The Skin Gods by Richard Montanari

It is the steaming heart of summer in the City of Brotherly Love. Back on the force after taking a bullet during the arrest of a sadistic murderer, Detective Kevin Byrne warily returns to police headquarters. He cannot shake the memory of the Rosary Killer's innocent victims-or his growing sense that the evil has not been vanquished. And when he and his partner, Detective Jessica Balzano, are called in on a bizarre case, Byrne's gravest suspicions are confirmed. A madman, dubbed The Actor by the homicide unit, is meticulously re-creating Hollywood's most famous-and most gruesome-death scenes. The first murder is caught on film, spliced into a rented VHS edition of the Hitchcock black-and-white masterpiece Psycho. But in place of Janet Leigh is a real-life woman, and this time, the blood is red and the knife is real. Soon, more thrilling classics are turned into terrifying snuff films and placed on video store shelves for an unsuspecting public to find.

The key to this horrific puzzle could lie with any of The Skin Gods' supporting cast: the A-list Hollywood director, the ruthless executive assistant, the convicted mass murderer-or perhaps someone else who has made a sinister art of gruesome violence. Hot on the psychopath's trail, Balzano and Byrne descend into the mouth of madness and beyond, deep into the depraved underworld of S&M clubs and the porn industry, where the worship of flesh leads to malevolent evil. Before the final credits roll, the investigators will discover that none of The Actor's victims are as innocent as they appear to be, and that the clue the police need to prevent future murders might be found in Detective Byrne's own dark past.

Written by the author of The Rosary Girls, this Hollywood blockbuster-type crime thriller is the second in what will hopefully be a long series of novels featuring Detectives Byrne and Balzano. I enjoy crime novels, but find myself getting easily bored with the constant rehashing of similar plot lines. Richard Montenari is different from the rest in that he has a wonderful warmth to his writing which is often absent in detective novels. His descriptive prose, more so in The Rosary Girls than in his second novel, is at times quite poetic, and his characters are beautifully developed, if a little cliched, in the short time that he has to cultivate them. His books are written versions of the current trend towards cult slasher flicks, but written with a gentleness that belies the gory subject matter. I am now a big fan, and eager to read the third book in the series, Merciless, which was released end of last month.

Buy this book online at Amazon, Amazon UK, Kalahari or Loot