Unspeakable Horror!

Instant messaging has become for an entire generation of young gay men what gay bars and bathhouses were for the generation that preceded them. Quick, anonymous, no strings sexual encounters are now a click of the mouse away in a computer age world where glory holes have been replaced by web cams. Gay men no longer need to endure the requisite small talk in dark, smoky bars filled with the mingling scents of too much Obsession and Polo or furtive encounters in department store men’s rooms and can opt instead to silently chat with the like-minded and dispense with the small talk. Instant messaging has become like window dressing for the unsightliness of promiscuity – its high-tech anonymity taking casual sexual liaisons out of seedy, urine-soaked restrooms and sanitizing it in a façade of high-tech gloss. It’s promiscuity streamlined. Author Rick R. Reed explores the relative anonymity of the instant message generation with IM, a cautionary tale about a serial killer preying on the gay men of Chicago. Along the way he shows us that, while technology may have civilized promiscuity, promiscuity is alive and well – just taken out of the bars and bathhouses to the obscurity of the World Wide Web.

When Chicago PD detective Ed Comparetto is called to the grisly murder scene of a young gay man, his life is plunged into a nightmare as he is caught up in a cat-and-mouse game with a creepy killer – who may or may not be dead himself – who uses a gay Internet hookup site to lure his victims. Told from the multiple perspectives of Comparetto, both the killer and his occasional victims, and through the journal entries of the killer’s estranged aunt, Reed creates a fresh, multi-layered narrative that never tires. It is this approach, in fact, that skillfully saves the book when Reed weaves dangerously close to formula territory. Characters run the gamut, most engagingly colorful with hints of cliché. There’s the fired cop racing against time to salvage his life and career, the misfit serial killer who was orphaned and sexually victimized as a child, the aging society matron who drowns her demons in Bloody Mary’s, and the hunky new boyfriend whose do-good ways may just get him killed. While it’s formulaic suspense thriller all the way, Reed wisely pitches just enough curve balls to keep the reader invested right down to the “nick of time” ending. Ripe with genuine suspense and an escalating momentum that doesn’t let up until the very end, IM is the kind of deliciously nasty psychological thriller that’s guaranteed to raise gooseflesh even under a hot summer sun.

Peppered with enough graphic violence laced with sexual overtones to satisfy fans of James Patterson and Christopher Rice, the novel repulses and titillates with equal aplomb. Squeamish readers beware – IM is explicit in its depictions of the sexual violence that befalls the gay victims of Reed’s fiendish serial killer. But if you’ve long-hungered for a gay version of S7ven, then IM is your dream come true.

Thematically, Reed crafts a strong allegorical tale of promiscuity within the gay community and its dire consequences. There’s a lament here for the cautionary message that the AIDS virus sent in discouraging the often life-threatening practices associated with random sexual encounters – now virtually discarded by the new circuit party generation. As AIDS has become less death sentence and more manageable malady, Reed seems to indicate here that the gay community may be taking false comfort in that manageability. With his aggressive and merciless serial killer, the author seemingly reminds us that there are always new threats forming, unseen and undetected as we go about the monotony of our daily lives – genes mutating into diseases, childhood abuses cultivating future violent predators. Be mindful, Reed advises with IM – what you can’t see today may indeed be able to kill you tomorrow.

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