"Taut, propulsive and darkly gripping, Montanari is a master of suspense." –Chris EwanA haunting, nerve-jangling psychological thriller from Sunday Times bestselling author Richard Montanari, set in a small town hiding a very dark secretNew York psychologist Will Hardy had it all—a loving family, a flourishing career, a bestselling book. Until the night it all ended in a tempest of fire and ash, leaving only Will and his fifteen-year-old daughter Bernadette to stand in the ruins. Haunted and grief-stricken, Will accepts an enigmatic invitation from his family's past to begin their lives anew in the small town of Abbeville, Ohio.Meanwhile, Abbeville Chief of Police Ivy Holgrave is investigating the death of a local girl, convinced this may only be the latest in a long line of murders dating back decades—including her own long-missing sister.But what place does Will's new home have in the story of the missing...

Philadelphia police detectives Kevin Byrne and Jessica Balzano are working a new beat: the Special Investigations Unit, AKA the cold case squad. Ironic, given it’s the height of a blazing hot August. But even these hardened homicide veterans are chilled to the bone as the dormant murder case of Caitlin O’Riordan stirs to shocking new life — leading Byrne and Balzano into the dark heart of their city, their souls, and a psyche of pure evil.They’d seen it before: a teenaged runaway succumbing to the city’s mean streets, her body found in the desolate, dangerous North Philly district called the Badlands. What’s surprising is the corpse’s condition: peering out of a glass display case in a rancid, waterless apartment . . . and inexplicably dead by drowning. 

Meet Detective Kevin Byrne, rising star of the Philadelphia police force.Christmas Eve, 1988: Partnered with streetwise veteran Frankie Sheehan, Byrne is called to investigate the brutal assault of a young woman in a crime-ridden neighborhood, The Devil's Pocket.There, with the rest of the city hunkered down in their holiday celebrations, relentless rookie Byrne must step out from his partner's shadow to outwit a terrifying predator. It's the beginning of a long career for Byrne, who will revisit the same vicious streets in Richard Montanari's beloved Byrne and Balzano series."A Christmas Killing" is a short story that includes an excerpt from Richard Montanari's terrifying Byrne and Balzano novel, Shutter Man.

Billy is an excellent killer: strategic, methodical, ritualistic. If only he knew what his victims looked like.Plagued with a rare disease that prevents him from recognizing faces, Billy carries a photograph in his pocket that is his only way of identifying his next target. Killing is in Billy's bloodline, as a member of Philadelphia's dangerous Farren crime family. While Billy stalks Philadelphia, Detective Kevin Byrne is assigned to a series of bizarre home-invasion cases and is joined by his former partner-turned-assistant district attorney, Jessica Balzano. Their investigations circle Byrne's childhood neighborhood of Devil's Pocket, and they find themselves revisiting a crime from Byrne's past that has haunted him for decades. What Byrne witnessed as a child in Devil's Pocket jeopardizes the Farren family—which makes him the next target on Billy's hit list.A multigenerational story of hardship, guilt, and redemption, Shutter Man is Byrne...

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.

A popular priest lies dead of a heroin overdose in a Cleveland apartment, following an apparent tryst with a high priced call girl. A freelance journalist recognizes a great stow -- salacious and saleable -- in the cleric's demise...and follows it into the twisted, terrifying mind of a psychopath. While in an affluent suburb a world away, a cryptic threat written in a great poet's words appears on the computer screen of a long-suffering wife and mother. And suddenly she knows that a nightmare stands just outside her door, waiting to devour everything she loves. Because twenty years ago, something terrible happened at a Halloween night gathering of brilliant, arrogant youths ... Because it is reunion year, a time of remembrance and celebration; a time of reckoning and poetic justice. And the party is just beginning.