Product Description

est Crosse is a stunningly brilliant, strikingly handsome architect with a love of ideal beauty and a commitment to achieving it at any cost. But the rich, powerful families who engage him to design their homes don't know his dark side: Crosse can't stop at designing their dwellings. He needs to make their lives more perfect too, even if it means a gut rehab of the family, even if the final design takes years to achieve-murdering an abusive spouse, a toxic lover, a predatory business partner or an unwanted child.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1460026 in Books
• Published on: 2005-07-01
• Released on: 2005-06-30
• Formats: Abridged, Audiobook, CD
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 5
• Binding: Audio CD

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. The strong fifth entry in Ablow's well-received series about FBI forensic psychologist Frank Clevenger (after 2003's Psychopath) features an impressive and sharply detailed heavy, architect West Crosse, who's hailed as a genius for his design skills. But underneath Crosse's art lies a dark soul, a man who wants to engineer human beings to match his perfect buildings at any cost. When a link surfaces among several bodies, each dissected with a brilliant surgeon's skills, Clevenger gets on the case. Crosse, who gave himself a jagged facial scar at age 20 to deliberately spoil his perfect beauty, is now 38. He shocks prospective clients with his opinions ("This is Walter Gropius's house.... It has nothing to do with you," he tells a magnate who proudly inhabits a home designed by the legendary German) and seems not to care if he gets any more work. As for Clevenger, he of course has some personal problems of his own. But Ablow manages to keep them from taking over the story and—miracle of miracles—focuses on the serial killer, that too often poorly drawn staple of so many psychological thrillers, who emerges as a fresh and fully realized creation.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
The Frank Clevenger mysteries keep getting better. Clevenger, a forensic psychiatrist working for the FBI, has always been one of the genre's more interesting protagonists--deeper and darker than psychiatrist/psychologist heroes such as Jonathan Kellerman's Alex Delaware or James Patterson's Alex Cross. And the stories, which pit Clevenger against villains who are at least as clever as he is, have always been tightly written and multilayered. It's actually the villains themselves who are spicing up the series. Take this one, for example: West Crosse, a top-line architect whose need for artistic perfection extends to his hobby--murder. As the Clevenger series has progressed, the villains have evolved from bad guys to elaborately constructed, deeply compelling, almost hypnotically evil (but never cartoony) people. Ablow has yet to reach the summit of his powers, but he's getting closer. David Pitt
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review

Customer Reviews

Another Great Clevenger Thriller
Ablow's Frank Clevenger series began with an appearance by this forensic psychologist back in 1998 in Denial. In every subsequent book, we get a great thriller story interspersed with Clevenger's own personal trials, and THE ARCHITECT is no different.

The main storyline of this book, that of an architect who believes he's doing God's work by reshaping the lives of the people he builds houses for, is definitely overshadowed by the story of Clevenger himself. His own battle with alcoholism (reminiscent of that of Lawrence Block's Matthew Scudder), his on-again-off-again very realistic relationship with his FBI girlfriend, and the tightrope he walks with his adopted son, Billy, take front row.

Although the bad guy in this book keeps the story fresh and the plot intense, to me it was the underlying story of Clevenger and his life that held my real interest. I was left at the last page not with the feeling of "good, the bad guy is dead," but that of "what's going to happen to Billy?"

I guess you could say I'm hooked.

A True Forensic Phsychological Thriller
Frank Clevenger is a forensic psychologist and is on the trail of the killer who carefully dissects parts of his victims. As far as heroes go, Dr. Clevenger is deeply flawed and doesn't always make the right decisions in his personal life, which makes him seem more human. He struggles with alcoholism.



He also has a deeply troubled adopted teenage son, Billy. Some have noted that the subplot with Billy took away from the book.



This is a series, I do not recommend starting with this book. Personally, I haven't read the first two, and just read Compulsion, the installment that introduces us to Billy. I wish I had read it first. I plan to read the first two Frank Clevenger books as well. But, if this is your first, I would say at least go back and start with Compulsion to fully understand Billy. In my opinion, after reading the ones with Billy in order, in no way is he a distraction in The Architect. We even get left with a cliffhanger, so I hope there is more to come. The other characters in the book, North and Whitney are also from previous books and the relationships between them and Frank tend to build with each book.

strong psychological thriller
He is one of the most brilliant architects the world has ever known, a virtuoso who believes that he knows what would suit the client more than the client does. He is not listed in any phone book and most people have never heard of him. He was a member of the secret society known as the Order of Skull and Bones and gets his referrals from them through word of mouth. His talent is such that he was picked to design a new museum in the White House because the president was also a member of the secret society and trusts him implicitly.

However, this fine architect, believing he has God's blessing, is also a cold blooded murderer who kills a person from his client's family when the victim makes the lives of their relatives miserable. Forensic psychiatrist Frank Clevenger is called in to profile this serial killer. Frank also tries to help his troubled son Billy who looks like he is going to be serving time as he battles his drinking and drug problem.

West Crosse is one of the most sinister villains since Hannibal Lechter. What makes him so frightening is he believes he has a calling to kill those who destroy the perfection of a family and is rational enough to know that if he kills his last victim, he will die almost immediately. Frank is also at his best with his own demons and second guessing himself so he comes across as the more realistic character, one that elicits sympathy from the reader. Keith Abbot has once again shown that he is the master of the psychological thriller.

Harriet Klausner