Reviewed By: Ali Karim - RAM
GhostHeart
Amazon US HC Amazon UK PB Amazon UK HC Amazon Canada HC
Roger Jon Ellory
Class/Genre: Mystery
Orion Publishing
This is a book that defies genre classification apart from being a darn good tale to get totally lost in. A lonely NY secondhand-bookseller Annie O’ Neill is happy with her life despite arriving at thirty with an emptiness that gnaws at her insides. She watches the world from the window of her life and has only one real friend – Jack Sullivan, her neighbour and alcoholic ex-newsman. Sullivan acts as Annie’s protector and father figure, as she never met her real father. Then her world is tilted when an elderly stranger named Robert Forrester comes to her store with some letters written by her father and a yellowed manuscript. He seems to have known her father (or so he says). He embarks to read from the yellowed manuscript that tells a story of loss and love. The story starts in Eastern Europe and travels through the true horror of Auschwitz, then sails the Atlantic to the gangland New York of the 1960’s. While Forrester’s tale fills her head with images, her heart is attracted to a young man called David Quinn who comes by the store, and soon lures her into his bed. This causes Sullivan to give up the booze and watch Annie change as she learns about the past and the importance of family.
A wonderfully descriptive tale, with a dark streak that marbles a story of how the past causes ripples that change the future. A book that can only be read slowly but is rich in texture and provokes thought. Ellory is first and foremost a storyteller, not a genre writer and not shy of complex plots and evocative description. Ghostheart is for readers who like novels that mix history with character to produce a story and like a twist at the end to pull all the strands together.
Ali Karim - RAM
Reprinted with permission. Do Not repost without permission from the author, Ali Karim - RAM
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