Customer Reviews
Left feeling unsatisfied - By: Shaun Burnett, 21 Sep 2008 
After stumbling across positive reviews for this book & being intrigued by the title, I bought A Quiet Beliefin Angels & after the first 3-4 chapters found I was gripped. Unlike some reviewers, I enjoyed the drawn out descriptions of characters & feelings & felt this helped bring a place & an era to life that I've never experienced.
Whilst I enjoyed the book I felt it sufferedin some key areas.
Firstly, we are expected to believe that a murder spree of this magnatitude targetting little girls gets no more attention than a collection of the local small town law enforcement officers who seem to offer nothingin the book other than meeting up occasionally for a coffee & reviewing newspaper clippings. Secondly, character involvement - where childhood friends & adult friends / lovers seem to jumpin & out of the lead character's life without the author really developing them to an extent you feel you know themin the way you know Joseph. Their motivations, emotions & background are missing to an extent they just become a series of names. The final criticism is that as a 'who dunnit' - it's very disappointing. With limited charactersin the book, or alive by the second half, it's so obvious & after an entire book dedicated to building the horror of the murders, there's absolutely no reason or motive explained. This particularly left me disappointed more than the other criticisms & for a book that many felt was drawn out - I feel the final scene was worthy of dialogue between the characters. On the whole an enjoyable read despite the criticisms - but a really poor ending & therefore not good enough for me to consider following up with another Ellory book.
Great book! - By: S. Dale, 14 Sep 2008 
Brilliant storyline, gets you guessing right till the end, (well I never...) but a little bit too "wordy" with descriptions etc, I had to skip through the long winded bits, but the story/plot... FANTASTIC
A Quiet Belief in Angels - By: SRichardson, 10 Sep 2008 
At last! Here is a writer who knows how to evoke the imagination, someone who doesn't write to formula, who describes situations & emotions that you can almost taste.
A story about a serial killer told against the tale of a boy's rite of passage.A story of hope & despair,yet uplifting, a story of everyman!Engage your mind & read one of the best books to be published for a long time.
Very interesting - By: Mr. G. Child, 02 Sep 2008 I enjoyed reading this. I don't normally choose this type of fiction, but I found it most interesting. The descriptions are beautiful, parts read more like a poem, & the simple beautyin parts of this novel, lighten the mostly dark & disturbing storyline.
I would definately recomend this book, as not only a good thriller, but a poetic, & almost philosiphical read.
Over ambitious but interesting - By: M. I. R. Clarke, 01 Sep 2008 I was gripped by the first quarter of this book - it is well written & original as it describes the effect on the hero Joseph & his community as young local girls are found brutally murdered. The contrast between the ordinariness of their everyday lives with the horror of the killings & their affect on the impressionable boy promises much.
Sadly it loses its way. Some reviewers have compared it to Steinbeck, Harper Lee, even J D Salinger. I don't thinks so - those books resonate universality - they touch you & make you think about your own life. Ellory's story becomes swampedin Vaughan's self-obsessive fatalism but can't make up its mind whether to be great prose tragedy, an insightful coming of age novel about an "artist" or a serial killer mystery. Ultimately it fails on all counts - the metaphors start to become repetitive or obscure, the plot becomes unsatisfactorily compressed when Joseph goes to New York & the final denouement is sudden but anti-climactic. Where Ellory scores is his study on the effects of the girls' murders, the power of blood ties, small town xenophobiain wartime. I'd recommend Guterson's "Snow Falling on Cedars" as a much better attempt at a "serious" murder mystery. In terms of serial killer not even a master of the genre like Thomas Harris wouldn't attempt 29 victims !
