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Detective Walter Brigham is haunted by the images of young girls who have been denied their futures. Two nine-year-old girls were murdered on his watch, the killer never found. Now, years later, Brigham is about to retire from the police force but cherishes the thought that he will now be able to devote himself to the uncovering of the identity of the callous malefactor. Unfortunately, an ill-intentioned Fate takes a hand in the matter. Kevin Byrne is partaking of refreshment, both spiritual and physical, in a diner, when a killer comes in and takes a hostage. Despite Byrne's intervention, the woman is killed and Byrne has made an enemy in the person of the widower. The bereft husband bides his time until he can take appropriate revenge on the cop, whom he blames for the death of his wife. On the banks of the Schuylkill River, a woman's body has been found. The woman is dressed in period costume, is obviously tastefully arranged with the purpose of conveying a message and is minus both her feet – which are later located, neatly amputated and filling red shoes. Not long thereafter, the corpse of another woman is discovered, likewise posed but hands enclosing a nightingale and displaying intact feet. Soon the forces of law and order begin to perceive a theme. Detective Byrne is blessed – or cursed – with sudden, incomplete psychic pictures. Sometimes they help; other times they serve to cloud the issue. Almost as a counterpoint to the account of the innocents' murder by a man thinking of himself as 'Moon', the reader is treated to a tale of murders of a different sort. These are murders of evildoers, committed by a Pastor with the aid of the Pastor's simple-minded stepbrother. The women's bodies are decorated with small, detailed pictures of the moon. The pictures are, nauseatingly enough, executed in blood and semen. That should provide the Philadelphia police with undeniable proof of the murderer's guilt but first he must be caught. DNA should then be sufficient to condemn him. Eventually the detectives perceive the theme that links the ongoing murders. Who, then, would hold that theme as an obsession? This is a pleasant (within certain limits of definition of the word) mystery. While the fair clues are presented, the reader must be prepared for an odoriferous red herring. I have to confess I was thoroughly taken in by the piscine misinformation and was brought crashing down just when I thought my cleverness was to be rewarded. Both Kevin and his colleague Jessica Balzano are very lifelike. Neither is completely confident in her or his abilities and each is always prepared to regard things from a different viewpoint. Each, too, has a child whose welfare is of the utmost importance. Unfortunately, Byrne's deaf daughter, Colleen, only rates a mention in this episode and doesn't take part in the unfolding action, unlike the previous tale, SKIN GODS. As for Pastor Roland, I can see someone getting carried away by the predations of paedophiles but I can't, somehow, envision them meting out such rough justice, especially if they are ministers. After all, "Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord", with its implied ban on mere humans exacting their own form of revenge on his behalf. While I trust these sorts of elaborate crimes occur only in fiction, I can see why writers need to enliven their books with such outré scenarios in order to provide interest for readers. As before mentioned, this is an enjoyable enough mystery but somehow I feel that Montanari exerts himself just that little bit more than his peers in order to provide a greater edge of cruelty.
Reviewed by Denise Pickles, April 2007
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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