Felix is. Is Wendy using her connection with Felix to increase her station's marketshare? Dermott Fremont is head of Vigil a militia group that seems to have it's own plan for Felix. They too seem to show up everywhere, usually with bloody results. Neville Waycross has become a street monk after Felix killed his wife. He joins in the hunt, but his motivation is unclear.

Philpin chooses to alternate narration between Frank and Zrbny. Normally I don't like dual narration, but both characters are so interesting that this device works perfectly. Frank, after too many rough cases in Boston, has retired to Northern Michigan, where he relishes the quiet and the isolation. Frank is not a classic courtroom psychiatrist. Instead he is every bit as involved as any other investigator. Frank, bluffs, bullies, shoots, and finesses his way to the facts that will help him to get inside Zrbny's head.

And Zrbny's head turns out to be a very interesting place! As the story gradually fills in the blanks in his past, Zrbny become an almost sympathetic character. Of imposing size and intelligence, Felix displays both psychotic and sociopathic traits, making him and extremely dangerous killer. But he is aware of his psychological state and understands that he is using death as a way to manipulate symbols in the public eye. He is also capable of concern and conscience in his relationships. He has a sense of honor, and he is capable of remarkable insights into human behavior. I wouldn't call him sympathetic, but the reader will feel an attraction to him.

The drama builds in unexpected fashion to a truly surprising conclusion. Philpin displays fine writing skills, knowing just when to describe, when to build character, and when to move the plot forward. This is the fourth Lucas Frank novel Philpin has written or collaborated on, and I fully intend to read the others. If you are a fan of the serial killer genre put "The Murder Channel" on your must buy list.

Marc Ruby - for The Mystery Reader

Rating:
Summary: Philpin tops my list!
Review: First there was John Wolf ("The Prettiest Feathers," and "Tunnel of Night"), then Lily Dorman ("Dreams in the Key of Blue"), and now Felix Zrbny lights up "The Murder Channel." Philpin's villains are complex and intriguing, and his anti-hero, Dr. Lucas Frank, is a crafty, crusty, impatient genius at solving crime. In this book, Lucas grumps about police logs, takes time out to eat his favorite German food, gets a gun shoved in his face by a darling senior citizen, and wonders whether we have more murders or just better TV coverage. Interestingly Felix Zrbny wonders about many of the same things Lucas does. I knew Philpin bases most of his stories on real events and I searched for something similar to this one but had no luck. It's another treat anyway. Can't wait for the next one.

Rating:
Summary: Philpin tops my list!
Review: First there was John Wolf ("The Prettiest Feathers," and "Tunnel of Night"), then Lily Dorman ("Dreams in the Key of Blue"), and now Felix Zrbny lights up "The Murder Channel." Philpin's villains are complex and intriguing, and his anti-hero, Dr. Lucas Frank, is a crafty, crusty, impatient genius at solving crime. In this book, Lucas grumps about police logs, takes time out to eat his favorite German food, gets a gun shoved in his face by a darling senior citizen, and wonders whether we have more murders or just better TV coverage. Interestingly Felix Zrbny wonders about many of the same things Lucas does. I knew Philpin bases most of his stories on real events and I searched for something similar to this one but had no luck. It's another treat anyway. Can't wait for the next one.

Rating:
Summary: Surprising & chilling....
Review: is Philpin's tale of a serial killer, at loose in a snowstorm in the Boston area that almost shuts the city down. Relatively unheralded, Philpin's hero, Lucas Frank, a forensic psychologist with a bent for action is funny, insightful and makes the book difficult to put down.

Philpin alternately narrarates the book from Lucas' point of view, and that of the serial killer, Felix Zrbny (whose chapters are in italics). Generally, I feel that when authors trade off narration between characters, I'm always spinning through the chapters from the storyteller I don't like, to get to the ones I do. That is not the case here - Zrbny is as intricately drawn as Lucas himself, and, you find it difficult to believe that what draws him to kill and to seek his freedom from an institution is a need to be famous, to seek prime-time notoriety. It just doesn't fit with the Felix you come to know through the chapters he narrates; in part, you are drawn to his humanity, although it is obvious that, in his delusions, he is a most dangerous man.

There are some interesting supporting characters - media types from the BTT (the local Boston version of Court TV), the institution that Felix has called home for 15 years, Lucas' friend Bolton, who draws him into the case, and the husband of one of the early victims, Waycross, who comes into play in an unusual twist of plot late in the novel.

