Kill The Angel

I would like to thank Netgalley and Simon and Schuster UK Fiction for an advance copy of Kill The Angel, the second thriller to feature Dante Torre and Deputy Police Commissioner Colomba Caselli of the Rome police.

When some passengers on the Milan to Rome train are poisoned and IS claim responsibility Rome goes into lockdown. Colomba is the officer to find the bodies and is naturally involved in the subsequent searches of mosques and known Muslim gathering places but when one search she is involved in goes wrong she reaches out to Dante for help. He gets her involved in a hunt for a killer other than IS but she struggles with his conspiracy theories and convoluted thinking.

I thoroughly enjoyed Kill The Angel which is an intelligent, pulse pounding thriller. It ends in a cliffhanger which, while making me impatient for the next instalment, makes me wonder if I should have read Kill The Father first to have a better understanding of the overall story arc. Throughout this novel past events are explained as necessary and I didn't feel I'd missed too much but by the end I did wonder as I said.

Conspiracy by the rich and the amoral is at the heart of Mr Dazieri's writing but you don't have to believe it to thoroughly enjoy a great read. The plotting is clever with twist upon twist, the pace relentless and the characters interesting. It also has a readable style which keeps you turning the pages.

After being kept captive and tortured for 35 years from the age of 8 Dante Torre is a big bit strange. Unsurprisingly he has mental health issues (too long to list) but he also has a keen intellect and a large self taught knowledge of urban legend. He is very well drawn and it is a refreshing change to see such an ill character as a protagonist. I must read Kill The Father to see if it sheds more light on his history. I find him fascinating. Colomba Caselli on the other hand is a cop by her desire to do good but, after The Disaster when she almost died, she has changed and her colleagues view her disfavourably. She is the voice of reason when Dante's "fantasies" take off, demanding proof rather than supposition and inference but is not so sceptical that she won't help him find that proof. I like the dynamic between them so that and the excitement of their adventure kept me reading longer than I should have.

Kill The Angel is an interesting, exciting read which I have no hesitation in recommending.

Having finished reading Kill the Father prior to this book I literally couldn’t wait to start reading as soon as I had finished the last page and now I wish the next book in the series was awaiting straight from finishing this one! Although I wasn’t as blown away (hahaha) as I was with the first book but it still cost me a whole nights sleep, my poor eyes felt like they had grit in them come 5am but I still couldn’t stop reading.

I am starting to realise Mr Dazieri has a passion for blowing things up! Not that thats a bad thing but I wouldn’t want to be one of his characters 🙂

The lead characters continue to be brilliant, each with their own flaws and challenges that expands further from book one and if anything more enjoyable in some pretty shite situations but the ending!! WTF??? Really!!!

The subject matter of this book is a pretty unique as far as my reading experiences go, starting with a deadly poison attack on a train entering Rome, seen as an act of terrorism by Muslim extremists ISIS. And as we follow Colomba with the investigation and her decision to turn to Dante yet again for his unique help it becomes clear that the so called terror attack wasn’t committed by terrorists, but by a serial killer who has avoided detection for years. And she (got to love female serial killers!) is a brilliantly clever antagonist to oppose Dante’s genius and quirks.

If you enjoy clever addictive crime thrillers then don’t miss this book – seriously!! You don’t necessarily have to read Kill the Father first as there is enough back story for it to work as a worthy standalone novel however I do really think reading them in order makes them so much better and the characters much more understandable.

This is 100% worthy of being in the category of Top Thrillers of 2018

This was an excellent adventure and a brilliant sequel to Kill The Father.
I love the characters. After Kill The Father I knew I just needed more of the incredible duo that is Colomba Caselli and Dante Torre, once again the duo did not disappoint and I just want to read so much more about their adventures. Another character I thoroughly enjoyed was our villain, who was absolutely brutal and terrifying, which I just loved. All of Dazieri's characters are so well done.
Story-wise Kill The Angel was unlike anything I have ever read, and anything I will ever read. The plot was so engaging and thrilling, the stakes were high and throughout the whole book the author kept me guessing - every time I thought I had figured something out I would later find out that I was never even close.
This whole series so far has just been so ingenious and original and I cannot get enough.
And after the ending I need the next book right now, and I am very excited for whenever that will be.
I highly recommend this series and I cannot praise it enough.

Do you ever get butterflies in your stomach when you hold a book you have waited months for? I do. I was so excited by this because loved Kill The Father, the first book. Although you can read this book as a stand-alone, you will get more from it if you read Kill the Father first. I couldn’t wait to get stuck into the new adventures of Colomba Caselli and Dante Torre.

Dazieri has created the most compelling detective duo since Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin. These two fractured, lonely personalities work well together, one inside the law, one outside. That is, until Caselli, who has only recently re-joined her team, steps on the wrong toes and is put on suspension.

