As summer nears, the best-seller lists are written in blood. Mary Higgins Clark's Loves Music, Loves to Dance, about a serial killer, is the No. 1 hardcover, and Thomas Harris' The Silence of the Lambs was recently overtaken on the paperback list by another Hannibal Lecter novel, Red Dragon. Lecter and his kindred evil spirits, who notch body counts on their belts for the fun of it, are feeding an unprecedented public appetite for serial-killer books that tease readers with each new horror. So, in anticipation of the most sanguinary season of beach reading in memory, here's a guide to eight of the most notorious.
Rules of Prey (1989)
Author: John Sandford
Plot: Serial killer stalks Minneapolis
Body Count: Eight
Worst thing killer does to someone: Butchers a partially paralyzed woman
Killer's method: Beating, stabbing
Killer's motive: Sheer madness. Merest hint of a mother
complex
Nickname: The maddog
Hero: Raffish cop Lucas Davenport
Description of Killer: ''Curly red hair, the beginnings of a double
chin, a roundness to the lower belly
lips like red worms.''
Gore Scale (1-5): Three skulls
Comments: Davenport is far too portentous for his
own good, but this is a great page turner — terrifying in all the right places.
Sequels: Shadow Prey, Eyes of Prey. A-
Killer on the Road (1986)
Author: James Ellroy
Plot: Psychotic roams the country, killing at
whim
Body Count: Police estimate is 50, but that's low.
Worst thing killer does to someone: Substitutes Benzedrine for mother's phenobarbital, driving her to suicide, then
drinks her blood
Killer's method: Varied. Likes axes, guns, and knives.
Killer's motive: Basic insanity, compounded by a mother
problem
Nickname: The Shroud Shifter
Hero: Tormented agent THomas Dusenberry
Description of Killer: Has in his head ''a steel-sharp mental
device that...knew...what I needed to keep
from being bored.''
Gore Scale (1-5): Three skulls
Comments: Next to Red Dragon and Lambs, this is
perhaps the most deeply scary book of them
all, guaranteed to induce cold sweats
and/or nightmares.
A
Loves Music, Loves to Dance (1991)
Author: Mary Higgins Clark
Plot: Killer seeks victims through personal
ads
Body Count: Eight
Worst thing killer does to someone: Videotapes a victim's death
Killer's Method: Strangulation
Killer's Motive: Girls wouldn't dance with him, so he
plans to kill 10 — one for each toe
Nickname: Charley
Hero: Intrepid single gal Darcy Scott
Description of Killer: ''His eyes were glittering, dark, empty holes.''
Gore Scale: One skull
Comments: A tepid, truly genteel portrait of the
scary single life in New York that
comes off as a nerveless version of the
movie Sea of Love. D
Slob (1987)
Author: Rex Miller
Plot: 450-pound Vietnam vet becomes killing
machine.
Body Count: 29, plus 450 before book begins
Worst thing killer does to someone: Removes and cannibalizes a heart
Killer's method: Garroting; sheer heft
Killer's motive: He was abused as a child
Nickname: Chaingang
Hero: Recovering alcoholic cop Jack Eichord
Description of killer: ''A roaring rhino-sized freight train of death''
Gore scale: Five skulls
Comments: Warning: Do not read after eating.
Ripe, gory, unapologetically gross
introduction to the popular, pulpy Jack
Eichord series. B+
