Robert Fleming Fever in the Blood

Fever in the Blood

Robert Fleming

Dafina (Kensington), May 2006, $5.99, 329 pp.

ISBN: 0758212399

His home life as a child was horrible because he was raised by dealing junkies who proved dangerous as they cared more about sex and the next high then their children. He knew his mother hated him and abused him even more than his masochistic father did. He always wondered why his dad accepted his mom stepping out with other men.

All that changed when some rival sellers in the hood killed his parents and two sisters. He survived because he was cleverly hidden, but he observed everything. They thought he was the lucky one because he not only lived, but a Congressman adopted him. However his luck proved false as the man did it to bolster his reelection chances not because he wanted a son. When he was old enough he returned to the hood where he hears voices and kills women he never met or saw before he murders them. At twenty a delusional Eddie is reaching double digits in his need to kill unworthy women that only he believes are whores.

Told totally in the first person by Eddie, readers follow a troubled young adult who has no one to help him except those voices inside his head. He believes that no one cares what happens to him and thus remains a loner, friendless and lost. Even his adopted parent cares more about one vote than Eddie; besides which his role model is that of a corrupt politician and a mother who was a married cheat. Robert Fleming's dark character driven tale of a youth betrayed by those who should have nurtured him condemns a society who makes a fuss before one is born, but is notably absent afterward.

Harriet Klausner