Jennifer Hillier’s psychological thriller, The Butcher (2014), tells the story of retired Seattle police chief Edward Shank, a local hero celebrated for stopping the notorious Beacon Hill Butcher in 1985. When his grandson, Matt, inherits his house, he unearths a crate containing gruesome trophies that reveal a horrifying secret: his grandfather is the real serial killer. As Matt grapples with this revelation, His girlfriend Sam, a true-crime writer, pursues her own investigation, convinced that the Butcher murdered her mother years after he was supposedly killed. The novel explores themes of The Corrupt Use of a Heroic Facade, Fighting a Legacy of Inherited Violence, and The Blurred Lines Between Justice and Vengeance.

Hillier is an award-winning Filipino Canadian author known for her dark, suspenseful novels set in the Seattle area. While The Butcher is a standalone work, its exploration of serial killers connects thematically to her earlier novels Creep and Freak. Hillier’s later works include the International Thriller Writers Award-winning Jar of Hearts and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize finalist Little Secrets. The Butcher draws on the real-world history of the Pacific Northwest, which was gripped by fear during the 1970s and 1980s, the active years of serial killers like Ted Bundy and the Green River Killer, creating a plausible backdrop of public panic and law-enforcement pressure.

This guide is based on the 2024 Gallery Books trade paperback edition.

Content Warning: The source text and this guide contain depictions of cursing, pregnancy termination, graphic violence, rape, sexual violence, physical abuse, emotional abuse, substance use, addiction, death by suicide, and death.

Plot Summary

In April 1985, Captain Edward Shank of the Seattle Police Department leads a team of officers in shooting Rufus Wedge, a career criminal believed to be the Beacon Hill Butcher, a serial killer who terrorized the Pacific Northwest by raping, strangling, and dismembering young women. Edward becomes a celebrated hero and eventually rises to chief of police.

Nearly 30 years later, Edward is 80 years old and moving into Sweetbay Village Retirement Residence. He is still known throughout Seattle as “the Chief.” He is giving his house to his grandson, Matt Shank, a 32-year-old chef who owns a popular Seattle restaurant. He was raised by Edward and his late wife Marisol after Matt’s teenage mother, Lucy, died of what he was told was a drug overdose. As Edward gets ready to leave, he stands by the living room piano, tracing a dent he made four months earlier when he killed Marisol by smashing her head into it. He staged the death as an accidental fall, and no one questioned the former chief of police.

Matt’s girlfriend of three years, Samantha Marquez, wants their relationship to progress, but Matt insists on moving into Edward’s house alone. His closest friend, Jason Sullivan, a retired NFL quarterback who has known Sam since childhood, urges Matt to treat her better. Matt has a history of violent outbursts, including a bar fight arrest the previous year that Edward helped him avoid jail time for.

After Matt moves in, he makes plans for a deck and hot tub, and his contractor unearths a sealed crate buried in the backyard. Inside are women’s clothing, over a dozen Mason jars, each containing a preserved human left hand, a scrapbook full of Butcher newspaper clippings with labeled swatches of hair, and a VHS tape. Matt watches the tape, which shows a younger Edward strapping a teenage girl to his garage work table, chopping off her left hand with a cleaver, then raping and strangling her. He holds up a sign to identify the victim: “AUGUST 22, 1974. JESSICA. AGE 14” (33). Matt realizes his grandfather is the real Beacon Hill Butcher.

Meanwhile, Sam is pursuing a parallel investigation. A true crime writer, she is working on a book called Butcherville that argues that Rufus Wedge wasn’t the Butcher. She believes that the real Butcher killed her mother Sarah, a 17-year-old who was found raped, strangled, and buried without her left hand in 1987, two years after Wedge’s death. Her closest ally is Detective Robert Sanchez, who responded to Sarah’s murder scene as a rookie and has looked out for Sam ever since.

