Title: The Bride Collector
Author: Ted Dekker
Publisher: Center Street
Publication Date: April 13, 2010
Hardcover: 448 pages
ISBN: 978-1599951966
Genre: Fiction/Suspense/Thriller

About the novel:

FBI Special agent Brad Raines is facing his toughest case yet. A Denver serial killer has killed four beautiful young women, leaving a bridal veil at each crime scene, and he’s picking up his pace. Unable to crack the case, Raines appeals for help from a most unusual source: residents of the Center for Wellness and Intelligence, a private psychiatric institution for mentally ill individuals whose are extraordinarily gifted.

It’s there that he meets Paradise, a young woman who witnessed her father murder her family and barely escaped his hand. Diagnosed with schizophrenia, Paradise may also have an extrasensory gift: the ability to experience the final moments of a person’s life when she touches the dead body.

In a desperate attempt to find the killer, Raines enlists Paradise’s help. In an effort to win her trust, he befriends this strange young woman and begins to see in her qualities that most ‘sane people’ sorely lack. Gradually, he starts to question whether sanity resides outside the hospital walls…or inside.

As the Bride Collector picks up the pace-and volume-of his gruesome crucifixions, the case becomes even more personal to Raines when his friend and colleague, a beautiful young forensic psychologist, becomes the Bride Collector’s next target.

The FBI believes that the killer plans to murder seven women. Can Paradise help before it’s too late?

My Review:

Dekker’s soon to be released novel, The Bride Collector is without a doubt an extraordinary suspense thriller, unlike any other Dekker novel I have read to date. There is a new serial killer in Colorado, who is seeking brides for God, seven to be exact, the number of perfection. FBI Agents Raines and Holden turn to several patients of The Center for Wellness and Development to help catch the killer. Raines and Holden believe the killer may have at one time been a patient at the center. The FBI seeks the specific skills of Paradise, Roudy, and to a lesser extent Cass and Allison to help profile and catch the killer. Each has been living at The Center for Wellness and Development for varying lengths of time and each has a special talent. I found myself more interested in the lives of the residents of The Center for Wellness and Development than I did any of the other characters in this novel. At times, the obsession over beauty became a tad too much, thankfully there was always some event to tamper this obsession down, and ultimately the obsession became a reality. I was only a quarter way through the novel when I found myself unable to put this novel down, continually wanting to know what the next discovery might be and what clue the killer may have left. Dekker’s soon to be released novel is masterfully crafted as only Dekker can, with an assortment of highly unique characters woven seamlessly into the plot along with a few rather unexpected surprises along the way. Without a doubt, The Bride Collector is a suspense-filled page-turner that will not disappoint the reader

About the Author:

TED DEKKER is a New York Times bestselling author of more than twenty novels with a total of more than 3 million books in print. He is known for thrillers that combine adrenaline-laced plots with incredible confrontations between good and evil.
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I received a complimentary copy of The Bride Collector by Ted Dekker from Hachette as part of the tour. Receiving a free copy in no way reflected my review of aforementioned novel.