Book Review: Kill the Father by Sandrone Dazieri

Set in Rome, Kill the Father is an international bestseller that needs to be on everyone’s reading list!

From the inside cover:

A dark compelling and intense thriller that is already an international publishing sensation…

When a woman is beheaded in a park outside Rome and her six-year-old son goes missing, the police unit assigned to the case sees an easy solution: they arrest the woman’s husband and await his confession. But the Chief of Rome’s Major Crimes unit doubts things are so simple. Secretly, he lures to the case two of Italy’s top analytical minds: Deputy Captain Colomba Caselli, a fierce, warrior-like detective still reeling from having survived a bloody catastrophe, and Dante Torre, a man who spent his childhood trapped inside a concrete silo. Though his masked kidnapper, who called himself ‘The Father’, never touched him, the boy was completely cut off from the world. Dante emerged from his ordeal with crippling claustrophobia and an array of eccentricities, but, also, with an unquenchable thirst for knowledge and extraordinary powers of observation.

All evidence suggests that ‘The Father’ is back; indeed, he has left tell-tale signs that signal he’s looking forward to a reunion with Dante. But when Columba and Dante follow the ever-more-bizarre trail of clues, they grasp that what’s really going on is darker than they ever imagined. In relentlessly hunting for the truth, each will ultimately face their deepest fear.

My Thoughts:

Wow, talk about a prologue that grabs hold of you, claiming you for the entirety of the book. Opening with the story of “Before” – Dante, as a young boy, trapped in the silo by his captor, known only to him as ‘The Father’. If he is good, he can be the “Son” but if he displeases ‘The Father’ he is nothing more than the “Beast.” Intrigued? So was I, so there was only one thing to do, and that was to read on.

In the present day, a young boy goes missing, and Colomba, not officially back on duty, is called in to investigate. She calls upon Dante to assist her with the case of finding the missing boy, and what follows is a complex mystery, one that is both dark and full of twists.

When reading books of this nature, I usually have a clear favourite ‘detective/investigator’ but here, I struggled to pick. Colomba and Dante make the perfect team, both fighting their own demons, Colomba suffering from PTSD due to incidents on a previous case, and Dante, well, can you ever really recover from that trauma? In their own unique way, they form a beautiful friendship; they complement each other and this can be seen in their witty back and forth banter. I’ll give you a little taster of this banter, that dark humour that I love o’ so much:

“…Don’t you need sleep?”

“I used to know a guy who never slept,” said Dante.

“And what became of him?”

“Someone shot him in the head; now he sleeps all the time.” He smiles…

I have this love of dark, flawed characters and these two characters Dazieri created  are the reason why – they’re characters that have survived the unthinkable, likeable, memorable, you can’t help but root for them from the get go. So well-developed and in a book of this length you really get to know them and I’m eager to see them return to the pages of book 2. Not only do we get to know the characters but I like that we get to see their relationship forming over the course of the book, some of their interactions were my favourite paragraphs to read.

If you love a good mystery, if you love a good thriller, you need to read this book! The complexity of the mystery is what essentially draws you in, just when you think you’ve figured it out, you realise the plot runs deeper…and deeper…and deeper. When a book is 500 pages in length, the author runs the risk of losing his audience part way through, the story is at risk of becoming dull and the tempo slowing, usually about the mid-way point, but here I can honestly say, this book held my attention throughout. The tempo did dip a little at times but due to the complexity and un-layering of the plot, that’s understandable. The only reason I mention it is because if you tend to avoid longer books out of fear of them not holding your attention throughout, then you need to read this book, I guarantee it will hold your attention all the way through! And if, for some unknown reason, it does lose you, don’t worry, a few pages later, it will pull you right back in.

I highly recommend this read, it’s deservedly an international bestseller and I commend Dazieri on an excellent piece of crime fiction.

*My thanks to Emma Finnigan (of Emma Finnigan PR) for providing me with a copy of this book*

This book is available to buy now from: Amazon UK / Book Depository