Angelmaker

Product Information

Photograph: Richard Saker for the Observer Nick Harkaway photographed at his home in Hampstead, London.

They reminded me of Somerset and Mills' detectives in Se7en, who are just played by a man pulling their strings! He was straight up despicable, yet the events of the book seemed to confirm he was right since it never addressed the reason for why the book had power in the first place. Alex North pens a most mysterious mystery that had me riveted from the start but, as I mentioned, it took some time for me to wrap my brain around everything.Evidence suggests there is a connection to Christopher Shaw who 17 years ago as a loner of a teenager is brutally attacked and though badly wounded he survives but inevitably carries deep scars. And this is so close to something Grandpa Spork once said that Joe Spork, even after a sleepless night and a bad cat morning, finds himself nodding. It has more than its fair share of dark and shocking scenes and more than a handful of genuine laugh-out-loud moments, and even one or two places where both things are true at the same time.

The lack of internal characterisation is exactly what gives fairytales such a rich and lasting life because they are meant to be rearranged and retold according to each storyteller’s gifts.

There's more to say about it, of course - there are thoughts about our better nature, as implied by the title; there are unusually good women; there is lots about craft - but a discussion of that stuff is the review this book deserves, and I am not writing that.

There is a lot going on in this book and it was on the slower side for most of the book, but I didn't mind as much as I normally would as I was trying to figure out who was who and how things were connected. Harkaway plays the English language like a mad virtuoso: he hits all the right notes but isn't above throwing in a bit of ornamentation and jazzing things up. Where Stephenson spends chunks of the book describing the technology and the cryptographic techniques, Harkaway finds himself with a much less solid proposition, cleverly avoiding any in-depth detail as to how the book, the bees, the attendant clockwork actually work.The story dips back from the present (2017), with scenes set in the 1950s, ‘70s, 80s, and 90s, offering explanations for what is going on today. Really I'd suggest reading it after the book, because letting the character of Edie slowly unfold in the book is such fun, but the short story gives you a taste of Harkaway's writing and could be used as an appetizer while you wait for the book's release.