The Angel Maker

 Tell me a story... where the future may be written by a killer

The Angel Maker by Alex North

Publication date: February 28, 2023

Date read: November 16, 2024

Audiobook read by Rosalie Craig

Growing up in a beautiful house in the English countryside, Katie Shaw lived a charmed life, until the day a violent stranger changed the fate of her family forever. Years later, still unable to live down the guilt surrounding what happened to her brother, Chris, and now with a child of her own to protect, Katie struggles to separate the real threats from the imagined. Then she gets the phone call: Chris has gone missing and needs his big sister once more. Meanwhile, Detective Laurence Page is facing a particularly gruesome crime. A distinguished professor of fate and free will has been brutally murdered just hours after firing his staff. All the leads point back to two old cases: the gruesome attack on teenager Christopher Shaw, and the despicable crimes of a notorious serial killer who, legend had it, could see the future.

This is my first mystery by Alex North; I've heard mixed reviews of his books, and while I can see where the reviews are coming from, I really enjoyed this one.

The one difficulty of this book is that there are a lot of characters to keep in order. The book jumps around from present day with Katie and the Detective to a past storyline with the serial killer. They do all tie together quite well, but I did find that keeping track of some of the characters did get a little tricky. Particularly, one storyline involving two babies, I found slightly hard to follow, although by the end I did know what was going on. I do, however, want to add the disclaimer that I did read this in audiobook format, and that some of the slightly confusing bits may have been easier to follow if I had been reading it on the page. 

I also really enjoyed the slightly open-ended nature of the ending. While all of the major plot points are tied up and explained, the question about whether or not the killer could actually know the future is a little more vague. I wish I could elaborate here, but that would lead to spoilers, and I think it's more fun to follow along blind. 

The characters were sometimes frustrating in this book, but in the way that many mystery book characters are: making stupid choices and keeping stupid secrets. Katie in particular did a lot of things that annoyed me, but I liked her more than I disliked her. And I thought the secondary character were all quite interesting. 

Overall, this is a slightly heavy but fun mystery/thriller that I do recommend to fans of this genre. The large number of characters and storylines to follow do make it a slightly slower read than many in the thriller genre, but I thought the payoff was worth it. I'll definitely be reading more by this author soon.

Content warning: child murder, suicide, drug addiction, child abduction

Rating: 4/5 stars

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced copy of this book.