Multiple Wounds by Alan Russell

Multiple Wounds Reviews

• 
  Cathy Ryan

  An intriguing concept for a murder story. Helen Troy has a multiple personality disorder and her 'other selves' originate in classical greek mythology.
  
  The story begins with the murder of Bonnie Gill, the owner of the gallery where Helen exhibits her sculptures. Orson Cheever, the homicide detective leading the investigation who, against his better judgement, finds himself wanting to help the disturbed and vulnerable young woman after he witnesses her crying tears of blood.
  
  The intricacies of multiple personality disorder are handled with thoughtful consideration and, along with the references to greek mythology, have been well researched.
  
  Helen is a probable suspect in Bonnie's murder and the case evolves into Something Cheever has never witnessed, or had to deal with, before. Cheever and Rachel, Helen’s psychologist become close and unite in trying to help Helen. As Helen’s past is revealed slowly bit by bit Cheever can’t help but be moved and angered by the sad and shocking truth.
  
  The descriptions of Helen's psychotic episodes are very well written. Suspenseful, complex and captivating it’s also a story of love, loss and suffering told with flashes of humour and a lot of emotional turmoil.
  
  Performance
  
  MacLeod Andrews alternates brilliantly between the gravely voiced Cheever and the various voices of Holly’s personalities not to mention the array of other characters.
  
• 
  Andra Watkins

  2.5 out of 5 stars
  
  Passive voice and nonsensical shifts in narration downgraded this reading experience. I sympathized with Helen Troy, the woman possessed by a Greek chorus, but I couldn't relate to Cheever as a narrator, especially when his tale was interrupted by Troy's psychiatrist.
  
  I bought this book as an Amazon discount. It was my first attempt to try a book they promoted to me. I am disappointed in both the story and the quality of the writing.
• 
  LJ

  While investigating the death of an art dealer, Detective Orson Cheever encounters the dangerous Holly Troy, an enchanting woman with multiple personalities who appear in the form of classical gods.
  
  What an excellent read; intelligent, intriguing--so well done.
  
  MULTIPLE WOUNDS (Pol. Proc-Orson Cheevers-San Diego, CA-Cont) - Ex
  Russell, Alan - Standalone
• 
  Kay Collins

  A lot of Greek Tragic for a modern mystery
  
  I love mysteries but this one brought in so many mythological characters it was distracting instead of complimentary addition. Same goes for psychiatric disorders and opinions. Plot got lost and characters didn't feel very deep.
• 
  Beth Shuler

  Nicely written
  
  This is my first book from this author and I didn't know what to expect. First I'll say at first I was lost. Unless you know a lot about Greek methodology (idk if I spelled it right), but at times it can be a lot! But I decided to try and stick it out. But once you start understanding, or trying, then it becomes easier.
  But I found that I enjoyed this book. Even though I was able to figure out most things early on. I still continued to read because I found the character so easy to relate to and understand. I will def try a couple more of his books but I hope its doesn't have the same characters as I can do without all the stuff about the gods. I just found that part in itself so hard to understand. Maybe if I knew more about the different gods then I would enjoy it more. But as I said I was able to overlook that because I could relate to why she had so many. I mean who wouldn't if they didn't go through her life?
  But as I said I will def try another of his books to see if its different and something a little harder to figure out. I was able to figure out who was the bad guys pretty early on...
• 
  Melissa

  Very disturbing, well written as usual
  
  Deeply disturbed individuals, murder mysteries, art, cop, therapist and lots of interesting personalities. So much going on here, too much for me.
• 
  Aaron

  Spoiler:
  
  This one was simply too disturbing for me to like. To have a rather graphic description of child sexual abuse was just too much for me. The characters were great and Helen/Holly's disorder was well researched.
  
  For what it's worth, I also just can't watch SVU.
• 
  Anne

  I wanted to love it
  
  Psychology is my jam. I wanted so much to be drawn into this book, but it just didn't happen. I've read a couple of the author's other books and liked them but this one was a struggle.
• 
  Lisa Nolan

  It was okay
  
  I gave this 3 stars because I felt that it was a little long and boring at times but not enough to give up reading it. The last few chapters of the book were really good. The author has quite an imagination.
• 
  Anjana

  
  https://superfluousreading.wordpress....
• 
  Aly Wayne

  Good storyline just not sure it’s really relatable to real detective work.
• 
  Kate

  The start of the novel was quite slow, and somewhat lackluster. It started picking up near the end though. Overall, pretty good read if you can get past the first 250 pages or so.
• 
  Elisa

