Monday, December 19, 2016

Kill the Father by Sandrone Dazieri- Book Review

Kill the Father by Sandrone Dazieri was a best selling thriller in Italy that finally made its way to the US. The book is a translation of the Italian edition into English.


A murder happens on top of a hill- a woman is beheaded, her son is gone, and the father is the only suspect. Deputy Captain Colomba is brought in as the lead investigator, even though she succumbs to panic attacks and is on leave for an incident that has happened in her past. Her help is Dante Torre, an independent consultant, yet an expert in reading faces and body movements. The problem is Dante is a former victim of a kidnapper/torturer named The Father and is afraid to leave his house. It is up to these two to solve this murder that seems open and shut, except the father of the boy doesn't seem like the killing type, is The Father back? (Hint: yes he is, but that isn't a spoiler)

This book relies on the relationship between Colomba and Dante as the rag tag, psychologically hurt partners who must solve this murder. It is their back and forth that helps hold this book up, as well as the story. The story is good, but their relationship is what bumps this book up a bit more.

Both Dante and Colomba are great characters who want to do the best they can, but just have pasts that hold them back. I enjoyed Dante a bit more as he is wise cracking, yet incredibly knowledgable. He holds information back, while at the same time being incredibly blunt. The difficulty I had is how connected he is, even though he has been trapped in his house for the most part. He knows all sorts of people, who conveniently can help the case move forward, even though it might not be technically legal. For example, Colomba and Dante can go to a high class hotel because Dante helped consult on the disappearance of the owner's daughter, yet just pages before, it took Dante 40 minutes to go down his own stairs and 3 hours to drive a short distance. So, how does he know the hotel owner so well? There were quite a few of these instances of Dante's connections that seem a bit off.

There were parts of this book that seemed long and just lots of filler. The book is just over 500 pages and as a reader, I felt it. The opening flew by, but the middle just seemed to go on and on, until the great ending. To compare, Silence of the Lambs, which is pretty great mystery with a similar character as Dante in Lecter comes in at 384 pages in the Mass Market version of the book. At over 500+ pages, for this type of murder mystery, it is just too long and I felt it could have been trimmed a bit.

I gave Kill the Father 3.5 star slipping close to 4 stars. If it was a bit tighter, it could have easily been a 5 star book, but it just felt long.

Here is your Amazon link- Kill the Father by Sandrone Dozier

I received this book from NetGalley and Scribner in exchange for an honest review.

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