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Zusatztext Praise for Richard Montanari’s The Rosary Girls “Readers of this terrifying page-turner are in the hands of a master storyteller. Be prepared to stay up all night.” –James Ellroy “Thoroughly creepy . . . [an] effective blend of the angelic and the demonic . . . Montanari gets it right.” –The Philadelphia Inquirer “A relentlessly suspenseful! soul-chilling thriller that hooks you instantly.” –Tess Gerritsen “Gripping . . . You begin The Rosary Girls out of curiosity but finish it out of compulsion.” –Cleveland Plain Dealer “Nonstop action and nail-biting suspense . . . a page-turning heart-stopping winner.” –Kingston Observer “A no-holds-barred thriller . . . Those with a taste for Thomas Harris will look forward to the sure-to-follow sequel.” –Library Journal From the Hardcover edition. Informationen zum Autor Richard 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. Leseprobe 1 MONDAY, 3:05 AM There 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. Every city has its quarter, its neon Golgotha. In Philadelphia, it is known as South Street. This 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. To those who knew his trade, the peddler was an enigma, but not a puzzle anyone was eager to solve. He 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. He 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. The 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. The 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. At 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. The buyer, whose name was Gideon Pratt, was a squat, balding man in his late fifties, with flushed cheeks, restless gray eyes, and jowls that...
