Customer Reviews

The Violet Hour

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Wow! This is one fantastic novel! Richard Montanari has created a complex, suspenseful and frightening look at a serial killer. "The Violet Hour" opens with a shocking beginning, and then just moves on, page to page, with one twist after another. It's almost Jeffery Deaver-like, but Montanari's twists are a little subtler and not as "unbelievable" (but don't get me wrong, Deaver is one of my favorite writers!).

The story centers around this killer getting revenge on five people who twenty years earlier did something awful to the girl he loved.

There are many good clues in this book, but he has camouflaged them so well, you only remember then once the book is read. One of the most amazing is this: you won't get one of the clues unless you say a particular word out loud to yourself. Great plot device there!

The identity of the killer is surprising, yet if you read back, you can see all the evidence pointing to them. There are also some great subplots, and an ending that floored me! I wasn't expecting it.

The characters are well-developed, and interesting. Nick Stella is a compassionate hero, who sheds his "scoop of the century" mode to assist in a bizarre series of deaths. Amelia Saintsbury is a good heroine, and her private dilemmas are intermingled well with her potential doom.

All in all, can't say too much, would not want to give anything away! But, this is a GREAT book and I eagerly await Mr. Montanari's next. Am also going to go back and read "Deviant Way." If it's half as good, it's worth the bucks!

Since I loved Deviant Way so much, I was hesitant about reading The Violet Hour. I thought it couldn't possibly be as good. I was wrong! If you are in the mood for spine-tingling, page-turning excitement, read this wonderful thriller. As a matter of fact, they should put a picture of The Violet Hour beside the definition of thriller. It had it all - wonderful characters, twisty plot and an unbelievable pace. It was a fantastic thrill ride, and I highly recommend it.

This book was a heart-stopper. It grabbed me right from the beginning. Then for a few chapters it did jump from character to character and you had to read carefully to keep them straight. But it was well worth it. My mind was working through this whole book trying to figure who was doing the murders and also who was responsible for what happened 20 years ago. Just when I thought I knew who it was I would read something that would make me go "Whoa" and I had to rethink my ideas.

I have read several books where someone is getting revenge on a group of people for something they did years ago. But none of them were written quite this way. New characters kept popping up to challenge my thinking. At times I suspected everyone. And even when you think the story is over there is still a surprise. I will be going out to buy Richard Montanari's other books. He is a great writer.

If you don't mind clasping a book with your white knuckled hand a few hours, I highly recommend this book. It opens with a real shocker, and has one shock after another until the exciting end. I didn't figure out the mystery until near the end, and even then I kept second guessing myself. The characters were intriguing, and the story moved along at break-neck pace. I highly recommend this book.

After only a couple of paragraphs Mr. Montanari has set his hook in you, and after that it's a read every word thriller that's impossible to put down. I came to this book by accident, not having heard of the author before. I'm now on my way to reading his first book entitled "Deviant Way," and look forward as well to his next and all that come after. I don't know where he's been, but I guarantee he's going to be around for a long time. A MUST READ!!

I've now found another author who I will have to schedule, like I do with Stephen King. When I get a new King book, I have to leave it alone until I have time to sit down and read the whole thing in one sitting. Obviously, I will have to do the same thing with books by Montanari.

This book is spell-binding. I knew who the killer was... three different times. But I didn't get it right until Montanari was ready for me to know. There are many different stories going on in this book, but they all tie together neatly at the end. The killer keeps asking his victims "What happened that night", but the reader doesn't know the big answer until the very end. And it's startling.

The final wrap-up answers question I didn't realize I had, and gave the whole story a very poignant twist. I had to ask myself how much better the world would be if people focused on love and healing instead of revenge. That simple decision by the killer would have made this story not even happen.

A terrific novel! Held me until I finished it at 2 am, though I had to get up at 6 am. Richard, you're stealing my sleep.

After reading Montanari's excellent fourth and latest novel of suspense, The Rosary Girls, I decided to read his second thriller, The Violet Hour. The Violet Hour is a tale of serial terror and revenge that is mostly chilling and powerful. It is a very good book and clearly demonstrates the potential that was fulfilled in The Rosary Girls. The plot is exciting and well developed and moves along at a steady pace, which will make you want to keep turning the pages. The characters, however, are somewhat thinly deveolped and, without going into detail, some of the situations that occur are a bit implausible. Nevertheless, these criticisms are far overshadowed by the suspense generated by a very talented writer. I'm looking forward to reading Montanari's new book, The Skin Gods, which will be in the bookstores tomorrow.

On Halloween night twenty years ago, a group of college students threw a party in which the alcohol and drugs led to tragedy. Now those people who attended that party are being killed and their bodies disfigured in monstrous ways. Nicholas Stella, a freelance writer, stumbles onto the connection to the killings. With a suburban housewife who is trying to write the great American novel, Nick tries to stop the killings and get a front page, by-line story out of the madness. Any book which can make me turn on all the lights and sit anxiously waiting for my companion to come home is definitely a realistic thriller. The surprise ending is guaranteed to send tears coursing down your cheeks. Montanari has crafted a story in the realm of The Red Dragon, which to me is far more terrifying than The Silence of the Lambs; read it in the daylight.

When I read Richard Montanari's DEVIANT WAY, I thought it the best thriller I'd read in years. I literally could not put the book down until I'd read the very last page. With THE VIOLET HOUR he's once again written a thriller full of tension and chills.

We start off in the mind of a killer who has subtly plotted revenge for an event that occurred on Halloween night, 1978. From there we're taken through the methodical killings of all those involved in the event. Nicholas Stella, a freelance writer, thinks he's stumbled onto a story of the week, when one of those killed is a priest he knew personally. Little does he know how deeply he will become involved.

This book is a must read for anyone who enjoys thrillers. With the wonderful pacing and believable characters, the reader will be hooked from the moment they read the first page.

The only problem is...now I can hardly wait for the next Montanari thriller!

Tina Hilmas

Three years ago I read Richard Montanari's first novel DEVIANT WAY and made a prediction that he would be the next big thing in the thriller genre. The book was a heart-pounding, baffling, psychosexual whodunnit of the first order, one of those that keeps you guessing, literally, until the very last word on the very last page.

When I didn't see a new book from him a year after that, or even a year after that, I figured he was another one-book wonder. THE VIOLET HOUR has proven me wonderfully wrong. It truly was worth the wait.

The plot of THE VIOLET HOUR is so full of surprises that it is impossible to talk about it without spoiling something. Loosely, the story is about a group of snobby college students in 1978 who call themselves The AdVerse Society - they like to trash the greats in modern poetry, drink Algonquin Roundtable cocktails and practice suburban hedonism. The society has a Halloween party that year, a costumed soiree that turns into a demented, drug-crazed orgy. And something tragic happens.

Twenty years later, people who attended that party start dying in grisly ways. Doctors, lawyers, priests. No one responsible is safe. Nor are their loved ones.

Unlike DEVIANT WAY, there is no cop on the trail of the killer this time. Instead, there is a down on his luck freelance writer named Nicholas Stella, and a suburban housewife named Amelia Saintsbury. Amelia lives inside the mystery with her innocent little girl. Nicky Stella has to get there to save them.

At least five times during the reading of the advance copy of this book I had to rethink everything about which I thought I had been certain. Plus, the surprise ending nearly broke my heart.

The bad news, for me, is that I've already read THE VIOLET HOUR and it isn't even out yet. I hope I don't have to wait another three years.

-- Miranda Cielo