A haunting, nerve-jangling psychological thriller from Sunday Times bestselling author Richard Montanari, set in a small town hiding a very dark secret.
New York psychologist Will Hardy had it all - a loving family, a flourishing career, a bestselling book. Until the night it all ended in a tempest of fire and ash, leaving only Will and his fifteen-year-old daughter Bernadette to stand in the ruins.
Haunted and grief-stricken, Will accepts an enigmatic invitation from his family’s past to begin their lives anew in the small town of Abbeville, Ohio.
Meanwhile, Abbeville Chief of Police Ivy Holgrave is investigating the death of a local girl, convinced this may only be the latest in a long line of murders dating back decades - including her own long-missing sister.
But what place does Will’s new home have in the story of the missing girls? And what links the killings to the diary of a young woman written over a century earlier? The disappearances in Abbeville have happened before, and now Will’s own daughter might be next …
Excerpt
Amsterdam
March 22, 1819
On the third day of his madness Dr Rinus van Laar tasted the mouth of the devil. He stepped from the ruin of his home, into the courtyard where the body of his wife, dead these three days, had begun to soften and pigment. He remembered the first time he had seen Anna that day by the river. Her skin was now the color of dry bones.
Anna’s killer lay scattered beside her in seven pieces. Six, Rinus amended. He could not remember where he had put the man’s head. He longed to look once more into those lifeless eyes.
He pulled the dropper from the amber bottle, let six drops of mandragora onto his tongue. He closed his eyes to the fury of the onslaught.
Some time later he carefully returned the drawings to the leather portfolio. Fourteen preliminary sketches by the master, already more than two centuries old.
Seven vices. Seven virtues.
It was this treasure the killer sought. It was in defense of this treasure that Anna had given her life.
He placed the portfolio into the steamer trunk, latched it, secured the iron lock. As he prepared to leave he considered the aviary snare. The white bird studied him, its silver eyes watching, waiting, a thin leather strap tightly coiled around one leg.
Rinus van Laar looked one last time at his wife, and saw the tiny tendril; a bright green leaf against the matte claret of Anna’s drying blood.
In her virtue there was life.
Six hours later, his infant son in his arms, Rinus van Laar left for America.
***
BEING THE TRUE DIARY AND JOURNAL OF EVA CLAIRE LARSSEN
October 21 1868
We left Midlothian before dawn. I am riding back wagon with Deirdre Samuelsson and her brother Jonah. Jonah is still small, and thinks of all this as an adventure. Deirdre is my age, just fourteen, and terribly shy due to her stammer.
They say six hundred thousand died in the war. Imagine. Daddy was killed at Manassas. Mama also died from Yankee hellfire, but not right away. Not Sonja Larssen. She held ground three years, and breathed her last yesterday at noon. Our first day’s journey took us seven miles.
The dead walk behind us.
November 9, 1868
The rain is endless. We got stuck twice on the road out of Rowleton, where we picked up two weeks domestic work. Mr. Samuelsson had to ask some local boys and their mules to help pull the wagon from the culvert. My sweater got soaking wet, and as the wool dried by the fire last night it smelled of Mama. I cried myself to sleep again.
April 9, 1869
We crossed the Ohio River at Wheeling this morning. Deidre and I went to the general store and bought nails and tobacco for Mr. Samuelsson. He let us buy some fruit, and I had the most delicious pear.
Ohio looks like home before the war.
April 16, 1869
I awoke to the sound of church bells. When I climbed down from the wagon I saw that we were stopped on the crest of a hill overlooking the most beautiful valley I have ever seen.
When I stepped to the edge I saw them for the first time. Two grand houses facing each other across a field of green, houses so important they even have names. Veldhoeve and Godwin Hall. I will be working at one, and staying in the other.
Imagine.
April 24, 1869
All the buildings here are freshly painted and well cared for. The war did not come to this place. When we reached the town square I looked at the plaque.