  Another great and suspenseful read from Alan Russell. I love his Gideon series and this story of multiple personality is fascinating, even if I doubt cases are anything like that in real life.
• 
  Andy Plonka

  Multiple personalities and psychology are not really of much interest to me but the author treated the subject well and the ending was good.
• 
  Karen

  I couldn’t finish, Andrews’ narration epic!
  I gave up! The story just didn’t hold my attention. One of the reasons I bought it was because of the brilliant narration of the talented MacLeod Andrews. I jumped to the last chapter.
• 
  Amy Lignor

  One of the things readers want more than anything else when it comes to their book choice is a unique story. Well, when it comes to this particular story, readers not only receive a fantastic plot, but they also receive one of the most unique and original stories to appear in a good, long time.
  
  We delve into the case of a brutal murder of art gallery owner, Bonnie Gill; a case which is placed on Orson Cheever’s shoulders to solve. Being a Detective on the San Diego police force, Cheever is assigned to capture the killer; but as he begins his investigation, he has no idea that the leading suspects will turn out to be a very bizarre bunch.
  
  All of the witnesses and/or suspects are actually living inside the ‘mind’ of artist, Holly Troy - a client of the gallery. Holly suffers from an identity disorder, and her ‘personalities’ all hail from classic mythology. With a given name of Helen Troy, Holly has ‘entities,’ such as; Caitlin, Cronos, Eris, Eurydice, Hygeia, Nemesis, Maenads, Moirae and Pandora, living inside her brain.
  
  It is when Cheever takes Holly to lunch and watches as she orders meals for all of her inner personalities, (which is a great scene), that he discovers she hasn’t got a clue who she was the night of the murder, whether or not she actually witnessed anything, and - to top it all off - she has no recollection if she was actually the person who committed the crime.
  
  For Cheever, this is no longer a ‘standard’ case with a corpse and a suspect; it truly becomes a frightening psychological journey into the human mind. Add to all this the fact that Cheever begins to ‘feel’ for this woman because of an issue in his own past, and readers have at their fingertips a highly unique story they will not be able to put down. The end result? The entire realm of mystery, suspense and paranormal book lovers will have an absolute ball with this one!
  
  Until Next Time, Everybody,
  Amy
  
  
• 
  Cathy Ryan

  An intriguing concept for a murder story. Helen Troy has a multiple personality disorder and her ‘other selves’ originate in classical greek mythology.
  
  The story begins with the murder of Bonnie Gill, the owner of the gallery where Helen exhibits her sculptures. Orson Cheever, the homicide detective leading the investigation who, against his better judgement, finds himself wanting to help the disturbed and vulnerable young woman after he witnesses her crying tears of blood.
  
  Helen is a probable suspect in Bonnie’s murder and the case evolves into Something Cheever has never witnessed, or had to deal with, before. Cheever and Rachel, Helen’s psychologist become close and unite in trying to help Helen. As Helen’s past is revealed slowly bit by bit Cheever can’t help but be moved and angered by the sad and shocking truth.
  
  Performance
  
  MacLeod Andrews alternates brilliantly between the gravely voiced Cheever, Holly and the varied voices of her personalities, not to mention an array of other characters.
  
  Thoughts
  
  This is a gripping psychological murder/thriller, full of suspense which doesn’t let up.
  
  The descriptions of Helen’s psychotic episodes are very well written. Suspenseful, complex and captivating it’s also a story of love, loss and suffering told with flashes of humour and a lot of emotional turmoil.
  
  The intricacies of multiple personality disorder are handled with thoughtful consideration and, along with the references to greek mythology, have been well researched.
  
• 
  Sandra

  I'm at a quandary as to whether to give this two or three stars. It was an interesting read, but oh so depress-ed, -ive, -ing. I'm a reader who has admired Mr. Russell's work, exclusive of his Detective Gideon and his faithful partner Sirius series(us). This was different. The only major player who is severely damaged is Michael Gideon. Sirius (woof) has had his physical wounds, but not the psychological damage we humans carry so heavily. This balances the stories.
  
  Multiple Wounds, on the other hand, offers a whole Greek chorus of wickedly injured and damaged players. Even Cerberus the Rottie is portrayed as a dark character. Even though it is a brilliant concept, the tempo drags at times, and the ending is not as satisfying as I know it could have been. There was a whole paragraph that was too pronoun laden and I had no idea which "she" was attached to which "her". I didn't feel like trying to take the time to figure out that one.
  
  The action scenes are wonderful, but the dialogue is weighed down by obscure psycho-babble. Frequently it never said anything at all. drag drag drag. Other times it was brilliant. Just not enough to earn a three-star review.