The Rosary Girls: A Novel of Suspense [Hardcover]

Richard Montanari (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 15, 2005

In his sleek, visceral novels Deviant Way, Kiss of Evil, and The Violet Hour, Richard Montanari slammed into the suspense field like a force of nature. Now Montanari has written an astounding novel that pits two besieged detectives against a fiercely intelligent serial killer.

Sprawling beneath the statue of William Penn, Philadelphia is a city of downtrodden crack houses and upscale brownstones. Somewhere in this concrete crazy quilt, one teenage Catholic girl is writing in her diary, another is pouring her heart out to a friend, and yet another is praying. And somewhere in this city is a man who wants these young women to make his macabre fantasy become reality. In a passion play of his own, he will take the girls–and a whole city–over the edge.

Kevin Byrne is a veteran cop who already knows that edge: He’s been living on it far too long. His marriage failing, his former partner wasting away in a hospital, and his heart lost to mad fury, Byrne loves to take risks and is breaking every rule in the book. And now he has been given a rookie partner. Jessica Balzano, the daughter of a famous Philly cop, doesn’t want Byrne’s help. But they will need each other desperately, since they’ve just caught the case of a lifetime: Someone is killing devout young women, bolting their hands together in prayer, and committing an abomination upon their otherwise perfect bodies.

Byrne and Balzano spearhead the hunt for the serial killer, who leads them on a methodically planned journey. Suspects appear before them like bad dreams–and vanish just as quickly. And while Byrne’s sins begin to catch up with him, and Balzano tries to solve the blood-splattered puzzle, the body count rises. Meanwhile, the calendar is approaching Easter and the day of the resurrection. When the last rosary is counted, a madman’s methods will be revealed, and the final crime will be the one that hurts the most.

Relentlessly paced and vividly told, The Rosary Girls is a smart, emotionally complex, fiercely gripping thriller from an author who takes chances, breaks new ground, and leaves readers haunted and moved long after the last page is turned.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The scene is carefully set--a teenage parochial school girl, artfully posed in death with her arms chained around a graffiti-scarred pillar, clutching a rosary and a picture of a religious painting by Robert Blake. The next three murder victims are found in similar tableaus, each one suggesting the next in a string of calculated killings whose themes are foretold in the sorrowful mysteries familiar to Catholic scholars. It takes Philadelphia detective Jessie Balzano back to her own adolescence and a priest who understands what the grisly slayings are about, but by the time she realizes who's next on the murderer's list and why, time has nearly run out for Jessie and her own daughter. Along with her new partner Kevin Byrne, a former superstar cop with his own secret past and a disturbing tendency to read killers' minds, Jessie makes a strong debut in Montanari's uneven, overwrought thriller, whose Gothic touches--like "living ghosts hovering in darkness, hollow-eyed and craven" in "a Gethsemane amid the cracked concrete and rotten wood and ruined dreams" to describe the abandoned cellar where the first crime took place, for example--too often overpower an otherwise satisfying read. --Jane Adams

From Publishers Weekly

A specialist in serial killer tales (Kiss of Evil, etc.) offers the gory first in a projected series. A religious nut is preying on Catholic schoolgirls, picking them off with impunity while Philadelphia detective Kevin Byrne and his new partner, Jessica Balzano, wring their hands and wrack their brains. The victims are found with their necks broken, their hands bolted together in prayer and their vaginas sewn shut. Byrne has a problematic past and a Vicodin habit, and Jessica's daughter, Sophie, is a tempting target for the killer, especially since her dad, undercover cop Vincent Balzano, has been kicked out of the house for cheating on Jessica. Several red herring suspects keep both cops and readers off balance, and there are plenty of subplots—Jessica is a female boxer, Byrne is the divorced father of a deaf daughter, there's a nosy tabloid reporter trying to start trouble. But most of these mini-dramas serve only to provide a breather between sadistic mutilations. Montanari can be a wonderfully evocative writer, but the final unveiling of the madman's identity will draw cries of foul from readers who expect a fighting chance at figuring out who the guilty party is.
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Product Details

• Hardcover: 400 pages
• Publisher: Ballantine Books; First Edition edition (February 15, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0345470958
• ISBN-13: 978-0345470959
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.4 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (35 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,815,809 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

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Montanari has created a masterpiece of suspense., March 21, 2005

By 

Julie Novarese Pierotti "Julie" (Memphis, TN) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Rosary Girls: A Novel of Suspense (Hardcover)

In the Rosary Girls, Richard Montanari has created a masterpiece of suspense. Full of beautifully descriptive imagery, he brings the reader into modern Philadelphia for a harrowing and deeply disturbing tale of a ruthless serial killer who kidnaps, murders, and mutilates Catholic school girls and the detectives who try to catch him.

