THE MURDER NOTEBOOK
Jonathan Santlofer
William Morrow
Thriller
ISBN: 9780060882044

• Read an Excerpt

The metropolitan area in which I live is blessed with a college of art and design that, over the past 20 or so years, has acquired a fine national reputation. Lately, business matters have taken me past the school frequently. I have noticed during the course of each trip that a number of students have been carrying ANATOMY OF FEAR by Jonathan Santlofer. It is not surprising; in that fine novel Santlofer performed a fascinating interweaving of art and dialogue, making the art an integral part of the story. He performs similar magic, arguably on an even greater scale, in his latest work of fiction, THE MURDER NOTEBOOK.

While this is a sequel to ANATOMY OF FEAR, one can read it without having any familiarity with its predecessor. Santlofer does a fine job of filling the new reader in with respect to what has gone before in the life of NYPD sketch artist Nate Rodriguez. His creation is possessed of an uncanny, almost supernatural ability to bring out the best in witnesses --- including, at one point, himself --- and bringing their observations to the page. Rodriguez is also a gifted facial constructionist, and as THE MURDER NOTEBOOK begins, he is tasked with attempting to recreate the face of an arson victim. He is quickly shifted to another task, however, as he is called upon to sketch the face of a suspect being sought in connection with a particularly brutal and apparently random murder. When another such killing occurs, followed by a spectacular suicide, Rodriguez senses a nexus among all of the deaths, even though he cannot identify it.

Terri Russo, Rodriguez’s paramour and fellow police officer, is heading up the team to which Rodriguez is assigned. While she is behind his intuitive curve, she remains --- how shall I put this? --- skeptically open-minded about his hunches, slow to come around but willing to go with the flow at full throttle once she is convinced. The investigation and the sudden mysterious involvement of federal law enforcement put a strain on their relationship, even as it appears that Rodriguez himself is being targeted by whoever is ultimately behind the mayhem occurring on the streets of New York.

As the investigation resumes, Rodriguez has been continuing the facial reconstruction to which he was originally assigned on his own time at his own expense, little knowing that his work is the first step in resolving one of the major conflicts of his life. Yet both investigations pale when compared to what ultimately awaits Rodriguez, and the reader, at the conclusion of THE MURDER NOTEBOOK.

Santlofer’s writing and plotting abilities have improved since ANATOMY OF FEAR --- a great read in its own right --- and are nicely counterpointed in THE MURDER NOTEBOOK by his artwork, which again advances the story and narrative. His sketches are stark and deceptively simple (no four-color plates here), but they are infused with a haunting realism that attracts the reader’s attention and interest, even while they occasionally make one’s skin quietly crawl. Upon completion of the book, I found myself going back and looking at the drawings more than once, particularly the author’s renderings of the stages of Rodriguez’s facial reconstruction models.

I would recommend that those students I mentioned --- and everyone else --- make room in their backpacks for THE MURDER NOTEBOOK.

    --- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub

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