Abbeville, Ohio. Est. 1790
Sitting on top of the plaque was a beautiful white bird, its pearl feathers glossed with early morning rain. I sat on the bench across from it and took out my pencils and pad. This is my drawing.
Although I am not taken by such notions, as I left the square, I could swear that bird was watching me.
Tomorrow morning I will begin work at Godwin Hall. If you are reading this, if the sun now shines where you stand, it means I am long forgotten.
If you are reading this, it means I never made it back home again.
Praise for the Book
“Taut, propulsive and darkly gripping, Montanari is a master of suspense.” ~ Chris Ewan
“An ambitious and memorable thriller.” ~ Booklist
“I have been a huge fan if Richard Montanari for a long time! This is the novel I’ve read of his that was not a Kevin Byrnes series. I wasn’t sure what to expect but, as always, I was not disappointed. It was an exceptional book.” ~ JCG
The Echo Man, the fifth book in the Byrne & Balzano series by Richard Montanari, is currently on tour with Partners in Crime Virtual Book Tours. The tour stops here today for my interview with the author, an excerpt, and a giveaway. Please be sure to visit the other tour stops as well.
In this gripping, unforgettable thriller for readers of James Patterson and Lisa Gardner, someone is recreating infamous unsolved murders ... and the killer is closer than anyone could imagine.
Fall in Philadelphia. A man’s corpse is found in one of the city’s poorest neighborhoods. It’s unmistakably the work of a killer.
But to homicide detectives Kevin Byrne and Jessica Balzano, it feels familiar. Eight years ago, another body was found in the same place, in the same position ... killed in the same manner. Even the crime-scene photos are identical.
That case was never closed. And now more copycat murders are happening. Someone is recreating the city’s most infamous unsolved killings, victim by victim - with more clues for Byrne and Balzano to unravel ...
Book Video
Excerpt
Prologue
For every light there is shadow. For every sound, silence. From the moment he got the call Detective Kevin Francis Byrne had a premonition this night would forever change his life, that he was headed to a place marked by a profound evil, leaving only darkness in its wake.
“You ready?”
Byrne glanced at Jimmy. Detective Jimmy Purify sat in the passenger seat of the bashed and battered department-issue Ford. He was just a few years older than Byrne, but something in the man’s eyes held deep wisdom, a hard-won experience that transcended time spent on the job and spoke instead of time earned. They’d known each other a long time, but this was their first full tour as partners.
“I’m ready,” Byrne said.
He wasn’t.
They got out of the car and walked to the front entrance of the sprawling, well- tended Chestnut Hill mansion. Here, in this exclusive section of the northwest part of the city, there was history at every turn, a neighborhood designed at a time when Philadelphia was second only to London as the largest English-speaking city in the world. The first officer on the scene, a rookie named Timothy Meehan, stood inside the foyer, cloistered by coats and hats and scarves perfumed with age, just beyond the reach of the cold autumn wind cutting across the grounds.
Byrne had been in Officer Meehan’s shoes a handful of years earlier and remembered well how he’d felt when detectives arrived, the tangle of envy and relief and admiration. Chances were slight that Meehan would one day do the job Byrne was about to do. It took a certain breed to stay in the trenches, especially in a city like Philly, and most uniformed cops, at least the smart ones, moved on.
Byrne signed the crime-scene log and stepped into the warmth of the atrium, taking in the sights, the sounds, the smells. He would never again enter this scene for the first time, never again breathe an air so red with violence. Looking into the kitchen, he saw a blood splattered killing room, scarlet murals on pebbled white tile, the torn flesh of the victim jigsawed on the floor.
While Jimmy called for the medical examiner and crime- scene unit, Byrne walked to the end of the entrance hall. The officer standing there was a veteran patrolman, a man of fifty, a man content to live without ambition. At that moment Byrne envied him. The cop nodded toward the room on the other side of the corridor.
And that was when Kevin Byrne heard the music.
She sat in a chair on the opposite side of the room. The walls were covered with a forest-green silk; the floor with an exquisite burgundy Persian. The furniture was sturdy, in the Queen Anne style. The air smelled of jasmine and leather.
