Richard Montanari

My favorite kind of book is the kind that makes me discover a new author.
The Buried Girl by Richard Montanari really took me by surprise. I partly read and partly listened to the audiobook, and I had such a blast with it. When I was reading, I forgot to check how many percent I had finished (the good and bad thing about ebooks, right?). And when I was listening while working, the job went so much better – because I got totally caught up in the story and just breezed through my day.

This is show more exactly the kind of crime novel I love. I'm a big fan of cold cases, and trust me, these ones go *way* back. And they don’t stop either. It feels like Will and his daughter Detta, who’ve left New York hoping for a better future, have gone from a bad situation to something even worse. The loss of Will’s wife and Detta’s mother still hangs over them. A new beginning sounds like a good idea. And Abbeville seems like such a lovely place...

Meanwhile, Ivy – third-generation Ivy starts connecting a new murder to very old ones. Girls have been going missing for a long time, and she’s beginning to see a disturbing pattern.

I loved Will, Detta, and Ivy so much. I really hope this isn’t a standalone! And honestly, with the way it ended, I think there *could* be at least one more book set in Abbeville.

The Buried Girl was so good that I jumped straight into another one by the author, The Echo Man. Now I want to read everything he’s written! show less

The night children, the runaways, come to the city by the hundreds, filled with hope and fear and promise. They gather during the day in free spaces: bus and train stations, libraries and museums, art galleries, and cheap eating places. And that's where Joseph Swann, magician, illusionist and conjuror, master of disguises, observes and selects them for his Seven Wonders project. He has a particular type of girl in mind. Each will be a guest in a room in his house until their great moment.

The show more year is 2008, the city is Philadelphia, referred to once in PLAY DEAD as Killadelphia. When Joseph Swann was born his father, the Great Cygne, momentarily thought he had silver eyes, the mark of the devil. The Great Cygne was a master magician, and each of girls whom Joseph befriends will be matched to one of his father's most remarkable illusions. Joseph's desire for approval, recognition, and the admiration of others stems from the way his father treated him.

The body of the first of Joseph's victims, Caitlin O'Riordan, is discovered in May 2008, carefully posed in a glass display case. In August 2008, by which time the O'Riordan case is already regarded as a "cold case", the body of a second victim is discovered. The investigation becomes the first handled by homicide detectives Kevin Byrne and Jessica Baldano after their transfer to the Special Investigations Unit. Even as multi-stranded investigations into the bodies already discovered begin, the serial killings continue, and the reader is "introduced" to new potential victims.

PLAY DEAD is the first novel I have read where I can recall seeing the Aristotelian Incline so obviously utilised. After the prologue which sets the scene, the novel implements a three act structure. In the final part, Death Clock, the action and tension ratchet up as Byrne and Baldano race against the clock to beat Swann to his horrifying climax.

This is my most satisfying read so far this year. Meticulously plotted, full of puzzles, it is bound together by the heightening tension. I would like to hear what a Philadelphian reader thinks of it. It is one thing to read a book as scary as this one from an outsider's point of view, quite another to read it as an "insider".

There is a lot of back story throughout PLAY DEAD, and in places it makes the main story unfold just that bit more slowly. However by the final section I had come to appreciate why it was there. The only jarring note for me was one of the final chapters that, Poirot-like, "revealed all", and I just wish Montanari had found another way to do it. show less

THE STOLEN ONES
By Richard Montanari
My first foray into Montanari’s work left me breathless. This author brought me through catacombs, surreptitious tales of old, and the psychopathic mind of a killer.
The Delaware Valley State Prison at Cold River was the home of some unfortunate—albeit mentally challenged—innocents and those who preyed upon them. Cold River was closed decades before the murder of a businessman brought Detectives Kevin Byrne and Jessica Balzano into an exploration of show more one of Philadelphia’s infamous earlier periods. Beginning in Priory Park, Kevin and Jessica rush around trying to stop further murders of people who may be connected to Cold River in one way or the other. Luther, one of Cold River’s past patients, ultimately wants one thing: the young girl that Kevin and Jessica find standing in the middle of the street in the center of night.
The girl won’t or can’t speak and the detectives do what they can to help the child. Because they have no idea who she is, they name her Violet after one of the streets she was near when they found her.
Dreams take a major role in this novel, so do The Dream Merchants, who were once dominant at Cold River, creating killers through dream manipulation. And Violet is one of Luther’s connections to the past.
Symbolic to his dreams are spoons he leaves at murder scenes, spoons that could have been found at Cold River when it was operable.
There are twists and turns in this novel and I warn you to pay attention to the small details sprinkled throughout. But the major twists are turns are at the end and you won’t see them coming.
I will never look at dreams the same after reading “The Stolen Ones.” Creepy and definitely compelling.
Reviewed by Starr Gardinier Reina, author of “The Other Side: Melinda’s Story” show less

I have not read a book by Richard Montanari since the Rosary Girls, way back when, and before I started reviewing, so I cannot remember what I thought about that one. Possibly not very much given that I have not returned to him for the 9 intervening years. But having just finished this one, I may have to go back and start again. It did not matter that I had not read the three books inbetween, this can be read almost as a stand-alone.
It is a very densely plotted book with several strands show more woven together and impacting on the detective duos personal lives as well, which, thankfully, do not intrude too much. Once I got into the writer's rhythms, at about page 60, I did not want to put it down. I think that this is a sure sign that I will follow up on Montanari in the relatively near future. show less