Buy this book
Books N Bytes participates in affiliate programs including Amazon Associates and Bookshop.org. We may earn a commission when you purchase through our links at no extra cost to you.
Psychopath is the Frank Clevenger novel where Keith Ablow leans furthest into the thriller-form mechanics. A serial killer is operating along the East Coast with a particular forensic signature, and Clevenger is brought into the investigation by his old FBI contact. The clinical material that distinguished the early Clevenger books is present but less central than in Projection.
Ablow writes the procedural beats competently. The killer-perspective chapters are the kind of psychological-thriller standard fare that the form had institutionalized by 2003. The reveal lands fairly.
Three stars. Recommended for series completists. Not the entry point and not the strongest in the run.
Related reads
If you liked Psychopath
Projection
by Keith Ablow
The second Frank Clevenger novel. Keith Ablow at his most clinical, with a state hospital murder and a witness who is presenting as someone she is not.
Denial
by Keith Ablow
Keith Ablow's first Frank Clevenger novel. A forensic psychiatrist investigates an apparent suicide that was not. Pre-tabloid Ablow.
Inside the Mind of Scott Peterson
by Keith Ablow
Keith Ablow doing tabloid true crime. His forensic psychiatry credentials used in the service of a media cycle. Predictably uneven.
The Strange Case of Dr. Kappler; The Doctor Who Became a Killer
by Keith Ablow
The Strange Case of Dr. Kappler by Keith Ablow 1994 review. A true-crime nonfiction account of a Massachusetts psychiatrist who murdered his wife, written by a working forensic psychiatrist.
Eye of the Beholder
by David Ellis
David Ellis's 2007 thriller. A childhood friendship, a serial killer, and one of the cleanest psychological-thriller structures of its decade.
More by this author