Mise à jour du 3 février 2016 : THE POISON ARTIST a été sélectionné comme « Best Book of February 2016 » dans la catégorie Mystery/Thriller d’Amazon !
“… [an] exquisite tale of obsession…the sympathetic, though brutally flawed hero and the shocking, Hitchcock-esque finale make this psychological thriller a must-read.” – Publishers Weekly starred, boxed review
“With crisp dialogue and skilled plotting, this atmospheric novel—fittingly set in a dark and foggy December in San Francisco—is an engrossing thriller by an author to watch. Give this one to readers who like forensic thrillers but would also be drawn in by the creepy mood.” – Booklist starred review
“A mysterious woman, a breakup, and a man haunted by his bloody and dark past coalesce in Moore’s moody thriller. Moore writes beautiful prose…and presents an atmospheric story…he excels in the sensuousness of his writing: food, sex, alcohol he fully engages all of the senses. Absinthe, oysters, the painter John Singer Sargent, a classic car, and a string of disturbing deaths, possibly brought about by poison, make this dark tale memorable.” – Kirkus Reviews
“A magnificent, thoroughly unnerving psychological thriller written in a lush, intoxicating style. I dare you to look away. » – Justin Cronin, Best-selling author of The Passage Trilogy and The Twelve
“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, Best-selling author of The Bird Artist and The Northern Lights
A tale of desire, obsession, and deadly mystery, with echoes of Vertigo. The first book of a neo-noir literary thriller series set in San Francisco
THE POISON ARTIST
by Jonathan Moore
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, January 2016
« An electrifying read… I haven’t read anything so terrifying since Red Dragon.” —Stephen King
Dr. Caleb Maddox is a San Francisco toxicologist studying the chemical effects of pain. After a bruising breakup with his girlfriend, he is drinking whiskey at the speakeasy House of Shields when a hauntingly seductive woman appears by his side. Emmeline whispers to Caleb over absinthe, gets his blood on her fingers, and then brushes his ear with her lips as she says goodbye. He must find her. As his search begins, Caleb becomes entangled in a serial murder investigation. The police are fishing men from the bay, and the postmortems are inconclusive. One man vanished from House of Shields the night Caleb met Emmeline. When questioned, Caleb can’t offer any information. But he is secretly helping the city’s medical examiner, an old friend, understand the chemical evidence on the victims’ remains. Caleb’s search for the killer soon entwines with his hunt for Emmeline, and the closer he gets to each, the more dangerous his world becomes.
THE POISON ARTIST is a gripping literary thriller about obsession and damage, about a man unmoored by an unspeakable past and an irresistible woman who offers the ultimate escape.
Jonathan Moore is an attorney with the Honolulu firm of Kobayashi, Sugita & Goda. Before completing law school in New Orleans, he was an English teacher, the owner of Taiwan’s first Mexican restaurant, a whitewater raft guide on the Rio Grande, a counselor at a Texas wilderness camp for juvenile sex offenders, and an investigator for a criminal defense attorney in Washington D.C.
Rights sold to: Orion Books (UK/BC), Newton Compton (Italian), Vulkan Publishing (Serbian), Koridor Yayinlari (Turkish)