Something more than night
by: Ian Tregellis
In the mood for something completely different I downloaded this book onto my kindle before my trip to the old country last month. I started reading it on the flight over and was sucked in from the first line.
The premise is impossible and yet completely plausible. Someone has murdered the angel Gabriel and on top of that the Jericho trumpet is missing. Angels are trying to make a break for freedom; to escape the heavens. There is the ‘Voice of God’ and a human female set up to either take the fall or solve the crime.
Written in the style of a classic ‘Noir’ as in Dashiell Hammett or Raymond Chandler, it features the patois of the style in the form of a hard boiled fallen angel, Bayliss who narrates most of the book. Toss in a dame “who was going to be trouble”, a priest with a secret, stigmata nightclub dancers, and a world on the verge of collapse.
The story takes remarkable twists and turns, tosses in all kinds of interesting heavenly characters with bad manners and unfolds toward a satisfying and surprising ending. Despite all those ‘out there’ characters there is a real poignancy in the human relationships which run through the story and befuddle the heavenly beings who turn out to be remarkably self-absorbed and uninterested in the world.
In with the religious allegory is a healthy sprinkling of - quantum - physics and plenty of homage to the great noir writers.
The author has done his research and has put together a great story. Not your average ‘whodoneit’ which makes for a good change. I wasn’t sure he could pull it off when I’d read the description, but he has. Think the Maltese Falcon in heaven to get some idea of this book.
I highly recommend it.
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