A serial killer is made not born - The Fourth Monkey | Book Blind Date

A serial killer is made not born - The Fourth Monkey | Book Blind Date

Welcome to Book Blind Date! I see an appealing book cover, I read the book without checking the summary or reviews. I like the element of surprise... sometimes.

Warning: This post contains heavy spoilers. Read at your own risk.

Introduction

A serial killer is made not born - The Fourth Monkey | Book Blind Date

Now that I'm reading through my TBR after years of pausing, I figured this has been one of the books I've been putting off for a while now. Don't ask. The cover usually gets me.

I imagined it had horror elements on it with the silhouette figure pressed on the glass, minus the blood. I’m not super into horror, but the dark and psychological elements of certain stories really intrigue me. On the other hand, I assumed there was a serial killer involved. Glad I got that one right at least.

The story starts off introducing Sam Porter, the detective who's been working on the Fourth Monkey Killer case. The plot quickly kicks off when Brian Nash calls Porter to tell him about a “bus hitting a civilian”. Just a normal day until we find out that the civilian could actually be the Fourth Monkey Killer that Porter has been trying to hunt down for years.

Honestly, the story could have ended just as it was starting if that were true.

Book

The mood was set up really nice. Gives off this Detective Conan feel, except that Porter felt like this guy who was tired of life with how I imagined his voice goes. A Detective Kogoro Mori without the comical personality.

When Porter went to the scene of the incident (the bus hitting a civilian incident), he discovered that the civilian carried the same box that was usually mailed to the Fourth Monkey Killer's targets.

The serial killer known as Fourth Monkey Killer or 4MK has a pattern that identifies his murders as his. In some old tale, there was a saying. Hear No Evil. See No Evil. Speak No Evil. And lastly, the one that not a lot of people knew about; Do No Evil. Or in simple terms, these emojis on your keyboard: 🙉🙈🙊(these I am sure of lol) 🐒 (this last one, I just picked to make them four).

4MK would kidnap someone close to the person who had done evil and mail his packages to teach them a lesson. Starting with an ear. Then the eyes. Followed by the tongue. Eventually the corpse itself. 4MK believed that punishing the one who committed evil wouldn’t learn their lesson if they themselves were punished. But if it was someone innocent in their life was punished for their evil, they’d learn their lesson.

Out of all the serial killer TV shows I’ve watched, almost all of them had a self-righteous system to justify their actions. And this was 4MK's twisted sense of justice.

So when Porter and the detectives found a box containing someone's ear, it was a major giveaway that 4MK was behind it, and there would be more packages to come.

(It was a very intriguing plot-launch!)

Among the items they found from the body was a notebook (diary). There were other items as well, but I wanted to focus on the diary. Because the book has three POVs. Porter, Clair and Emory… wait, there’s more—a fourth POV—the Fourth Monkey Killer’s diary that narrated his childhood.

Porter and Clair’s POV pushed the plot forward. They followed the clues in hopes to find and save the missing girl.

Emory’s POV would be our missing girl. The illegitimate daughter of a wealthy man (I forgot his name lol, Arthur I think).

Now I wanted to highlight the diary because this was the part that drew me to binge read the book. Every diary entry ended with a cliffhanger that made me want to know what was next. The diary introduced a young 4MK under the roof of his parents. Neither parents were named. Just Mother and Father. And their beautiful neighbor that visited their house often, Mrs. Carter.

4MK was groomed by his parents, living under Father’s rules and the major rules as you’ve probably guessed by now, was 4MK’s exact M.O. in the present.

Young 4MK found Mrs. Carter beautiful, and even watched her undress and dipped by the lake. He was also aware that Mrs. Carter visited their home often. She'd talk about her relationship with her husband and even came a time when Mother invited her upstairs to give her new dresses. It was then that 4MK discovered something was going on between Mother and Mrs. Carter.

When Simon (Mrs. Carter's husband) went home and was greeted by his wife, he beat Lisa (Mrs. Carter) and barged into his neighbor's home. Young 4MK watched everything unfold from outside the house. But the thing is, Simon never went out of the house afterwards.

I later discovered that Mother was capable of taking care of herself. She had it all under control. Simon was bound in the basement and bad things awaited him. Things got worse when Father went home from work. Father and Mother bathed in Simon's blood, filled with incomprehensible ecstasy for killing him--or I daresay punished him for doing evil. His body was unrecognizable and 4MK witnessed all this at a young age.

Things got more complicated when Mrs. Carter knocked on their door, looking for her husband.

