Dissapointed - Rated 
I read this book after seeing so many great reviews for it. I can't see how everyone else was reading the same book though! The plot is incredibly slow, and completely unbelievable. The 'killer' was obvious and I had worked it out by chapter 3. On the positive side,R.J Ellorys writing style is unique and beautifully descriptive. I would love to read another book by him, but one with a better plot!
Conflicting ideas - Rated 
The book started really well, 150 pages of real pleasure at such good writing and character depiction, thought it would turn out to be one of the best books I had ever read...and then... 100 pages or so of repetitions, clichés, bad dialogue; I was amazed! How was it possible that a writer who had so eloquently written about Joseph, who had drawn a masterpiece of a mother and an incredibly good portrait of a young charismatic schoolteacher, a very credible story of prejudices in a small community... how could such a writer let his book down by blabbing on for 100 totally uncalled for pages and boring his reader nearly to death? I still can't understand it. Another thing made me uneasy. The book is about the impact the violent and unsolved murders of some young girls had on a child. By the end of the book we are asked to believe that the killer murdered more than 30 girls over a period of several years without police forces having any clue as to his identity.I know they didn't have SOCOs or scientific policing in the 40's but still...I find it too hard to believe and this also spoils the book for me.
So, to sum up, a splendid beginning that doesn't hold on to its promise...and it is such a shame!
Reader's block - Rated 
Only rarely have I read a book which stops me in my tracks. Generally I read 3-4 books a week, often all at once. Since I finished A Quiet Belief In Angels by R J Ellory I have had to pause.
This happened to me first after I read Hardy's Jude the Obscure, about 40 years ago.
The plot of AQBIA at first seems driven by crimes committed by a serial killer of young, defenceless girls. The narrator and protagonist, who we first meet aged 12, is Joseph Calvin Vaughan. He is shadowed by a sense of failure to affect events outside his control; his father's untimely death, his mother's fugue into madness, and his failure to prevent the deaths of local children at the hands of a brutal killer.
The destruction of innocence is at the heart of this story and also how children are can be let down so badly by those they trust.
A Quiet Belief in Angels - Rated
Gripping! A most compelling read. I was hooked from the first chapter and found Ellory's vocabulary and lack of format an absolute breath of fresh air. This is original and breathtaking - quite literally, his description in some scenes made me have to put the book down and take some air. This tale is definately one that forced me to look at issues that I would not think twice about - quite literally not something I ever thought about. I cried several times throughout the book. Ellory has made me look deep into the soul of another person and made me feel compassion for my fellow man. This was definately unexpected from a book of this type. I am most impressed. When's the next one out?
boring!!! - Rated 
I wasted 2 days of my life reading this ridiculous book. The characters were unrealistic and towards the end I was wishing that the murderer would kill Joseph off just to put him, but mainly me out of our misery. His life was filled with so many horrific events that it was almost a spoof book and would have been better titled Carry on Murdering!
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