{"id":8155,"date":"2019-09-03T07:03:31","date_gmt":"2019-09-03T11:03:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=8155"},"modified":"2019-09-03T07:03:31","modified_gmt":"2019-09-03T11:03:31","slug":"pieces","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=8155","title":{"rendered":"****Pieces"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"package,<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

By Michael Aloisi and Rebecca Rowland \u2013 Serial killer Dennis\nSweeney had a really bad idea: kill a young woman, divide her into parts, and\nmail them to 30 randomly selected, unsuspecting people all across the United\nStates. Who doesn\u2019t like a surprise package? There\u2019s 30 people in this novel who\nwould never open another one. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sweeney sends an anonymous letter to over-the-hill reporter Jackson Matthews, whom he admires, describing what he\u2019s done and proving it with pictures. He invites Jax to cover the story, \u201cto be the voice of my actions.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If all the pieces of the girl are found, Sweeney promises to turn himself in. If not? He says, \u201cAll the King\u2019s horses and All the King\u2019s men, will force me to start all over again.\u201d Jax calls the police. It seems the letter isn\u2019t a hoax, and reports of the macabre parcels begin to appear in the news media. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bizarrely and, you may think, predictably, only eighteen of\nthe grisly packages are turned in to the authorities. That\u2019s 12 people who\nreceived a body part and did something else with it. The stories of what\nhappened to these dozen packages make up most of the book. The authors treat\nthose twelve chapters as short stories, with quirky back-stories for the\nrecipients\u2014character studies of people who, for wildly varied reasons, are incapable\nof the correct response. (Apparently none of them listen to the news to know\nthere\u2019s a bigger picture here.) <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In between these stories are chapters that let you catch up with Jax and his efforts to identify Sweeney, and what else Sweeney is up to. The stakes increase dramatically when Sweeney threatens Jax\u2019s wife, if the reporter doesn\u2019t start writing about him. Early on Jax is approached by a young man who introduces himself as a police detective. Jax soon unmasks him as the creator of a serial killer website with lagging viewership who hopes the inside scoop on this story can renew its popularity. He claims to have an algorithm that can find the killer, and it certainly unearths some unsavory folk. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Between the chapters about the missing body parts, Jax\u2019s investigations, and Sweeney\u2019s story, past and present, the authors have a lot of balls to keep in the air, yet the tale is never confusing. I liked the diabolically varied missing pieces stories, although perhaps two or three fewer would have worked as well, as the rhythm of the chapters gets a little exhausting. On the whole, Pieces<\/em> has a clever premise, innovative format, and quite capable writing that kept me engaged. Not for the faint of heart. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Photo: Jonathan, creative commons license.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Michael Aloisi and Rebecca Rowland \u2013 Serial killer Dennis Sweeney had a really bad idea: kill a young woman, divide her into parts, and mail them to 30 randomly selected, unsuspecting people all across the United States. Who doesn\u2019t … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5034,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"****Pieces - a little macabre here. Are you sure that package on your doorstep is really from Amazon?","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1335,52,1160,126,32],"tags":[1640,1642],"class_list":["post-8155","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-amateur-detective","category-crime","category-horror","category-reading-2","category-thriller","tag-michael-aloisi","tag-pieces"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/vweisfeld.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/772408262_ee1bf8a1b5_z.jpg?fit=426%2C640&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s2NkiT-pieces","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8155","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8155"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8155\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8156,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8155\/revisions\/8156"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5034"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}