Stephen Spignesi, Dialogues

Dialogues

Stephen Spignesi

Bantam, May 2005, $23.00, 354 pp.

ISBN: 0553804014

Since the police arrested her for six murders, several people have conversed with Tory Troy including her lawyer in a guarded mental hospital. However, the most persistent psychiatrist Dr. Baraku Bexley has interviewed Tory several times to ascertain whether the genius can delineate right from wrong enough to stand trial in a Connecticut court.

Over a year ago, Tory lost her job at a pharmaceutical firm that felt the Internet was a better way to sell drugs. Before she left, Tory stole a paralytic drug that leaves victims conscious but paralyzed. Tory obtained worked as a euthanasia technician at the Waterbridge Animal Shelter in Connecticut, where every Friday she kills animals in a gas chamber.

Tory detests her job, but needs the income as she has no other prospects. As she turns into a loner, her loathing for her work converts towards her peers until she decides to take action. Using the paralytic she stole, Tory begins injecting fellow shelter employees and while they remain awake kills them in the gas chamber.

Through the dialogues with Tory at the mental hospital readers get a picture of what happened that drove the woman into killing her peers. Additionally, the audience obtains several other dialogues besides the central figure as her distraught parents, the judge, the prosecution team, the jurors, and others discuss Tory. Interestingly fans also get a different side to the indicted murderer through a strong short story and novella she wrote that adds to the feel that we are looking at a real person wondering why. By the uncanny climax, Stephen Spignesi will have readers exchanging dialogues on this insightful uniquely rendered thriller.

Harriet Klausner