Material Witness

REVIEW: Angelology by Danielle Trussoni

Behind the clichéd advice "never judge a book by its cover" is the fact that very often a momentary glimpse of a cover is the only exposure that readers get to a great many books and therefore a striking image and an arresting title can be critical.

It was this combination, spied in a provincial Waterstones, that attracted me to Angelology by Danielle Trussoni. The word itself grabbed me first, followed by a powerful image of an angel in chains on the UK issue from Michael Joseph. And my first judgement was simple and non-negotiable: here was a book I had to read.

Trussoni's story more than matched expectations. Angelology is an enthralling and fascinating novel, combining rigorous forays into theology and religious history with a superb, occasionally heart-stopping thriller that surprises again and again and delights throughout.

Most of us with a Christian upbringing will know something of angels - even if only as the herald of the birth of Christ that visits us each Christmas. Many will know of the war of heaven and the casting out of the dark angels - described in the book of Revelation and given body and style by a great many authors, from Milton to Phillip Pullman and in the crime/mystery genre by John Connolly.

At the heart of the heavenly war story is the fundamental simplicity of the battle between good and evil and the essential mystery of angelic history. A writer of imagination and courage can forge the two into compellin, dramatic stories that linger long in the mind.

Trussoni has these qualities and deploys them triumphantly in Angelology. In her extension of the angelic story, the fallen angels have been incarcerated in a deep Balkan cave system after displeasing God, but their off-spring - the Nephilim, who have both ethereal and human blood - live, with their angelic traits hidden, in the world of men, where they are powerful, wealthy and cruel.

But with their bloodlines "polluted" by centuries of breeding with humans, the Nephilim are in a desperate race to find information about an ancient secret that can restore their vitality and .

Ranged against them are a society of Angelologists, dedicated to the study of angels and protecting mankind from their tyranny.

The story takes place in late 1999 as a scholar - working unwittingly for a Nephilim family - comes close to the source of the coveted information when his research takes him to a convent in upstate New York. In the Milton, Verlaine meets a young nun, Evangeline, and piques her curiosity about wartime correspondence between the former mother superior and the philanthropist Abigail Rockefeller. As the two of them, independently, attempt to discover the nature of the correspondence and the secret it conceals, they unveil the ancient story of the Angelologists and their battle with the Nephilim.

A large part of the story is occupied with the events that preceded the Rockefeller correspondence, taking place in wartime Paris as the Nazis close in and with them the Nephilim desperate to get their hands on the Angelologists' intelligence.

This the book's most atmospheric and powerful passage, but throughout the story-telling is of the highest order balancing the twin demands of exciting narrative with the necessary historical and religious backfill.

I was entranced by it throughout, and delighted to discover that a sequel will follow.

In a summer that looks set to be dominated by vampires, make some time for angels. You will not regret it.

  

REVIEW: Dead Like You by Peter James

Following an author's Twitter feed is an excellent way of getting an insight into the daily - and in some cases, hourly - lives of writers.

Followers can see who is struggling with their writing, who is flying, who is being kept up all night by a new baby and the excitement, nerves and joy they exhibit as a new manuscript is turned in or a new book prepared for publication.

Peter James is among the most active crime writers on Twitter and his dialogue reveals, first, a very engaging, gregarious and approachable writer, but second a diligent and enthusiastic researcher and a man who takes a very close and active interest in the subject matter of his work.

One recent tweet revealed that James was on his way to New York, in the company of his police adviser, to research the mafia for a future novel. Another said: "My cleaner left note last year "Dear Peter, your study is full of books on ladies shoes & male pregnancy. Is there something I should know?"  

The "something", of course, relates to Roy Grace, not Peter James, the Brighton Detective Superintendent, who has become one of UK crime fiction's leading  men in recent years as the consistently excellent "Dead" series has become a summer staple for hundreds of thousands of loyal readers.

The male pregnancy I won't comment on, but ladies shoes become the key piece of evidence and most promising lead in Grace's investigation into a series of rapes that take place around Brighton around the New Year. I don't know my Jimmy Choo's from a pair of Dunlop Green Flash trainers, but Peter James clearly does as the detail in which each pair is described might lead the reader to believe he was an obsessive.

And he is - but in the sense that accuracy and credibility are critical to the Grace series, and the time spent on shoes is indicative of the precision and care with which James treats all his subject matter. That is particularly true of the police procedural elements of his work, which in my experience are the most authentic and believable of all current work. Grace works with urgency, passion and a pronounced sense of justice but without the histrionics, machismo and antagonism that mars the way a lot of fictional coppers go about their business.

Another think I like about Grace (and by extension Peter James) is his sense of perspective - he is a man who sees the broad picture of the work he is doing, and does not view the world in black and white. Instead he tempers his idealism with pragmatism, and is all the more engaging for it.

One of the areas in which this is evident is in his treatment of Norman Potting, a detective on his team. Potting, a presence throughout the series, is a sort of unreconstructed Gene Hunt - if you can imagine such a thing. He's an old school policeman, with little time for the dogma of political correctness and is always ready with an inappropriate remark guaranteed to infuriate female colleagues. In some hands, this would be a recipe for a disaster of cardboard cutout caricature, but James is careful to illustrate the insecurities and environment that has made Potting what he is. Grace treats him with a mixture of encouragement and headmasterly discipline, embracing his subordinate's strong policing skills and trying to temper his worst excesses.

In the case of a rape investigation, Potting is more subdued than normal and Grace perhaps even more driven than normal, frequently expressing his hatred for the crime and its perpetrators. Rape is dangerous territory for male writers, but unsurprisingly James treats it with great sensitivity but also fearlessness. The sense of horror he creates in his victims prompts urgency and almost desperation in the police officers attempting to apprehend a rapist they begin to understand is following a fixed pattern with pre-ordained dates which ratchets up the tension still further.

James creates a classic mystery writer's smokescreen, introducing a number of potential  suspects and maintains the whodunnit element right to a climactic finale. He also gives the case a personal dimension for Grace as the crimes mirror - and perhaps even recreate - a case that occurred at the time his marriage to his now-disappeared wife Sandy.

Dead Like You is the complete police procedural novel. It is rich and satisfying and doubtless will keep James' legion of fans very happy on the beaches this summer. Bravo!

REVIEWS of previous books in the series: Dead Tomorrow; Dead Man's Footsteps; Not Dead Enough