How Can Death Be Beautiful by Stephen B King

WICKED WEDNESDAY

I'm so happy to have Stephen because I know you'll enjoy his post. Read on!

On my last visit to Brenda’s blog, I spoke about the definition of the word wicked, and how it related to my all-time most evil murderer in Book 1 of my Deadly Glimpses trilogy: Glimpse, Memoir of a Serial Killer. There is no doubt PPP (spoiler alert) is very definitely wicked, and is going to make a staggering comeback in Glimpse 3 when he seeks revenge on Rick and Pat for his capture, and for their perceived infidelity.

In Glimpse 2: Glimpse, The Beautiful Deaths, the murderer, it could be argued, isn’t the most wicked person in the book. In fact, when Criminal Psychologist Patricia Holmes delivers her profile to the team of detectives, including her would-be paramour, Rick McCoy she asks a very pertinent question: “When is a serial Killer, not a murderer?” The answer to this riddle holds the key to the motivation of the man responsible for the deaths of six young woman, found deep in a cave system, fully dressed, and each with a garland of flowers on their chest.

The bodies show no visible cause of death, they were not sexually molested, and each in their own way were incredibly beautiful before they disappeared, approximately a year apart from each other. Pat believes the perpetrator is addicted to beauty, that he would be a collector of stunning things, like African butterflies, rare postage stamps, porcelain figurines or artworks. In abducting young women, she thinks he is trying to capture their essence; the one thing that sets them apart from others; their beauty.

So, if the killer is not wicked in any sense of the word, yet someone in this story is, so who is it?

Patricia Holmes postulates that we are all products of our upbringing, and that the human brain, when it fractures, does so because of cause and effect. If a parent tells a child often enough they are useless, they will believe they are. No matter how hard they try to please that type of parent, they always fall short, so they try harder. In fact, they are doomed to fail no matter what they do, because it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. She nicknames the man they are hunting Gordon, because she says that name symbolizes someone who is not a master criminal, or an evil psychopath, but a normal person who is a victim of his own childhood.

She goes further by saying that in her opinion, poor Gordon tried to escape his horrible parents but married someone far worse; a dominant woman who stifles his quest for beautiful things, and ridicules him for daring to even think of them.

Here then, is the true wickedness in the story. A woman, who Gordon thinks of as a health food Nazi, unknowingly pushes her husband into causing the deaths of six girls when he tries to bask in their beauty, and capture it by painting them.

My motivation for writing the Glimpse series is twofold. Firstly, to provide the reader with glimpses into the psyche of three Serial killers, from their own point of view, while the other half of each story tells of their capture. Secondly, it explores two people’s relationship who are married yet inexorably attracted to each other, when they are thrust together as work colleagues. If they act on their desires, what will the consequences be, not just for them, but their partners? Here then is another example of wickedness from the point of view of Patricia Holmes husband, and Rick’s wife as they watch their marriages slowly crumble, no matter what they try to do to stop it.

For Rick and Pat, is it lust, or love, and can they survive the outcome of their own desire?

Life is about consequences, as it should be, and if Rick and Pat act on their temptations, there will be dire, if not catastrophic results.

Glimpse, The Beautiful Deaths will be released on April 10^th on Amazon (and where ever good books are sold) The link is:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07P51GVCL/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_U_PGrICbAYYQSWP 

The official blurb is:

Rick McCoy of the Major Crime Squad is trying to repair his marriage when he is sent to the South of Western Australia. A young girl's body has been found in a cave, with flowers on her chest. A search finds five more bodies. 

Beautiful criminal psychologist, Patricia Holmes, has recovered from her stab wounds inflicted by the serial killer PPP, and is brought in. Pat believes they are hunting a man who is addicted to beauty. When another school girl goes missing, they have only days before she too will die. 

As their desire for each other grows and the pressure on their marriages increase, they close in on the man responsible for the beautiful deaths. Meanwhile, in the high-security wing of the mental health hospital, PPP plans his revenge on Rick. 

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