Saints of New York [Paperback]

Well,this is my first ever review of anything but having had a quiet weekend with my wife and teenage kids away, I saw this in the shop on friday and started reading it on friday night and finished it on sunday morning.!!I have every one of his other books in my bookcase,even though some have been very well thumbed by my wife,family and friends as I have endeavoured to spread the word.

R J Ellory is a very talented writer with an interesting personal history which ,I think, does come across in his books.He is always probing the relationship between acts of others on the main character and how this drives them on in pursuit of resolution...either good or bad..often when most of us would have given up.

His narrative is so beautifully written and engaging and I often re-read paragraphs and thought about my relationship with my own father who died two years ago. There is a haunting quality to all his books and I really do wonder where he thinks up some of the plot...it is quite tough going in places and I literally had to go and make myself a drink before turning the next page or chapter.

This book has three seperate elements to the story

-crime in New York in the 60's and 70's as relayed to 'psycho-the rapist'

-a serial killer on the loose and will he catch him,legally or not

-the personal battle of the main character with himself and his relationships with his dead dad and his living but estranged family

The plot develops in a very different direction than you would think initially and it is a subtle transition which I only fully appreciated when I turned the last page.I think I was a little frustrated at my inability to see the main 'perp' get his full comeuppance,which I was looking forward to delighting in!!

However,I thoroughly enjoyed this read and it has made me think a lot since on how I view things personally.I did not think it was quite as good as 'Quit Belief' or 'Simple Act' but they were just sooo good it is unreal. I am a little depressed now as I realise it will be a while before I can read the next one...but I may go back and read them all again as they are all so complex.

I am going to still give it 5 star though as this author deserves it for consistently producing the most high class fiction I have read over recent years.

What makes us us? What drives us? What guides our reactions to spontaneous decisions in the heat of the moment when there isn't time for thought? Three very tough questions, which there are no real answers, but they are answers in which Roger Ellory tries to discover in his latest book, the Saints of New York.

Having written reviews of his previous two novels, and even earlier about my first Ellory discovery, the wonderful "Quiet Belief in Angels", it appears to have become somewhat of an annual tradition!

We are introduced to Ellory's latest protagonist, homicide detective Frank Parrish amidst a literal blood bath as he attempts to save the life of a girl who has been attacked by her boyfriend, but things, as always don't go according to plan. Parrish, down on his luck, it seems things aren't going his way. As the novel unfolds and we are introduced to the main story line we learn more about him, more importantly, his past and the ghost of his father, New York police legend, John Parrish, one of the original "Saints of New York".

What people don't know, but what Frank does, is the truth. He knows the real John Parrish and the seemingly sinister motivation behind his actions. Once again, as is the case with all of Ellory's books, we learn the back story at the same time that the main narrative races forward at a relentless pace. This time told in gripping dialogue with Parrish's counsellor, who was assigned to him after Internal Affairs called him to book for a transgression too many.

All the while, a homicide investigation is going on, a drug dealer turns up dead, but so too does his sister. She's not the only one, there are more and we follow Frank's journey to unravel the pieces and follow the clues. Detective work doesn't strike me as a pleasant occupation, you see the lowest, and the lowest of the low. Frank has seen it all, but this really gets under his skin.

As a reader, it's not pleasant. Ellory digs into some dark places and you are reminded that this is real, it's happening on a day by day basis. Fictitious accounts of non-fictional events. Some readers may not like it, nothing here is glamorised or dressed up. Vermin are vermin and as soon as we acknowledge their existence the sooner we can do something about it.

In context, you take the sum of this novels parts and you'd be thinking it reads as slightly clichéd, particularly as a "crime thriller". You take a New York homicide detective, hard drinker, broken marriage, married to the job, a typical "who-dunnit", but as with all of his previous works Ellory takes a token formulae and adds some of his magical fairy dust and takes what has been written time and time again into another direction.

I can't think of many other crime thrillers that would have left me thinking about the three answers to the three questions I asked earlier, but once again, my whole enjoyment of these books that continue to be released on a yearly basis is that they transcend the genre. Gritty, realistic dialogue, characters that are believable and fully dimensional, the crime aspect is merely a distraction as we try and understand the person and what drives them.

Although, ultimately another wonderful piece of literature by Ellory, my main reason for it's success was what makes reading a book so special, the right one always seems to come at the right time. It may just be me, maybe it's entirely coincidental, but certain events in my own life and having to learn for myself about "where we come from" and the "meaning of life", it seems that I'm being thrown different answers of varying importance about this topic wherever I turn!

I'll always hold A Quiet Belief in Angels, and A Quiet Vendetta in such high regard, so there is a little bit of pressure from me onto the author to surpass that, I'm not expecting a Magnum Opus once every twelve months and would be incredibly rude (and impossible) of me to request that! Each of his readers will have their own personal favourites, and they are what his future work will be measured by. But he has a fan here, and if one more fan comes as a result of these annual reviews then all the better for it, as it will hopefully mean more books for me to read!

This is a superbly written thriller that proves Ellory is now a class apart from even the best selling authors working in the genre. But this also works on a much deeper, more emotive level than the novels of Stieg Larsson and Michael Connelly: this is far more engaging, quite shaking in places and ultimately deeply emotional. It's been ten days since I read the last pages and it just won't leave me alone. Damn you, Ellory, damn you.
This is nominally a story of father and son but even more affecting for me were the fathers and daughters, and a shocking betrayal of trust and a sudden burst of all-too-realistic violence made me gasp out loud. This has proven to be a novel I just can't seem to let go of even though I actually finished it a week or so ago. Maybe it's having a seventeen-year-old daughter of my own that makes this resonate so much , but judging from the other reviews here on Amazon I'm not alone - this novel rocks you and disturbs.
And taking centre stage of this spellbinding journey is one of the bravest fictional creations of recent times: Frank Parrish, an alcoholic NY cop teetering on the very edge. He's horribly, perhaps fataly flawed but all-too-believable.
Sit back and enjoy. Absolutely stunning.