STOP ME - by Richard Jay Parker - A Review

“howdy doody,

on vacation

slim, attractive dreadlocked babe with a fun sticky-out bellybutton, likes rabbit fur

forward this email to ten friends

each of those friends must forward it to ten friends

maybe one of those friends of friends of friends will be one of my friends

if this email ends up in my inbox within a week I wont slit the bitches throat

can you afford not to send this on to ten friends?

vk”

Ever get an email like the one above? Nonsense, right? Okay, so you delete it and forget about it. Except this time, eight days later, a package arrives at the Wyoming Police Department that contains a rabbit skin scarf and the boiled jawbone of a prostitute with dreadlocks and an inverted navel. Not so funny now, is it.

Emails like the one above aren’t just being sent to a selected few. They appear in home inboxes as well as in business networks and cross international borders. Leo Sharpe finds one in his inbox and gets spooked, so he reports it to the authorities. Of no concern, he is told, just delete it. Problem is, his mentioned capped teeth, and a week later, a package containing the jawbone of a woman is received by the police and, you guessed it, it had capped teeth.

Leo is troubled by these events, but tries to move past them by planning to surprise his wife with a trip for a Christmas present. They meet at their favorite bar and she excuses herself to the ladies’ room. She does not return. It’s as if she disappeared into thin air. Leo searches the building, goes across the way to his wife’s place of employment, but she is nowhere to be found. He receives another email like the one above, only this one mentions a particular scar his wife, Laura, has. Days pass, weeks, months, and no remains of Laura are delivered to the police or are ever found. Did the email end up back in the killer’s inbox? Is Laura still alive?

Stop Me is a novel that grabs you right from word one and hangs on tight to the very last word. As Leo tries to find out what happened to his wife, he finds that no one is what they appear to be. Police suspect him naturally, since he is the missing woman’s husband. The strain takes its toll on Leo and he loses his job, and finds that even friends begin to drift away. His family situation is beyond dysfunctional, and Leo finds himself drawn into a twisted cat and mouse game with a cyberspace psychopath.

This is a novel you will begin and seriously be unable to put down until the end, and even then, it will haunt you. What puts genuine fear into you as you read Stop Me is the fact that every event that occurs is possible in the real world. You will be accompanying Leo on his journey down a dark and frightening road seeking the truth, and what he finds will be far beyond anything he could have imagined.

I highly recommend Stop Me. It is a thriller in the true sense of the word. Also, I look forward to reading more by Richard Jay Parker.

Richard’s website can be found here:
http://richardjayparker.com

A great interview with Richard can be found here:
http://www.richardgodwin.net/interviews/chin-wag-at-the-slaughterhouse-interview-with-richard-jay-parker