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WORK TITLE: What You Don’t Know
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE: http://www.joannchaney.com/
CITY:
STATE: CO
COUNTRY:
NATIONALITY:
Married; has kids. * http://www.joannchaney.com/blog/2017/1/30/one-week-left
RESEARCHER NOTES:
LC control no.: n 2017005186
LCCN Permalink: https://lccn.loc.gov/n2017005186
HEADING: Chaney, JoAnn
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100 1_ |a Chaney, JoAnn
670 __ |a What you don’t know, 2017: |b CIP t.p. (JoAnn Chaney) data view (“JoAnn Chaney is a graduate of UC Riverside’s Palm Desert MFA program. She lives in Colorado with her family. What You Don’t Know is her first novel”)
PERSONAL
Married; children.
EDUCATION:University of California, Riverside, M.F.A.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Author.
WRITINGS
SIDELIGHTS
In her fictional debut, What You Don’t Know, novelist JoAnn Chaney tells a story about the arrest of a serial killer and the destruction he leaves behind in the lives of those who survive him. The novel “opens with detectives cracking Denver’s most notorious serial killer case. Jacky Seever is hauled away to prison as bodies are dug up from his crawlspace,” Chaney explained in an interview with Heather Scott Partington on the Electric Lit website. “But that’s just when things begin to spiral for those in Seever’s orbit. Seven years later when a string of similar murders occur, the reporter who covered the case, the detectives, and Seever’s wife are all pulled back into the warped world of a man who is locked away in prison.” “The methodology mirrors Seever’s,” stated a Publishers Weekly reviewer, “including his trademark removal of one or more of the victims’ fingers.” “In the light of the renewed interest in the case,” said a Sumaiyya’s Books website contributor, “What You Don’t Know explores multi-dimensional characters who are most affected by the Seever investigation: his wife Gloria, detectives Hoskins and Loren, and Sammie, the journalist whose career picked off because of Seever.”
It is these four characters who are at the center of Chaney’s story. Each of them, years after Seever’s arrest and imprisonment, is still affected by the uncovering of the murders. “In this perverse first novel,” Marilyn Stasio stated in the New York Times, “the exploits of a murderer are viewed from three perspectives: that of his wife, who still loves him; that of a journalist, who made her career because of him; and that of a police detective, who is still obsessed with him.” “It’s the escalating psychological tension and the interactions of three-dimensional characters,” opined a Kirkus Reviews contributor, “that lift this well above the serial-killer norm.” “I think a lot of writers have themes and ideas and issues they revisit time and time again,” Chaney told Partington. “I have an ongoing fascination with the idea that things are never what they seem, that everything can look amazing and perfect on the surface and be rotten and stinking underneath.”
Another of the elements that sets Chaney’s novel apart is her depiction of Gloria, Seever’s wife, who apparently successfully ignored his activities for years. “The idea for What You Don’t Know actually first sparked because of an article I read about Jerry Sandusky, the convicted child molester who’d coached college football,” Chaney explained in her Electric Lit interview. “The article asked the question: Did Sandusky’s wife know about her husband’s crimes, and if she had, why did she keep this terrible secret?” “Gloria Seever,” Stasio remarked, “never intended to share her life with a man who would murder thirty-one people and bury their remains in the crawl space under the house. She just wasn’t very observant.” “If you’ve ever wondered about the wives of serial killers (many real life serial killers have been known to be in stable relationships in their killing years),” the Sumaiyya’s Books website reviewer concluded, “then Gloria is reason enough to pick up this brilliant crime fiction.” “Chaney’s work,” said Parkington, “is a careful study in characters and deception.”
Critics approved of Chaney’s first novel. A reviewer for the Morkan’s Horse website called What You Don’t Know “a welcome departure from the flinty cynicism of noir crime fiction. This isn’t a story that plays gore for gore’s sake. The gore allows us watch the reactions of humans in the face of the inhumane.” “This is a grim story, the language is tough, and the setting is bleak with whiffs of decay,” assessed Jane Murphy, writing in Booklist. “Full of unlikable and fatally flawed characters,” wrote Amy Nolan in Library Journal, “this … is a fit for those drawn to gritty police procedurals.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Booklist, December 15, 2016, Jane Murphy, review of What You Don’t Know, p. 27.
Kirkus Reviews, December 1, 2016, review of What You Don’t Know.
Library Journal, January 1, 2017, Amy Nolan, review of What You Don’t Know, p. 86.
New York Times, March 3, 2017, Marilyn Stasio, review of What You Don’t Know.
Publishers Weekly, December 12, 2016, review of What You Don’t Know, p. 124.
ONLINE
Criminalelement.com, https://www.criminalelement.com/ (February 5, 2017), review of What You Don’t Know; book excerpt.
Electric Lit, https://electricliterature.com/ (February 9, 2017), Heather Scott Partington, “JoAnn Chaney on Murder, Marriage and Secrets: Talking with the Author of the New Thriller, What You Don’t Know.“
JoAnn Chaney Website, http://www.joannchaney.com (October 18, 2017), author profile.
Macmillan, https://us.macmillan.com/ (October 18, 2017), author profile.
Morkan’s Horse, http://www.morkanshorse.com/ (February 5, 2017), review of What You Don’t Know.
Sumaiyya’s Books, https://sumaiyyareads.wordpress.com/ (March 27, 2017), review of What You Don’t Know.
JoAnn Chaney is a graduate of UC Riverside’s Palm Desert MFA program. She lives in Colorado with her family. What You Don't Know is her first novel.
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Book critic, teacher. NBCC Emerging @bookcritics Fellow. Contributor to @electriclit, @goodreads Voice & @lasvegasweekly.
