For as long as I can remember, I have loved reading mysteries. The idea of discerning clues as I read the story and trying to come up with the answer before the detective does has always given mysteries a little extra spice for me. I’ll admit I read more cozies, having cut my teeth on Agatha Christie, than police procedurals, but I enjoy a good story with a lot of plot twists. 

As The Twig is Bent opens with George Spiros, an aging manufacturer of wrought-iron furniture, on the way home after a successful business trip, anxious to see his wife, Melina. Scenes of George on his way home to his beloved wife, while on a flight threatened by a storm, are interspersed with scenes of Melina being brutally raped and killed. Melina Spiros is not the first in the string of deaths, but her death and the commonalities of another determine the murderer is a serial killer, who must be stopped. A heart carved on the breast of the victims with four initials, the initials of the victim and JC, and a bible at the scene with a specific passage underlined are the only clues Detective Lieutenant Matt Davis and his team have to unravel the mystery surrounding these brutal murders.

When the case lands in the lap of Matt Davis, he is not pleased. In the twilight of his career, trying to keep his current marriage from going south due to the pressures of the job, a serial killer with religious overtones is the last thing he wants to face. The primary team consists of Davis, his partner of seven years, Chris Freitag, and the recent transfer to the station, Rita Valdez. Rita has a history of inappropriate relations with colleagues, and is trying to live down her past as a homewrecker as well as prove she is a good cop. Rita’s biggest problem is that she is lonely. The investigation takes the team into the realm of the local church because of the bible connection and their attempt to determine whether the JC stands for Jesus Christ, giving the murders a religious twist or whether they are the initials of the perpetrator.

Joe Perrone, Jr. takes the reader on a ride through the cyber world where the killer is active in online chat rooms, searching for his next victim; something Melina Spiros found out to her detriment.

The man she had arranged to meet this evening was someone she had met several weeks ago in an Internet chat room, called “Manhattan Singles.” He had intrigued her from the start, and when he had invited her to meet him for a drink, she had been pleasantly surprised, accepting immediately. Privacy was important, so they had agreed upon a small tavern, just out of the neighborhood, where no one would know either of them, especially her. Inviting him back to her apartment had been a risk, but she never intended to do anything more than talk, so she had taken it.

Perrone switches back and forth throughout the book from Davis’s point of view to that of the killer, bringing out the murderer’s background and what shaped him to be the twisted wretch he has become. While appreciating the background information and the glimpses into the psyche of the murderer, I feel these sections were, at times, a little heavy-handed, telling me the how’s and why’s instead of showing me. The best of Perrone’s writing shines through in his depiction of the relationship between Davis and his wife, Valerie. In particular, their trip on a rare day off to go fly fishing. Perrone’s own love of fly fishing imbues his descriptions and I felt like I was standing next to Matt and Valerie as they cast their lines.

As The Twig is Bent is not for the squeamish. There are sections containing brutal details of grisly murders, and glimpses into the mind of the insane. Although I would like to see Perrone go back and polish this novel a little more, removing the passivity, the base story is a good one and is satisfying for murder mystery fans.

Preview As the Twig is Bent

Review of other book(s) by Joe Perrone, Jr. – Review 10 – Escaping Innocence

Originially reviewed for the LL Book Review

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Escaping Innocence

Escaping Innocence is set in a time when the world, or at least the United States, was a little more innocent. During the turbulent times of the sixties, we as a nation lost some of that innocence through war, drugs, and the sexual revolution. Each generation has grown up knowing more at an earlier age, experiencing more, and therefore, the innocent days of youth are gone in the blink of an eye.

In Escaping Innocence Joe Perrone, Jr. takes us on a trip into the heart and mind of David Justin. We see the world from David’s perspective, starting out at age 14 having his first wet dream. After that, David can hardly think about anything but sex. Shortly after this, David meets his soon to be best friend, Craig Reilly, while he was in the library studying about the American Revolution. Craig introduces David to the nude photos in the latest copy of US Camera, and a friendship is born. David in his early teenage years reminded me of a quote by one of my favorite TV characters, Jeff Murdoch (Coupling, BBC) where Jeff is explaining to his friend Steve how you could wipe out all of human kind if you were an alien with a mind ray.

Make all women telepathic. Because if they suddenly found out about the kind of stuff that goes on in our heads, they would kill us all on the spot. Men are not people. We are disgustoids in human form.

David actually makes it through school and graduates, through the grace of one of his teacher’s who passes him through on effort shown rather than actual marks. Once he is out of school, David is set to meander through life. He doesn’t really know what he wants to do, other than find a way to get laid. He longs to take after his boss at the liquor store, who has more money than he needs, and goes through life with one woman after the other. Once he decides that working at a liquor store for the rest of his life is not the job of his dreams, he makes the decision to go to college. His first attempt at college was to commute to an art college. The sealer for that deal for Dave was the fact that one of the classes in the catalog was 101 Nude Drawing. He could hardly wait. This was the climax of his young life, he would be able to sit and stare at nudes for a class. The golden day finally arrived and he eagerly awaited the model. Much to his chagrin, the model turned out to be a short black man, and not a tall luscious blonde. Nude models were not supposed to be MALE! He decided to give it one more try, after all, it could’t get any worse than that, until an old grandmotherly type, dropped her robe and struck a pose. So ended art school for Dave.

After drifting for a little while longer, and nearly getting caught up by a military recruiter to join the Marines, Dave decided to go away to school. Leaving home and going to college in another state allows David an opportunity to mature and to start growing up. Not only that, but he is actually able to start focusing on class work, enough so that he makes the Dean’s list in his first year. Of course, he also made the other Dean’s list by leading a drunken mob of college men on a panty raid and is then nearly expelled.

During the summer, David and his friend Bobby-Bo take a vacation in Ocean City, and are determined to rid themselves of the stigma of virgin. Dave meets a girl who is so beautiful he can hardly catch his breath, and she really seems to like him too. The problem is that David has been raised with values and as much as he’d like to put those out of his mind, when push comes to shove, he can’t. He has the desire, he wants to take that next big step, but always at the last minute, can’t seem to follow through.

“Oh, God,” I moaned. I was scared, and growing more so by the second. What should I do? Should I do it? Yes or no? The confusion was overpowering. Visions of catechism class, with Sister Agnes remonstrating against temptation, invaded my subconscious, crowding lust from my thoughts. At the same time, Missy’s hand was roaming around in my shorts, heightening my arousal, and adding to my consternation. This was Armageddon: Missy versus Sister Agnes and the church! It should have been a toss-up, but it wasn’t even close. In fact, it was no contest. Sister Agnes and Catholicism won by a TKO!

What starts out as a horn dog’s guide to self-pleasure winds up being a story of self-discovery and awakening to the world around him. Joe Perrone, Jr. does an amazing job of getting inside the head of the adolescent David Justin and letting us see the world through his eyes. Mr. Perrone allows David to age and mature so naturally, you’d swear that you’ve known David all of his life.

Originally reviewed for the Lulu Book Review
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LK Gardner-Griffie
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