Book Review: The Rosary Girls

Reviewed By: Harriet Klausner

The Rosary Girls     Amazon US PB Amazon US HC Amazon Canada PB Amazon Canada HC
Richard Montanari
Class/Genre:   Mystery   Psychological Suspense   Thriller   Police Procedural
Series: Byrne and Balzano
Ballantine, Feb 2005, $23.95, 416 pp.

Philadelphia detective Kevin Byrne, a twenty year veteran, works in the homicide unit. He has a phenomenal success rate of clearing his cases but his methods make him a maverick who adheres to the letter of the law but not its spirit. Detective Jessica Balzano is assigned to the homicide unit with Byrne as her partner; he accepts her as an equal.

Their first case is the murder of a teenage high school girl who is found in an abandoned house. Her hands are bolted together by someone using a drill. Her vagina is stitched up and a cross in blue chalk is on her forehead. The perpetrator left no other evidence behind. Two more teens are found dead in the same way, all three having attended a Catholic high school. They finally figure out that the killer is reenacting the five sorrowful mysteries of the rosary which means he intends to kill at least two more girls before he is finished. Byrne and Jessica work overtime trying to get one step ahead of him, not realizing tha t for his finale he has very special plans for Jessica and her daughter.

Anyone who has not read a Richard Montanari thriller is missing something very special. THE ROSARY GIRLS is told in the third person from the police working the crime and the first person point of view of the killer. This is a book that is very exciting with several red herrings to force the reader (and the police) down the wrong path so that the audience will need to finish it in one sitting so they can find out who the killer is. Hopefully there will be future books starring Byrne and Jessica.

Harriet Klausner

Reprinted with permission. Do Not repost without permission from the author, Harriet Klausner