Feb 9
JoAnn Chaney on Murder, Marriage and Secrets
Talking with the author of the new thriller, What You Don’t Know
JoAnn Chaney’s debut thriller, What You Don’t Know (Flatiron Books) opens with detectives cracking Denver’s most notorious serial killer case. Jacky Seever is hauled away to prison as bodies are dug up from his crawlspace. But that’s just when things begin to spiral for those in Seever’s orbit. Seven years later when a string of similar murders occur, the reporter who covered the case, the detectives, and Seever’s wife are all pulled back into the warped world of a man who is locked away in prison. Chaney’s work is a careful study in characters and deception. The author answered questions over email recently about lies, the people who can hurt us the most, and her suspenseful debut.
Heather Scott Partington: Does anything scare you? I’m such a wimp that I read this book with my breath held and the lights on, and I kept thinking what a badass you are to write about creepy clowns and bodies in crawlspaces and skin peeling off corpses — all while maintaining tension and a kind of macabre chic. What was the first book that really scared you? Was there a quality of that first scare that wanted to bring to What You Don’t Know?
Joann Chaney: Things that scare me: something bad happening to my kids. Spiders, especially those huge ones people are always trying to cover with a bowl in YouTube videos. Being sideswiped on the interstate and crashing. So, you know, the typical stuff.
I can’t remember the name or author of this short story I read when I was a kid, but I remember exactly what it was about — a single woman has her home renovated and takes the contractor as a lover, and when the work is done she ends the relationship. But she doesn’t realize that the contractor has built tunnels behind the walls so he can creep around and watch her. He says he’s in love with her, but he’s obviously a nutcase, and decides if he can’t be with her, well — she’s gotta die. Boy oh boy, that story freaked me out. It was about obsession and lust, and the idea that none of us are safe, not even in our own homes.
I think a lot of writers have themes and ideas and issues they revisit time and time again, and that short story laid the groundwork for what I write about now. I have an ongoing fascination with the idea that things are never what they seem, that everything can look amazing and perfect on the surface and be rotten and stinking underneath. Like the home renovation in that short story — all the paint and drywall and plaster are hiding something much more sinister than you can possibly imagine.
“Everything can look amazing and perfect on the surface and be rotten and stinking underneath…”
Also: if anyone knows what short story I’m remembering, let me know. I’d love to read it again.
HSP: There’s also a lovely grown-ass Nancy Drew-ness to the novel. The reporter at the heart of the story, Sammie Peterson, is both solving the crime and finding herself hopelessly entangled in the world of the killer. She’s no victim, and yet she keeps getting caught up. Was that something you wanted to balance? How did you conceive of Sammie from the beginning?
JC: I love Nancy Drew. Just wanted to put that out there.
I think Sammie’s character is really interesting, because she’s a woman trying to get places and maybe not always going about it in the best way. It’s something of a man’s world she’s living and working in, so she’s constantly battling it out with men — her husband, Hoskins. I’d like to think she’s a modern day Lois Lane/Nancy Drew — strong, smart, willful. But she’s got issues — hell, if she didn’t, she wouldn’t be realistic. And I wanted Sammie to seem real, and I think all her quirks help make her believable. Sammie’s tough, but she’s also soft. She’s strong, but she second-guesses her choices. She makes bad decisions. Sammie’s multi-faceted — but aren’t all women?
Quite a few people have had a very strong, negative reaction to Sammie’s character — she’s unlikeable, she’s a sexual deviant, she’s an all-around terrible person. But I’d argue that those things all make her a believable, balanced character.
HSP: One of the characters says, “knowing things another person is capable of, well, those things stay with you, they change you.” Everyone in What You Don’t Know is damaged at the start of the story by knowing Seever; but I think what readers will find rewarding is the complexity of characters who we come to find are damaged well before they meet him. What You Don’t Know makes a compelling argument for being alone, or at least guarding against the compromise that comes from close association with other people. Did you start to look at people differently as you got further into writing it?
JC: That’s a good question, and one I hadn’t even considered. I wouldn’t say I started looking at anyone differently as I wrote WYDK, but I’ve always believed that the people closest to you can cause the most damage. They know you, what makes you tick, your deepest darkest secrets and fears — and anytime you get close to anyone else you run the risk of them hurting you.
I feel like at its very core What You Don’t Know is about the secrets we keep from each other, and for each other. The characters are constantly in a kind of battle, both against other characters and themselves, trying to protect these secrets and their hidden motives. And I think those sorts of relationships can make for compelling reading.
HSP: My favorite line in the book is “You can make a person believe anything.” What’s the biggest lie you’ve ever made a person believe?
JC: When my oldest son was about six or so he asked me who invented padlocks, and why. I honestly don’t know the answer. But instead of just telling him the truth, I came up with an elaborate story about a gentleman-farmer named Jebediah Masterlock who was having some problems keeping his sheep in the pen. I’ve also told my kids that a certain button under my car’s steering wheel is an emergency self-destruct in case of the zombie apocalypse. When we saw a street getting repaved I told them the old pavement was never scraped off — it was just layer after later of asphalt, and when it got too high the buildings would all be cranked up a few inches so everything was the same height.
You get the idea. I’m pretty sure my kids don’t believe a word that comes out of my mouth, but they keep asking questions and I keep spinning stories. It’s a fun tradition.
HSP: The two marriages — Jacky and Gloria’s and Sammie and Dean’s — are in some ways such interesting mirrors because they both involve the idea of turning a blind eye to a partner’s shortcomings. “Every marriage has rules,” Gloria muses, “not ones that are written down or set in stone, but they’re there just the same, creating invisible fences that only two people can see.” As the story progresses, you do a really nice job of reminding the reader that it’s what we can’t know — or what we choose not to see — that’s what we should worry about. Have you done research into the spouses of historical serial killers? (Do serial killers have spouses?) Was marriage initially a focus of the book, or did that evolve with the plot?
