{"product_id":"jessica-balzano-kevin-byrneisbn-9780345470980","title":"Jessica Balzano \u0026 Kevin Byrne","description":"With the breakneck pacing and intricate plotting of his most recent novel, The Rosary Girls, Richard Montanari established himself as one of the most exciting suspense writers working today. Now he proves himself a virtuoso with The Skin Gods, an explosive new thriller featuring Philadelphia homicide detectives Kevin Byrne and Jessica Balzano.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt 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.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA 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. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe 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.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHot on the psychopath’s trail, Balzano and Byrne descend into the mouth of madness and beyond, deep into the depraved underworld of S\u0026amp;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.Praise for Richard Montanari’s The Rosary Girls\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e“Readers of this terrifying page-turner are in the hands of a master storyteller. Be prepared to stay up all night.”\u003cbr\u003e–James Ellroy\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Thoroughly creepy . . . [an] effective blend of the angelic and the demonic . . . Montanari gets it right.”\u003cbr\u003e–The Philadelphia Inquirer\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A relentlessly suspenseful, soul-chilling thriller that hooks you instantly.”\u003cbr\u003e–Tess Gerritsen\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Gripping . . . You begin The Rosary Girls out of curiosity but finish it out of compulsion.”\u003cbr\u003e–Cleveland Plain Dealer\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Nonstop action and nail-biting suspense . . . a page-turning heart-stopping winner.”\u003cbr\u003e–Kingston Observer\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A no-holds-barred thriller . . . Those with a taste for Thomas Harris will look forward to the sure-to-follow sequel.”\u003cbr\u003e–Library JournalRichard Montanari is a novelist, screenwriter, and essayist. His work has appeared in the Chicago Tribune, Detroit Free Press, Cleveland Plain Dealer, and scores of other national and regional publications. He is the OLMA-winning author of the internationally acclaimed thrillers The Rosary Girls, Kiss of Evil, Deviant Way, and The Violet Hour. Visit the author’s website at www.richardmontanari.com.1\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMONDAY, 3:05 AM\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere is an hour known intimately to all who rouse to meet it, a time  when darkness sheds fully the cloak of twilight and the streets fall  still and silent, a time when shadows convene, become one, dissolve.  A time when those who suffer disbelieve the dawn.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEvery city has its quarter, its neon Golgotha.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn Philadelphia, it is known as South Street.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis night, while most of the City of Brotherly Love slept, while the  rivers flowed mutely to the sea, the flesh peddler rushed down South  Street like a dry, blistering wind. Between Third and Fourth Streets  he pushed through a wrought-iron gate, walked down a narrow alleyway,  and entered a private club called Paradise. The handful of patrons  scattered about the room met his gaze, then immediately averted their  eyes. In the peddler's stare they saw a portal to their own blackened  souls, and knew that if they engaged him, even for a moment, the  understanding would be far too much to bear.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTo those who knew his trade, the peddler was an enigma, but not a  puzzle anyone was eager to solve.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe was a big man, well over six feet tall, with a broad carriage and  large, coarse hands that promised reckoning to those who crossed him.  He had wheat-colored hair and cold green eyes, eyes that would spark  to bright cobalt in candlelight, eyes that could take in the horizon  with one glance, missing nothing. Above his right eye was a shiny  keloid scar, a ridge of ropy tissue in the shape of an inverted V. He  wore a long black leather coat that strained against the thick  muscles in his back.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe had come to the club five nights in a row now, and this night he  would meet his buyer. Appointments were not easily made at Paradise.  Friendships were unknown.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe peddler sat at the back of the dank basement room at a table  that, although not reserved for him, had become his by default. Even  though Paradise was settled with players of every dark stripe and  pedigree, it was clear that the peddler was of another breed.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe speakers behind the bar offered Mingus, Miles, Monk; the ceiling:  soiled Chinese lanterns and rotary fans covered in wood-grain contact  paper. Cones of blueberry incense burned, wedding the cigarette  smoke, graying the air with a raw, fruity sweetness.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAt three ten, two men entered the club. One was the buyer; the other,  his guardian. They both met the eyes of the peddler. And knew.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe buyer, whose name was Gideon Pratt, was a squat, balding man in  his late fifties, with flushed cheeks, restless gray eyes, and jowls  that hung like melted wax. He wore an ill-fitting three-piece suit  and had fingers long-gnarled by arthritis. His breath was fetid. His  teeth, ocher and spare.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBehind him walked a bigger man--bigger even than the peddler. He wore  mirrored sunglasses and a denim duster. His face and neck were  ornamented with an elaborate web of ta moko, the Maori tribal tattoos.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWithout a word, the three men gathered, then walked down a short  hallway to a supply room.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe back room at Paradise was cramped and hot, packed with boxes of  off-brand liquor, a pair of scarred metal desks, and a mildewed,  ragged sofa. An old jukebox flickered carbon-blue light.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOnce in the room, door closed, the large man, who went by the street  name of Diablo, roughly patted down the peddler for weapons and  wires, attempting to establish a stratum of power. As he was doing  this, the peddler noted the three-word tattoo at the base of Diablo's  neck. It read: mongrel for life. He also noticed the butt of a chrome  Smith \u0026amp; Wesson revolver in the large man's waistband.