Daniel Mansfield Jr. is the brand-new chief of police of Sossaman, a small but expanding town that borders the southeast corner of Phoenix. The Mansfield name carries tremendous currency in the desert town due to Daniel’s father, a prior chief of police, who apprehended the Bookbinder, a serial killer in the early 80s who captured, tortured, and then killed women. His calling card? He would bind hardbound books with their skin.
Barely a moment on the job and Daniel’s world is turned upside down: he falls in love with Kristin, who has a stalker in the form of a Sossaman police officer who is also a Nazi sympathizer; Daniel’s brother Davey, and golden child of the family, announces his intention to run for the mayor of the town; and finally, but most chillingly, the body of a dead twenty year old girl is found in a farm field that shows the signs of having been killed by the Bookbinder. With the Bookbinder already in prison for the past four decades, is this the work of a copycat killer, or could the wrong man be behind bars and the original Bookbinder is still on the loose? Daniel’s foray into the mystery will unravel truths that others would rather not have unearthed.
Flesh of All Sorrows is the newest police procedural novel by Jeffrey Mariotte. The author of The Slab (2019), River Runs Red (2019), Empty Rooms (2014), and 7 Sykos (2016)(with Marsheila Rockwell), Mariotte is a multi-genre author who has penned many thriller and crime fiction works before including books in The Narcos (Narcos: The Jaguar’s Claw [2018]), Criminal Minds (Criminal Minds: Sociopaths, Serial Killers & Other Deviants [2010]), CSI (Brass in Pocket [2009]), The Burning Season [2011], and Blood Quantum [2010]), and NCIS (NCIS: New Orleans – Crossroads [2017] and NCIS: Los Angeles – Bolthole [2016]) universes. Mariotte brings his police procedural expertise to Flesh of All Sorrows.
The novel is told through two characters: Daniel Mansfield Jr. and the murderer. Aside from each having their own chapters, each character is read from a different perspective: Daniel in first person and the murderer in third person. The alternating perspectives give Flesh of All Sorrows the ticking time bomb element: readers see what the murderer is doing/about to do and the suspense comes from hoping that Daniel and his police officers will be able to save the day. On top of trying to solve these neo-Bookbinder murders, the couple of subplots, such as the right-wing/stalker policeman who seeks revenge on Daniel for perceived wrongs add in more thriller elements and action sequences. There’s a James Bond-style trapped for death sequence, a handful of pursuit and shoot out sequences, and of course, the actual detective work and sussing out theories from the evidence while a killer runs at large in the community.
What makes the aforementioned activities stand out in Mariotte’s work is the emphasis on giving his characters memorable quirks. The majority of police officers Daniel works with are fleshed out and competent at what they do: Deacon Glass, an impeccable, Holmesian detective that becomes Daniel’s right hand man on the case; Rosalie Sepulveda, an admin assistant with a booming laugh who makes sure Daniel has what he needs to run the department and investigate; Leila Vélez, another detective who was once Daniel’s partner who settles in a more action-centric role. Daniel himself has some quirks, such as driving a 1962 Land Rover as his vehicle of preference and having a collection of guitars (some autographed) even though he is terrible at both playing and singing.
Someone (or someones) on the force is a mole to Erica Wilson, a reporter for the East County Courier, who is secretly being fed information about the cases being worked on. In conjunction, after Daniel gives an impromptu address at a protest in response to an indigenous American being shot by a police officer earlier in the week, his response by his own department is mixed, with some praising him and others considering him a traitor. With all the officers humanized and fleshed out with personality, it adds a cloud of sorts to the reader (and Daniel) during interactions: could this likable and proficient character perhaps be an informant, or perhaps an unsympathetic officer whose loyalties lie elsewhere?
After the characters, the next major component of Mariotte’s story is its setting, the fictional town of Sossaman, located in the Phoenix metropolitan area in Arizona. The town, of course, is an important backbone to the story, not just with its small-town vibe, but also the political forces at work, no doubt due to Daniel’s position as a policeman and his stature in the community, one that his family has been a pillar of. Even bigger than the small-town setting is the Arizona desert setting proper. Though the story mentions many times how hot it is, the temperature is not particularly a deterrent to any of the characters. What is, though, is a monsoon that arrives at a climactic moment near the middle of the story that not only threatens crime scenes, but the lives of the characters too as the environment turns to flash flooding. Mariotte takes advantage of the unique monsoon season of Arizona to add an additional element of danger to the story.
A mysterious serial killer case with well written characters and an unforgiving setting, the last element Flesh of All Sorrows provides are a handful of introspective themes. Family patriarchy and their influence on their children or children’s children is a huge motif in the book. Both Daniel and the murderer are who they are because of influence of their father/father’s father. Both feel they are living in the shadows of their respective figure and not fulfilling imposed expectations. It is in each character’s self-journeys into their lineage that major things unfold which in turn have huge consequences in Sossaman, from piling dead bodies to unearthing coverups.
Flesh of All Sorrows in an engaging police thriller. The sections from the killer’s perspective are goosepimplingly scary as the character self indoctrinates themselves into a murderer. These sections are not necessarily gory, but they are still harrowing. The chapters from Daniel’s perspective are more fun as he winds up in life-or-death action sequences while doing the detective work. He does not operate in a vacuum – he’s no Hollywood supercop – and it is his officers operating at their best that allows Daniel to make his way through the case. With Mariotte weaving multiple mysteries, big and small, going on concurrently, he makes Flesh of All Sorrows an engaging and suspenseful desert thriller.
More information about Jeffrey J. Mariotte and Flesh of All Sorrows can be found at the following links:
- Amazon page for Flesh of All Sorrows
- Jeffrey Mariotte’s Official Webpages
- My Interview with Jeffrey Mariotte