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    The Four Last Things
    The Four Last Things
    The Four Last Things
    Ebook364 pages6 hours

    The Four Last Things

    By Andrew Taylor

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    About this ebook

    The first novel in Andrew Taylor’s ground-breaking Roth trilogy, which was adapted into the acclaimed drama Fallen Angel. A tense psychological thriller for fans of S J Watson.

    Little Lucy Appleyard is snatched from her child minder’s on a cold winter afternoon, and the nightmare begins. When Eddie takes her home to beautiful, child-loving Angel, he knows he’s done the right thing. But Lucy’s not like their other visitors, and unwittingly she strikes through Angel’s defences to something both vulnerable and volatile at the core.

    To the outside world Lucy has disappeared into a black hole with no clues to her whereabouts…until the first grisly discovery in a London graveyard. More such finds are to follow, all at religious sites, and, in a city haunted by religion, what do these offerings signify?

    All that stands now between Lucy and the final sacrifice are a CID sergeant on the verge of disgrace and a woman cleric – Lucy’s parents – but how can they hope to halt the evil forces that are gathering around their innocent daughter?

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins UK
    Release dateJun 20, 2013
    ISBN9780007502011
    The Four Last Things
    Author

    Andrew Taylor

    Andrew Taylor is the author of a number of crime novels, including the ground-breaking Roth Trilogy, which was adapted into the acclaimed drama Fallen Angel, and the historical crime novels The Ashes of London, The Silent Boy, and The American Boy, a No.1 Sunday Times bestseller and a 2005 Richard & Judy Book Club Choice. He has won many awards, including the CWA Ellis Peters Historical Award (the only author to win it three times) and the CWA’s prestigious Diamond Dagger.

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    • 4/5
      Great writer.
    • 4/5
      This is the first book of the "Roth Trilogy," although all books in the trilogy (and, oddly enough, there are three books in the trilogy) can be read independently of the others, and the books can be read out of sequence. The best way to read them, IMNTBHO, is in the proper order, all three books one after the other. It took me about 8 days to do this (reading in my spare time), and you get the full flow of the series in its most effective way.The first book is about the kidnapping of a little girl by an emotionally retarded man, and is told from two perspectives: the kidnapper's and the child's mother's. Both perspectives are insightful, realistic, and give us introductions to characters who play significant roles in the trilogy. Author Andrew Taylor gives us excellent psychological insights into the various characters - but does so just to the extent needed for the present story, and (as regards any recurring characters) gives us just enough (as it turns out) to whet our appetites. (By the way - you do not know who are returning characters until the second book.)This is an excellent book, starts a bit slowly (but gets right to the point from the outset - very effectively done), but increases in tension very nicely. The book is well written and an easy read.
    • 5/5
      Like all Andrew Taylor's books THE FOUR LAST THINGS is complex with great attention to detail.The storyline sounds so simple if you just go by the synopsis but there is a multiplicity of themes and threads: should women be priests? Whose job is more important: husband or wife? Paedophilia and child abduction.The novel is tightly structured. Each chapter is prefaced with a quotation from Thomas Browne's Religio Medici. The first quotation in the book defines what "the four last things" are.Click on the image of the cover to the right to access the abstract of the printed version on Amazon. You can also access a sample of the audio version by clicking on the link to Audible.com.The complexity of THE FOUR LAST THINGS extends from the plotlines into character descriptions including deep consideration of what drives those characters.I reviewed #2 in the Roth Trilogy earlier this year: THE JUDGEMENT OF STRANGERSAndrew Taylor explains what he is attempting to do in the Roth Trilogy as Each book discreetly modifies the others, and each is written in a different style. Taken as a whole, they make one large novel, which should keep readers occupied for the longest transcontinental flights.The structure of the trilogy is made all the more complex by the fact that as you move from #1 to #2 you actually move back in time. If you click on the link on Andrew Taylor's name you can visit his website and investigate more about the trilogy for yourself.The narration in the audio version of the novel is very well done.
    • 3/5
      Trite treatment of a child's kidnapping, starting with our meeting the kidnapper while he stalks the child. Then he alternates between the mother's anguish, the kidnappers' lunacies, and a smidgen of the child herself from time to time. There is a surprise twist at the end, which you won't see coming. But it doesn't redeem this at all. For die-hard mystery fans who eat up this genre.
    • 3/5
      I was really excited to read this book but I was a bit disappointed by it. I couldn't really find a character that I could to relate to. The ending was interesting, I didn't realize who Angel was, but there had to be a connection somewhere. I will try to read the next in the Roth Trilogy with hopes that it will be better. There were parts that made me want to read more, but then, there were parts that were really predictible. Oh, well, I will try again.

    Book preview

    The Four Last Things - Andrew Taylor

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