A deadly poison attack on a first class train carriage. ISIS claims responsibility, but Dante Torre has his doubts. Following the obvious leads, the Police arms up and en masse heads for a local mosque where a combination of police hard headedness and local unrest turns the whole affair into an unholy mess.

Torre’s special skill, honed after years kept locked in the silo, is his ability to read people and situations. And he knows that the signs being left for them are planted; deliberate misdirections to keep them away from the real purpose of these killings.

Who then is responsible and why? This complex, twisted, multi-layered novel takes the reader on quite a journey, both in time and geography, as we unpeel the layers to understand that the genesis of these murders, and the murders that will follow, lies deep in the past during the Cold War with the Soviet Union.

Though by no means a short book, it is terrifically easy to read because Daziere’s writing is so sharp and terse. I can visualise these scenes so well; his style is cinematographic and that really builds the tension and suspense.

Daziere ekes out his character development in teaspoons. We learn a little more about Caselli and again not much more about Torre, but the small details all help us to understand what may be going on in their heads.

As the duo follow the small trail of breadcrumbs through Germany and back to Italy, they face both danger and duplicity. It is hard to know who, if anyone, can be trusted, which suits Dante, who trusts no-one except Caselli.

Dazieri excels in his creation of evil characters and in this novel, he has outdone himself. The devil here is in understanding who is more evil than the rest, for this is a dark psychological thriller with more than one serial killer.

My heart was pounding, my tummy butterflies were fluttering and my eyes could not move from the pages until I had finished this gripping and fantastic book. It is intense and propulsive.

And once I had finished – well, what an ending. This is a writer who knows how to keep a reader on the hook, and I am but mere bait – eager, willing, nay even excited bait – for the next novel in the sequence.

As for those butterflies in my tummy – Daziere has the last word. “We call it a butterfly. For a caterpillar, it is the end of the world”.

Kill The Angel goes straight onto my must read list.

A shout out too, to Anthony Shugaar, whose translation was so idiomatically perfect that I completely forgot I was reading a book in translation, which is all you can ask for but nowhere near as easy as it sounds.

Once again Sandrone Dazieri has created a complex, enthralling page turner of a book. The second in the Caselli and Torre Italian crime series sees the return of complex recluse Dante Torre and determined detective Columba Caselli. When a rail car full of passengers is gassed, Caselli finds herself caught up in what is assumed to be a counter terror investigation, however the always observant Dante is not convinced. What appears to be the work of ISIS instead turns out to be a merciless assassin , bent on revenge,who bases her persona on a Russian legend about a mysterious woman named Giltine, who escorts her victim's to the underworld.
In this book that spans from the 1980s to the current day, and takes the reader from the former Soviet Union to Italy and Germany, the reader is taken on a cat and mouse game of epic proportions. For those wanting to know more about Dante's background ,we are given a few more breadcrumbs, as well as the definite suggestion that more will be revealed in the next book.
Although this book could be read as a stand alone, I would recommend reading Kill the Father first, not only does it give more insight into the characters and their motivations, but it's also an excellent thriller.
Overall this was a gripping read, with several shocking moments and I am grateful to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read it. All opinions are entirely my own.

Kill The Father was one of my favourite reads of 2017, it was a original and startlingly good thriller. So I was unbelievably excited to hear a while back that it was to be a series and I was even more excited to be approved to read it early through Netgalley! It felt really great to return to the world of the two main characters, Dante Torre and Colomba Caselli. I pretty much instantly became engrossed in their latest mystery. Both of these characters have a fairly complex backstory so I would definitely recommend reading Kill the Father before diving into this book.
One of Kill the Angel’s strongest points is how talented the author is at creating a gritty yet atmospheric setting. The book darts around Europe but it keeps it’s roots in it’s Italian setting. The author also manages to develop the central characters even further, he uncovers new depths in them and still manages to surprise his readers. The relationship between Dante and Colomba is also explored in more detail which was fantastic to read.
The plot is pretty complicated and intricate but also very fast paced. It almost felt like there was a clock running down to the novel’s climax, the story felt so urgent. I actually felt my heart racing at times because I was so immersed in every new twist and turn. Although the story gets very dark and brutal at times with sometimes unrelenting violence, there are also many humorous moments usually with a healthy dose of sarcasm and wit. I found the plot twists unpredictable and shocking which is quite rare when you read a lot of thrillers like I do. In addition, the ending made me literally scream out loud. I won’t give anything away but lets just say I am praying that Dazieri writes the next book in this fabulous series very quickly!
Overall I would absolutely recommend this superb thriller which completely lives up to the high bar set by it’s predecessor. Also, if you haven’t read Kill the Father and you like dark, intelligent and tightly knotted thrillers then I would say definitely give it a read and then read this next great installment.