JC: I’d have to say that marriage has always been a key focus of this book, because in many ways marriage is one of the closest, most personal, and (sometimes) the most damaging, warped relationship a person can be in. Your partner knows you at your best, but also at your worst, and is probably privy to all sorts of information about you that no one else has. I’ve been married for fifteen years, and my husband knows things about me that no one else ever will — not my parents, not my kids. No one. Your spouse keeps your secrets — or they don’t. There’s a fantastic line in Stephen King’s Bag of Bones I kept thinking about while writing: “…marriage is a secret territory, a necessary white space on society’s map. What others don’t know about it is what makes it yours.”
“Marriage is one of the closest, most personal, and (sometimes) the most damaging, warped relationship a person can be in.”
The idea for What You Don’t Know actually first sparked because of an article I read about Jerry Sandusky, the convicted child molester who’d coached college football. The article asked the question: Did Sandusky’s wife know about her husband’s crimes, and if she had, why did she keep this terrible secret? That piece really stuck with me, and ultimately turned into the plotline involving Gloria Seever.
I haven’t done much research on the spouses of serial killers, but I do know that John Wayne Gacy (who is the inspiration for Jacky Seever) had been married, although it ultimately ended in divorce before his arrest. And Ted Bundy had several relationships while he was operating as a killer. It’s interesting because it appears that these men were able to have “normal” relationships while they committed their crimes, but it also makes me wonder what sorts of things these women experienced or saw that they overlooked or ignored.
HSP: The book is written like a movie, so I have to ask: What’s your dream cast?
JC: I’ve been asked this question many times before, and I’m embarrassed to say I still don’t have a really good answer — especially since the first line in the book is If this were a movie…
(A day later) But…after some thought and a lot of time paging through IMDB, here’s my cast list of the main characters:
Jacky Seever: Stacy Keach
Gloria Seever: Sissy Spacek
Paul Hoskins: Christopher Meloni
Ralph Loren: Patrick Kilpatrick
Sammie Peterson: Robin Tunney
HSP: There’s a scene in the bookstore where Sammie goes and finds the spot where her book will sit on the shelf someday. Where will this book sit?
JC: Dream scenario: A big stack of What You Don’t Know would be sitting on a table right in the front of a bookstore, with a glowing personal recommendation from one of the booksellers. That’s important. There’s nothing better than having someone you don’t know, a person who doesn’t give a damn whether they’ll hurt your feelings or not, say how much they love your story. How it made them think or feel differently, or how it kept them up all night.
And when What You Don’t Know goes home with a reader, maybe it’ll sit on their nightstand. Or the corner of their desk. Or on their shelf of favorite books. On the back lid of their toilet. Or wherever they put the books they love.
HSP: What’s the best thing you’ve read lately?
JC: I read Sarah Pinborough’s Behind Her Eyes and Jane Harper’s The Dry — both really great, smart thrillers that were recently published. I’ve also been doing a lot of re-reading my old favorites: Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier and A Kiss Before Dying by Ira Levin, to name a few. I’ve also been reading the Harry Potter series with one of my kids.
HSP: What’s next for you?
JC: Writing: I’m working on my next book. It’s set in the same world as What You Don’t Know and features quite a few of the same characters, but I wouldn’t necessarily call it a sequel. It’s the story of a marriage gone terribly wrong — early readers have compared it to The War of the Roses, which I take as a huge compliment.
Personally: I’ll be doing a bit of traveling over the next few months for What You Don’t Know promotion, and my family will be tagging along — it’ll be business, with a good deal of pleasure. Disneyland, we’re coming for you!
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Print Marked Items
Chaney, Joann. What You Don't Know
Amy Nolan
Library Journal.
142.1 (Jan. 1, 2017): p86.
COPYRIGHT 2017 Library Journals, LLC. A wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution
permitted.
http://www.libraryjournal.com/
Full Text:
Chaney, Joann. What You Don't Know. Flatiron: Macmillan. Feb. 2017.320p. ISBN 9781250075536. $25.99; ebk.
ISBN 9781250075543. F
When Jacky Seever is arrested and sentenced to death for the brutal murder of 31 people, the Denver community is
relieved to end this gruesome nightmare. But for three people intimately involved, there is no closure. How will
Hoskins, the detective who solved the case, continue after witnessing such depravity? Can Sammie Peterson, the star
reporter who covered the crime, ever find another story to match this explosive one? And how will Seever's wife,
Gloria, who lived with a sadistic madman for decades, reconcile herself to the truth? This debut novel, in graphic and
coarse detail, follows the lives of these three damaged protagonists. When seven years later a copycat killer begins
butchering people linked to the original case, the trio are caught in a hellish sort of deja vu with old and new horrors to
confront. With an increasing sense of dread, readers are taken on a suspenseful and gruesome ride, and Chaney does an
excellent job of keeping us guessing until the final page. VERDICT Full ofunlikable and fatally flawed characters, this
bleak and seedy tale is a fit for those drawn to gritty police procedurals and character-driven mysteries.--Amy Nolan,
St. Joseph, Ml
Nolan, Amy
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
Nolan, Amy. "Chaney, Joann. What You Don't Know." Library Journal, 1 Jan. 2017, p. 86. General OneFile,
go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA476562302&it=r&asid=f3780d16d396e07a8b3eeaa78b87f74d.
Accessed 27 Sept. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A476562302
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Chaney, Joann: WHAT YOU DON'T KNOW
Kirkus Reviews.
(Dec. 1, 2016):
COPYRIGHT 2016 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
Chaney, Joann WHAT YOU DON'T KNOW Flatiron Books (Adult Fiction) $25.99 2, 7 ISBN: 978-1-250-07553-6
A deranged serial killer is captured and brought to justice. That's usually the end of a good thriller, but it's the start of
this unusually thoughtful first novel, which relies more on character studies than gory details.As the book opens, a
string of murders in Denver is definitively pinned on Jacky Seever, a respected restaurant owner who's been stashing
victims in his crawl space. But the cops who capture him are no paragons themselves: Detective Ralph Loren has an
abusive temper and a strange fascination with Seever, to the point of dressing up in his clothes. His long-suffering
partner, Paul Hoskins, is also prone to violent mood swings. His sometime lover is Sammie Peterson, a journalist whose
career is made by the exclusive Seever stories Hoskins feeds her. Everyone is still scarred when the story resumes after
seven years: Seever is in jail, Loren is still on the force, Hoskins has been demoted after one of his outbursts. Having
lost her connection for news exclusives, Sammie is now selling makeup in a mall. And Denver suddenly sees a new
string of murders that look suspiciously like Seever's. This time the suspects include Seever's wife, Gloria, who
managed to stay oblivious while the bodies were being buried. The pace is unusually slow for a thriller with no grisly
murder scenes, but that's part of the book's strength. It's the escalating psychological tension and the interactions of
three-dimensional characters that lift this well above the serial-killer norm.
