The Angel Maker is creepy crime-fiction from Alex North.

"Katie Shaw still feels guilt about the attack on her brother Chris years ago. Now he's missing and her mother asks her help to find him. Katie is also uneasy about the car she keeps seeing. It feels like she's being stalked and her daughter's talking about a man watching her at school.
Detective Laurence Page is called to an odd murder. The victim had fired his staff hours before being murdered. As Page follows the leads, he finds connection of his case to the assault on Chris and the crimes of a serial killer."

I did not want to stop listening to this story from North. There's a lot going on but North ties it all together at the end. There are a lot of twists, many that you will have a good guess for but the story is still entertaining. It was fun to try and figure out what North was going to do.
I would like to have seen more about Edward and his early role with the Angel Maker. There are some similar themes to the Whisper Man and North writes some creepy villians.

An excellent audio performance from Rosalie Craig.

Fans of crime fiction or creepy stories should add this to your 2023 list.

This one missed for me. It was very slow and I found myself losing Interest half way through the story. I really liked the previous two books from this author so sad this one didn't work for me.

I REALLY enjoyed this book. I think this may be my favorite Alex North title to date.

Years ago, tragedy struck the Shaw family. Katie has never forgiven herself that she wasn’t there for her younger brother when he was brutally attacked by a serial killer. But Chris survived and has lived a troubled life.

In present day, Katie is starting to feel like something is coming. Her daughter is the most important thing in her whole world and she fears that she may not be safe… and it is all connected to what happened to her brother (who is now missing).

The unknowns interwoven into this story were just so interesting. I liked the incorporation of the notions that people don’t have any actual control over things like free will and that all occurrences are preordained…

This was a great thriller and I definitely enjoyed the audiobook.

Rating: 4 Stars
I had to take notes while reading this. Im probably missing some characters, but I counted 21. Yes, 21 characters, possibly more. It wasn't a fun time. However, the plot....LOVED IT.
Listen, I'm not saying it wasn't a good book; just be prepared.

I think the story was good and the narrator did a good job with the women’s perspective, but it was a very hard book to listen to because the same voice is used with every character. You had to listen for little clues to figure out which perspective you were hearing from and that made it difficult to follow sometimes.

Thank you @netgalley for the ARC of The Angel Maker. Alex North's books are always a good read. This one was creepy and kept me guessing. I think it is better in print form than in audio, but I it's still a great book!

I was super stoked when I was approved for the audiobook from NetGalley. I am a huge fan of The Shadows and The Whisper Man, so I couldn’t wait to get to this one. I love how the audio mixes crime with horror elements.

Sadly, I’m not much of a fan of this one. I feel like the book lost me within the first 20 minutes of audio. This book features like Goosebumps-level short chapters but from different perspectives. Not to mention also time periods? It jumps so fast and so often that you aren’t really spending significant time with anyone, which wasn’t allowing me to settle into any one perspective. It was incredibly confusing.

The hooks and twists of the story were lacking for me, they read as kind of unbelievable. I’m not sure if it was because they were too simple, too coincidental, or because they actually didn’t make sense. This read like a book that got published 2 or 3 drafts before it was finished. There’s interesting stuff here, but it’s not collected well. The Angel Maker? It’s like oddly referenced two or three times, sounds super creepy and weird, but literally has no pay out. Did they forget? It kind of sets up its horror elements, but then forgets to add them in.

Personally a 2/5* for me. Oddly disappointed!

I'm not sure where to begin for this review. I listened to this thriller on audio and binged it quickly.

This book follows multiple characters including Katie and her brother Chris who is currently missing after she reported him to the police for stealing from her 2 years ago. Michael Hyde is another main character who attempted to murder Chris when he was a teenager. Katie blames herself for not walking home with her brother when she was supposed to. Alan Hobbes is another of the main characters in the novel, a wealthy philosophy professor who lectures on the idea that every action is predetermined and cannot be changed. There are also two detectives who play main roles in the novel trying to locate Chris (the missing brother) and help solve a murder amongst other underlying crimes.

