“The Skin Gods” by Richard Montanari – another good mystery!
I love it when I discover a new author, don’t you? I can’t wait to read another book by the same author and too often I’m disappointed. Not this time. “The Skin Gods” is creepy and fast-paced and I knew, I KNEW who the killer was. I was positive! Gotta ya, I said silently to the author! Well, boogers, he got me – I was wrong.
The book starts when a young man brings a copy of the old movie, “Psycho” to the police. He watched the tape but notice someone had inserted a real murder into the shower scene! Ohhhhh. Who did it and how did he manage to add a real scene to the tape and replace it without anyone knowing? Of course the creep kills again – and we are witnesses. As with the book, “Merciless” we hear the killer’s voice throughout the book and It’s apparent fairly early on that there is more than one bad guy. The cops are the same - only in an early time. I really would like to have read the books in order but it’s not necessary.
As the clues build, so does the tension to a climatic and very surprising end. Don’t get me wrong – the bad guys and the clues are there all along – but they’re subtle. You have to really be on your toes to solve a Montanari mystery.
If I have one picky it’s that “The Skin Game” takes a while to get going. We have, I think, a bit too much about the detectives and their lives. Might just be me. The cops don’t really get going on solving the crimes until a good third of the way into the book. Montanari has clearly done his homework, both about movies and police procedures and once again has written a good, fast-paced novel.
