Archie & Gretchen | Books 4-6

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I have finally finished the hugely enjoyable Archie Sheridan & Gretchen Lowell series by Chelsea Cain with the last three novels discussed below.

First, a quick overview – Archie Sheridan is a police officer based in Portland, Oregon who, while hunting the serial killer known as the Beauty Killer was kidnapped, tortured and ultimately released by said serial killer, the beautiful, intelligent and extremely manipulative Gretchen Lowell. Their dysfunctional relationship is explored over six novels. Unsurprisingly, there is a very high body count.

If you would like to know what I thought about the first three then you can find the relevant blog post here.

The second half of the series comprises:

• Book 4 – The Night Season – the one where Portland suffers major flooding, there is another serial killer on the loose and Gretchen doesn’t really appear at all
• Book 5 – Kill You Twice – the one where Gretchen is locked up in a psychiatric unit but merrily manipulative almost everyone else, while another another serial killer is on the loose, this time with potential links to GretchenBook 4 – The Night Season – the one where Portland suffers major flooding, there is another serial killer on the loose and Gretchen doesn’t really appear at all
• Book 6 – Let Me Go – the one where Gretchen is on the loose again and creating havoc, though there is another another another serial killer carrying out crimes in the area. This looks like its the last in the series though I think the ending is left sufficiently open so that the characters could be revisited in future.

As I said above I really enjoyed this series; the books are well-written and tightly plotted and the psychological makeup of the main characters is troublingly effective. But as with every other almost-omnipotent serial killer (looking at you Hannibal Lecter), each entry in the series has to really up the ante. This often means that situations becoming increasingly gothic, almost to the point of absurdity, so suspension of belief is essential. There were a couple of WTF moments in the final book where I really thought it had all gone too far, but I let that thought go and just went along for the ride.

If you like your psycopaths astonishingly beautiful in a head-turning way who can kill with impunity and, despite being infamous, still manage to move around freely without anyone noticing, and if you don’t mind a lot of gruesomeness and quite a bit of explicit sex, then this series is for you.