Merciless (2007)
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 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.
Praise for Merciless
"If Montanari's name is not on your must-read list of thiller authors, it will be once you begin digging into Merciless. Montanari is riveting, addicting and never disappoints as he continues to raise his own bar, novel after novel, and surpass it."- Joe Hartlaub, BookReporter.Com
"Merciless binds insane killings with purposeful killings in a thrilling suspense novel that's sure to entertain you. Montanari skillfully weaves the intrigue with nonstop action in a clever spin on beloved bedtime stories." -The Chicago Tribune
"Creepy is the best word to describe Merciless. Richard Montanari has designed a heart-stopping thriller around a serial killer of the most frightening order. This thriller has it all. It's fast paced, laced with red herrings, descriptively terrifying and leads to an electrifying conclusion. Bravo." - Winnipeg Free Press
"You may never want to go near Philadelphia's Schuylkill River, not after Montanari has finished with you in this tale of an ingenious killer who poses his victims along the river's banks. Here is a story so dark, so cold-blooded, it gives new meaning to the word malevolence." - Mike Gillespie, The Times Colonist
"Another grisly entry in the Byrne/Balzano series, a tightly written story about tightly wound people (both good guys and bad). 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." -David Pitt, Booklist Magazine
"Merciless, Richard Montanari's newest police procedural/psychological suspense novel featuring Philadelphia homicide detectives Kevin Byrne and Jessica Balzano, could be his most sensational -- and gruesome -- thriller to date. And that's saying something. Montanari blends the hard-boiled grittiness of novels like Theresa Schwegel's "Officer Down" with the glamorized violence of TV shows like "CSI," and readers who like their mysteries rare (as well as raw and bloody) will devour his newest." -Sally Owen, Mysterious Bookshop (NYC)
"This book will knock your socks off! With The Rosary Girls and The Skin Gods, and now Merciless, Richard Montanari has established himself as a thriller writer on par with Lee Child." -LexCopyright
"Richard Montanari links fairy tale and horror to fine, chilling effect in Merciless. The plot is taut. The story is ingenious." - The Plain Dealer
"Montanari masterfully weaves his plots together into a terrifying fabric of long-term murders that quench the twisted soul of a psychopath who refuses to be caught. Richard Montanari has amped up the fictional world of suspense with his powerful Philly crime series. Begun in The Rosary Girls, followed by The Skin Gods, Merciless solidifies a strong cop team that surprises, haunts and kicks butt." -JC Patterson, The Clarion Ledger
"A novel guaranteed to have your knuckles turn white. With Byrne and Balzano, Richard Montanari has created two characters who make the reader live with them through each tortured step of their investigation until, at last and breathless, they uncover the truth." - Chris High, Crime Time Magazine
"If you like the movie Se7en then you will adore being led by the hand of Montanari into the darkest corners of the human psyche." - MJ Garland, Waterstones
"[Montanari] is plenty good at building suspense . . . I devoured each chapter, and was rewarded with a surprising and satisfying denouement."
-Philadelphia Magazine
“Richard Montanari has become one of my favorite writers . . . Merciless, like The Rosary Girls and The Skin Gods, made me stay up late into the night, frantically flipping pages to see what could possibly happen next."
- Catherine Wallach, Editor, Book of the Month Club
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