Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #643191 in Books
• Published on: 2008-01-01
• Format: Import
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 396 pages

Customer Reviews

This is an important piece of literature...
This book, the first novel I have read by R.J. Ellory is simply astounding. The depth of despair that the book conveys, the feeling of loss, of sadness, of hope, of further loss is incredible. If anyone feels anything when they read a book, then this book will have the senses working overtime. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is my humble opinion.

To Roger Ellory, thank you for such a wonderful book!

Gripping read
This book is about terrible things, the slaughtering of young girls. This however is ultimately not what the book is about. The great thing about this book is the way it describes how horrible events can have its effects on individuals and communities. It's also a sort of coming of age story with beautiful descriptions of inner struggles. Sometimes the descriptions of the actual brutalities were a bit too vivid for my liking, and the end came a little too abrupt. But in general I can certainly recommend this book.

Beautiful
This book was a wonderful surprise. It had me from the open:

"Rumor, hearsay, folklore. Whichever way it laid down to rest or came up for air, rumor had it that a white feather indicated the visitation of an angel.

On the morning of Wednesday, July twelfth, 1939, I saw one, long and slender and unlike any kind of feather I'd seen before. It skirted the edge of the door as I opened it, almost as if it had waited patiently to enter, and the draft from the hallway carried it into my room."

And kept me reading with beautiful passages like this:

"Love, I would later conclude, was all things to all people. Love was the breaking and healing of hearts. Love was misunderstood, love was faith, love was the promise of now that became hope for the future. Love was a rhythm, a resonance, a reverberation. Love was awkward and foolish, it was aggressive and simple and possessed of so many indefinable qualities that it could never be conveyed in language. Love was being."

Joseph Vaughn's childhood is marred by murder of several local girls, all presumably at the hands of a single serial killer. These events color not only his childhood, but his entire life as he becomes obsessed with the crimes. He can't seem to catch a break, his life rocked time after time by tragedy. A gifted writer, Joseph eventually moves to New York City in an attempt to leave it all behind, but it's not that easy.

This was a really sneaky mystery. Ellory drops little breadcrumbs every so often, and just when you think you know what's going on, things take a turn. I was wrong about who the killer was, yet it all made sense in the end. The setting is also worked into the story very well... the attitudes of people due to World War II play a significant part, as well as the small town southern setting. This is Ellory's fifth book, and I can't wait to track down the others. I am a new fan.