The Four Last Things

Rating:
Summary: Taut suspense story: very well written
Review: Almost a horror story, this novel is highlighted by interesting characters and a plot that gradually tightens the pressure on the characters and the reader. Along with Breakheart Hill and Void Moon this is the finest mystery/suspense novel of the last decade. A must read.

Rating:
Summary: Taut suspense story: very well written
Review: Almost a horror story, this novel is highlighted by interesting characters and a plot that gradually tightens the pressure on the characters and the reader. Along with Breakheart Hill and Void Moon this is the finest mystery/suspense novel of the last decade. A must read.

Rating:
Summary: A Disturbing Story
Review: I enjoyed reading this novel. It is not really a police procedural as the police play a small role. Nor is it really a mystery as we know quite early on who has commited the crine . Some people might find the story disturbing as it deals with crimes against children. The author is a very good writer and there is an atmosphere of menace through the book. The story jumps back and forth between the phsycopaths who have kidnapped a child and the distraught parents.Frankly I thought the parents considering there child has been stolen seemed to decend into self pity and I found the criminals to be more interesting.Anyway the book was quite good and I would reccomend it.

Rating:
Summary: A tense psychological thriller about a child's abduction
Review: THE FOUR LAST THINGS

"Suffer the little children to come unto me"

Little Lucy Appleyard is snatched from her child minder's on a cold winter afternoon, and the nightmare begins.

When Eddie takes her home to beautiful, child-loving Angel, he knows he's done the right thing. But Lucy's not like their other visitors, and unwittingly she strikes through Angel's defences to something both vulnerable and volatile at the core.

To the outside world Lucy has disappeared into a black hole with no clues to her whereabouts... until the first grisly discovery in a London graveyard. More such finds are to follow, all at religious sites, and, in a city haunted by religion, what do these offerings signify?

All that stands now between Lucy and the final sacrifice are a CID sergeant on the verge of disgrace and a woman cleric - Lucy's parents - but how can they hope to halt the evil forces that are gathering around their innocent daughter?

Unlike the second and third titles in the trilogy, THE FOUR LAST THINGS is set in the present. Its theme is the terrible vulnerability of children.

'It's a truly terrifying story, full of suspense.' Publishing News.

"...a finely crafted story of suspense... Taylor has established a sound reputation for writing tense clammy novels that perceptively penetrate the human psyche. In The Four Last Things, he goes deeper still. His ingredients are doubt, guilt and moral ambiguity, intermingling with the more usual trappings of crime detection. It is a book which can be read at more than one level. The appetite for the remaining two of the trilogy is firmly whetted." Marcel Berlins in The Times

"...a masterly novel, which offers chilling insight into the nature of evil...the remarkable twist at the end makes one hungry for the next instalment." Martin Edwards, The Criminologist

"A surefire thriller to take your mind off those winter blues..." New Woman

"Every parent's nightmare" Family Circle

"Andrew Taylor is a master of the corrosive passions that fester beneath conventional facades, and this novel...showcases his sensitive exploration of human emotions. At one level a tense and shocking psychological thriller, The Four Last Things is also a meditation on what religious belief means in times of extreme crisis, and a fascinating unravelling of the horrors that the past can visit on the present." Val McDermid, Manchester Evening News

THE ROTH TRILOGY

The Roth Trilogy will consist of three novels - THE FOUR LAST THINGS , THE JUDGEMENT OF STRANGERS and THE OFFICE OF THE DEAD. These are psychological thrillers concerning time and angels, love and murder.

What happens if a female serial killer has maternal instincts? If she has the face of an angel and a taste for little children? Like an archaeological dig, the three novels will strip away the layers of a psychopath's history and reveal the secrets within the secrets.

The Roth Trilogy is composed of interlocking stories; each novel is self-contained and may be read independently of the others. The second and third novels will move into the past and discreetly modify their predecessors. The trilogy is set from the 1950s to the present, but it has its roots deep in the Middle Ages. The books also explore the changing face of the Church of England.

Rating:
Summary: Enthralling
Review: The marriage between Sally and Michael Appleyard is going through difficult times. Sally, a reverend, in the Church of England and Michael, a police officer, seem to be drifting apart with their only connection being their beloved four year old daughter Lucy. However, their world spins further out of control when a pair of kidnappers (Eddie Grace and Angel Wharton -- ironic names for kidnappers of a child of a deacon) abduct Lucy.

Sally turns to her Church for salvation, but her godfather, a priest, loathes women in the clergy. Michael turns inward in a hope of finding answers through the police. Both fail to gain salvation as their institutions fail them. Meanwhile, the police are finding body parts at voarious hurches. They feel that these occurencesare somehow linked to the Lucy kidnapping, but this deduction leaves them no closer to finding the child. If Lucy is not freed soon, Eddie a pediophile and Angel a violent person will probably rape and kill the child.

THE FOUR LAST THINGS, the first novel in Andrew Taylor's serial killer trilogy, is an interesting thriller that successfully shifts perspective from one person to another so that the kidnapping shares the central theme with religious beliefs. The four major characters are all interesting players with the two relationships on the surface seemingly different, but inside very similar. However, with all this going for it and it being a thriller worth reading, the book seems a bit flat when compared to Mr. Taylor's classy AN AIR THAT KILLS.

Harriet Klausner

Rating:
Summary: A mesmerizing trip into the weird and macabre
Review: This book is not for the faint of heart, especially if you read the text closely. The villain in this work could easily be the Marques de Sade's sister. The characterizations in this work are unusually rich and complex for a suspense novel. Also, the writing easily surpasses almost everything I've read in the mystery/suspense genre. This book takes risks and succeeds magnificently. Highly recommended.