A book that takes death seriously

(R.J. Ellory picked from the
crowd at convivial al-fresco
dinner, Bouchercon 2008)

Lurking behind this week's question about comic crime fiction was the risk that authors run of appearing not to take death and murder seriously.

R.J. Ellory is unlikely to run such a risk. I don't know that I've read any crime novel that takes death more seriously than does Ellory's A Quiet Belief in Angels. The deaths mount: Nine (so far) girls murdered in rural Georgia. The protagonist's wife. His mother. A neighbor's daughter. The neighbor's apparent suicide in expiation of guilt over the killings.

Protagonist Joseph Vaughan is haunted from a young age by an unnatural guilt over the killings without, however, taking the easy way out of losing his mind. Rather, they become a driving force in his life, pushed aside by circumstances, but always flaring up again.

Redemption? I'll tell you tomorrow.

***

R.J. Ellory will be part of my “NEVER LET ME GO: PASSPORT TO MURDER” panel on Saturday, Sept. 17, 1 p.m., at Bouchercon 2011.

© Peter Rozovsky 2011