Thank you for joining us on the Virtual Book Tour for The Echo Man, a novel of Suspense by Richard Montanari (first published 3 March 2011; this edition 21 March 2017, Witness Impulse, 560 pages). This is the fifth book in the Byrne & Balzano series.
Don't miss our interview with author Richard Montanari.PREVIEW: Check out the book's synopsis and the Kindle Cloud Reader Preview below.
Author Richard Montanari will be awarding one eBook copy of The Echo Man to a randomly drawn winner via Rafflecopter during the tour. Please do take part: comment on our post and follow the tour where you will be able to read other excerpts (☀), interviews (ℚ), reviews (✍) and guest blog posts (✉).
|| Synopsis || Teaser: KCR Preview || The Series || Author Q&A || About the Author || Giveaway & Tour Stops ||
Synopsis
In this gripping, unforgettable thriller for readers of James Patterson and Lisa Gardner, someone is recreating infamous unsolved murders… and the killer is closer than anyone could imagine.Fall in Philadelphia. A man’s corpse is found in one of the city’s poorest neighborhoods. It’s unmistakably the work of a killer.
But to homicide detectives Kevin Byrne and Jessica Balzano, it feels familiar. Eight years ago, another body was found in the same place, in the same position… killed in the same manner. Even the crime-scene photos are identical.
That case was never closed. And now more copycat murders are happening. Someone is recreating the city’s most infamous unsolved killings, victim by victim — with more clues for Byrne and Balzano to unravel…
"Taut and suspenseful, The Echo Man is already an international bestseller. Discover what readers around the world already know: Richard Montanari’s novels are “relentlessly suspenseful" (Tess Gerritsen).
The Series: Byrne & Balzano
|| [1] || [2] || [3] || [4] || [6] || [7] || [short story] || [8] || [9] ||Click on the book cover to Look Inside the book on Amazon and read an excerpt.
The Rosary Girls [1]
Only a killer hears their prayers. The first thriller in Richard Montanari's Sunday Times bestselling Byrne and Balzano series.
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 ...
[First puublished 18 January 2005; this edition 4 September 2008, 412 pages]
The Skin Gods [2]
No one can hear you scream. The second spell-binding, unputdownable thriller in the Byrne and Balzano series from the Sunday Times besteller.
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 ...
[first published 14 March 2006; this edition 21 November 2008, 402 pages]
Broken Angels (UK) / Merciless (US) [3]
Evil preys upon the fallen. The third thriller in the Byrne and Balzano series by the Sunday Times bestselling author.
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 ...
[Published 5 April 2007, 531 pages]
Play Dead (UK) / Badlands (US) [4]
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...
[Published 14 August 2008, 405 pages]
The Killing Room [6]
'The thing is, Detective... If you believe in God, you've got to believe in the Devil.'
Deepest winter. Darkest Philadelphia.
A murder shocks the frozen city - the most spectacular homicide in its 300-year-old history: an ex-cop has been lured to the basement of an abandoned chapel, wrapped in barbed wire - and kept alive for ten days.
Twenty-four hours after the discovery, Detectives Kevin Byrne and Jessica Balzano find another victim in another church, encased in a pristine block of ice.
Someone is transforming the city's cathederals into killing rooms, someone who is determined to raise hell on earth.
Packed with ingenious twists and relentless excitement, The Killing Room is a novel of blistering thrills and heart-stopping suspense.
[Published 16 February 2012, 449 pages]
The Stolen Ones [7]
Destroyed by fire years ago, the infamous Philadelphia State Hospital was known as a warehouse for the criminally insane.
But one man never left.
By night Luther walks Philadelphia's backstreets; by day he roams the catacombs beneath the city. Luther is everywhere and nowhere; he's is in your dreams - and your nightmares.
Then Detectives Kevin Byrne and Jessica Balzano are called to a bizarre murder scene: a man has been killed by a railroad spike driven into his head. But this is just the beginning of a trail of evil that will lead Byrne and Balzano back to the hospital, to a missing girl and to a horror they could never have imagined . . .
[Published 4 July 2013 , 465 pages]
A Christmas Killing [short story]
Meet the young Detective Kevin Byrne, rising star of the Philadelphia police force.
Christmas Eve, 1988. Partnered with streetwise veteran Frankie Sheehan, Byrne is called out on a freezing night to investigate the brutal assault of a young woman in a crime-ridden neighbourhood, The Devil's Pocket.
There, with the rest of the city celebrating, relentless rookie Byrne must step out from his partner's shadow to outwit a terrifying predator on the same vicious city streets he will later revisit with his future partner, Jessica Balzano.
This ebook-exclusive short story also includes the opening of Richard Montanari's terrifying new novel, The Doll Maker.
[Published 6 November 2014, 29 pages]
The Doll Maker [8]
Mr Marseille is polite, elegant, and erudite. He would do anything for his genteel true love Anabelle. And he is a psychopath.
A quiet Philadelphia suburb. A woman cycles past a train depot with her young daughter. And there she finds a murdered girl posed on a newly painted bench. Strangled. Beside her is a formal invite to a tea dance in a week's time.
Seven days later, two more young victims are discovered in a disused house, posed on painted swings. At the scene is an identical invite. This time, though, there is something extra waiting for Detectives Kevin Byrne and Jessica Balzano.
A delicate porcelain doll. It's a message. And a threat.
With Marseille and Anabelle stalking the city, Detectives Byrne and Balzano have just seven days to find the link between the murders before another innocent child is snatched from its streets.
[Published 14 August 2014, 497 pages]
Shutter Man [9]
Face your fears in the latest terrifying novel by the hugely acclaimed, bestselling master of the psychopath thriller.
The Farren family has been a plague upon Philadelphia's most dangerous neighbourhood, the Devil's Pocket, for generations. There, row after row of tumbledown houses hide dark secrets - none darker than Billy, the youngest Farren.
Afflicted by a syndrome that means he can't recognise faces, Billy must use photographs to identify his family - and his victims. And when your life has bled away, he takes a final, gruesome picture for his wall.
But what is the meaning of the horrific ritual Billy enacts with every murder? And is there any connection to a childhood event Detective Kevin Byrne has buried so well it's hidden even from his former partner Jessica Balzano?
[Published 13 August 2015, 432 pages]
About the Author
Richard Montanari was born in Cleveland, Ohio, to a traditional Italian-American family. After university, he travelled Europe extensively and lived in London, selling clothing in Chelsea and foreign language encyclopedias door-to-door in Hampstead Heath.
Returning to the US, he started working as a freelance writer for the Chicago Tribune, the Detroit Free Press, the Seattle Times, and many others.
He wrote his first book, Deviant Way, in 1996 and it won the OLMA for Best First Mystery.
His novels have now been published in more than twenty-five languages
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