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"Chaney, Joann: WHAT YOU DON'T KNOW." Kirkus Reviews, 1 Dec. 2016. General OneFile,
go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA471902083&it=r&asid=eb9db07c3b48c91b93201b1e203c2c14.
Accessed 27 Sept. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A471902083
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What You Don't Know
Jane Murphy
Booklist.
113.8 (Dec. 15, 2016): p27.
COPYRIGHT 2016 American Library Association
http://www.ala.org/ala/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist_publications/booklist/booklist.cfm
Full Text:
What You Don't Know.
By JoAnn Chaney.
Feb. 2017.320p. Flatiron, $25.99 (9781250075536); e-book, $12.99(9781250075543).
Denver detective Paul Hoskins wasn't a victim of serial killer Jacky Seever--he cracked the case--but he has wounds of
his own. He had been "a different man before Seever. A better man. But Seever had managed to rip that part of him out,
with his teeth." Sammie Peterson was the ace reporter who broke the story about the 33 bodies found in the crawl space
of Jacky Seever's house. She is now taking antidepressants and selling cosmetics. Hoskins and Peterson are just two of
many well-drawn characters, good and evil, created by debut novelist Chaney. Seever was convicted and is in prison
awaiting execution. Seven years have passed, and there is a new guy in town, the Secondhand Killer, whose crimes are
frightfully similar to those of Seever. Hoskins and Peterson are inevitably drawn into the investigation. This is a grim
story, the language is tough, and the setting is bleak with whiffs of decay, but it is a thrilling read in the tradition of
Jeffery Deaver's The Bone Collector (1997)--although fingers, not bones, are the killer's memento of choice.--Jane
Murphy
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
Murphy, Jane. "What You Don't Know." Booklist, 15 Dec. 2016, p. 27. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA476563481&it=r&asid=63515c7c18425d951f02ff927587510a.
Accessed 27 Sept. 2017.
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What You Don't Know
Publishers Weekly.
263.51 (Dec. 12, 2016): p124.
COPYRIGHT 2016 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
What You Don't Know
JoAnn Chaney. Flatiron, $25.99 (320p)
ISBN 978-1-250-07553-6
Set in Denver, Chaney's unsettling, well-crafted first novel opens in December 2008, when homicide detectives Ralph
Loren and Paul Hoskins arrest creepy Jacky Seever, a successful restaurateur, after a search of the crawl space in the
home that he shares with his wife, Gloria, turns up bodies of murder victims going back decades. The subsequent
investigation is covered by newspaper reporter Samantha "Sammie" Peterson, whose extramarital affair with Hoskins
grants her special access. "It'll never be over," the incarcerated Seever predicts, and so it proves seven winters later
when Carrie Simms, who escaped Seever in 2008, is murdered, along with others connected to the original case. The
methodology mirrors Seever's, including his trademark removal of one or more of the victims' fingers, a fact that was
never released to the public. All the point-of-view characters-Hoskins, Sammie, Grace--are tragically flawed in
believable ways, though the flat, untidy ending may leave some readers feeling frustrated. Agent: Stephanie Cabot,
Gernet Company. (Feb.)
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"What You Don't Know." Publishers Weekly, 12 Dec. 2016, p. 124. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA475225044&it=r&asid=fc942991ae5dbadf56d895606bbb2e80.
Accessed 27 Sept. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A475225044
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Hath not a serial killer eyes? Hath not a serial killer hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? If you prick him, does he not bleed? If you tickle him, does he not laugh? Well, let’s see what the wife of a serial killer has to say about that in JoAnn Chaney’s WHAT YOU DON’T KNOW (Flatiron, $25.99).
In this perverse first novel, the exploits of a murderer are viewed from three perspectives: that of his wife, who still loves him; that of a journalist, who made her career because of him; and that of a police detective, who is still obsessed with him. Gloria Seever never intended to share her life with a man who would murder 31 people and bury their remains in the crawl space under the house. She just wasn’t very observant. And really, who’d ever suspect Jacky Seever, who likes to dress up as a clown and entertain hospital-bound children, of torturing and killing women in the garage? “When you were married you made things work” is how Gloria explains her blind devotion to her homicidal husband — and her determination to stay out of the garage. “She’d made a promise and she was going to keep it.”
Photo
Years later, when Seever is safely locked up, another killer seems to be paying homage to his work. So does one of the lead homicide detectives on the case. In trying to understand Seever’s appeal to his imitator, Ralph Loren of the Denver Police Department adopts his fashion sense, hairstyle and mannerisms, which alters his looks but doesn’t do much for his deductive skills. But while that plot turn leads down a blind alley, Chaney has more success with her other, striking characters. Sammie Peterson, who has been laid off from her newspaper, sells cosmetics at a mall. Paul Hoskins, who also worked on the investigation, is now in the precinct’s basement, poring over cold cases. And let’s not forget Gloria, who is still known as Bluebeard’s wife.
The emergence of the copycat they call the Secondhand Killer gives everyone a collective lift. Hoskins comes up from the basement, Sammie goes back to writing crime stories, and as for Gloria . . . well, although she’s “half-tempted to do something crazy,” she clings to the one rule that has sustained her throughout her marriage: “Gloria knows nothing.” And she never, ever lingers in the garage.
