Grace is a small, Southern American town and is well versed in the ways of the Bie Belt and the ramifications if you step away from God's plan. For a group of young girls God's plan does't seem so great. "The Bird" has seen to it that 5 Church going girls have disappeared and now, just after they thought it had all come to an end, there's another disappearence. This time she left a note but maybe, just maybe "The Bird" got her.
Told from the perspective of the putative sixth victims sister and two boys from Grace, each with their own demons, life in Grace is laid bare. What everyone thinks is secret because it happens behind closed doors is more like common knowledge. Everyone is aware the police chief is a havy drinker but they don't know his even darker secrets. The new Pastor is perfect and the old Pastor's son is an angel. It would very much seem that appearences flatter to deceive.
I didn't dislike this book but it certainly didn't fire my imagination or set me thinking. Maybe the setting, rural Bible Belt is a long way from a small town in Northern England after all, was too remote form my experience for me to chime with the lives these people lead. The characters were almost three dimensional but somehow there was that final dimension missing from them that stopped me from becoming ivested in what happened. It was a pleasant change to have a crime thriller told from the family's perspective and for the victim to have a voice. Sadly, I think that The Lovely Bones did it a lot, lot better.
Good for whiling away a couple of bleak afternoons or evenings when the TV is bad and the weather precludes going out but don't expect too much.
Told from the perspective of the putative sixth victims sister and two boys from Grace, each with their own demons, life in Grace is laid bare. What everyone thinks is secret because it happens behind closed doors is more like common knowledge. Everyone is aware the police chief is a havy drinker but they don't know his even darker secrets. The new Pastor is perfect and the old Pastor's son is an angel. It would very much seem that appearences flatter to deceive.
I didn't dislike this book but it certainly didn't fire my imagination or set me thinking. Maybe the setting, rural Bible Belt is a long way from a small town in Northern England after all, was too remote form my experience for me to chime with the lives these people lead. The characters were almost three dimensional but somehow there was that final dimension missing from them that stopped me from becoming ivested in what happened. It was a pleasant change to have a crime thriller told from the family's perspective and for the victim to have a voice. Sadly, I think that The Lovely Bones did it a lot, lot better.
Good for whiling away a couple of bleak afternoons or evenings when the TV is bad and the weather precludes going out but don't expect too much.