The Buried Girl: The most chilling psychological thriller you'll read all year

This book caught my eye as I loved the synopsis and I read a lot of books from this genre, although I haven’t read any of the author, Richard Montanari’s books before.

“The Buried Girl” is a chilling psychological thriller with some added Gothic elements.

When the wife of a New York psychologist, Will Hardy, is murdered he moves into Godwin Hall, a dusty, shut-up mansion in the small town of Abbeville, Ohio, with his teenage daughter, Bernadette.

At the same time, Abbeville Chief of Police Ivy Holgrave is investigating the death of a local girl. She is convinced this may only be the latest in a long line of murders dating back decades, including her own long-missing sister.

But what place does Will's new home have in the story of show more the missing girls and why does he have past memories of Godwin Hall? Is the diary of a young woman, written over a century earlier, linked to the killings?

Richard Montanari writes a wonderfully atmospheric and compelling novel. Tense and suspenseful, the many threads of the story slowly begin to link together, central to which is Godwin Hall. Both the characterisation and the plot are superb with the three main characters damaged, but starting the process of recovery. I am hoping that there will be a sequel to this novel as it was a fantastic read which I highly recommend to lovers of thrillers and crime fiction.

{Thank you to Edelweiss and HarperCollins UK/Witness Impulse for the free copy of this novel and for giving me the opportunity to provide an honest review.} show less

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 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 show more 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

This is my first book by Mr. Montanari. It was a nice, good showing. There were elements that I enjoyed a lot. Enough good things that I would read another book by Mr. Montanari.

Detective Ivy is one of the good elements. She had a good head on her shoulders that showed her intelligence. She was not one of those take a backseat cop. She did lead the investigation. Here is where I did lose some of the interest in the story and that was with the main character and murder investigation as a whole. Will was fine but neither he or his daughter really did anything for me. I was not invested in them one hundred percent. Therefore, because of this, the story lost some excitement for me. At times I even found myself going through the motions of show more reading but not really comprehending what I was reading.

Yet, I still finished this book pretty fast. As I stated previously, I would read another book from this author. show less

If you have read Richard Montanari’s previous books then you will know exactly what you are going to get picking up this book and it certainly doesn’t disappoint and if you are new to this author then after reading this book you will be rushing out to pick up copies of his previous books!

It is listed on Goodreads as being book 10 in the Jessica Balzano & Kevin Byrne Series but personally I would have put this as a standalone novel or hopefully the beginning of a new series 🤞🏼 New characters and new settings so if this is your first book by this author you can jump straight in, no back story needed and as much as I would love to catch up with Balzano and Byrne again, I hope we get a followup to Will and Ivy’s story!

The story show more follows Will and his daughter Bernadette from the tragic death of their wife/mother in a house fire to a rural villiage with both father and daughter dealing with their own demons. Has their past followed them from the city all the way to Abbeville? Is it possible that thier shared history is linked to this small rural villiage? And could police cheif Ivy Holgrave’s investigations into the missing girls somehow connect to Will and Detta’s story? And how does a diary written in 1868 connect to all three of our protagonists?

Weaving together multipul storylines, gruesome crime scenes, plot twists and a heart pounding conclusion this is a psychological crime thriller not to be missed in 2019.

The Buried Girl is due to be published on 14 February 2019 and can be pre-ordered now.

Many thanks to the author Richard Montanari, publishers Little, Brown Book Group UK and NetGalley for my copy in exchange for an honest, independent review.

https://debbiesbookreviews.wordpress.com/2018/12/27/the-buried-girl-by-richard-m... show less