⬥
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Here’s something to elevate your paranoia about traveling on overcrowded subways. I SEE YOU (Berkley, $26), a nasty little tale by the British author (and former police officer) Clare Mackintosh, articulates female riders’ secret fears of being stalked by some silent watcher on the London Underground. Zoe Walker, one of the narrators in this well-told suspense story, follows the same routine — same train, same car, same door — when she commutes to and from her real estate job. Glancing over the ads in the evening paper, she’s shocked to find her own photo advertising “dating services” on FindTheOne.com. She’s not the only one, it turns out, and at least two of the women are later murdered.
Mackintosh supplies refreshingly realistic domestic scenes for the women in this slow-burning narrative, including Kelly Swift of the British Transport Police, who talks her way onto this case to get back in the big leagues. She’s a well-drawn character with a rich home life (another one of the author’s strengths) and good company on this case, which — with the exception of a forced and truly awful ending — really hits home for daily commuters with robotic schedules and vivid imaginations.
⬥
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Is she tough or is she tough? In Kathleen Kent’s brawling crime novel, THE DIME (Mulholland/Little, Brown, $26), Betty (Riz) Rhyzyk and her girlfriend have left Brooklyn for Dallas — the real Dallas of “truck drivers, Mexican laborers, lawyers, parolees and cops mixed elbow to elbow with white privileged gringas driving expensive S.U.V.s.” It’s a good career move for the statuesque cop with the “hussy red” hair, who seems suited to the new criminal terrain of drug lords so cruel they leave severed heads as calling cards and biker gangs so brutal they “eat Hells Angels for breakfast.” The plot revolves around the Asian sex- and drug-trafficking trade run by the cutest little old lady you ever did see, but the broader appeal is Kent’s offbeat humor, which pulls up reins just before it takes the story over a cliff.
⬥
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Let us now praise the cozy mystery, so comforting on dark days, so warming on chilly nights — the literary equivalent of a cat. TWELVE ANGRY LIBRARIANS (Berkley Prime Crime, $26), the latest Cat in the Stacks mystery by Miranda James, checks a lot of essential boxes: college setting (check), academic politics (check), tasteful murder (check) and, of course, clever house cat (check). As host of the annual conference of the Southern Academic Library Association, Charlie Harris, interim library director at Athena College in Mississippi, finds himself fending off self-designated luminaries like the arrogant Gavin Fong, plenary speaker of the convention and the perfect candidate for murder. Gavin has applied for the job of library director that Charlie himself hopes to win, which makes socializing awkward; more so when Gavin keels over dead while delivering his incendiary keynote address (“The academic library is dying”). Good riddance — but a sweet opportunity for Charlie to exercise his detection skills, after consulting with his big old Maine coon cat, Diesel.
A version of this article appears in print on March 5, 2017, on Page BR7 of the Sunday Book Review with the headline: That New Corpse Smell. Order Reprints| Today's Paper|Subscribe
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Book Review: WHAT YOU DON’T KNOW by JoAnn Chaney
MARCH 27, 2017 ~ SUMAIYYA NASEEM
WHAT YOU DON’T KNOW by JoAnn Chaney was one of those books I knew I absolutely had to read after checking out the blurb. The novel picks up where most crime fiction novels end – after the chase is over and the killer is behind bars, and this makes WHAT YOU DON’T KNOW an intriguing as hell read.
Jacky Seever is a community do-gooder and a restauranteur who likes to entertain and amuse kids by dressing up like a clown (nothing evil about that). He’s also the man who raped and killed 33 people and buried them in the crawl space of his house. Seven years after he’s put on death row, the murders start again, in signature Seever style. In the light of the renewed interest in the case, WHAT YOU DON’T KNOW explores multi-dimensional characters who are most affected by the Seever investigation: his wife Gloria, detectives Hoskins and Loren, and Sammie, the journalist whose career picked off because of Seever.
These four are arguably Seever’s biggest victims. Years after the case wrapped up, people still question whether Gloria, Seever’s wife, knew about the victims and decided to turn a blind eye to her husband’s evil activities. If you’ve ever wondered about the wives of serial killers (many real life serial killers have been known to be in stable relationships in their killing years), then Gloria is reason enough to pick up this brilliant crime fiction.
The detectives Hoskins and Loren exchanged some of my favourite dialogues, they were an interesting pair to watch at work. They’re far from exemplary themselves; Hoskins is prone to violent outbursts that have him demoted at the precinct, and temper aside, Loren is a little too obsessed with Seever, he even dresses like him. While the detectives return to tracing the killer’s trail, Sammie is looking for a way back to journalism from her current job selling makeup at the mall. She’ll do anything to write about the copycat murderer on the loose.
WHAT YOU DON’T KNOW is a fascinating insight into how you can’t really kill evil, and that “..knowing things another person is capable of, well, those things stay with you, they change you.” The novel explores how knowledge of evil and how being involved in the Seever investigation changes these character’s lives. For example, Hoskins regularly slips into moments doused in dark and evil thoughts, revealing how psychologically disturbed he is, especially at the mention of Seever’s name.
The words “It’ll never be over.” haunt the pages of the novel, almost becoming a symbol for the evil that can never die. One passage describes how evil, even after you may kill it, lives on forever within us and in the air we breathe. It was extremely creepy to me because it’s so believable. The entire novel’s plausibility makes WHAT YOU DON’T KNOW the excellent thriller that it is, especially in its unflinching insight into people and relationships, especially marriage.
The characters in WHAT YOU DON’T KNOW all have personal struggles against evil, and they’re grappling in their fight with it. As their perspectives come together, you’ll find it harder to have an answer for what’s going on. This was definitely a major plus in the novel; the various narratives were all so intense and important in their own right that you could never really say for sure who the new killer is or what’s really going on.
