Angel Time
By Anne Rice
Knopf, $25.95, 288 pages
Toby O’Dare is a contract killer. Raised by two dysfunctional parents and educated at a catholic school, he has pretty much given up on trying to direct his own life, and just kills the people he’s directed to by a man he calls The Right Man. Toby doesn’t even know what organization he’s killing for, just that these people need to die and he’s the man for the job. He feels the wrongness of his life, and the most peace he can find is through music and in the ritual of the Catholic faith. During one murder, he is confronted by an angel who offers him a chance at redemption by serving as a human agent to right potential wrongs that might happen in the past.
This is Anne Rice’s new novel and the beginning of a new series. In fact she describes it as the first book she’s written with the intent to make sequels in a continuing story line. Angel Timewill probably not please all of Rice’s earlier LeStat fans; however, they should give it a chance. Her somewhat recent conversion back to the Catholicism of her youth has changed her writing, and while there still are some strong religious overtones to the story, they don’t distract from the story as much as add a depth missing from her earlier works. The story isn’t as dark as previous books, but that also is by choice, as Rice is focusing more on themes of redemption and forgiveness and less on the darkness of people’s souls (though one does need some darkness for that redemption.) ||The time-travel aspects of the story require no more suspension of belief as any other method. If God can see time as a line, and all events happening at the same time, then why wouldn’t it be possible to move someone from one event to another? The character of O’Dare may be a bit overdone (there is a soap opera’s worth of tragedy in his life to start), but how much more different than that is the brooding vampire, unable to return to being human? Overall, an interesting book, with Rice’s trademark evocative descriptions and well-researched medieval settings.