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSatisfied that the peddler was unarmed and wore no listening devices,  Diablo stepped away, behind Pratt, crossed his arms, and observed.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"What do you have for me?\" Pratt asked.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe peddler considered the man before answering him. They had reached  the moment that occurs in every transaction, the instant when the  purveyor must come clean and lay his wares upon the velvet. The  peddler reached slowly into his leather coat--there would be no  furtive moves here--and removed a pair of Polaroid pictures. He  handed them to Gideon Pratt.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBoth photographs were of fully clothed, suggestively posed teenaged  black girls. The one called Tanya sat on the front stoop of her row  house, blowing a kiss to the photographer. Alicia, her sister, vamped  on the beach in Wildwood.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs Pratt scrutinized the photos, his cheeks flared crimson for a  moment, his breath hitched in his chest. \"Just . . . beautiful,\" he  said.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDiablo glanced at the snapshots, registering no reaction. He turned  his gaze back to the peddler.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"What is her name?\" Pratt asked, holding up one of the photos.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Tanya,\" the peddler replied.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Tan-ya,\" Pratt repeated, separating the syllables, as if to sort the  essence of the girl. He handed one of the pictures back, then glanced  at the photograph in his hand. \"She is adorable,\" he added. \"A  mischievous one. I can tell.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePratt touched the photograph, running his finger gently over the  glossy surface. He seemed to drift for a moment, lost in some  reverie, then put the picture into his pocket. He snapped back to the  moment, back to the business at hand. \"When?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Now,\" the peddler replied.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePratt reacted with surprise and delight. He had not expected this.  \"She is here?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe peddler nodded.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Where?\" asked Pratt.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Nearby.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eGideon Pratt straightened his tie, adjusted the vest over his bulging  stomach, smoothed what little hair he had. He took a deep breath,  finding his axis, then gestured to the door. \"Shall we?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe peddler nodded again, then looked to Diablo for permission.  Diablo waited a moment, further cementing his status, then stepped to  the side.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe three men exited the club, walked across South Street to Orianna  Street. They continued down Orianna, emerging into a small parking  lot between the buildings. In the lot were two vehicles: a rusted van  with smoked-glass windows and a late-model Chrysler. Diablo put a  hand up, strode forward, and looked into the windows of the Chrysler.  He turned, nodded, and Pratt and the peddler stepped up to the van.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"You have the payment?\" the peddler asked.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eGideon Pratt tapped his pocket.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe peddler looked briefly between the two men, then reached into the  pocket of his coat and retrieved a set of keys. Before he could  insert the key into the van's passenger door, he dropped them to the  ground.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBoth Pratt and Diablo instinctively looked down, momentarily distracted.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn the following, carefully considered instant, the peddler bent down  to retrieve the keys. Instead of picking them up, he closed his hand  around the crowbar he had placed behind the right front tire earlier  in the evening. When he arose, he spun on his heels and slammed the  steel bar into the center of Diablo's face, exploding the man's nose  into a thick scarlet vapor of blood and ruined cartilage. It was a  surgically delivered blow, perfectly leveraged, one designed to  cripple and incapacitate but not kill. With his left hand the peddler  removed the Smith \u0026amp; Wesson revolver from Diablo's waistband.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDazed, momentarily bewildered, operating on animal instinct instead  of reason, Diablo charged the peddler, his field of vision now  clouded with blood and involuntary tears. His forward motion was met  with the butt of the Smith \u0026amp; Wesson, swung with the full force of the  peddler's considerable strength. The blow sent six of Diablo's teeth  into the cool night air, then clacking to the ground like so many  spilled pearls.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDiablo folded to the pitted asphalt, howling in agony.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA warrior, he rolled onto his knees, hesitated, then looked up,  anticipating the deathblow.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Run,\" the peddler said.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDiablo paused for a moment, his breath now coming in staggered,  sodden gasps. He spit a mouthful of blood and mucus. When the peddler  cocked the hammer of the weapon and placed the tip of the barrel to  his forehead, Diablo saw the wisdom of obeying the man's order.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWith great effort, he arose, staggered down the road toward South  Street, and disappeared, never once taking his eyes from the peddler.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe peddler then turned to Gideon Pratt.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePratt tried to strike a pose of menace, but this was not his gift. He  was facing a moment all murderers fear, a brutal computation of his  crimes against man, against God.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Wh-who are you?\" Pratt asked.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe peddler opened the back door of the van. He calmly deposited the  gun and the crowbar, and removed a thick, cowhide belt. He wrapped  his knuckles in the hard leather.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Do you dream?\" the peddler asked.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"What?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Do . . . you . . . dream?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eGideon Pratt fell speechless.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFor Detective Kevin Francis Byrne of the Philadelphia Police  Department's Homicide Unit, the answer was a moot point. He had  tracked Gideon Pratt for a long time, and had lured him into this  moment with precision and care, a scenario that had invaded his  dreams.