The Shutter Man by Richard Montanari

Mulholland Books, 432 pages, $26 (c2015, U.S. ed. 2016)

There are so many characters in “The Shutter Man” that I will start right off naming the few to whom you should pay attention: Kevin Byrne, Philadelphia homicide detective; Jessica Balzano, former police partner of Byrne and now assistant district attorney; Sean and Michael Farren, the latest generation of a crooked and thuggish Irish family. Now you can relax about most of the names that will flit in and out of the book. (The trick, however, is finding out which other names are vitally important to the story.)

In 1976, eleven-year-old Catriona Daugherty was murdered. The man believed to be the murderer was the very odd Desmond Farren, the uncle of Sean and Michael. Desmond was murdered. Desmond’s brother, Danny, took over the family thug business after his father, Liam — immigrant from Ireland and progenitor of the thuggish family — was murdered. He and his other brother, Patrick, were dangerous players in the downtrodden mostly Irish community of Devil’s Pocket in Philly. As a young boy, Michael saw his uncle Patrick murdered. Michael was hit by a car at the same time and went into a coma. When he awoke he had “face blindness” and developed a new personality, “Billy the Wolf.” He could not remember what people looked like. Later in his life he had to carry pictures of people to remind him, e.g., do not hurt this one, hurt that one.

For a while Devil’s Pocket was also Kevin Byrne’s temporary neighborhood. A couple of his boyhood friends have died. Another is set to become the new district attorney in Philadelphia.

Kevin becomes involved in investigating a horrible murder. The father, mother and son in a family have been murdered. They were tied to chairs with duct tape. The mother was shot efficiently in her chest. Then her face was carved off and her birth certificate taken. A linen handkerchief was found with the word “TENET” written on it in blood.

Eventually, Jessica, in her capacity as an ADA, joins Kevin in investigating what soon becomes several murders. They all involve “face lifts” and birth certificate thefts. They struggle to determine a relationship between the victims.

Meanwhile, author Richard Montanari throws in the saga of the Farren family. They are all horrible, horrible people. Are they involved in the murders? They are more thugs than serial cult killers. Also, for a while, we follow the quiet routine of Anjelica Leary. She is a 60-something-year-old visiting nurse who cares deeply about her patients. We really like her. That dooms her, in mystery terms, to something awful. But when and, if so, why?

This is essentially a police procedural with a lot of additional stuff packed in. This is when I bemoan the trend of intertwining an old story with a current one. The Farren family saga was chilling and interesting. It deserved better than the chopping up it got, but that’s how it’s done these days and that’s how suspense is driven.

“The Shutter Man” is worth reading because it comes down to an provocative story with authentic-sounding details of a police investigation.