Product Description

Joseph Vaughan's life has been dogged by tragedy. Growing up in the 1950s, he was at the centre of series of killings of young girls in his small rural community. The girls were taken, assaulted and left horribly mutilated. Barely a teenager himself, Joseph becomes determined to try to protect his community and classmates from the predations of the killer. Despite banding together with his friends as ' The Guardians', he was powerless to prevent more murders - and no one was ever caught. Only after a full ten years did the nightmare end when the one of his neighbours is found hanging from a rope, with articles from the dead girls around him. Thankfully, the killings finally ceased. But the past won't stay buried - for it seems that the real murderer still lives and is killing again. And the secret of his identity lies in Joseph's own history...

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #71 in Books
• Published on: 2008-01-02
• Binding: Paperback
• 396 pages

My Weekly
"A meaty, involving drama which will catch you up in an emotional rollercoaster -- great reading"

Review
"A meaty, involving drama which will catch you up in an emotional rollercoaster -- great reading" (My Weekly )

"Very spine chilling... keeps you going right until the last page" (Amanda Ross )

Synopsis
Joseph Vaughan's life has been dogged by tragedy. Growing up in the 1950s, he was at the centre of series of killings of young girls in his small rural community. The girls were taken, assaulted and left horribly mutilated. Barely a teenager himself, Joseph becomes determined to try to protect his community and classmates from the predations of the killer. Despite banding together with his friends as ' The Guardians', he was powerless to prevent more murders - and no one was ever caught. Only after a full ten years did the nightmare end when the one of his neighbours is found hanging from a rope, with articles from the dead girls around him. Thankfully, the killings finally ceased. But the past won't stay buried - for it seems that the real murderer still lives and is killing again. And the secret of his identity lies in Joseph's own history...

Customer Reviews

Pretty disappointing
I bought this book because of the numerous reviews raving about it but I ended up feeling let down by it. I found quite a few problems with it. For a start it could have done with some more editing, the plot is really not interesting enough to fill a book of this length and I began to find it very repetitive. The central character Joseph had the same boring thoughts and dreams over and over again. I think it was supposed to be haunting but it was just dull. Right from the start I found it difficult to get into.
Another difficulty I had was engaging with the characters because none of them were likeable really. Also as others have pointed out Joseph's life is quite ridiculously tragic, it was like being in a soap opera where people he loves drop like flies in very mean ways. I suppose people can be that unlucky but it doesn't make for great reading. It isn't even a good who-dunnit as the culprit can be guessed at pretty quickly. The identity of the murderer is quite stupid really as there is no real sense of why he killed so many young girls, it seems quite random like the author just went 'eenie meenie, ok this guy.' Oh and the running 'angel' theme is hideously irritating in my opinion. I really can't understand why this was so well liked, I would advise people to steer clear and not waste there money. I got through it once but will not be reading it again.

Not a 5-star book
I tore through the first half of this tale in no time at all, lapping up the atmosphere of the American South and finding myself wanting to be there, despite all the dangers. The sign of a good read, no? Trouble is, the pace soon starts to drag. There's a big pinch of flab in the midsection where the writing style becomes Steinbeck like and experimental, and where characters are brought to life in adjective soaked descriptions only to fall off the radar minutes later and never be heard of again. It feels like a 300 page book fleshed out to please a publisher who really wanted 400.

While the writing does pick up considerably towards the end, by this time the main character has undergone so much misery and torment that you no longer find yourself flinching at any of it. Not only that, but the serial killer's notoriety is never discussed, and criminal investigators take little interest, despite the death toll of a plane crash and an M.O. that makes Ted Bundy look like a saint. We are lead to believe that almost nobody's interested; no newspaper wants to follow the case, no police department has the manpower or brainpower to figure out what's going on. None of it feels very real.

Anyway, this isn't a bad book by any account, it's just not a very good one, despite what Richard & Judy would have you believe. Who are they to recommend this sort of stuff anyway?

disappointing
I loved the book in the beginning. I loved the characters making up the small town community, and how, faced with the murders of the little girls, some members turned on each other. But the disasters that befall Joseph start to grate, and I found myself skipping pages because it was obvious that common sense and sensible investigative practices had all but escaped the police and the lawyer, and any person with a brain could have made the connections to discover there had been a major miscarriage of justice. This book was a major disappointment.