Me and My Shadow

“The case could be made that no one is better than Jason Starr when it comes to writing repellent psychopathic characters, and this particular skill flowers in The Follower, his newest thriller, set on Manhattan’s Upper East Side.” Those comments come from Anthony Rainone, who today reviews The Follower in January Magazine.

Starr’s tale is a nasty bit of business, as Rainone explains it: “The story builds around Peter Wells, an unstable stalker who’s come into an inheritance that allows him plenty of free time in which to set up his latest victim, a 22-year-old woman named Katie Porter.” She is the younger sister of Heather Porter, who Wells had known, and perhaps even dated (before she committed suicide), back in their Massachusetts hometown. Although Katie is currently romantically involved with “a striving banker named Andrew Barnett,” he’s hardly an ideal catch; as Rainone says, Barnett “is mainly interested in Katie for one thing: sex.” So she agrees to go out with the “charming psychopath,” Wells, who is more than a little fixated on her, having already purchased the apartment in which he hopes they will live, after they exchange “I dos.”

It comes as no surprise that this preoccupation soon turns violent. “Given Wells’ obsession, and Katie’s propensity for attracting a fair share of horny males,” Rainone writes, “it’s only a matter of time before the men around her begin to meet tragic ends at the hands of the deranged and jealous admirer.”

You can read Rainone’s full review here.