MERCILESS
Richard Montanari
Ballantine Books
Thriller
ISBN-10: 0345492404
ISBN-13: 9780345492401

I keep thinking that Richard Montanari's books cannot get any better. And every year or so, I am proven wrong yet again. With each new novel, Montanari keeps taking his readers further and further into the nether reaches of the criminal mind. MERCILESS is no exception.

Montanari's latest work again features Philadelphia police homicide detective Kevin Byrne, who is on the trail of a bizarre serial murderer with the seeming ability to strike and disappear at will, leaving his victims in a chilling, frightening and somehow familiar tableau. Byrne's partner, Jessica Balzano, is by his side, but the focus is primarily on Byrne and his job as opposed to his quietly turbulent domestic situation that --- although not altogether absent --- is kept in the background. Suspects abound, of course, and part of the enjoyment of this wild ride is trying to sort out the innocent from the oh-so-very guilty.

At the same time a vigilante is quietly going about a dark and very deadly business on the streets of Philadelphia --- an avenger whose path will cross with that of Byrne and Balzano before the tale set forth here is done. Montanari introduces a new character as well, a police detective named Joshua Bontrager, who is --- by way of his background --- unique and possibly original in the annals of detective fiction. Bontrager's presence provides more than a bit of lagniappe to the proceedings, but the star ultimately is the author himself, whose fine eye for detail and uncanny narrative ability cause the 400-plus pages of the book to fly by with the speed of a 10-page short story.

If Montanari's name is not on your must-read list of thriller 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.

    --- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub

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