Scan barcode
A review by secre
Broken Angels by Richard Montanari
4.0
It is rare that I pick up a murder mystery book of my own choosing; I usually stick with fantasy, sci-fi or biographies. I'm not a big fan of gore and blood so will do my utmost best to avoid genre's which are likely to hand it to me on a plate; unfortunately many murder mysteries do as authors abandon detailed and interesting plot times in favour of overwhelming the reader with gruesome accounts of the death and corpses of the victims of the novel. So this was an odd one for me to pick out, and the first time I read it remember being distinctly under-enthralled by it, but somehow on re-reading recently it has grown on me.
===Plot===
The book is set in Philadelphia and when the first victim is found washed up on the side of the riverbank it is assumed to be a random occurrence of human violence. Particularly obscene yes, but nothing to write home about. So the homicide detectives Kevin Bryne and Jessica Balzano take on the case expecting to find a particularly psychotic boyfriend or lover. The problems start to arise when it happens again, and again, and again. And the murders just keep on getting weirder with each victim, usually in their early twenties being carefully dressed and posed as if to tell a story that the murderer is playing out.
Kevin and Jessica struggle to find a way to make any sense at all of the killers gruesome imagination and quite obviously psychotic world view but then they come across a collection of faerie tales written by Hans Anderson and things start to make a little more sense. But now it's a race against time to anticipate the madman's next move before another victim is found, and as the body count rises the two detectives begin to wonder whether they will ever manage to catch this psychopathic murderer.
===Characters===
A main flaw that I find with many of the murder mysteries that I stumble across is that characterization takes a back line to the horror and gore that seems to take centre stage. Richard Montanari on the other hand hasn't fallen into this trap and put a lot of effort into ensuring that the characters that you meet are not portrayed as cardboard cut outs but even the smaller characters who only come into play a couple of times are still given characters and emotions. The relatives of the victims aren't simply a two dimensional representation of grief or anguish, but instead Richard Montanari actually manages to put them across as real people with real lives.
But it is in the characters of Kevin and Jessica where he really does shine as he successfully shows a couple of homicide cops with families and lives trying to balance the pressures of work and home. Particularly in the character of Jessica he successfully shows the real fear that a working cop can feel knowing that she has a child with two parents working the beat. Both of them are all too aware of the danger their job puts them into whether it's from the murderer at the time, a lasting vengence that could come back to haunt them later or even on occasions from relatives of the victims. The idea that the crimes they deal with in their professional life will also have an impact on their private life is also well written and you get a real feeling for the feeling of the impact that the one who got away has.
Richard Montanari has managed to put a group of characters together in such a way that you feel for them, you feel like you understand them and you care for them. You can empathise with their confusion and growing frustration as a psychopath seems to be getting the better of them, but at the same time you are given snippets into the murderer's mind through the stories that he's using. Rather than relying on the blood and gore to make the story, the author more relies on the relationship between the two detectives and the psychological creeps the psychopaths actions and motives give you. At the same time he has managed to add a next to innocent copper in the form of the Amish detective, Josh Bontager who kind of adds an incongruous but quite appealing light to what turns not only into a detective mystery novel but also into quite a dark psychological thriller.
===Style===
Because the author doesn't rely on the blood, gore and obscenities to make up for poor narrative gifts the book is actually highly readable. I don't actually know why I found it such a poor read first time round, perhaps I simply wasn't paying enough attention the first time round or perhaps I missed the creepy edge to it by skipping the sections narrated by the pyschopath. Throughout the entire novel second time round I found myself completely engrossed both by the main murder mystery and by the relationships of both of the detectives with each other and their home life.
The novel is told entirely from a third person perspective by an omnipotent narrator aside from the periodic sections written by the murderer which come across more in a kind of fairytale diary. It flips between following the two main detectives and periodically flipping to the murderer capturing his latest victim and it keeps you gripped throughout because whilst you have more of an understanding of the killer than the detectives who are desperately trying to find him, the author still manages to keep you in suspense throughout as to who the actual killer is. There are also interludes about a vigilante twosome who are going out of their way to find and kill suspected child abusers. So you actually get to follow two seperate lines of murder throughout the book.
