Review -Angel Time by Anne Rice

Angel Time by Anne Rice  - I make a habit of both checking out the new books area and just wandering the stacks when I'm looking for something new to read.  I like finding new authors and stories.  So the last time I was in the library I saw the latest from Rice.  I've never read anything by her but the story line of a hit man who meets an angel sounded like an interesting concept.  This book is apparently the first in a planned series involving the main character.

I doubt I'll read any of the rest.

Rice is best known for the vampire series that stars the vampire LeStat.  In 2004 she announced that with her return to her childhood Roman Catholicism she would only "write for the Lord" from then on.  It appears that the books written in that time have sold well but not as well as her previous output.

Honestly I found the book slow going at first. She seemed to be in no great hurry to get into the flow of her story.  When we finally get down to it the concept still seemed interesting.  Toby O'Dare is a young man with great tragedy in his life.  For reasons that never seemed obvious to me he discovers he's a natural hit man.  To the point that as a young man with no particular violent background he takes out some Russian mobsters with amazing ease.  He's hired by the U.S. government to be a kind of black ops hit man.  The character development struck me as very thin and the plot fairly unbelievable.

Then an angel appears with the goal of saving Toby.  Again rather astoundingly it takes very little to take this stone cold killer and turn him to weeping repentance.  Malchiah (the angel) then gives Toby the chance to time travel to the Middle Ages to help a Jewish community in Norwich England facing persecution.  To be honest this is the best section of the book.  The characters have more depth and the story moves nicely.  I won't spoil the rather thin surprise at the ending.

Unfortunately I just don't buy the transformation shown in Toby.  The story lacks any feeling of reality, the story line is thin as are the characters (sadly we get very little from the character that I found most interesting Malchiah.  She makes some interesting points about the differences between humanity and angels).  The book struck me as  weak.  The middle section about the English Jews is based on history.  In the notes at the end of the book Rice acknowledges that she came across the history and wanted to write a story about it.  That portion works but for me she never made the connection between the two stories and the wrap around story was poor.  The book didn't impress me as a mystery or as Christian fiction.  I've seen a variety of reviews that seemed to be impressed with the book.  I honestly can not imagine why.