This was a very well written thriller however, with all of the characters, it was a bit hard to follow on audio and keep up with how they were all connected. I found myself wishing I had the text in front of me so I could flip back in the book and refresh my memory. I do believe some sort of character map would have been helpful to keep all of the connections straight (even though it would have been a spoiler as some connections you do not discover until the very end). Maybe it could be bonus content on the author's website?

I noticed that the book is classified as "horror". I wouldn't necessarily describe this novel as horror personally. Overall, I would recommend this book for anyone looking for a serial killer, multiple point of view, thriller.

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC!

Thanks to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for sending me an ARC of The Angel Maker in exchange for an honest review.

In 2000, when she was just 17, Katie Shaw lived a nightmare. The one time she broke the rules and spent an hour at her boyfriend’s house instead of walking her younger brother Chris home from school, he was attacked and nearly killed by a knife-wielding man named Michael Hyde. In October of 2017, a former professor of philosophy named Alan Hobbes is found murdered. As Detective Laurence Page investigates, he is troubled by several things: the many signs indicating that Professor Hobbes seemed to know he was about to be murdered; that Chris Shaw seems to have been involved with Professor Hobbes; and that Professor Hobbes had an extensive collection of memorabilia from a notorious mid-century serial killer known as The Angel Maker.

On one level, The Angel Maker is a standard thriller, with murders and detectives and mystery and whatnot. But it has some uncommon wrinkles to it. First, it explores siblings and their sometimes complicated relationships, especially when tragedy and guilt are present. Second, the story cleverly incorporates the philosophical theory of determinism (the idea that everything is predetermined because of the laws of physical matter, and that what appears to be chance is just a function of the observer’s incomplete information). Can one or more of the characters somehow see into the future based upon their knowledge of the present?

The Angel Maker is well-written. The first half is a bit of a slow burn, but the second half flies by at explosive speed. Some of that pacing is likely because there are large number of characters for a novel of this length, and it takes a bit of time to get to know them and their troubles. Finally, a word about the narrator, Rosalie Craig. She did a really good job with this ensemble cast of characters, and her accent added to the overall vibe. Another successful novel by Mr. North. Recommended.

I was approved for both the book and the audiobook. I could not get into either one. It was difficult to keep up with so many characters.

*received for free from netgalley for honest review* Wow, so there was a lot i didnt see coming, that's for sure. This book had me guessing until the end and unable to put it down!

t took a little bit for me to get into this story, but once I could keep all of the characters straight (because there are quite a few) it was much more enjoyable. One thing that North did really well in this book is give you ample time to try to figure out what was going on, how the characters were connected, and create your own theories. The abundance of characters made it all the more fun to try to piece all the information together.

Another aspect that I really enjoy about North’s writing is the little sprinkling of paranormal/supernatural elements in his works. This didn’t disappoint in that aspect. I will continue to pick up North’s works in the future.

Thank you to NetGalley, Macmillan Audio, and Alex North for an e-arc of The Angel Maker in exchange for an honest review.

I want to thank Celadon books and Netgalley for an early release copy of this book.

I was approved for both the book and the audiobook, and I have to say that the book was much easier to handle. I ended up giving the physical book 4 stars, but the audiobook 3 stars.

Overall, I really enjoyed this story, however, it was sometimes difficult to read with the vast array of characters. I am not going to attempt a synopsis, because it is too twisty to try to explain. Essentially, it is based around the ideas of a famous serial killer who believed he could "see" the future (more so that he cracked the code of the future of everything being pre-determined, so there was nothing you can do to change it).

As with North's other books, you need to slow down and really focus on this one, because things are developing so quickly, you may miss an important point, if you are zoning out.

The only thing I didn't love were the number of characters that you had to keep track of. I kept finding myself confused as to who was related to who and in what way. I almost needed to make a flow chart. This was especially difficult with the audiobook, due to there only being one narrator, and it was harder to differentiate the personality of the different characters.

Overall, if you like dark thrillers, that are a little more difficult to read, I recommend this book. If you are only interested in popcorn thrillers, it probably isn't for you.

