Review by Booklist Review
This third thriller from North (after The Shadows, 2020) is impossible to define. At its center is a present-day murder, but embedded in its core are the paranormal, elements of cringeworthy horror, and a riveting study of the bonds and boundaries of sibling devotion, as well as a master study on determinism. If every detail of the past is set, then everything in the future must also be determined. The narrative spans decades, moving backward and forward in time, and is told from multiple perspectives beginning in the past with Jack Lock, the Angel Maker, a serial killer directed by his supposed ability to see the future. When philosophy professor Alan Hobbes is found murdered, it appears he had known death was coming for him and believed the suffering was due to having gone against what was predetermined. Detective Laurence Page is facing a complicated case, because every lead on Hobbes' murder points back to the Angel Maker's crimes and to a savage attack on teenager Christopher Shaw, whose sister, Katie, is experiencing her own terrors relating back to her brother's assault. Everything in this story is connected in ways the reader can't begin to imagine until a series of stunning parallels and revelations are disclosed. Wait for it!
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
When Katie Shaw, the protagonist of this uneven thriller set in the U.K. from bestseller North (The Shadows), was 17, she made an innocent decision that proved calamitous; instead of looking after her younger brother, Chris, she spent an afternoon with her boyfriend. As a result, Katie wasn't on hand when Chris was attacked by a stranger, Michael Hyde, who tried to cut off Chris's face. Now in her 30s, she feels even more guilt when their mother reports that Chris, who became an addict and petty criminal, has gone missing. This news drives Katie to try to find Chris, despite having given up on their relationship years before when she turned him in to the police for theft. Chris is also the quarry of a police detective who met the siblings when Hyde assaulted Chris. Meanwhile, a philosophy professor, a fervent determinist, has his throat slit under circumstances that suggest he expected to be killed; Chris was caught at the scene by security video. That the professor's murder is also linked to a serial killer known as the Angel Maker adds intrigue. Not every twist works, and the potential of the intersecting story lines isn't realized. North has done better. Agent: Sandra Sawicka, Marjacq (U.K.). (Feb.)
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
The aftereffects of a series of violent attacks reverberate through several families over multiple generations in this British thriller. Katie Shaw lives with the guilt of not having walked home with her brother, Chris, after high school on the day he was attacked by a stranger with a knife. Chris has never fully recovered from the assault, which left him with multiple visible scars; he's turned to addiction and become homeless. Seventeen years after the attack on Chris, Alan Hobbes, a retired philosophy professor who'd had so much money he hadn't really needed to work, is found stabbed to death in his bed. While investigating the crime, Det. Laurence Page finds footage from a security camera that shows a man in Hobbes' apartment shortly before his death--and recognizes the man as Chris, whose assault Page had also investigated. Even as the police name her brother as a suspect in Hobbes' murder, Katie hears from her mother that Chris has disappeared after a period of stability, seemingly afraid that someone's following him. Given that Katie has also begun to fear that she's being followed, she reluctantly believes her mother's story and starts her own search for her brother. Even as Det. Page pieces together Hobbes' history, which included a horrific childhood, and revisits the attack on Chris, Katie is forced to confront the idea that what happened to her brother all those years ago might not have been a random act of violence after all. North's latest thriller does not disappoint, weaving an intriguing cast of characters across multiple time periods into a story rich with layers and plot twists and perfectly suspenseful pacing. A delightfully bone-chilling tale. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
