The Violet Hour by Richard Montanari: Regular Reporter in Cat and Mouse with Serial Killer

I was sold by the blurb and the opening of this thriller. A priest is murdered via overdose during shenanigans and then is thrown out of the window, mantel and all to plummet deathwards .Well, what isn’t there to hook the reader? We don’t know who the killer is, there are some colourful characters and the writing was fine. But I didn’t anticipate the next reading. In fact, I got distracted by another book halfway through and that is never a good sign.

Thriller with Colorful Characters

When I returned to the Violet Hour, I found I didn’t care much about what happened. There was a fair amount of aimless bantering between characters, it seemed, to illustrate the nature of cousins Nicky and Joe’s relationship, as well as the mete of the other hustlers in the neighbourhood. Nicky is a regular good guy with a lot of weird associations, only I didn’t care.

Thriller about Halloween Past

Halloween 1988 has significance to the killer and he is out for revenge for a traumatic event. There were some missing pieces that don’t come together until the end. There are some truly gruesome scenes where the killer slices bodily parts from his victims. Someone described this book as the new Hannibal, because the killer likes to use the body parts as props. But this book wasn’t half as good.

I wouldn’t call it a page turner, but some scenes might stay in the memory, only not for the right reasons. There is a twist at the end.