Having read through a lot of Peter James novels recently, I found that his pre-Roy Grace career transformed him from a no more than average horror writer into a very good crime thriller writer and from there became selling author. Whilst I don’t see Shaun Hutson making that last step, it is interesting to note than he has followed a similar journey with some of his writings, although even this far into his career, there is evidence that he is not the writer Peter James is.
In “Stolen Angels”, three men with everything to live for, commit suicide for no obvious reason and whilst it comes to light that they have all worked on the same project, albeit from different perspectives, there is no clear link between them. There may be more of a link between the desecration of children’s graves and the worrying physical marks on a schoolboy, whose baby sister was buried in one of the graves targeted.
Catherine Reed is the journalist investigating both stories, helped by her brother being a teacher of the boy involved. However, the detective isn’t keen on the supposedly Satanic links, believing it to be no more than standard child abuse and that the suicides are just that and the common ground between the victims nothing more than coincidence. His prejudices are shaped by his own past, both long ago and more recent, as he is not a fan of Reed’s work, which has not always been kind to him.
There is a lot going on here, but that is a hallmark of Hutson’s writing, who has always liked to ensure he has more than enough plot to go around. This has good and bad points, as it does help keep the plot moving along at a fair pace and he tends to write in short chapters which also assist with this. On the other side, it does mean that some of the plots lack depth and there are some jumps over large gaps in events and you can miss some of the clues towards what may happen because they aren’t there.
This occasional superficiality of plotting also happens with the characterisation, as many are described only in the briefest of forms. A lot of the reason for this is that many of them aren’t destined to be important and so you don’t have to remember them, but there were moments where names were mentioned later in the story from where they started and I couldn’t recall who they were and how they fit in to the story at first thought.
The one aspect of the story where Hutson does pay full attention is in the sex scenes, which are more detailed than anything else he writes. This has been a trademark of his since the early days and whilst there are fewer gratuitous scenes that bear no relation to the plot, the sudden increase in detail is noticeable and jarring. It’s also slightly off putting that he tends to have his favourite words for these scenes, which means that for all their details, many of them end up sounding quite similar.
“Stolen Angels” is one of the better Shaun Hutson novels I’ve read, although it’s not without its flaws. Had this been my introduction to him, it wouldn’t have made me rush to check out his other works, but neither would it have made me mark him down as someone to be avoided. His early books were very weak on both story and writing and he’s improved both, but not yet to a level that makes him stand out.