===Opinion===
I thoroughly enjoyed reading this on my second run through the book; luckily I have an atrocious memory for what has occurred in a book meaning that I actually couldn't remember who was the murderer. It really did read like a psychological thriller as much as a detective novel and Richard Montanari has managed to straddle the two genres perfectly. The fact that it isn't heavy on blood, gore and other grotesque details of the victims might be disappointing to some, but it made it ten times more readable for me and because the author gave enough detail to leave it to your imagination without making it too vivid this worked perfectly.
The fact that Richard Montanari has managed to include two completely separate but at the same time distinctly linked lines of murder makes the book that little bit more interesting. This is particularly true when you consider the fact that it is obvious that both of them are psychopathic but the faerieland murderer gets no sympathy whatsoever, whilst there is a certain amount of empathy with the child abuse murderer. It adds a level of depth to the book which I find is often missing in many murder mysteries because you can't help but see where the latter of the two is coming from, and might even have wished to have done the same. The book also relates an interesting although perhaps understandable issue in the police interest in the two separate crimes; the killing of young women is a headline piece which attracts major attention, the killing of suspected if not proven child molesters less so.
Overall the author keeps the book building right until the end and doesn't let the reader down with his final chapters. It's suspenseful, slightly creepy and artfully written to link the lives of his very different characters in some very clever loops that always seem to keep you looking in the wrong direction. The murders are intricate and well described, but never in such language that might make you wonder whether it was a good idea to have that sandwich for lunch and the entire thing just came out as a well crafted and highly readable book.
===Conclusion===
Much against what I had previously thought I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It moved at a fast enough pace to keep me hooked throughout wondering what would happen next and what form the next murder would take, but it dwelt long enough of the individual motives and relationships between characters into consideration and flesh it out into a thoroughly enjoyable read.
"If you were married to a police officer, you were afraid every day. You were afraid of the telephone, the knock on the door, the sound of a car pulling into your driveway. You were afraid every time there was a 'special report' on the television. Then one day the unthinkable happened, and there was no longer anything to fear. you suddenly realised that, all that time, all those years, fear had been your friend. Fear meant that there was life. Fear was _hope_."
===Plot===
The book is set in Philadelphia and when the first victim is found washed up on the side of the riverbank it is assumed to be a random occurrence of human violence. Particularly obscene yes, but nothing to write home about. So the homicide detectives Kevin Bryne and Jessica Balzano take on the case expecting to find a particularly psychotic boyfriend or lover. The problems start to arise when it happens again, and again, and again. And the murders just keep on getting weirder with each victim, usually in their early twenties being carefully dressed and posed as if to tell a story that the murderer is playing out.
Kevin and Jessica struggle to find a way to make any sense at all of the killers gruesome imagination and quite obviously psychotic world view but then they come across a collection of faerie tales written by Hans Anderson and things start to make a little more sense. But now it's a race against time to anticipate the madman's next move before another victim is found, and as the body count rises the two detectives begin to wonder whether they will ever manage to catch this psychopathic murderer.
===Characters===
A main flaw that I find with many of the murder mysteries that I stumble across is that characterization takes a back line to the horror and gore that seems to take centre stage. Richard Montanari on the other hand hasn't fallen into this trap and put a lot of effort into ensuring that the characters that you meet are not portrayed as cardboard cut outs but even the smaller characters who only come into play a couple of times are still given characters and emotions. The relatives of the victims aren't simply a two dimensional representation of grief or anguish, but instead Richard Montanari actually manages to put them across as real people with real lives.
But it is in the characters of Kevin and Jessica where he really does shine as he successfully shows a couple of homicide cops with families and lives trying to balance the pressures of work and home. Particularly in the character of Jessica he successfully shows the real fear that a working cop can feel knowing that she has a child with two parents working the beat. Both of them are all too aware of the danger their job puts them into whether it's from the murderer at the time, a lasting vengence that could come back to haunt them later or even on occasions from relatives of the victims. The idea that the crimes they deal with in their professional life will also have an impact on their private life is also well written and you get a real feeling for the feeling of the impact that the one who got away has.
