Compared to Lansdale's typically high-quality output, this novel is pretty substandard. The characters never quite gel, the dialog is rough around the edges, and the plot's "guess which character is the killer" is the kind of stuff best left to made-for-tv movies. Even the violence and brutality lack that hard edge one expects from Lansdale's books. His later novels delve into the horrors of the criminal mind and the sadness of the troubled soul much more effectively than this rather hackneyed attempt. I would only recommend this to a Joe R. Lansdale completest, and even then, hesitantly.

Atto d'amore è un bel Thriller.
Il primo libro di Lansdale ad entrare nelle grazie di un editore e quindi ad essere pubblicato. Quello con cui Joe ha inaugurato la sua carriera di professionista.
Atto d'amore non il miglior libro di Lansdale e non è il miglior Thriller scritto sulla faccia della terra ma resta comunque un bel libro, veloce, appassionante, con delle pozze oscure non del tutto usuali per questo genere nel 1980.
In alcuni passaggi c'è un po' del vecchio Koontz, come se pezzi di Intensity, La voce della notte o Il volto della paura si fossero staccati da quelle pagine e fossero finiti dritti qui dentro.
Io l'ho divorato in 4 giorni e ne sono rimasto soddisfatto perciò ve lo consiglio senza esitazione...ma Lansdale non ha bisogno del mio sponsor ragazzi! :) ( )

Act of Love by Joe R. Lansdale (digital edition 2014, first published 1981) – Act Of Love was Lansdale’s first published book and it is a terrific battle between Houston homicide detective (Marvin Hanson) and his partner and a modern-day Jack The Ripper who brutally murders women. Marvin becomes obsessed with the hunt and desperately pursues all leads, including those that point to suspects close to him. The Hanson character is a very interesting long-time homicide detective who is known as Gorilla and the murderer is extremely ruthless in an extremely sick way. It’s a very gripping story that builds to explosive, terrifying violence at the conclusion. What a read! It is interesting that the Marvin Hanson character also appears in a very satisfying Lansdale novella (A Bone Dead Sadness) and in a few of his Hap and Leonard books. ( )

Marvin Hanson, of the Hap and Leonard series, takes on a serial killer with a very savage and perverse modus operandi. The book offers not only a gritty and graphic introduction to Joe Lansdale but for people who've already got a taste for Lansdale it provides a character history for Marvin Hanson. ( )