The novel was perfectly paced as a psychological thriller, with enough creepy and horrifying details to make you keep the light switched on. I do think some readers might find this book slow-paced, but it’s compensated with the character studies. Overall, I loved that there were almost no likeable characters; that makes it so realistic and believable. I personally think a completely innocent character can polarise a reader’s suspicions within the thriller, and that’s something I don’t like because life isn’t black and white either. In that regard, the psychological aspect in this novel was brilliantly illustrated.
WHAT YOU DON’T KNOW is now one of my favourites, especially because it was so easy for me to get invested in this gripping story. Don’t miss this solid debut and a creepily satisfying serial killer thriller. JoAnn Chaney is a promising new voice in crime fiction, I’d read anything she writes and I believe she’s working on her next novel which is set in the same world as Seever’s story.
BTW, in an online interview, the author mentioned these actors as her dream cast and it’s literally perfect:
Jacky Seever: Stacy Keach
Gloria Seever: Sissy Spacek
Paul Hoskins: Christopher Meloni
Ralph Loren: Patrick Kilpatrick
Sammie Peterson: Robin Tunney
Goodreads, Book Depository.
Thank you Flatiron Books for sending me a copy of the book.
PS: Once you’re done reading WHAT YOU DON’T KNOW , look up John Wayne Gacy, Chaney’s inspiration for Seever’s character. It’s very creepy so read up only if you can handle it.
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2 thoughts on “Book Review: WHAT YOU DON’T KNOW by JoAnn Chaney”
Quirine
MARCH 29, 2017 AT 1:50 PM
This sounds so interesting! As horrible as it sounds, murder mysteries and serial killers intrigue me so much, and I have never read a book like this before. Adding this to my TBR!
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Sumaiyya Naseem
MARCH 30, 2017 AT 11:33 AM
Glad to know! I agree with you, I’m intrigued by the subject.
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Do you like thrillers?! Recommend me some please, I’m in the mood to read some crime fiction in October 😻
I recently read SIX STORIES by Matt Wesolowski, and I really liked it but I didn’t love it. The writing format is a series of podcast transcripts, and the story heavily focuses on a group of teenagers and their activities as part of a “hippie” outdoor group. It’s all interesting but something fell a little flat for me, and I especially felt underwhelmed at the ending. I think this book was hyped a lot and there’s a lot of merit in the novel but for some reason it missed the wow factor mark with me. Overall, I’d say read this if you want something intriguing and different, but expect a book that unravels a little slowly but has really great dialogue. Here's a mix of books I've read and books I've yet to read 🍁Newest on this shelf is I'M THINKING OF ENDING THINGS by Iain Reid, have you read it?! What's the newest book on your shelf? 📚 Coffee, good vibes and a thriller! I've had a productive morning and I'm so ready to spend my afternoon reading THE CHALK MAN by C J Tudor, an exciting suspense thriller that comes out in 2018. It's giving me serious Stranger Things vibes 😳
Speaking of, can you recommend me some addictive TV shows?!
Thank you @penguinukbooks for sending me a copy of #ChalkMan
#coffee #bookstagram #bookworm #booklover #thehappynow #keepitsimple #hygge #autumn🍁 #currentlyreading "We were miraculous. We were beach creatures. We had treasures in our pockets and each other on our skin." 🍁🌸🍁
I'm loving this book with its mood of melancholy. I think this makes for an amazing autumn read, although we don't have that season here.
What are you reading this weekend? Have a great day!
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NOT SO INNOCENT: THE BYSTANDERS IN JOANN CHANEY’S WHAT YOU DON’T KNOW
February 5, 2017
Jacky Seever, the notorious serial killer, is safe behind bars, selling his prison-house paintings and biding his time in the dimming spotlight of his atrocities. Years ago he was a news sensation, one of those monsters who somehow capture the public’s imagination—think Johan Wayne Gacy and his crawlspace full of corpses. But that was seven years ago, and new horrors have eclipsed the killer in the local papers and on the late news.
Joann Chaney’s new novel What You Don’t Know isn’t really about Seever and his crimes; it’s about three people who were left floundering in his wake and what happens to them when a series of similar crimes erupts in the same Denver neighborhood.
First there’s Hoshkins, the detective who solved Seever’s case. In the ensuing years he’s grown irritable and impulsively violent—a clear case of PTSD. And his career has suffered; he’s been relegated to thumbing through cold-cases in a lonely precinct basement, while his flamboyant former partner remains in homicide.
Then there’s Sammie, the newspaper reporter who rose to prominence covering Seever’s case. She managed to get all the inside scoops, mostly because she was having an affair with Hoskins. But now she’s pushing cosmetics in the local mall, trying to figure out how to get her career—and life—back on track.
Finally, there’s Gloria, the murder’s wife, who is just trying to survive under the suspicions that have surrounded her since her husband’s. How could she not have known? How could she have been ignorant about all those bodies buried under the house? All she wants now is so be forgotten—although she counts on income from her husband’s gruesome paintings to make ends meet.
Chaney’s novel is a welcome departure from the flinty cynicism of noir crime fiction. This isn’t a story that plays gore for gore’s sake. The gore allows us watch the reactions of humans in the face of the inhumane. Don’t get me wrong: The new series of murders—and who is responsible for them—makes for a suspenseful plot, but readers will be more rooted in Chaney’s revelations about what it means to be a not-so-innocent bystander when horror happens
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What You Don’t Know: New Excerpt
JoAnn Chaney
What You Don't Know by JoAnn Chaney is a gripping, terrifying debut novel that follows those most affected by an infamous serial killer (available February 7, 2017).
Read this exclusive excerpt from What You Don't Know by JoAnn Chaney and make sure to sign in and comment for a chance to win this chilling debut!
He didn’t take their lives—but he ruined them.
The final victims of an infamous serial killer may be the ones he didn’t kill.
Hoskins cracked the case of one of the most infamous serial killers—and then it cracked him. He’s in cold cases, as is his career.
Sammie was the lead reporter who broke the story, but now she’s selling makeup at the mall. She wants back on page 1.
