Angels and a Demon...... (Broken Angels - Richard Montanari)

Member Name: SomethingToBe

Product:	Broken Angels - Richard Montanari
Date:	21/07/09 (64 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Well developed characters, good plot

Disadvantages: Slightly confusing

Seeing as I get most of my books from the Oxfam bookshop, I tend to read quite a lot of books from authors who I hadn't previously heard about. I picked this book because the blurb sounded good and there were some good comments inside.

The Author:

Richard Montanari is from Ohio in the USA who initially tried to make it as a musician however this dream failed and he took up writing instead. As well as individual novels, he has two series of books- the Jack Paris series and the Byrne and Balzano series, of which this is one of. Other novels in this series are The Rosary Girls (2005), The Skin Gods (2006) and Play Dead (2008). Broken Angels was published in 2007 and is the third novel in the series.

Characters:

Kevin Byrne- Kevin is one of the 2 main detectives in the book and I found him instantly likeable, something that I find quite rare for a male cop lead in a crime novel. In this novel he is experiencing a slight crisis of confidence and is following the rule book pretty closely but doubting his decisions somewehat. Whereas usually the protagonist in these type of novels are quite maverick it is quite a refreshing change to see a different side to a detective.

Jessica Balzano- Jessica is Kevin's partner on the force who is happily married with a young daughter. Again compared to the typical female lead in a crime novel, Jessica shows her sensitive and emotional side more often and comes accross as much more human, having bad days as well as good, crime solving ones.

Moon- Moon is revealed early on in the novel as the serial killer, however his other identity is not discovered until the end. Moon is obviously mentally unstable and yearns for the days of his childhood when he lived with his grandparents. He is called Moon as he believes the moon pays him visits and talks to him about its travels, then gets him to do the bidding.

Father Roland- A city pastor who is getting justice in his own manner by killing paedophiles. We find this out early on but how it ties into the main plot is not discovered until later on in the novel.

Plot:

A girl is found murdered in Philadelphia, minus her feet which have been sawn off. When her feet are found later elsewhere Byrne and Balzano assume it is a random urban murder. However the killer keeps on striking, leaving each victim with a set of strange clues. This eventually leads the two detectives to looking at fairytales, although this is revealed to the reader early on in the novel, as passages are written from Moon- the killer's- perspective.

There are also several sub plots which feed in to the main tale, although the reader doesn't really understand why until the end of the novel. This includes Father Roland undertaking mercy killings for the victims of previous crimes and a crazed spouse of a shooting victim, taking his wife's death out on Kevin Byrne.

My Opinion:

I thought this book was very well written. I enjoyed the passages that are written from Moon's perspective- although you never find out his alter ego through these, you gain insight into why he is doing these things and what is going through his mind as justification. The plot moves along nicely and doesn't drag between victims. It does get slightly confusing with the sub plots as you don't understand why they are happening and why they are relevent to the story, until the last few chapters.

As I stated previously, I liked the characters in this book and think they are well developed. You get to see them in their home environments as well as at work and so you get to know the differences between the person and the profession, particularly with Jessica and her family. I found it easier to identify with them as people too, as their weaknesses are made known, unlike the 'supercops' in other crime novels.

Although this is the third novel in the series, I had no trouble getting used the characters and their situation. Montanari makes it easy for you to read this as a one off novel without having read the first two books.

The theme of the book is also slightly different, as there is a twist on the typical serial killer angle. It is a book full of imagination and has made me intruged to read the other books in the series. I would definitely give this book a read if you like crime fiction but want to read something with a different angle.

Available new from Amazon Marketplace for £1.96 plus postage.

Summary: Well worth a read