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Merciless: A Novel of Suspense
 
 
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Merciless: A Novel of Suspense [Mass Market Paperback]

Richard Montanari (Author)
4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)

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Book Description

July 29, 2008
On a frigid December night, Karen sits at the edge of Philadelphia’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 clues–each more warped and spine-chilling than the last. Yet the identity of Karen’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 madman’s agenda, Byrne and Balzano follow his twisted trail, which stretches into a past of dark crimes forgotten by all but a few.

Now the past roars back into the present with a vengeance as the ingenious killer unleashes a torrent of rage upon the streets of Philadelphia. As Byrne and Balzano sift through suspects and clues, they unearth a shocking secret history: a legacy of malevolence and cold-blooded retribution dating back twenty years. And the farther they make their way up the body-strewn banks of the Schuylkill River, the closer they get to a villain from their worst nightmare, an evil as patient as it is merciless.

Lightning fast and razor sharp, this 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. Montanari’s terrifying bedtime story will keep you up all night.


From the Hardcover edition.

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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Philadelphia detectives Kevin Byrne and Jessica Balzano trail another serial killer in Montanari's undistinguished third novel of suspense (after 2006's The Skin Gods). Byrne's chance encounter in a diner with Anton Krotz, a violent thug, ends tragically when a moment of hesitation costs the life of Krotz's innocent female hostage and the woman's grieving husband swears revenge. That threat looms over Byrne as a psychotic murderer begins to amass an alarming body count, mutilating his victims in ways that recall Hans Christian Andersen's classic fairy tales. Predictably, the killer nearly adds the attractive Balzano to his body count before a clichéd last-minute rescue. Montanari deserves credit for hiding the solution in plain sight, an achievement marred by the failure to obscure it with plausible red herrings.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Booklist

Philadelphia homicide cops Kevin Byrne and Jessica Balzano have another weird one on their hands: a serial killer is murdering people according to blueprints laid out in children's bedtime stories (the dark-edged ones, not the happy-bunny type). And, as if that isn't enough, Byrne seems to have acquired a stalker, the husband of a woman who was murdered in a diner standoff and who blames Byrne for her death. This is another grisly entry in the Byrne-Balzano series, a tightly written story about tightly wound people (both bad guys and good). It starts out as a typical procedural, with the partners following leads and interviewing witnesses and potential suspects, but about halfway through, the tone shifts, and the story takes a right-angle turn into psychological-thriller territory. Fans of the author's previous novels will enjoy catching up with Byrne and Balzano again (they have become one of the more engaging duos in the genre), and newcomers to the series will discover in Montanari a writer who is equally adept at crafting believable characters and intricate plots. Pitt, David --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Product Details

  • Mass Market Paperback: 416 pages
  • Publisher: Ballantine Books; Reprint edition (July 29, 2008)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0345492412
  • ISBN-13: 978-0345492418
  • Product Dimensions: 4.1 x 1.2 x 7.5 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,004,997 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Richard was born in Cleveland, Ohio, the scion of a traditional Italian-American family, which means he learned two things very early in life. One: ravioli tastes much better than baby formula. Two: if you don't get to the table on time, there IS no ravioli.

After an undistinguished academic career in junior high and high school, culminating in an undistinguished five-year career as an English major at Case Western Reserve University, Richard traveled Europe extensively, living in London for a time, where he sold men's clothing on Oxford Street, and foreign language encyclopedias door-to-door in Hampstead Heath.

Needless to say, he hawked a few more ties than tomes. So, abandoning his dream (that being to become the next Bryan Ferry) he returned to the States and joined his family's construction firm.

Five years and a hundred smashed thumbs later, he decided that writing might be a better job.

After working as a freelance writer for years, during which time he was published in more than two hundred publications, Richard wrote three pages of what was to become the first chapter of Deviant Way. He was immediately signed to a New York agency. When he finished the book, Michael Korda signed him to a two-book deal at Simon & Schuster.

Deviant Way was published in hardcover in 1995. Richard went on to publish The Violet Hour in 1998, Kiss of Evil in 2001, The Rosary Girls in 2005, and The Skin Gods in 2006. His books have now been published in more than a dozen countries.

His next novel of suspense, Merciless, will be published by Ballantine Books in spring 2007.

 

Customer Reviews

19 Reviews
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4 star:
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3 star:
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Average Customer Review
4.3 out of 5 stars (19 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars So much for fairytales..., August 20, 2008
This review is from: Merciless: A Novel of Suspense (Mass Market Paperback)
Merciless is a cops-chase-serial-killer story with maybe a few-too-many too-closely-related killings. A psychopath is killing women as part of a misguided marketing effort while a creative man of the cloth is showing pedophiles how angels are made.
I don't know that it is as thrilling or chilling as the cover suggests, but it is the epidome of the genre and very finishable.
There are enough potential bad guys and overlapping "clues" that the ultimate baddy isn't painfully obvious. The hero and heroin are neither implausibly good nor impossibly bad. The writing flows on sufficient foreshadowing and allusion with refreshing twisties of wry wit.
I read the 2008 Ballentine Mass Market paperback version and their liberal use of typos is an annoying distraction. The TrueStew we are initially introduced to, turns out to be TrueSew...little things like that dribbled throughout the book...make a little reader go grrr.
Last, the ending was good enought that it didn't make me want to reach out and slap the semi-colons out of the author. I cannot stand a lame ending...and for me to think an ending lame, it must be woefully so.
So...read it.
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4.0 out of 5 stars Great for Philiadelphia, June 30, 2011
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This review is from: Merciless: A Novel of Suspense (Mass Market Paperback)
I love books set in Philadelphia (being that it's my home town) and he always nails it! I can never find a hitch or glitch in the research. This is not as good as the Rosary Girls, but I thought better than the Skin Gods. Do read them all in order, some things won't make sense otherwise
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5.0 out of 5 stars Another fantastic page turner., January 31, 2010
This review is from: Merciless: A Novel of Suspense (Mass Market Paperback)
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.

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.
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Inside This Book (learn more)
Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
jessica byrne, time byrne, sector cars, duty room
Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Walt Brigham, Kristina Jakos, Father Greg, Matthew Clarke, Schuylkill River, Fairmount Park, Nicci Malone, David Hornstrom, Marius Damgaard, Ingrid Fanning, Detective Byrne, Tony Park, Anton Krotz, Hans Christian Andersen, Flat Rock Road, Berks County, Officer Valentine, Ike Buchanan, Edgar Luna, Anne Lisbeth, Center City, South Philly, Brother Sean, Detective Joshua Bontrager, Lisette Simon
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