The Collector by Kim Pritekel

I’ve been on a Kim Pritekel mission over the past couple of weeks. I enjoy her work very much and have decided that I’m going to read all of her work on pdafiction.com or become too burned out to continue. I tend to be a bit of an extremist. I’ve got notes for a few other stories that I didn’t review right away and I’ll be posting them soon. But I just finished The Collector and had to get this review done now before I forgot how I felt about this story.

In my opinion, this was the best story of hers that I’ve read so far. The standard Pritekel non-published work disclaimers apply (typos, missing words, etc.) although I don’t think anyone’s name changed mid-story.

This is much darker than anything else of hers that I’ve read. It deals with some very serious stuff and the author doesn’t hold back. The tale begins with drifter Remmy Foster hitching a ride from Julie Wilson, a local 6th grade teacher. Remmy has some psychic abilities and immediately feels something going on with Julie. Later that day, Julie is abducted by a serial kidnapper. She is taken to his home, kept in a hidden room in the basement, naked, bound, and used, along with other women who have been there much longer than she has.

Pritekel’s descriptions of the dark environment are fantastic and vivid. Her villain was well written and not exactly what I expected. Julie’s co-captives are not done in much detail but I still felt for them and had an idea of who they were, for the most part.

Now we turn to Remmy, who is inexplicably connected to Julie. She can often see what Julie sees and, occasionally, what the kidnapper sees or, at least, the general environment that he lives in. Remmy goes to the police to share what information she can and ends up working closely with one of the detectives.

The first half of the novel length story is intense and I had a very difficult time putting it down. The second half was equally good but less dramatic. All in all, I truly enjoyed this story. It’s not often that we get a disturbingly dark story that works with a bit of romance.

OH! Ok, I do have one minor issue – complaint would be too strong of a word – but it doesn’t only deal with this story. Sometimes authors really do go too far in extolling the all healing powers of a good orgasm. That’s all I’m going to say on this but I’ve seen it more times than I can count.

If you can handle some graphic rape/torture scenes, this is one you’ll want to read. Thanks, Ms. Pritekel, for another great story. This one bumped Club 1049 into 2nd place in my personal rankings of your stories.

I just checked PD Publishing and it looks like The Collector will be being published under the name Connection (a much better title in my opinion) around the end of the year. Another I’ll be adding to my “to purchase” list.

http://www.pdafiction.com/kp.htm

3 comments

  1. Funny I did a Kim Pritekel "mission" some months back. I didn't read all the available stories, but a good bunch that I had skipped on earlier occasions. I've two favourite Kim Pritekel stories – "Twilight" and "Bible Thumbing".

    "The Collector" is not on my "Best of Kim Pritekel" list be course my faint heart really don't agree with the abduction and sexual abuse in the first part of the story and secondly be course I'm not that fond of Remmy's powers to "see" – supernatural powers are not really my ball game.

    But in general I agree that it's possible to spend a good time with a number of Kim Pritekel stories.

    UK

  2. I happen to agree with the reviewer, this is one of Kim's best works so far. Yes, it is a dark piece, but wonderfully crafted, with a satisfying ending.

    My second favorite story would be Twilight. How can you not like a story where one of the main characters rescues the other wearing a clown costume. HA!

    As long as Kim keeps writing, I'll be reading her work.

    Peyton Andrews

  3. Hi,

    "The Collector" felt a bit disjointed to me; there wasn't really an urge to finish reading.

    As a solo piece I liked Bible Thumping, but her pieces with Alexa Hoffman (I'm sorry to say) have been of a much higher grade.

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