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Loading... Merciless : a novel of suspense (original 2007; edition 2007)by Richard Montanari
Work InformationMerciless by Richard Montanari (2007)
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Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. Title: Merciless/ Broken Angels Author: Richard Montanari Genre: Mystery, Thriller # of pages: 300 Start date: End date: 5/22 Borrowed/bought: borrowed My rating of the book, F- [worst] to A [best]: B+ Description of the book: A female victim is found facing the river at an old abandoned building, in an old fashioned dress with her feet and shoes severed off. Byrne and Balzano begin to find more victims in similar situations with their posed bodies and dress similar to fairytales. Review: Awesome followup! A great storyline with the fairytale twist. Montanari does a great job in describing the people and scenery in Philly. If you enjoy murder mystery/detective series, don't miss out on this series. I hope the author writes more. Wow!! Alls I can say is wow!!. This is another fantastic installment to the Bryne and Balzanno series. The plot is sort of complex, only because there are about 4 plots going on at the same time. Usually, I don't like it when authors do that, but Montanari does a wonderful job and devotes the proper amount of time to each plot. This book goes by two names, Broken Angels and Merciless The main plot is about a killer that picks his victims very carefully. They have to meet the killers needs, and not everyone can be his victim. The crafty killer is following a set of rules and has to follow certain guidelines for his victims. What is the killers guidelines? Well, you'll have to read it to find out. If you told you here, it would be a major spoiler, and I don't want to take away the surprise. I'll just say.....it was interesting. One other plot line I'll mention is that a man blames Bryne for the death of his wife, and then targets Bryne, and plans to make him pay. Montanari has a wonderful writing style that will keep the reader hooked to the very last page. We can't help but want to spend time with Bryne and Balaznno. The characters have a lot of depth, all of them, even the killer. There are a lot of wonderful plot twists and turns that will keep the reader guessing. This book has one draw back, If you start it, I can promise you that you'll lose sleep because you'll want to know what happens next. I kept on say, "Just one more chapter.....just one more chapter...." This is that good. If you've read the first two books in the series, then you know what a powerful writer Montanari is. If you haven't, then start the series. I can promise you, you won't be sorry. I know I wasn't. I can't wait to start the next installment. The victim is discovered sitting on the riverbank, dressed in an old-fashioned gown under a bright winter moon. Homicide detectives Byrne and Balzano are paired together once again and begin investigating this murder. They soon discover that a serial killer is on the loose and that the murder scenes of his victims are staged in fairytale settings. The murderer also leaves his mark at every scene - a moon painted on the victim in blood and semen. When a respected police officer is found murdered following his retirement party, Byrne and Balzano find themselves working with new partners. What they don't realize - the cases they have been assigned are definitely linked together. Montanari's written another great novel in the suspense genre and this reader will never look at Hans Christian Andersen's fairytales in quite the same way. no reviews | add a review
Fiction.
Mystery.
Suspense.
Thriller.
HTML:On a frigid December night, Karen sits at the edge of Philadelphiaâ??s Schuylkill River, dressed in a flowing gown, like a visitor from the distant past. A beautiful and shining young woman, she gazes up at a bone-white winter moon like a fairy-tale princess frozen in time. At first glance, one might not even notice that she is dead, coated in a glistening patina of ice. Homicide cops Kevin Byrne and Jessica Balzano take the lead on the case, uncovering a plethora of eerie cluesâ??each more warped and spine-chilling than the last. Yet the identity of Karenâ??s pitiless killer remains a mystery. Then the next victim is found upriver at an abandoned waterworks, posed with an unlikely object in her clasped hands. Struggling to link the victims and make sense of the madmanâ??s agenda, Byrne and Balzano follow his twisted trail, which stretches into a past of dark crimes forgotten by all but a few. Siftting through suspects and clues, they unearth a shocking secret history: a legacy of malevolence and cold-blooded retribution dating back twenty years. This razor sharp and jolting thriller from acclaimed author Richard Montanari coils back in time to deliver a fiendish mystery, a shattering revelation, and one hell of a wild ride. Lock your doors and turn up the lights. Montanariâ??s terrifying bedtime story will keep yo No library descriptions found. |
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)813.54Literature English (North America) American fiction 20th Century 1945-1999LC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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Although most of the book (particularly the partnership between Byrne and Balzano) is more sleekly written than the previous two, this time the italicised voice of the perpetrator could have been dropped without a glitch in the atmosphere or story (in the previous two books, this device added a lot of creep). The introduction of a younger (Amish!) detective provided some amusement in the frustratingly-waiting-for-the-leads-to-come-together portion of the book, and this section is so drawn out that it’s almost like a real-time investigation. You don’t know anything until you know everything.
Even more riveting than the primary plot-line, is Byrne’s personal trauma du jour. The man who wants to take him out, and his motives, are beautifully rendered, and timed to perfection. I can’t help but wonder if it was included as a snap at anyone *guilty cough* who felt that the revenge-against-cops scenario had been overused over the last two books, but it works much better as a sub-plot than a relied-upon-motive.
These books were easy to read, enjoyable, hard-working crime fiction. Not my favourite in the genre, but I’m happy to have stumbled across them.
In the ‘random things that amuse me’ category, I note that the cover of my paperback copy (Arrow Books) is hilariously irrelevant to the story, more so even than the generic ‘no one can hear you scream’ on The Skin Gods. Broken Angels (a title that doesn’t exactly get to the heart of the story either, but keeps the three titles tidily religious), has pictures of burning crosses (for a plotline that uses fables and fairy-tales in its murder scenarios) and the tagline ‘Evil preys upon the fallen’. The immediate, unavoidable conclusion, is that they had a unused back-up cover design for The Rosary Girls going spare. And the award for ‘lack of effort in publishing’ goes to… ( )