THE ROSARY GIRLS.

THE ROSARY GIRLS by RICHARD MONTANARI. 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...

... from the outer back cover.

First Sentence: There is a wintry sadness about this one, a deep-rooted melancholy that belies her seventeen years, a laugh that never fully engages any sort of inner joy.

MEMORABLE MOMENT: And while any immediate threat, at least from a living human being, was over, and the detectives could have holstered their weapons, they hesitated, as if they could somehow vanquish the profane vision in front of them by deadly force.

After being given another book by this particular friend and finding it not to my taste, I'm really pleased to say that I thoroughly enjoyed The Rosary Girls - after all, with it's wonderfully fast paced plot and cleverly penned, complex characters what was there not to like?

Set in Philadelphia, someone is killing young Catholic women in what can only be described as a macabre fashion and whilst this could have made for an overly blood-thirsty novel, the author avoided this by not including any really gratuitous violence and by not dwelling on this one aspect of the story too much.

Very well written - the psychological element being especially impressive as were the multitude of twists and turns to the story - it was a roller coaster of a read, well observed, with lots of details and a climatic ending.

Character wise - I particularly liked the fact that as much credence was given to Jessica (the female half of the partnership) as there was to Kevin (the main character) though there was one point in which the author had her acting in a particularly 'strange' way that wasn't consistent with what we knew of her. However, that said, it in no way spoilt the story as a whole, being much too well written and thought through by the author for that to happen.

The Rosary Girls was a gift from a friend.