This is a nearly perfect book, a little less so because some of the violence is overplayed and unnecessary. It certainly has interested me in the works of Philpin, who combines the best attributes of a thriller with the sardonic wit of the hero.

A real find....read it soon!

Rating:
Summary: Almost too real!
Review: Lucas Frank returns to Boston to do a favor for his old detective friend Ray Bolton. Mass murderer Felix Zrbny has petitioned for release from the mental hospital where he's been confined for the past 15 years, and Bolton wants Frank's opinion on the killer's dangerousness. A winter storm hits the city, an urban militia invades the courthouse, Zrbny escapes while on his way to court, and the media's eye absorbs it all and distorts it for public consumption. Now Dr. Frank wishes he hadn't left his retreat in the Michigan woods. In "The Murder Channel," Philpin writes in a brisk, lean style reminiscent of TV news reporters, and of Boston writer George V. Higgins. None of Philpin's books are for the squeamish, and this one is no exception. The mind probing betrays Philpin's past as an investigative psychologist and as always is terrifyingly real. This one also offers a neat twist at the end. Another great read!

Rating:
Summary: Lucas Rides Again
Review: Reluctant returning hero, Dr. Lucas Frank, is back in Boston to help his police pal in a case that is almost as embarrassing to the local government as it is terrifying to the populace. Due to a gigantic bureaucratic snafu, criminally insane Felix Zrbny just might walk out of the courtroom a free man after being institutionalized for 15 years. He brutally murdered three women in his 15th year for reasons he has never divulged and claims he was "interrupted before his work was complete."

The action is fast and furious set during the worst snowstorm of the century. The flashbacks are many but work well in the context of the story. There are long sections told first-person by the deranged Felix, which are amazing because he doesn't seem amazing, merely logical. Dr. Frank is a colorful protagonist, retired, crusty, irritable and a technophobe of the first order. (He even hates to use a telephone.) The pace never lets up and some of the scenes are grim. It is cleverly plotted, but Dr. Philpen still has a tendency to telegraph his surprises.

This is a fine addition to the Lucas Frank series, not as strong as "Dream in a Key of Blue," but nevertheless absorbing and well worth reading.

Rating:
Summary: A great profiling police procedural
Review: Several years ago, forensic psychiatrist Lucas Frank closed down his Beacon Street practice because he was weary of profiling mass murderers and other inhuman monsters. He retreated to Lake Albert, Michigan and rejected all efforts to return to his previous work. However, now he will take on the occasional interesting case even reluctantly returning to Boston to do so though hating to leave his haven.

Lucas' best friend Ray Bolton asks him to observe the hearings of Felix Zrbny, who at twenty-nine, wants to be released from the psychiatric facility he was remanded to as a fourteen year old cold blooded killer of three people. Before Lucas arrives, Felix escapes to complete his murderous mission that was interrupted by the police fifteen years ago. Lucas assists the Boston police in their desperate search to keep other innocents from dying.

John Philpin creates a villain that obtains reader empathy as Felix selects his victims from those he believes deserves death for what they allegedly did to him. Lucas is an observer who predicts actions and motives of others without participating in the hunt. However, Lucas admits that he remains in the dark when it comes to understanding Felix. THE MURDER CHANNEL depicts the media as a participant in making the news adding to a drama that leaves the audience shaking their head yet feeling they read a remarkable novel.

Harriet Klausner

Rating:
Summary: THIS CHANNEL NEEDS TO GO OFF AIR!
Review: This was one of the worst serial killer thrillers I have ever read. I found the entire novel incredibly boring, sluggish, and unsuspenseful. The main character, Lucas Frank, was poorly developed and Felix, the killer, did not seem like a good candidate for a serial killer. It was a good thing that this novel was short because, the book was not exciting and seemed to take a long time to get through, even though it was only 322 pages. I did not like the ending either. I felt John Philpin did not do a good job with the conclusion of this novel. There were so many flashbacks throughout the entire novel that it drove me crazy. I have read many good novels this year, but "The Murder Channel" was definitely not one of them. Be smart and save your money.

Rating:
Summary: The Murder Channel
Review: Thsi has been the most difficult book to follow I have ever read, and believe me I've read many. The back and forth between the reporter, the psychologist and the criminal makes for need of a score card. Normally when I read a good book, I go and purchase all other books by the author, in this case I would be afraid. If his other writings are remotely like this one, I wish to steer clear.