Montanari weaves his tale through the eyes of several different characters: the two main detectives on the case (Kevin Byrne and Jessica Balzano), a reporter covering the story, and the killer himself. Readers will find it interesting to see how the case takes a toll on the lives of the detectives both emotionally and physically.

I honestly could not put this book down. The short, but action-packed chapters add to the suspense, and the many dead-ends into which Montanari leads the reader will leave you as desperate to unmask the psychotic killer as the detectives. Catholic symbolism is everywhere, but Montanari explains everything so that readers of any faith can understand the events of the novel which take place during Holy Week (the week before Easter).

All in all, The Rosary Girls is a fast-paced, captivating thriller that will keep the reader on the edge of his seat until the EXTREMELY SURPRISING ending that no one could see coming. Don't miss this one!

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Richard Montanari has redefined the term "thriller", February 26, 2005

By 

Bookreporter (New York, New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Rosary Girls: A Novel of Suspense (Hardcover)

Richard Montanari has been around for a little while, writing interesting, even riveting novels that peel back the dark and sordid side of the human psyche. Nothing he has previously done, however, will prepare readers for THE ROSARY GIRLS, his latest novel.

THE ROSARY GIRLS introduces Philadelphia Police Homicide detective Kevin Byrne and Jessica Balzano. Byrne, the veteran, has a high rate of solved cases --- that's what he's supposed to do, but as we quickly learn at the beginning of the novel, his methods are, uh, a bit old-school. In other words, he's effective. There is, however, a price. Byrne isn't broken, but he's badly bent. He's a seething mass of contradictions, all of which rub up against each other, hard and mean, with every move he makes. Naturally he's partnered up with Balzano, the rookie who has an approach to things that is a bit gentler, though she is certainly capable of meeting force with force --- she is, among other things, an amateur boxer in her spare time. The end result is that Balzano could not have a better teacher, and Byrne could not have a better partner.

Balzano and Byrne have their hands full when a fiend begins a ritualistic murder spree, killing Catholic high school girls and leaving them provocatively posed and unspeakably mutilated around the city of Philadelphia. The cops are trying to figure out what the common element is that links these particular girls. Montanari does a great job of plotting here. While the reader gets into the killer's head, it doesn't really help, and ultimately we don't know much more than the police do until the apocalyptic conclusion.

A warning here: Montanari will take you on a tour of the human psyche out where the buses have never run and where the sun has never shone. By the time you're halfway through this novel you might be checking to see if that cloistered nunnery in town is accepting any new novitiates and making an application for that daughter of yours.

The world that Montanari paints in THE ROSARY GIRLS is frightening, but it is also a world where a cop like Byrne is badly needed. Byrne and Balzano are tough and tender, with their methods complementing each other rather than clashing. Byrne's methodology gets him in trouble on a number of different levels. As a result he must engage in more of the same off-the-books tactics to resolve the situation. This creates a vicious cycle that doesn't leave much room for redemption. But is redemption necessary, or even appropriate? Byrne engages in some self-destructive behavior, but he gets the bad guys off the board, individuals who would be processed through the system for yet another go-round if they faced any justice at all. Montanari is overtly nonjudgmental on this, preferring to use Balzano as a tough but tender good cop to Byrne's bad but brutally effective cop. The result is a thoroughly engrossing work that is driven by plot, character development, and an edge-of-your-seat denouement.

THE ROSARY GIRLS fully reveals the dark talent that Montanari has hinted at in his previous work. This man is really, really good; he even infuses new life into the "dark house in the middle of the storm with the power out, with the murderer and the girl inside" conclusion, making it so exciting that you'll feel as if you're encountering it for the first time. I was on the edge of my seat, and didn't get off of it until I went around and checked to make sure that all the doors and windows were locked. Not a book for the faint-of-heart, THE ROSARY GIRLS writes its own new definition for the term "thriller."

--- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Excellent Thriller - Don't Miss It!, November 17, 2005

By 

bobbewig (New Jersey, USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: The Rosary Girls: A Novel of Suspense (Hardcover)

An even better mystery than the excellent plot provided in The Rosary Girls is why Richard Montanari isn't a household name among thriller lovers. The Rosary Girls is one of the best thrillers I've read this year. The story pits two homicide detectives against a fiercely intelligent and relentlessly brutal serial killer -- a killer fueled by a twisted, sacrilegious fury. Montanari writes in a style and provides non-stop twists and turns that will have you glued to the edge of your seat. It's the type of book that you can't wait to finish to see how it ends -- but then you're sorry that it's over. I've already ordered all of Montanari's other books. Do yourself a favor and treat yourself to a copy of The Rosary Girls.