The main character of the story is detective Wes Janssen of the LAPD. He is a very experienced police-officer, but unfortunately he is an emotional wreck. He was sexually abused as a child by a masked stranger and, as a consequence, suffers from a sexual trauma. His whole life, he has been unable to have any romantic or sexual relationship with a woman. He’s never told anyone about his abuse and his psychological problems because he’s ashamed about it. At the same time he really has sexual and romantic desires towards women, but his trauma forms a psychological chain around him that restrains him heavily. This causes a huge mental conflict inside him and results in immense frustrations, which in turn leads to increasingly violent and angry behavior on the job (he’s very trigger-happy). He has developed a serious drinking problem. His colleagues, especially his partner det. Mike Dayton, are getting increasingly worried about him.
On top of all this, a young boy is found dead. He was horribly raped and abused before he was strangled to death. Janssen is in charge of the case: it brutally confronts him with his own traumatic experiences as a child. After 3 days another boy is found on a different location in the city, again brutally raped and strangled to death. Another 3 days later, another boy is found raped and strangled; 3 days later another one …. It becomes clear to everyone that there is a pedophile serial killer at work. Janssen and his colleagues are unable to find any clue and with each new victim they find, the pressure on them to catch the killer grows (for Janssen, the whole case is becoming a living nightmare). Because they are growing increasingly desperate, they decide to ask advice from a forensic profiler. This profiler, Anna Fitzgerald, is a very confident and extremely intelligent person with a razor sharp mind. She also happens to be a very beautiful woman (blond hair, blue eyes). Janssen is immediately attracted to her, but is unable to show this to her.
Anna and Wes start working together intensively to try to catch the killer. During their conversations she starts to realize that Wes has mental issues and delves into his mind. Eventually she discovers his trauma and what caused it. But she also discovers that she has feelings for him and they begin a passionate, very sexual relationship. This has a huge transformative psychological effect on Wes, who experiences a form of happiness for the first time in his life. But just when things start to look better for him, he receives a huge shock: the killer unexpectedly sends him a message. He claims he has seen Wes on TV and recognized him; he claims that he was the one who raped Wes all those years ago. On top of that he tells Wes that he has kidnapped his nephew (his sister’s son). If they fail to find the killer within 3 days, Wes will find his nephew raped and strangled to death. For Anna, Wes and his colleagues this is the start of a frenetic race against time to track the killer and save the boy.
The title “Helter Skelter” refers to the controversial, dark Beatles-song, which symbolizes the dark and troubled state of mind of Wes Janssen (he is a Beatles-fan and it’s one of his favorite songs). The story could be best summarized as a combination of a psychological crime thriller with an explicit sexual element and a tale about a man’s personal journey through hell in search of psychological redemption.
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Last update: 17-03-2011 09:06 |
| Published in : Crime |
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