Book Review: A Quiet Belief in Angels // R. J. Ellory
Type: Stand alone
Format: E-Book
Genre: Mystery | Crime
Publication Date: 1 January 2007
Synopsis:
Joseph Vaughan's life has been dogged by tragedy. Growing up in the 1950s, he was at the centre of series of killings of young girls in his small rural community. The girls were taken, assaulted and left horribly mutilated. Barely a teenager himself, Joseph becomes determined to try to protect his community and classmates from the predations of the killer. Despite banding together with his friends as ' The Guardians', he was powerless to prevent more murders - and no one was ever caught. Only after a full ten years did the nightmare end when the one of his neighbours is found hanging from a rope, with articles from the dead girls around him. Thankfully, the killings finally ceased. But the past won't stay buried - for it seems that the real murderer still lives and is killing again. And the secret of his identity lies in Joseph's own history...
Rate: 3 / 5 ⭐
Review:
This is a book I probably would've never picked up if it had not been for the book club I joined last December. The story starts sometime during the World War 2 and it does not centre around it, it is about some characters in a small town in America.
It follows our main character, Joseph, over the course of his life, which is about 50 something years. Again, I found the beginning very boring and forced my self to read it because... book club lol. The reason I found trhe beginning very boring was because there was no real mystery introduced. It starts off as some child going to school and his daily musings, and the writing is very descriptive as well. Its not interesting descriptive, like in Anne of Green Gables by L. M. Montgomery, it's more of a droning on kind of descriptive. Made me feel like the author wanted to write a classic novel but really failed to capture the nuance of it.
But once the mystery gets revealed, the story gets more interesting. Joseph, for some innate reason, keeps getting drawn to the killings of the little girls in his small town. He has a list of suspects and also forms a little group with some boys to try and protect the little girls in the town, it sorta fails. But throughout his life, he gets affected by these killings. Even when he is grown up, when he finds out that the killings are happening in neighbouring towns, he visits these places and tries to figure out who the killer is.
I honestly didnt understand why Joseph was so drawn to it because the other characters somehow move on from it. It would have made sense if there was someone who Joseph was close to who had been murdered but there is none. I can only say its his white man's weird sense of duty that makes him want to find out about the killer.
Also I don't really know if I can call this a mystery thriller, because it doesn't only focus on the mystery. There is a lot of internal monologue happening and the MC's thought spirals as well. So its like a mix of Fiction and Mystery I guess.
Overall, I would recommend this if you're a patient reader who likes to analyze the character's inner thoughts and psyche. And if you like a little bit of mystery to go with it.
I would not recommend this book if you don't like long descriptive passages and unnecessary detail about the landscapes when on a train ride.
*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧
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