Richard Montanari

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God Help Them ... 
 
In the most brutal killing crusade Philadelphia has seen in years, a series of young Catholic women are found dead, their bodies mutilated and their hands bolted together. Each clutches a rosary in her lifeless grasp. 
 
Veteran cop Kevin Byrne and his rookie partner Jessica Balzano set out to hunt down the elusive killer, who leads them deeper and deeper into the abyss of a madman's depravity. Suspects appear before them like bad dreams - and vanish just as quickly. While the body count rises, Easter is fast approaching: the day of resurrection and of the last rosary to be counted ...

The Rosary Girls

(Byrne & Balzano 1)

Nothing will ever be the same again... 
 
In the heart of Philadelphia's badlands, Homicide Detectives Byrne and Balzano are called out to a particularly chilling crime scene. Once the pillar of the neighbourhood, an abandoned church has become a killing room. 
 
At first it looks like a random act of violence. But then a second body is found, and a third. Each crime scene more disturbing than the last, each murder more brutal. And it soon becomes horrifyingly clear that a cold, calculating and terrifyingly precise mind is at work. 
 
With very few leads, and a mastermind who always seems to be one step ahead, Byrne and Balzano are faced with challenges they could never have imagined as they race against time to hunt down their killer, before it's too late...

The Killing Room

(Byrne & Balzano 6)

Andrea Heller has been married for seven years, but still likes to pretend she's single. She enjoys sitting on her own in bars, and watching what happens. But there's another couple watching too. They call themselves Saila and Pharaoh, but only after sundown. And it is after sundown that some terrible things are happening in the singles clubs in Cleveland. 
 
In six months, three women in their twenties have been brutally murdered. And each step that Homicide Detective Jack Paris takes to find their killer draws him closer to the heart of his own forbidden impulses. 
 
As the stakes become increasingly personal, Jack knows only one thing for certain. To enter the minds of Saila and Pharaoh is to enter a world from which no one ever fully returns...

Don't Look Now

In each soul, a secret ... 
 
Philadelphia homicide detectives Kevin Byrne and Jessica Balzano's first assignment from the Cold Case files is the brutal murder of a young runaway. The lifeless body of Caitlin O'Riordan was found carefully posed in a glass display case in the desolate Philadelphia Badlands but, as Byrne and Balzano rapidly discover, she was just the first pawn in the killer's twisted game... 
 
A mysterious phone call leads them on a scavenger hunt for a second victim. This time a young girl has been dismembered, her body parts left in three boxes in the basement of a deserted house. More clues lead to other victims and, as the body count rises, it becomes clear that there is a serial killer on the loose, hell-bent on completing the 'performance' of a lifetime. 
 
As more runaways vanish, Byrne and Balzano come to realize that the homicidal mastermind plans to complete seven depraved tricks in his dark and dangerous magic act. With Balzano increasingly obsessed by a case that haunts her, and Byrne struggling with a loss of his own, the stakes are mounting. But this is one game they can't afford to lose...

Play Dead

(Byrne & Balzano 4)

Christmas is just around the corner; the season of peace and goodwill.But this year, for Detective Jack Paris, the Christmas spirit is eclipsed by the hunt for a sadistic and twisted serial killer... 
 
When an accused murderer is acquitted on a technicality then found dead of an apparent suicide, a spree of brutal murders terrorizes the citizens of Cleveland.This vicious and vengeful killer tortures his seemingly unrelated victims in unimaginably violent ways, leaving them all with a strange symbol carved into their flesh. 
 
When Detective Paris discovers that these murders are the grim handiwork of one maniac obsessed with the dark side of the ancient religion, Santeria, he's pulled into a web of danger and sexual deviance.Jack must catch the killer before he kills again.But on Christmas Eve, Jack finds himself right where the homicidal maniac wants him: questioning his loyalties, facing an impossible choice, with the barrel of a gun pointing at his temple and the whole world watching...