Richard Montanari has managed to put a group of characters together in such a way that you feel for them, you feel like you understand them and you care for them. You can empathise with their confusion and growing frustration as a psychopath seems to be getting the better of them, but at the same time you are given snippets into the murderer's mind through the stories that he's using. Rather than relying on the blood and gore to make the story, the author more relies on the relationship between the two detectives and the psychological creeps the psychopaths actions and motives give you. At the same time he has managed to add a next to innocent copper in the form of the Amish detective, Josh Bontager who kind of adds an incongruous but quite appealing light to what turns not only into a detective mystery novel but also into quite a dark psychological thriller.
===Style===
Because the author doesn't rely on the blood, gore and obscenities to make up for poor narrative gifts the book is actually highly readable. I don't actually know why I found it such a poor read first time round, perhaps I simply wasn't paying enough attention the first time round or perhaps I missed the creepy edge to it by skipping the sections narrated by the pyschopath. Throughout the entire novel second time round I found myself completely engrossed both by the main murder mystery and by the relationships of both of the detectives with each other and their home life.
The novel is told entirely from a third person perspective by an omnipotent narrator aside from the periodic sections written by the murderer which come across more in a kind of fairytale diary. It flips between following the two main detectives and periodically flipping to the murderer capturing his latest victim and it keeps you gripped throughout because whilst you have more of an understanding of the killer than the detectives who are desperately trying to find him, the author still manages to keep you in suspense throughout as to who the actual killer is. There are also interludes about a vigilante twosome who are going out of their way to find and kill suspected child abusers. So you actually get to follow two seperate lines of murder throughout the book.
===Opinion===
I thoroughly enjoyed reading this on my second run through the book; luckily I have an atrocious memory for what has occurred in a book meaning that I actually couldn't remember who was the murderer. It really did read like a psychological thriller as much as a detective novel and Richard Montanari has managed to straddle the two genres perfectly. The fact that it isn't heavy on blood, gore and other grotesque details of the victims might be disappointing to some, but it made it ten times more readable for me and because the author gave enough detail to leave it to your imagination without making it too vivid this worked perfectly.
The fact that Richard Montanari has managed to include two completely separate but at the same time distinctly linked lines of murder makes the book that little bit more interesting. This is particularly true when you consider the fact that it is obvious that both of them are psychopathic but the faerieland murderer gets no sympathy whatsoever, whilst there is a certain amount of empathy with the child abuse murderer. It adds a level of depth to the book which I find is often missing in many murder mysteries because you can't help but see where the latter of the two is coming from, and might even have wished to have done the same. The book also relates an interesting although perhaps understandable issue in the police interest in the two separate crimes; the killing of young women is a headline piece which attracts major attention, the killing of suspected if not proven child molesters less so.
Overall the author keeps the book building right until the end and doesn't let the reader down with his final chapters. It's suspenseful, slightly creepy and artfully written to link the lives of his very different characters in some very clever loops that always seem to keep you looking in the wrong direction. The murders are intricate and well described, but never in such language that might make you wonder whether it was a good idea to have that sandwich for lunch and the entire thing just came out as a well crafted and highly readable book.
===Conclusion===
Much against what I had previously thought I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It moved at a fast enough pace to keep me hooked throughout wondering what would happen next and what form the next murder would take, but it dwelt long enough of the individual motives and relationships between characters into consideration and flesh it out into a thoroughly enjoyable read.
"If you were married to a police officer, you were afraid every day. You were afraid of the telephone, the knock on the door, the sound of a car pulling into your driveway. You were afraid every time there was a 'special report' on the television. Then one day the unthinkable happened, and there was no longer anything to fear. you suddenly realised that, all that time, all those years, fear had been your friend. Fear meant that there was life. Fear was _hope_."