Poison Artist - by Jonathan Moore (Paperback)

About the Book

"An electrifying read . . . I haven't read anything so terrifying since Red Dragon." --Stephen King

Book Synopsis

"An electrifying read . . . I haven't read anything so terrifying since Red Dragon." -- Stephen King

"Magnificent, thoroughly unnerving . . . I dare you to look away." -- Justin Cronin

Caleb Maddox is a San Francisco toxicologist studying the chemical effects of pain. He's out drinking after a bad breakup when a hauntingly seductive woman sits down at his side. He talks to Emmeline over absinthe, but their encounter is fleeting. She brushes her lips on his ear and disappears. He must find her. As Caleb scours the city, he begins helping the city's medical examiner with a serial-murder investigation. Soon the search for the killer entwines with Caleb's hunt for Emmeline, and the closer he gets to each, the more dangerous his world becomes. "A wicked mix of Poe, The Silence of the Lambs, and Vertigo, "* The Poison Artist spins a thrilling tale of obsession, damage, a man unmoored by an unspeakable past, and a woman who offers the ultimate escape.

"A totally new take on the mystery-thriller genre . . . Fresh and unpredictable. The writing is top-notch . . . Grade: A." -- Cleveland Plain Dealer

"Genuinely scary, in the very best way, and nastily twisty, also in the very best way . . . Hypnotic." -- Guardian

* William Landay

From the Back Cover

Patient, stylish, and incredibly suspenseful. Lee Child

Magnificent, thoroughly unnerving . . . I dare you to look away. Justin Cronin

Caleb Maddox is a San Francisco toxicologist studying the chemical effects of pain. He s out drinking after a bad breakup when a hauntingly seductive woman sits down at his side. He talks to Emmeline over absinthe, but their encounter is fleeting. She brushes her lips on his ear and disappears. He must find her. As Caleb scours the city, he begins helping the city s medical examiner with a serial-murder investigation. Soon the search for the killer entwines with Caleb s hunt for Emmeline, and the closer he gets to each, the more dangerous his world becomes. A wicked mix of Poe, The Silence of the Lambs, and Vertigo, * The Poison Artist spins a thrilling tale of obsession, damage, a man unmoored by an unspeakable past, and a woman who offers the ultimate escape.

A totally new take on the mystery-thriller genre . . . Fresh and unpredictable. The writing is top-notch . . . Grade: A. Cleveland Plain Dealer

Genuinely scary, in the very best way, and nastily twisty, also in the very best way . . . Hypnotic. Guardian

JONATHAN MOORE lives in Hawaii with his wife and son, and is the author of five books. Before completing law school in New Orleans, he was an English teacher, a bar owner, a raft guide, a counselor at a Texas wilderness camp for juvenile delinquents, and an investigator for a criminal defense attorney in Washington, D.C.

* William Landay"

Review Quotes

Praise for The Poison Artist A Best Book of 2016 from Bookreporter.com! "The Poison Artist is an electrifying read, building from shock to shock. I read the last one hundred pages in a single sitting. The final chapter is an absolute stunner. I haven't read anything so terrifying since Red Dragon." --Stephen King "Patient, stylish and incredibly suspenseful." --Lee Child, New York Times best-selling author of the Jack Reacher novels "A magnificent, thoroughly unnerving psychological thriller written in a lush, intoxicating style. I dare you to look away." --Justin Cronin, New York Times best-selling author of The Passage and The Twelve "'The Poison Artist' is a rare thing: a totally new take on the mystery-thriller genre...Jonathan Moore's story of a scientist helping the police investigate a femme fatale serial killer using poison is totally fresh and unpredictable. The writing is top-notch, wonderfully evoking a dark and foggy San Francisco where ghosts of the past color the bloody events of the day. Grade: A"--The Cleveland Plain Dealer "The Poison Artist takes place in a fog-bound, rain-drenched version of San Francisco, which becomes, in Moore's telling, almost a city from a dream, where truths and realities slip in and out of focus somewhere between the long nights and the constantly filled glasses...It's genuinely scarily, in the very best way, and nastily twisty, also in the very best way. Just like the clashes between Caleb's day and night existences, Moore's hypnotic, rich prose shifts and jars from seductive bars at night to the gruesome way fingerprints have to be taken from a body that has been underwater for days. Spiralling down from dream into nightmare, The Poison Artist is thoroughly unnerving and classily executed." --The Guardian "The Poison Artist is an elegant, gripping, hair-raising gothic chiller, a wicked mix of Poe, The Silence of the Lambs, and Vertigo. Settle in for a long night of reading--once this one grabs you, it doesn't let go." --William Landay, New York Times best-selling author of Defending Jacob "Jonathan Moore has written a wickedly smart, emotionally complex novel that will haunt you long after you turn the last page. Whether you find it seductively terrifying or terrifyingly seductive, in my mind, The Poison Artist is better than Hitchcock." --Lou Berney, author of Whiplash River and The Long and Faraway Gone "With The Poison Artist, Jonathan Moore has given us a brilliant debut thriller, confident, mesmerizing, edgy and very cool. So much happens on every page, it's almost dizzying. Hitchcock should come back from the grave and film this story." --Howard Norman, author of The Bird Artist and Next Life Might Be Kinder "Moore has a great gift for the macabre and creepy." --The Times "This is a cinematic and phantasmagoric treat... Obsession and violent death collide in an elegantly written thriller." --The Independent "The Poison Artist takes an old film noir set-up - man meets femme fatale and starts to fear that she might be even more dangerous than she looks - and brings it into the modern world...a superior cat and mouse story, with an effective twist in the tail.&rdq --

About the Author

JONATHAN MOORE is an attorney and the author of four novels, including The Dark Room, forthcoming, and Redheads, which was short-listed for the Bram Stoker Award.