Kiss of Evil

When the first body is found, mutilated and strangled on the riverbanks, Philadelphia homicide detectives Kevin Byrne and Jessica Balzano suspect yet another case of random urban violence. Then it happens again. And again. 
 
Carefully dressed and posed, each victim seems to tell a story so gruesome that Byrne and Balzano struggle at first to make sense of the killer's dark and twisted imagination. But when they stumble upon a collection of old fairy tales, the fragile link between the murders suddenly becomes clear - and with it the terrifying conclusion of the killer's plan. 
 
Desperately, they try to anticipate the madman's next move, but as the body count rises, the killing spree spirals out of control ...

Broken Angels

(Byrne & Balzano 3)

The streets of Philadelphia are blistering in the summer heat, the homicide rate is soaring and the nights belong to the mad. Detectives Kevin Byrne and Jessica Balzano are prowling the streets with a growing sense of unease. Where next will evil rear its ugly head? 
 
When a series of seemingly unrelated crimes shatter the restless silence of the city, their worst fears are confirmed. A beautiful secretary is slashed to death in a grimy motel shower. A street hustler brutally murdered with a chainsaw. Piece by piece, a strange and sickening puzzle presents itself: someone is meticulously recreating Hollywood's most well-known and horrifying murder scenes, capturing them on film and inserting the clips into videos - for an unsuspecting public to find. 
 
While Kevin Byrne begins furtive investigations of his own, Jessica Balzano goes undercover to work the steaming back alleys of Philadelphia, entering a violent world of underground film, pornography and seedy nightclubs, hidden to all but the initiated. Discovering that none of The Actor's victims are as innocent as they appear to be, the two detectives arrive at a terrifying reality: They are not just chasing a homicide suspect. They are stalking evil itself ...

The Skin Gods

(Byrne & Balzano 2)

Johnny Angel is found brutally murdered with a dead prostitute in his bed and a needle full of heroin in his arm. It's all the more shocking because he's a priest. But when Dr Bennett Marc Crane, a prestigious plastic surgeon, is the next victim of a vicious attack of the same manner, it becomes clear that there is a serial killer on the loose... 
 
And as this homicidal maniac exacts his vengeance upon more innocent victims, evidence of another long-buried crime is uncovered. One that starts with a Halloween celebration at an exclusive college party twenty years ago and ends with a murderous plan for delayed revenge. 
 
For Nicky Stella, a hungry journalist, this is just the sort of sordid story that could land him a cover article. But when he digs a bit too deep, the killer's attention turns towards Nicky and he must find the killer before he becomes the next victim...

The Violet Hour

Michael Roman is finally living the life he always dreamed of - he has a successful career, a beautiful wife and adorable twin daughters. But his idyllic life is about to come crashing down around him - because Michael is a man with a past. 
 
A rising star in the New York District Attorney's office and on the cusp of enormous success, Michael's perfect life begins to unravel when he finds himself the target of a depraved madman, a man who covets everything Michael has and will stop at nothing to take it all away. 
 
In a desperate fight to survive, Michael is forced to confront the dark secrets of his past in order to save his family. He must hunt down the psychopath who is targeting his family and, before it is too late, face the devil himself . . .

The Devil's Garden

It is fall in Philadelphia and the mutilated body of a man is found in one of the poorest neighbourhoods of the city. The victim has been viciously tortured to death. It's the work of a sadistic mind in free fall. 
 
When homicide detectives Kevin Byrne and Jessica Balzano investigate, they soon realise that their crime scene is linked to the past. Eight years ago, another body was found in the same place, in the same position, killed in the same manner. That case was never closed. Apart from their killer's unusual calling cards, the crime scene photos - past and present - are identical. 
 
As another brutalised body appears, then another, it becomes horrifyingly clear that someone is recreating unsolved murders from Philadelphia's past in the most sinister of ways. And the killer is closer than they think...

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