On a serial killer forum, Sam connects with a user called KillerRed, who sends a photograph of herself as a teenager with Sam’s dead mother. Sam meets the woman, Bonnie Tidwell, at Pike Place Market in Seattle. Bonnie explains that she was Sarah’s roommate and had helped to look after Sam when she was young. Bonnie was abducted by Sarah’s kidnapper two days after Sarah’s murder, but she escaped because he took her to the woods, where a bear startled him. She later recognized the Butcher on television as someone the public celebrated as a hero. She fled Seattle and changed her name. When Sam mentions that her boyfriend is Matt Shank, the grandson of Edward Shank, Bonnie turns pale and abruptly leaves.

After Edward moves into Sweetbay Village, he is restless. He kills a fellow resident by bashing the man’s head against a kitchen counter, and the death is ruled accidental. During a day trip to the Tulalip Casino, he slips away and murders a 17-year-old girl, Jamie Chavez, removing her left hand in the Butcher’s signature fashion. He also stalks and kills Bonnie after spotting her leaving Sam’s house, eliminating the only witness who could identify him.

Edward visits Matt and confirms the truth that he is the Butcher, comparing his urge to kill to hunger. He warns that if Matt exposes Edward, it would destroy his career. Matt’s behavior spirals, especially at his restaurant. When his assistant head chef, PJ Wu, confronts him about the hostile work environment, Matt punches PJ, who falls and strikes his head on a rock, dying instantly. Matt calls Edward, who takes charge: He instructs Matt to dismember PJ’s body, then disposes of the remains at a city dump, staging the death to resemble a gangland killing.

Sanchez makes a critical discovery about the Butcher when a retired medical examiner reveals that every original Butcher victim had a swatch of hair snipped from the back of the head, a detail that Edward, as the investigating officer, ordered removed from official reports. Sarah Marquez and victims from 1989 and 1993 had the same hair removal, proving the Butcher continued killing long after Wedge’s death. Both Chavez and Bonnie show the same signature. Police Chief Constance Lombard publicly announces that the department is hunting the original Butcher, and Edward is brought in as an official consultant, relishing his return to the spotlight.

A flashback reveals that Marisol murmured to Edward one day, “You hurt Lucy. You’re the reason she’s dead” (249). Edward killed her shortly thereafter and staged the scene.

Sam’s relationship with Matt deteriorates. She increasingly confides in Jason, and during an emotional evening, asks him to kiss her. He gently refuses, telling her she is not asking for the right reasons. Matt, desperate to save his relationship, proposes to Sam with his grandmother’s ring. She declines, telling him it is too late. They begin having sex, but when Sam tells him to stop, Matt does not; he grabs her throat and squeezes until she loses consciousness.

DNA from skin cells under Bonnie’s fingernails provides a profile for the Butcher, and its analysis reveals a father-son relationship between the Butcher’s DNA and DNA found on PJ Wu’s body. Edward arrives uninvited at Matt’s house and reveals that Matt’s mother Lucy did not die of a drug overdose; she hanged herself when she was 16 years old. Sam arrives and shares the information about the father-son DNA finding with them. Matt makes the horrifying connection: Edward raped his daughter, making him Matt’s grandfather and his biological father. Edward drives a cleaver into Sam’s chest.

Edward holds Matt at gunpoint, demanding that Matt kill him so that he can die spectacularly rather than in prison. Sam is lying on the floor, still alive, with the cleaver embedded in her chest. Matt wrestles the gun away from Edward, but he cannot shoot. Edward flees.

Sanchez matches Matt’s DNA to PJ Wu’s killer and deduces that Matt’s father must therefore be the Butcher. He arrives at the house, hears gunfire, and calls for backup. Matt identifies Edward as the Butcher and tells Sanchez about a remote property Edward owns. Sanchez issues an alert.

Edward drives to his remote property in Raymond, Washington, dons his police dress blues, and arms himself with a rifle. When Sanchez leads a tactical team to the cabin, Edward raises his weapon instead of surrendering. Officers open fire and kill him.

Five days later, Sam recovers in the hospital. Matt has confessed to PJ Wu’s murder; Sam plans to visit him in prison, acknowledging that he saved her life. Jason arrives with tacos. Sam asks him to kiss her, and this time, he does.