Father sent 4MK to distract Mrs. Carter. He led her back to her house and avoided her questions. Questions like "He's dead, isn't he?" They shared a bond and Mrs. Carter revealed that she knew he was watching her by the lake, allowing him to see her bare. It was their little secret. Eventually, Mrs. Carter got drunk until she was knocked out, waking up later in the basement, in the same spot where her husband was cuffed.

When she cursed, 4MK would warn her not to, because then she'd be breaking Father's law; Speak No Evil.

She was fed and taken care of by 4MK. He didn't budge with morals or conscience or bribes to let her go. He was firm with his Father's teachings and would choose silence most of the time. Now that both Carters have basically abandoned their home, Father needed to make it seem like they left for a long trip. He asked 4MK to pack their luggage. He did, but was surprised to see Mother was there, searching for something. Something that 4MK found. A photo of Mother and Mrs. Carter in bed together, at the Carter house.

Mother was asking assurance that 4MK wouldn't tell Father, but 4MK couldn't make a promise. There came a point where she raised a knife at her son, and even took his knife that Father gave. It was probably the only time I remembered he was afraid.

4MK never told Father, but Father already had a hunch something was off with Mother. One time he trapped a rant on top of her belly, threatening that if she didn't answer him, the rat would feast on her flesh. He demanded an answer if Simon and Mother were sleeping together. He accused that Mother killed Simon to protect herself, to protect her secret that they were cheating. Mrs. Carter denied that her husband and Mother were having an affair, but neither did she admitted that it was her that Mother was having an affair with.

Mrs. Carter remained their prisoner for quite some time.

Even after they got rid of Simon's body, left the Carter's car and luggage parked near the station, another complication arose. There were people looking for Simon. Bad people. When Father demanded answers, Mrs. Carter confessed that Simon did bad things to these bad people. He stole money. Their money. And now the bad people wanted it back.

Mrs. Carter confessed where the money was. Father sent 4MK to get the key to the money as they had a face-off with the bad people. Things didn't go according to plan when 4MK watched his father get shot in the head. And the shooter was shot by his own accomplice. We later found out that the accomplice, Mother and Mrs. Carter were working together. They sent 4MK to retrieve the buried key that Mrs. Carter said she hid under the carcass of the cat 4MK killed by the lake. But all 4MK found was his knife that Mother took from him.

He never saw any of the three again.

Now, I wanted to bring this up because his past was tied closely to the case that Sam Porter was working on.

Arthur was involved with the bad guys that Simon stole from. 4MK's past victims in the last five years or so were names listed down in Simon's drive (or something, I forgot lol) that had been doing evil (something to do with money, maybe money laundering or stealing, I forgot this detail). Arthur also had an affair with a woman, who bore him Emory. And who was the lovely woman we just met from 4MK's past? Correct! Mrs. Carter was Emory's mother. And all her will stated that her inheritance would all go to Emory, in a case that she died before right age, her wealth would be given to charity (and not Arthur).

What a rollercoaster, eh?

Wrap-Up

It felt like it was a quick read because the chapters were short, most especially when the events of the diary kicked off, revealing 4MK’s dark past and the thrilling turn of events between his family and the Carters.

The diary entries showed that 4MK wasn’t born a killer with unmethodical ways to execute justice. He was just a boy following what his parents taught him. It wasn’t his choice to be born in such a dark household. The things he’d seen could be traumatic, but even after he saw the events that took place in their basement, he didn’t seem afraid.

If anything, he seemed more afraid of his parents. One evident moment was when he locked his room in fear that his Mother would come and get him—with a knife.

I didn’t sympathize for 4MK, but I understood his upbringing through the diary.

During the events of Book 1, it was later revealed that 4MK wasn’t choosing his targets at random. Neither way was he some form of vigilante that saw some corrupt person and targeted them. It was all tied up to his past as the diary had hinted.

Porter on the other hand was a good character too. Especially when his backstory entered the fray, peeling the layer about his wife and what happened the night his wife was killed, it showed a side of him that wasn't seen during the investigation. He wasn’t this typical, solemn detective with the perfect gut feeling like Leroy Jethro Gibbs (NCIS anyone?).

Nash and Clair were quite the support for Porter, as well as adding comical moments. No other character highlights from them though.

I expected Porter and Emory would finally meet after she was rescued. It was a nice touch that their topic of conversation was somewhere between the lines of "let's talk about your mother". I thought that it was the end, until it wasn't.

4MK had escaped after they rescued Emory and he contacted Porter, offering a trade of services-- His help in exchange that Porter help him find Mother. It opened the door for Book 2 and I’d be happy to pick it up as part of my next TBR sometime soon.

I’d say today’s Book Blind Date was successful. I loved the book!

See you in the next one!