Badlands: A Novel of Suspense

by Richard Montanari

Book Overview

A teenage runaway's body is found in the basement of a rancid tenement building in the desolate, dangerous North Philly district dubbed the Badlands. The inexplicable cause of death: drowning. Months... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0345492439
• ISBN13: 9780345492432
• Release Date: August 2009
• Publisher: Ballantine Books
• Length: 416 Pages
• Weight: 0.45 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 4.3" x 6.9"

Customer Reviews

Your missing out

This is my genre. This what I read. And this book is comfortably in my all time top five. Red Dragon, The Snowman, 4MK trilogy, Eye of the Storm, The Straw Men and this..Badlands. Also with the exception of 4MK this one has the best villian/serial killer ever created.

A puzzle within many.

"Badlands" is a collage of treacherous puzzles made of people's lives - some evil, most desperate. The plot is constructed of indestructible cards. Foresight and meticulous planning compete with righteous behavior. My hat goes off to Richard Montanari for providing a realistic view into the minds of civil servants and runaways in Philadelphia. Their lives are intricately weaved into the struggle to mature in the cruel and beautiful world around them.

Excellent...

Montanari write some of the best mysteries on the market, and it truly surprises me that there are not more reviews for this fantastic book. Byrne and Balzano are great characters, in fact all the characters are well-defined and realistic. Montanari does a remarkable job making the city of Philadelphia so much a part of the story. It's very existence is a part of the mystery here. Also, the killer is so unique and his murderous reasons so unusual that they truly set this book apart from other mysteries. While BADLANDS is part of a series, you do not need to have read the previous books to get into the story. This is great thriller.

An excellent offering from a skilled novelist

Lock the doors, settle into a comfortable chair, and prepare to be swept away in the mystery and intrigue of Badlands. This chilling suspense novel, filled with gruesome murders conducted along a twisted plot in north Philadelphia, will keep you turning page after page as the puzzle unfolds. Joseph Swann, known to his victims as Mr. Ludo, is the brilliant son of a magician-gone-madman. Keenly adept with his hands, he builds keepsake furniture pieces for the wealthy to support his passion for magic, puzzles, and murder. With tormented thoughts from a long-lost childhood, Swann attempts to collect revenge on his past by hunting teenage runaways to become his magician's assistants. A handsome, smooth-talking man with knowledge on current events and pop culture, and a vast array of stage disguises that transform him into anyone he wants to become, Swann is able to gain the confidence of his young victims and lure them into his trap. In his relic mansion with hidden passages, Swann tenderly cares for each of his victims until he is ready to display their bodies as part of his Seven Wonders. Detectives Jessica Balzano and Kevin Byrne are assigned to the cold case of Caitlin O'Riordan, and quickly find that the case is not really cold, and the killer is on the loose. Collaborating with officers who worked the case in the past, street-smart runaways, and the famous author of a tangram book, the detectives begin to close in on their prey. The question is, will they catch him before the seventh girl dies? Author Richard Montanari is a skilled novelist, essayist, and screenwriter whose work has appeared in numerous national and regional publications. He is an OLMA award winner and has also written Merciless, The Skin Gods, The Rosary Girls, Kiss of Evil, Deviant Way, and The Violet Hour. Armchair Interviews says: Chills and suspense in a well-written novel.

Montanari delivers once again. . .

I think it is impossible for Richard Montanari to write a bad book. Badlands is another excellent book to add to his resume. It is a fantastic police procedural novel with cliffhanger suspense throughout. I have enjoyed his character development of Jessica Balzano and Kevin Byrne, they are two fictional cops worth reading about. The psychopath in this book is one of the best you'll ever encounter in fiction. Badlands is a superb read from a superb author. I can't wait for the next installment in the series.

Killer magically kills girls and seemingly disappears

The word that came to my mind after reading this book was "WOW!" Badlands is located in North Philadelphia in an area that is old, run down, bad, and does not have the nicest living there or hanging out near it. Police detectives Kevin Byrne and Jessica Balzano are switched to the elite Special Investigations Unit of the city police force. Mostly young runaway girls are found brutally killed and every time the police think they have a new clue that will corner and capture this killer, something else is left for them leading them in another direction. These clues are, as they finally find out, clues from puzzles and/or magicians. The killer sends or phones messages but they always lead to another area or house in the Badlands. The police are always one step or more behind this horrific killer. Byrne and Balzano are kept very busy as are the police added to assist in this search. The villain watches young women in various areas of the city, determines which ones would be the easiest for him to gain faith and trust. Eventually, the victims are unknowingly drugged and are taken one at a time to his hidden lair. He alters his appearance so a description was next to impossible for anyone that might have seem anything going on. The killer was smart but the police knew he would make a mistake some time but WHEN? Eve Galvez was a top-notch cop and very good friend of detective Balzano. When Eve disappeared the dragnet increased with more resources immediately thrown into the search. This now missing woman involved one of their own, and that message increases every cop's urgency. As days went by, the discovery of another missing girl, or a body, or bodies with clues that the killer left to tell the police where he was and what he planned next, but the clues were deeply rooted in puzzle clues that were almost impossible to solve. Mr. Ludo was a name he left for them. The name he was going by now was Joseph Edmund Swann. Swann, now thirty-eight, had a horrible life from a child growing up through his adult years and even now it was miserable mainly because of his mind being so messed up. His mind worked in strange, mysterious ways with thoughts drifting to all times of his life, his parents, and his task now of finding certain characteristics in a girl that he needed for his final puzzle solution. He would change his appearance almost every time he was in public view, making his true appearance different to anyone. Swann's father, Karl Swann, had been a traveling magician, many times using his son, Joseph, in his acts, no matter how dangerous they were. This change in appearance also helped Swann get close to his victims making them think he was helping them. As the police moved on with the case, they contacted some experts in the field of magic and illusions, some active, some that had written books, and some that were expert puzzle solvers. Several more police joined the team as they rushed from place to place trying to solve the clu