Gloria claims she was the unsuspecting wife. She didn’t know a thing.
And as new murders shake Denver, this is a final chance to get their lives back.
SAMMIE
December 29, 2008
If there is one thing Sammie Peterson has learned over the years, it is this: Everyone thinks the pretty girl is a moron.
That’s what they think of her, she knows, she can feel those thoughts coming off the men as they work, as if there are cartoon bubbles floating over their heads, right there for her to read. They’ve invited her to stay in the crawl space while they dig, to get a better sense of the crime scene, to watch what’s going on so she can report it all more accurately in her articles, but she doesn’t like it down there. It’s too small, too close, even though they’ve ripped up most of the floorboards and moved out the washer and dryer, so the crawl space isn’t actually under the house anymore but a part of it, a place where the men can stand upright as they look at what Seever has left behind, their hands perched on their hips or folded across their chests. And they watch her when she does venture into the crawl space, she can feel their gazes on her ass and her breasts and her mouth, but hardly ever on her eyes. She’s heard them talking, even though they’ve been quiet about it, whispering to one another while they’re smoking outside or walking to their cars. They don’t like her, not only because she’s from the Post, and all cops hate a reporter snooping around, but also because of Hoskins. They’ve been careful in front of other people, acting like they hardly know each other, never touching, never talking, even when they could get away with it, but somehow everyone still knows.
“Have you told anyone?” she’d asked, not that long before. They were in his bed, the TV on but muted. She likes having the TV on while they have sex, likes to have the room filled with flickering light. “About us, I mean?”
“Why would I do that, princess?” he asked. “It’s none of anybody’s business.”
“It—it feels like people know.”
“Like who?”
“Like everyone.”
“It’s probably Loren,” Hoskins had said, and he’d been smiling, but there was nothing kind about that smile, nothing familiar. Hoskins was a good guy, and that smile didn’t belong to him. But then she blinked and it was gone. “That guy knows everything and can’t keep his mouth shut.”
“Might be.”
“It’s fine,” he said, reaching for the glass of water on his nightstand. She wished she could see his face. “You’re worrying over nothing.”
But she’s not all that worried, except when she thinks about her husband finding out about Hoskins. Not that she’s afraid of Dean, or that he’d do something bad, but she doesn’t want to hurt him, doesn’t want to see the look on his face if he finds out. It’s everyone else knowing that bothers her, because she knows what they’re all saying, she’s heard them say it.
Slut.
Whore.
The men think she’s fucking Hoskins so she can get into Seever’s house, so she can watch the investigation firsthand and write her articles for the Post and make them all look like fools, because that’s what the scum media does. The men all like Hoskins, they think he’s a hell of a good guy, but they’re not fools. They see exactly what’s going on. They’ve all seen the kind of tail Hoskins can typically pull, and Sammie’s pretty far out of his league. She’s a dime, a solid ten, and she could do much better. She’s only fucking him so she can get in here, they tell each other. She’s only sucking his dick for a story.
And it’s true. Some of it, at least.
But Sammie wouldn’t admit this, not even if someone put a gun to her head and demanded the truth. It’s not exactly something that she’s proud of, that she lets Hoskins touch her, that she puts on a show for him and then goes home and tells her husband lies so she can one-up every other reporter out there, panting to tell a good story. Besides, no one understands the position she was in at the paper, how it was to be there, day after day. Writing boring book reviews and fluff pieces on the local dog show, when all she wanted was to write a good piece, one that mattered. One that could make a difference. She’d hear her editor handing out assignments, but he’d pass right over her every time, and she’d go back to typing up her piece about the knitting club in Highlands Ranch that was donating their blankets to the homeless, or the dog with the prosthetic leg. She’d spent her whole life wanting to be a reporter, she’d thought she’d be big-time, that she’d be a glittering success, and when she’d been hired at the Post, she was sure she’d made it. The rest would be simple. But nothing in life is simple, and so she’d been patient, and she’d waited, and when she saw an opportunity she took it.
But it does embarrass her that all the men talk about her, that they call her names and treat her coldly when all she’s doing is her job, in the best way she can. So what if it involves sex? If she were a man, no one would care. They’d probably congratulate her, give her an award. Her connection to Hoskins allows her to duck under the police barricade every morning while the rest of the journalists are stuck in the cold, standing on the street far back from Seever’s house, with their notepads and recorders and cameras, and some of them have set up trailers and folding tables with steaming urns of coffee and cold doughnuts. There are journalists out there, important people with household names, flown in from New York or L.A., they have tents built in some of the yards and they spend all day out there, in the hopes that something might happen. She’s heard that some of the neighbors are charging the media a day rate for squatting in their yards, a flat fee for every time one of them needs a toilet. But she gets to walk right past them, all of them, gets to see everything that’s happening inside, is already writing her next article in her head as another body is zipped up in a black bag and carried out of the house.
This is something else Sammie has learned: If you’re going to fuck someone, at least make sure they’re important.
So the men keep whispering to one another as they dig up more bodies, and Sammie keeps writing, and she keeps fucking Hoskins. Keep on keeping on, as they say.
* * *
It’s strange to be in Seever’s house, surrounded by all the photographs of him, to see the dish towels his wife had hung from the hook beside the kitchen sink before she was forced to leave, and the ceramic Christmas tree still in the center of the dining-room table, one of the plastic lights sitting askew. But maybe it’s only strange for her because she used to work for Seever, years before, practically a lifetime ago, before college and jobs and marriage, she’d been a waitress at Don’s Café, one of the restaurants Seever owned. She’d already been working there a month when she saw Seever for the first time, when he stopped by to look over it all, make sure everything was running fine. He was wearing a nice tweed suit, expensive-looking, and his fingernails were polished and clean. He was handsome in those days, with his heavy brow and deep-set eyes and generous mouth, but even back then she’d noticed the weakness around his chin, the softness of his body, and she’d known he’d surely run to fat at some point; he was that type. Seever hadn’t said anything to her that first time—he’d come in during the lunch rush and it’d been too busy for introductions, with everyone running back and forth between tables and the kitchen with trays of chicken-fried steak and creamed corn, potatoes, and okra.
