Cool Ghouls Book Club

While Gord Rollo is not a new name in the horror scene, The Crucifixion Experiments is my first encounter with his work. It is also very different from his more popular titles, like Jigsaw Man. You may find The Crucifixion Experiments in the horror section of Audible, but it is definitely more of a thriller or serial killer detective type story. Which is fine, I like those.

Let’s talk about the audiobook for a moment. Lou del Bianco is a new to me narrator. Seems I’ve encountered a lot of new narrators lately! This narrator was perfect for this book. He is exactly what I imagine Jake Mercer sounds like. I found myself making comparisons to Will Patton’s narration of Stephen King’s Bill Hodges trilogy, which I thought was fantastic. Lou del Bianco does a great job of bringing out the essence of Jake Mercer.

Jake Mercer is the best at what he does. There’s just one problem, his methods have left him a broken man. He’s spent so many years solving murder cases by getting in the mindset of murderers and it’s taken its toll, leaving him to self-medicate with alcohol. His alcoholism leads to a suspension from the force. Jake is at the lowest point in his life, fairly drunk in a bar in the middle of the day when two rookie detectives walk in and solicit his help with a case. He is reluctant to go back to the job that broke him, but part of him knows the department would not have reached out to him if they didn’t think he was the best man for the job. His methods threaten to break him again and plunge him further into the alcoholism abyss, but now he is not alone. He has to set an example for his two proteges, who give him a nudge when he’s slipping.

There isn’t anything groundbreaking happening here, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. It follows the crime thriller formula with very few surprises. There’s comfort in that formula though. There’s a reason crime dramas are so popular. There’s a reason there are so many CSI spinoffs. We love to feel like we are solving the mystery and finding the killer in a medium tension low stakes kind of way. I love solving crimes, but I don’t want to do it in the real world. The story takes you through several possible solutions and gives you just enough details to make you second guess yourself. There is a level of predictability, but I think that’s part of the fun of a crime thriller.

Another part of the fun is finding a rabbit hole to dive into. In this case, that rabbit hole is right in the title. The Crucifixion Experiments not only describes the plot, it refers to a series of tests performed on cadavers to settle debates about the crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth. Is it physically possible for a body to be nailed to a cross in the way it’s always been portrayed? Such experiments have been conducted several times over the course of the last 200 years. These experiments, and this book, explore that idea. While my googling isn’t technically part of the book, it is part of my enjoyment of reading the book.

I was gifted an Audible code from Fright Night Audio. All views expressed here are my own. I think if you’re the type of reader who likes to google the morbid things referenced in books, you’ll have a good time with this one. I know I did.