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A review by paulabrandon
The Killing Room by Richard Montanari
3.0
Kevin Byrne and Jessica Balzano must track a serial killer who is staging their crime scenes in abandoned churches in Philadelphia. The book's blurb on the back gives away the details of most of the killings! Meanwhile, Kevin has joined a program to act a "big brother" type to underprivileged boy Gabriel Hightower.
I have always been a long fan of the serial killer thriller, really getting into the genre when I started reading Tess Gerritsen and Karin Slaughter. However, as time has worn on, many of them stopped becoming serial killer thrillers, and instead dry, boring police procedurals. Particularly the British ones! They were all the same! However, American offerings seemed to avoid the usual Britsh tropes: characters only existing to discover a dead body, a lead detective with a haunted past, a subordinate or a boss trying to undermine, and a pesky journalist seeking either fame or obsessively trying to crucify the lead detective in the media.
Unfortunately, The Killing Room decided to go with the pesky journalist subplot BIG TIME. A lot of plot space is wasted on Shane Adams, who is following Kevin Byrne around, and attempts to shame him on the news. And, ultimately, this plot doesn't go anywhere. By the end of the book, I couldn't figure out what Shane was doing in the story. He does not serve any purpose! HE DOES NOT NEED TO BE THERE!
I hate the pesky journalist trope. Hate it, hate it, hate it. When it kept cropping up here, I abandoned the book for several days at a time. I was just NOT interested. And persisting with it didn't even pay off. Shane served no purpose to the plot at all.
This is 2.5 rounded up to 3. It's a credit to the book that it still reads well, and the plot is constructed very cleverly. Aside from bloody Shane Adams, several subplots tie into the main action in surprising and suspenseful ways. The killer has an interesting backstory (although the religious mania angle is getting a bit old, and had already been explored in The Rosary Girls, the first book in this series.) Kevin Byrne and Jessica Balzano are smart, likeable protagonists that don't come with the ridiculous backstories that British crime novel protagonists seem to.
If only all of that stupid pesky journalist subplot rubbish had been excised from this, The Killing Room could have been an above average, memorable serial killer thriller.
I have always been a long fan of the serial killer thriller, really getting into the genre when I started reading Tess Gerritsen and Karin Slaughter. However, as time has worn on, many of them stopped becoming serial killer thrillers, and instead dry, boring police procedurals. Particularly the British ones! They were all the same! However, American offerings seemed to avoid the usual Britsh tropes: characters only existing to discover a dead body, a lead detective with a haunted past, a subordinate or a boss trying to undermine, and a pesky journalist seeking either fame or obsessively trying to crucify the lead detective in the media.
Unfortunately, The Killing Room decided to go with the pesky journalist subplot BIG TIME. A lot of plot space is wasted on Shane Adams, who is following Kevin Byrne around, and attempts to shame him on the news. And, ultimately, this plot doesn't go anywhere. By the end of the book, I couldn't figure out what Shane was doing in the story. He does not serve any purpose! HE DOES NOT NEED TO BE THERE!
I hate the pesky journalist trope. Hate it, hate it, hate it. When it kept cropping up here, I abandoned the book for several days at a time. I was just NOT interested. And persisting with it didn't even pay off. Shane served no purpose to the plot at all.
This is 2.5 rounded up to 3. It's a credit to the book that it still reads well, and the plot is constructed very cleverly. Aside from bloody Shane Adams, several subplots tie into the main action in surprising and suspenseful ways. The killer has an interesting backstory (although the religious mania angle is getting a bit old, and had already been explored in The Rosary Girls, the first book in this series.) Kevin Byrne and Jessica Balzano are smart, likeable protagonists that don't come with the ridiculous backstories that British crime novel protagonists seem to.
If only all of that stupid pesky journalist subplot rubbish had been excised from this, The Killing Room could have been an above average, memorable serial killer thriller.