Byrne knew the room had been cleared, but he scanned every inch of it anyway. In one corner stood an antique curio case with beveled glass doors, its shelves arrayed with small porcelain figurines. In another corner leaned a beautiful cello. Candlelight shimmered on its golden surface.
The woman was slender and elegant, in her late twenties. She had burnished russet hair down to her shoulders, eyes the color of soft copper. She wore a long black gown, sling-back heels, pearls. Her makeup was a bit garish—theatrical, some might say—but it flattered her delicate features, her lucent skin.
When Byrne stepped fully into the room the woman looked his way, as if she had been expecting him, as if he might be a guest for Thanksgiving dinner, some discomfited cousin just in from Allentown or Ashtabula. But he was neither. He was there to arrest her.
“Can you hear it?” the woman asked. Her voice was almost adolescent in its pitch and resonance.
Byrne glanced at the crystal CD case resting on a small wooden easel atop the expensive stereo component. Chopin: Nocturne in G Major. Then he looked more closely at the cello. There was fresh
blood on the strings and fingerboard, as well as on the bow lying on the floor. Afterward, she had played.
The woman closed her eyes. “Listen,” she said. “The blue notes.”
Byrne listened. He has never forgotten the melody, the way it both lifted and shattered his heart.
Moments later the music stopped. Byrne waited for the last note to feather into silence. “I’m going to need you to stand up now, ma’am,” he said.
When the woman opened her eyes Byrne felt something flicker in his chest. In his time on the streets of Philadelphia he had met all types of people, from soulless drug dealers, to oily con men, to smash-and-grab artists, to hopped-up joyriding kids. But never before had he encountered anyone so detached from the crime they had just committed. In her light-brown eyes Byrne saw demons caper from shadow to shadow.
The woman rose, turned to the side, put her hands behind her back. Byrne took out his handcuffs, slipped them over her slender white wrists, and clicked them shut.
She turned to face him. They stood in silence now, just a few inches apart, strangers not only to each other, but to this grim pageant and all that was to come.
“I’m scared,” she said.
Byrne wanted to tell her that he understood. He wanted to say that we all have moments of rage, moments when the walls of sanity tremble and crack. He wanted to tell her that she would pay for her crime, probably for the rest of her life—perhaps even with her life—but that while she was in his care she would be treated with dignity and respect.
He did not say these things.
“My name is Detective Kevin Byrne,” he said. “It’s going to be all right.”
It was November 1, 1990.
Nothing has been right since.
[Want more? Click below to read a longer excerpt. Please note the book has since been reissued with a different cover.]
Praise for the Book
"This tale had me gripped by the throat, unwilling to do anything but anxiously turn the pages. Richard Montanari’s writing is both terrifying and lyrical, a killer combination that makes him a true stand-out in the crowded thriller market. The Echo Man showcases a master storyteller at his very best." ~ Tess Gerritsen, bestselling author of The Silent Girl
"Richard Montanari’s The Echo Man continues his work as a writer whose prose can capture quite extraordinary subtleties. When a man’s facial expression is described as 'not the look of someone with nothing to hide, but rather of one who has very carefully hidden everything', we know we are in good hands, and with The Echo Man, we are in the hands of one of the best in the business" ~ Thomas H. Cook, bestselling author of Red Leaves
Interview With the Author
Richard Montanari joins me today to discuss his new book, The Echo Man.
For what age group do you recommend your book?
The Echo Man is an adult-themed book, somewhere between a PG-13 and an R. I would say sixteen and over.
What sparked the idea for this book?
I’ve always been fascinated with the notion - some would call it a belief - that energy, especially negative energy, stays behind when something evil happens. In every room where murder has been done, on every blood soaked battlefield, there is a psychic residue that defies time. I began to wonder if there are people who could stand in such a spot and hear the screams, weeks and months and even decades later. This is the terrible and terrifying ability of The Echo Man.
