‘Kill the Angel’ by Sandrone Danzieri

Published by Simon & Schuster,
3 May 2018.
ISBN: 978-1-4711-6552-8 (HB)

There’s been a terrorist attack on a Roman train, with everyone in First Class dead. ISIS claims responsibility, but Deputy Police Commissioner Colomba Caselli doesn’t believe the video – and soon she and her eccentrically brilliant ally, Dante Torre, are hunting the woman known as Giltine – the Angel of Death.

This PP/PI (Caselli soon goes rogue) begins with a section set in the past, in a one-way torture prison known as ‘The Box’, and these sections recur throughout the novel. Otherwise, the third person narrative moves in short chapters between Caselli, Torre, Giltine and her victims. The chapters are page-turning short, the action constant and violent, and the plotting involved. While determined to catch the killer, Caselli is increasingly unhappy with her betrayal of her police ethics, and unable to accept Torre’s conspiracy theories, which drives a wedge between them – there isn’t the rapport of the first book, Kill the Father. Torre is a brilliantly-imagined character – a childhood spent locked up has made him an expert body-language reader and lie detector – but I found him less sympathetic in this novel. His drug dependence dulled his intelligence, and his cockiness was more annoying. For those who like 'whole stories': not all questions were answered – maybe there will be a sequel to this book.

A fast-moving, intricate, Italian-set PP turned PI sequel to Kill the Father.

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Reviewer: Marsali Taylor

 

Sandrone Dazieri was born 4 November1964 in Cremona, Italy. He graduated at San Pellegrino Terme hotel-management school and worked as a cook for years, all around Italy. In 1999 he achieved his first popular success with the thriller Attenti al gorilla (Watch Out For The Gorilla), the first in a best-seller series, where the main character is a sort of doppelgènger of Dazieri himself, living the nightlife in Milan with all the ensuing troubles. Dazieri's books are renowned for the rocambolesque adventures in which Sandrone (the main character has the author's name too) is continuously involved, in an irrefrenable but never fatalistic destiny. It is in fact Sandrone's personality that always drives him to assist the weak and derelict, those who have lost all hope for help but for the Gorilla's saving hand. He is now the bestselling author of fourteen novels and more than fifty screenplays. Kill the Father, the first in a planned series featuring Colomba Caselli and Dante Torre.

Marsali Taylor grew up near Edinburgh, and came to Shetland as a newly-qualified teacher. She is currently a part-time teacher on Shetland's scenic west side, living with her husband and two Shetland ponies. Marsali is a qualified STGA tourist-guide who is fascinated by history, and has published plays in Shetland's distinctive dialect, as well as a history of women's suffrage in Shetland. She's also a keen sailor who enjoys exploring in her own 8m yacht, and an active member of her local drama group.  Marsali also does a regular monthly column for the Mystery People e-zine.

Click on the title to read a review of her recent book Death in Shetland Waters

www.marsalitaylor.co.uk