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eGideon Pratt had raped and murdered a fifteen-year-old girl named  Deirdre Pettigrew in Harrowgate Park, and the department had all but  given up on solving the case. It was the first time Pratt had killed  one of his victims, and Byrne had known that it would not be easy to  draw him out. Byrne had invested a few hundred hours of his own time  and many a night's sleep in anticipation of this very second.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd now, as dawn remained a dim rumor in the City of Brotherly Love,  as Kevin Byrne stepped forward and landed the first blow, came his  receipt.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTwenty minutes later they were in a curtained emergency room at  Jefferson Hospital. Gideon Pratt stood dead center, Byrne to one  side, a staff intern named Avram Hirsch on the other.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePratt had a knot on his forehead the size and shape of a rotted plum,  a bloodied lip, a deep purple bruise on his right cheek, and what  might have been a broken nose. His right eye was nearly swollen shut.  The front of his formerly white shirt was a deep brown, caked with  blood.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs Byrne looked at the man--humiliated, demeaned, disgraced,  caught--he thought about his own partner in the Homicide Unit, a  daunting piece of ironwork named Jimmy Purify. Jimmy would have loved  this, Byrne thought. Jimmy loved the characters, of which Philly  seemed to have an endless supply. The street professors, the junkie  prophets, the hookers with hearts of marble.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut most of all, Detective Jimmy Purify loved catching the bad guys.  The worse the man, the more Jimmy savored the hunt.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere was no one worse than Gideon Pratt.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThey had tracked Pratt through an extensive labyrinth of informants,  had followed him through the darkest veins of Philadelphia's  netherworld of sex clubs and child pornography rings. They had  pursued him with the same sense of purpose, the same focus and rabid  intent with which they had stepped out of the academy so many years  earlier.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhich was just the way Jimmy Purify liked it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt made him feel like a kid again, he said.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn his day Jimmy had been shot twice, run over once, beaten far too  many times to calculate, but it was a triple bypass that finally took  him out. While Kevin Byrne was so pleasantly engaged with Gideon  Pratt, James \"Clutch\" Purify was resting in a post-op room in Mercy  Hospital, tubes and drip lines snaking out of his body like Medusa's  snakes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe good news was that Jimmy's prognosis looked good. The sad news  was that Jimmy thought he was coming back to the job. He wasn't. No  one ever did from a triple. Not at fifty. Not in Homicide. Not in  Philly.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI miss you, Clutch, Byrne thought, knowing that he was going to meet  his new partner later that day. It just ain't the same without you,  man.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt never will be.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eByrne had been there when Jimmy went down, not ten, powerless feet  away. They had been standing near the register at Malik's, a  hole-in-the-bricks hoagie shop at Tenth and Washington. Byrne had  been loading their coffees with sugar while Jimmy had been macking  the waitress, Desiree, a young, cinnamon-skinned beauty at least  three musical styles Jimmy's junior and five miles out of his league.  Desiree was the only real reason they ever stopped at Malik's. It  sure as hell wasn't the food.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOne minute Jimmy had been leaning against the counter, his young-girl  rap firing on all eight, his smile on high beam. The next minute he  was on the floor, his face contorted in pain, his body rigid, the  fingers of his huge hands curling into claws.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eByrne had frozen that instant in his mind, the way he had stilled few  others in his life. Over his twenty years on the force, he had found  it almost routine to accept the moments of blind heroism and reckless  courage in the people he loved and admired. He had even come to  accept the senseless, random acts of savagery delivered by and unto  strangers. These things came with the job: the steep premium to  justice sought. It was the moments of naked humanity and weakness of  flesh, however, he could not elude, the images of body and spirit  betrayed that burrowed beneath the surface of his heart.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhen he saw the big man on the muddied tile of the diner, his body  skirmishing with death, the silent scream slashed into his jaw, he  knew that he would never look at Jimmy Purify the same way again. Oh,  he would love him, as he had come to over the years, and he would  listen to his preposterous stories, and he would, by the grace of  God, once again marvel at Jimmy's lithe and fluid abilities behind a  gas grill on those sweltering Philly summer Sundays, and he would,  without a moment's thought or hesitation, take a bullet to the heart  for the man, but he knew immediately that this thing they did--the  unflinching descent into the maw of violence and insanity, night  after night--was over.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs much as it brought Byrne shame and regret, that was the reality of  that long, terrible night.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe reality of this night, however, found a dark balance in Byrne's  mind, a delicate symmetry that he knew would bring Jimmy Purify  peace. Deirdre Pettigrew was dead, and Gideon Pratt was going to take  the full ride. Another family was shredded by grief, but this time  the killer had left behind his DNA in the form of a gray pubic hair  that would send him to the little tiled room at SCI Greene. There  Gideon Pratt would meet the icy needle if Byrne had anything to say  about it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOf course, the justice system being what it was, there was a  fifty-fifty chance that, if convicted, Pratt would get life without  parole.","brand":"Ballantine Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46305114325221,"sku":"NP9780345470980","price":7.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780345470980.jpg?v=1730759437","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/jessica-balzano-kevin-byrneisbn-9780345470980","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}