Which comes first? The character's story or the idea for the novel?
The first step in my process is always to determine the killer’s pathology. Why is he doing what he is doing? There are certain required steps in the writing of all procedurals - a body is found, police are called, investigators show up at the crime scene - so my main series characters need to be on their game early in the story. That’s the prevailing theory, anyway. Kevin Byrne, and to some extent Jessica Balzano, don’t always play by the rules. This is certainly true of my killers. Once I know what motivates my villain, and through what prism he views the world, the story begins to take shape.
What was the hardest part to write in this book?
I believe the challenge in writing any long-running series is an obligation an author has to honor the established characters. The Echo Man is the fifth book in my Philadelphia series featuring homicide detectives Kevin Byrne and Jessica Balzano, and I feel I know them pretty well. That said, they do continue to surprise me. Although it is a series novel, The Echo Man can easily be read as a standalone.
How do you hope this book affects its readers?
I hope readers find The Echo Man to be a good story, well told - the interwoven narratives of the past and the present; the lives of Lucinda Doucette, a young hotel room attendant, and Christa-Marie Schönburg, a world renowned cellist; the crimes that forever link their stories; the race to stop a madman on the streets of Philadelphia.
How long did it take you to write this book?
Once the research is in place, it takes about six to nine months to write the first draft. A second draft and a polish takes another three months or so.
What is your writing routine?
Up by six-thirty, a quick workout and breakfast, then off to the iMac by eight. A good day will yield a thousand words. A great one, two thousand. A bad one? This is why I have bird feeders just outside my office window.
How did you get your book published?
I’ve been with the Jane Rotrosen Agency for just over twelve years, since the publication of The Rosary Girls. My agent, Meg Ruley, is the best.
What advice do you have for someone who would like to become a published writer?
Pay no attention to trends. By the time we notice a trend it has already peaked. Write something you would love to read. Find your voice, stay true to it, and write everyday. One sentence has a way of becoming two. Before you know it ...
Great advice. What do you like to do when you're not writing?
Photography, cooking, theater. As a film buff, I love to discover new directors. I’ve recently begun taking acting classes, so watch out, Broadway! Okay, Off-Off-Off Broadway. In spring and summer, I plant herbs and vegetables that never grow. It’s therapy.
When did you first realize you wanted to be a writer?
I think my desire to be a storyteller began pretty early. I seem to remember going to birthday parties when I was five or so and trying to grab the spotlight. By the time I got to junior high I realized that the written word was probably a better way to go.
Which writers have influenced you the most?
I think the most influential writers are those whose impact goes unnoticed. As a reader, I like nothing better than to be so consumed by a story, so rooted in a world, that I forget that I am reading a fiction. It is only on a second or third read that, as a writer, I take particular note of style and voice and structure. I’ve always been drawn to suspense, and I think that I’ve been influenced in equal measure by the great suspense and crime writers as I have by the films of Alfred Hitchcock.
What can we look forward to from you in the future?
In May, Witness Impulse will release book 6 in the Byrne & Balzano series, The Killing Room, which will be its first North American edition.
I’ve just completed a standalone novel, a tale of small town murder called The Last Girl. Next up, a new, terrifying case for Kevin and Jessica.
Thank you for taking the time to stop by today, Richard. Best of luck with your future projects.
Thanks! It was my pleasure.
About the Author
Richard Montanari was born in Cleveland, Ohio, to a traditional Italian-American family. After university, he traveled Europe extensively and lived in London, selling clothing in Chelsea and foreign language encyclopedias door-to-door in Hampstead Heath.
Returning to the US, he started working as a freelance writer for the Chicago Tribune, the Detroit Free Press, the Seattle Times, and many others. He wrote his first book, Deviant Way, in 1996 and it won the OLMA for Best First Mystery. His novels have now been published in more than twenty-five languages.
Giveaway
Enter the tour-wide giveaway for a chance to win one of five ebook copies of The Echo Man by Richard Montanari.
