A QUIET BELIEF IN ANGELS. A paperback book written by R.J. Ellory, published by Orion

Essential Stats

Pages: 396
Published: Wednesday 2nd January 2008
Edition: New edition
Dimensions: 20cm tall, 13cm wide, 4cm thick
Weight: 282 grams
ISBN: 0752882635
RRP: ~~£7.99~~
Availability at Amazon UK:
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- 80 used books from £0.01

A Quiet Belief in Angels Cover

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Reviews

This was a well written and moving book and yet I did not enjoy it. Obviously the subject matter is disturbing but more than that it was the unbelievable bad luck that Joseph seemed to endure. In the end I had to force myself to keep reading as I hate to give up on a book. Positive points are the description of small town America which makes you almost picture it and the evocation of the past, all hauntingly written.

I tore through the first half of this tale in no time at all, lapping up the atmosphere of the American South and finding myself wanting to be there, despite all the dangers. The sign of a good read, no? Trouble is, the pace soon starts to drag. There's a big pinch of flab in the midsection where the writing style becomes Steinbeck like and experimental, and where characters are brought to life in adjective soaked descriptions only to fall off the radar minutes later and never be heard of again. It feels like a 300 page book fleshed out to please a publisher who really wanted 400.

While the writing does pick up considerably towards the end, by this time the main character has undergone so much misery and torment that you no longer find yourself flinching at any of it. Not only that, but the serial killer's notoriety is never discussed, and criminal investigators take little interest, despite the death toll of a plane crash and an M.O. that makes Ted Bundy look like a saint. We are lead to believe that almost nobody's interested; no newspaper wants to follow the case, no police department has the manpower or brainpower to figure out what's going on. None of it feels very real.

Anyway, this isn't a bad book by any account, it's just not a very good one, despite what Richard & Judy would have you believe. Who are they to recommend this sort of stuff anyway?

I let this book sit around for months thinking I was not in the mood for a thriller. I was missing out. This is a beautifully written, almost lyrical novel that kept me enthralled. The murders and mayhem were incidental for me I was much more interested in the narrator's story. Ultimately I'm not sure it all stacks up and there is a lot of bad luck for one lifetime but I enjoyed every page. Don't let this book sit around for you!

Finding the right book to take on holiday can go along way towards the success of the vacation. Though I had not read this author before, he turned out to be an ideal companion for the long hours on the beach.

While essentially the book is a thriller, outlining the long search for a serial killer, the narrative takes in more than just this, capturing the life story of the main protagonist (the narrator), and the various people who come and go in his life. Thus the focus is wider than the quest for the killer -which is not handled as a police investigation- and the description of characters and their backgrounds provides a broad canvas within which the essential story unfolds.

While the book proved a resounding success as my holiday reading, it is not perfect either. Although the ending satisfys the usual necessity of identifying the villain, there are some questions left unanswered. However this somehow seems to fit with the perspective from which the story is told.

I thoroughly enjoyed the book, and am happy to recommend it.

Well i just finished this book this evening, and i cant stop thinking about it! And had it not been for my beloved Richard & Judy i probably wouldnt of ever heard of R.J Ellory or this amazing book so big thanks to them!

Ok, so my usual books are chick-lit but i have more serious books on my shelf for when i feel like been serious! i've had this book a while and always chose my chick-lit over it. but then i decided i needed something heavier. so i picked this out from my shelf not really expecting much, even though i'd seen the good reviews. As soon as i started reading i instantly thought it was a mistake to have bought this book, the first chapter wasnt brilliant and i thought it would be one of those pretentious, awful books where you get the feeling the author doesnt care whether you understand it or not. But i stayed with it, and by the second chapter things improved greatly, and it just got better and better from there.

Throught the book i grew so fond of Joseph and felt great sympathy for him. He is such a great central character. And i even felt like i knew the town and the people in it such was the great descriptive writing from R.J Ellory. And i was so excited to get to the end and find out who the killer was, and even though i was sure i knew who it was, i got it wrong and had the shock of my life. such a great twist. Infact, there were many great, unexpected things that happened in this book. The book ended very neatly too, and although i would of liked the killer to have been tortured a bit more, in hindsight, it was ok because the answers to all the questions i had in my head throught the book were answered for me.

I think of the first chapter, and how i wanted to put the book down forever, and i wonder how many people actually did do that, well if you did then go back and pick it up and keep reading!! i promise it will be worth it. A truly great book, i also have "city of lies" by the author, i'm hoping that's just as good too!

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