She actually met Seever the second time he came in, shook his hand and told him her name. He was in a clown costume that time, dressed up to entertain kids in the restaurant with his clumsy dancing and clumsier balloon animals. He looked silly; most men would hate to be all done up like that, but he seemed to enjoy it. That was the thing. He liked to make the kids laugh and clap, even if the joke was on him, and there was one little girl who abandoned her plate of pancakes to dance with Seever, and he spun her round and round like a ballerina, until her skirt stood straight out from her body and she was out of breath from laughing so hard. Sammie had watched the whole dance with the rest of the customers, a pot of coffee in one hand and a big smile on her face, the same as everyone else, but Seever had still singled her out when it was over, because he’d seen her looking—of course he had, he was always watching, even if it was only from the corner of his eye.
“You like kids?” he’d asked, coming up as she was clearing off a booth. He bent down, grabbed an empty straw wrapper from the bench and handed it to her.
“I don’t like them so much when they’re screaming,” she’d said, smiling. “But your dance with that girl was pretty cute.”
“Samantha, isn’t it?”
“Everyone calls me Sammie.”
“I like that.”
Later he twisted her a dog out of pink balloons, although it didn’t look like much of anything except two pink balloons. She didn’t tell him that though. And that afternoon, before he’d left for the day, he gave her the yellow daisy he had tucked into his lapel.
Seever was already killing at that time, Hoskins told her, although he was working carefully, picking his victims at random, people no one would miss, no one who could be connected to him in any way. It wasn’t like years later, when Seever had gotten lazy and sloppy, when he thought he was invincible and he’d let Carrie Simms escape, and things had started to unravel. Sammie sometimes wonders what Seever had been thinking when he gave her that daisy, if he’d been thinking about taking her to his house and tying her up, doing bad things before he killed her, the way he’d done with so many others. But when she thinks about Seever now—the Seever she thought she’d known, the guy in the expensive suit with the gilt-edged smile—she can’t imagine him killing anyone, even though she’s a writer, and aren’t all writers supposed to have big imaginations? And of course she knows, like everyone else, she’s been trained by a lifetime of television and movies and books that the bad guy is usually the one you’d least expect, the one who seems the most innocent, the guy who laughs a lot and opens doors for ladies and is never, ever rude.
Seven bodies have been taken out of the crawl space so far—five women and two men—and they’d all hoped that lucky number seven was where it would end, that they’d find nothing else down there but dirt and worms. Victim seven had been removed the day before last, patches of red hair still clinging to his weathered skull, a punk-rock shirt hanging around his wasted chest. Later, they’d learn that the kid’s name was Kenny Fitz, that he’d run away from home, like he had a million times before, but this time he’d never come back. Later, Kenny Fitz’s mother would give Sammie a photograph of him to run in the Post alongside her article, and Sammie would hate to look at it. The photo was a glimpse into the past, at the grinning kid who’d one day accept a ride from a guy wearing a tweed suit. She wished she could go back in time, warn the kid, tell him to go home, hug his mom and get his shit together. But she couldn’t, and she hoped that Kenny Fitz hadn’t known what was going on at the end, that he hadn’t been aware of anything when Seever had wrapped that extension cord around his throat and tightened down for the last time. She hoped that Kenny had spent his last few moments thinking good thoughts. About his mother. Or the dog he’d left behind, who still slept on Kenny’s empty bed, his snout twitching and his paws paddling uselessly through empty air.
“Someone cared about this kid. Loved him. You know how I know?” Hoskins said this after the boy’s body had been slipped into a plastic bag and wheeled away, before they knew who he was. Hoskins hadn’t been eating much, or getting much sleep, and she could see it in his face, in the gray skin under his eyes. “It’s his teeth. That kid’s got good ones. Lots of fillings. He had braces at one point. Good teeth aren’t free. Someone paid for all that work. Someone who loved him.”
* * *
They find the eighth body the next day, while Sammie is in the kitchen, pouring herself a cup of coffee and listening to one of the technicians bitch about his job.
“When I blow my nose these days, nothing but black shit comes out. It’s filthy down there. I don’t know how much longer I can take this.”
“Sorry,” she says. She wonders how many times a day she says that single word. “It sounds terrible.”
“That’s what you should write about. How fucking bad it is down there. I feel like I’m stuck in a nightmare and I can’t wake up.”
She’d discovered, not long after starting her daily visits to Seever’s house, that it was best to let the guys complain. At first she’d tried to reason with them, to point out they were doing their jobs, that they were getting paid to hunker down in that crawl space and dig corpses out of the ground. It wasn’t like anyone was expecting them to work for free. But the men would get angry when she said things like that, so she started keeping her mouth shut, acted sympathetic and apologized when the complaints started. That went over better.
“It’ll be over soon,” she says.
“I certainly fucking hope so.”
Someone shouts from the crawl space, words that she can’t understand, and she jumps, startled, and slams her hip into the counter, hard enough to bruise. She ignores the pain and sticks her head into the laundry room, where the crowd of men are, excited and high-fiving, pumping their fists in the air.
“They found another one,” the tech says, peering over her shoulder. His breath smells like wet cardboard. “Fuck, yeah. There’re more.”
She turns slowly, goes back to the kitchen. Her coffee is knocked over, although she doesn’t remember doing it, and the mug is on its side, lazily rollicking back and forth on the counter, as if it’s being pushed by a ghost. She grabs the roll of paper towels and drops to the tile floor, trying to ignore the excited chatter from the next room as she reaches for the steaming puddle.
Copyright © 2017 JoAnn Chaney.
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JoAnn Chaney is a graduate of UC Riverside’s Palm Desert MFA program. She lives in Colorado with her family. What You Don't Know is her first novel.
Thrillers and Noir