The Killing Room by Richard Montanari

The Killing Room by Richard Montanari
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Time taken to read - on and off for 5 days

Pages - 358

Publisher - Sphere

Blurb from Goodreads

Hear the footsteps, feel the screams. The chilling new Byrne and Balzano thriller from the Sunday Times bestseller. Product Description 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...


My Review

An ex police officer found in an abandoned chapel, kept alive and wrapped in barb wire for ten days but why? Only one day later, another victim, another chapel just as disturbing, when a third is found the police know they need to move fast, but what drives this killer and what links the victims. Clearly a religious aspect and footage shows a victim voluntarily heading to the location they die, what can have a hold over these people and why are the chapels important?

The chapters go between the police investigation and a glimpse to the killer, written in italics and interactions with the victims. This makes for very freaky reading, is there a spirtual element in the killings? Is the killer a mere mortal? The slayings are brutal and the scenes are not for the faint hearted. The book is quite heavy on police procedure which seems a bit drawn out in places and didn't capture my attention quite as much as other parts of the book. The supernatural tones really draw the reader in and were very creepy however the finale and wrap up raised some questions and made me question the plausibility of it all. A good read if you just suspend reality for a while, gruesome too with in depth police procedures and aspects of the investigation, 3/5 for me this time.

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