I love Alex North novels, so I was very excited to receive an advanced copy of this. This tale is told in multiple POVs and I think the narrator did a great job, although her male characters could use a little work. The timeline does jump a bit, and there are multiple story lines going as well that will eventually collide with several twists and turns that will leave you sitting there like “what did I just read?” North does not disappoint.

This book will appeal to fans of thrillers with a good serial killer and philosophical debate.

This is my third book by this author and although everything about them screams “you will love me!” Something just doesn’t quite work for me.

However the writing is well done and good character development. I can’t put my finger on it exactly, but something about it didn’t hit quite right.

Thank you #netgalley for this audiobook in exchange for an honest review.

I want to like Alex North books, but end up just thinking they're okay. I think the audiobook needed two narrators, so you could differentiate between the women and the men. Normally it doesn't bother me, but for this story I think it's absolutely needed. Rosalie Craig does a good job narrating, but I kept being thrown off of whose POV was being read. She didn't really change her voice enough for the men's parts for my liking.

This is the third book I've read or listened to by Alex North, so I had rather high expectations going in. While it did have really great aspects for me, such as the character development and is a book I'd recommend, The Whisper Man and The Shadows are simply better. This audiobook didn't hold my interest as well and overall took me twice as long to get through than normal. It does have a small twist and I feel like it wraps up nicely, it is just lacking something that his earlier books had. For future readers, definitely start with this one so the others will be even better.

The narrator for this one did a great job! I struggled with the storyline unfortunately. I was so excited for this one, but the timeline shifts & multiple POVs were very confusing on audio. I would have liked to have a bigger cast for this one and that maybe would have helped. Definitely recommend trying the hardcopy for this story!

I LOVE thrillers.

There’s nothing better than a good thriller that throws you for a couple of loops and keeps you guessing throughout the book. The bad thing about thrillers, however, is that they HAVE to meet their mark. If they fall short, then they feel unoriginal and tired. A mediocre thriller feels like a book that you have read 20 times before.

That brings me to Alex North’s newest thriller, The Angel Maker. North’s book, The Whisper Man was one of my favorite reads of 2019. I had a copy of The Shadows in my TBR pile, but I accidentally packed it away with my storage items when I moved overseas. Whoops. My packing mistake made me all the more excited to read The Angel Maker. Since I had several books in my pipeline, however, I decided to request the audiobook version on NetGalley.

That might have been my fatal mistake. The Angel Maker has several twists and turns, which makes it very difficult to follow if your attention drifts. My attention drifted A LOT.
The story begins with a flashback, when a teenager named Katie Shaw is spending time with her boyfriend, Sam. Every day, Katie leaves Sam’s house to walk home with her brother, Christopher. That day, however, Katie decides to stay and get it on with her boyfriend instead. When she does decide to leave Sam’s house, Katie comes across a crime scene– A crazed man named Michael Hyde attacked Christopher on the way home and tried to cut his face off. Michael’s red car became a visual reminder of that awful day for Katie.

Fast-forward into the future, and we find Katie and Sam married with a little daughter, Sienna. Christopher’s traumatic childhood sent him down the dark path of drug addiction, and Katie recently stopped talking to him. Then, Katie finds out that Christopher is missing. The more layers that Katie pulls back, the more his disappearance doesn’t make sense. Then, she thinks she sees a red car following her and her family….

At the same time that Katie begins looking for Chris, two police officers begin investigating a murder. University professor Alan Hobbes was brutally murdered in his bed the night before. Hours before the crime, Alan took care of personal business almost like he saw his own death coming. Did I mention that Alan was a philosophy professor that specialized in determinism, or the belief that all events are driven by external forces that humans can do very little to stop? Furthermore, Alan was murdered in a dilapidated old house that was once owned by Jack Locke, a truly evil serial killer who ultimately passed down his “talents” to his son, Edward.
It doesn’t take an evil genius to realize that these two storylines are going to collide in some way. Unfortunately, the story failed to capture my attention enough for me to catch every twist and turn. There was so much going on that I missed important details left and right, which eventually left me confused. Even when I devoted my full, 100% attention to the story (at the end), I wasn’t thrilled with the conclusion. Some characters were underdeveloped, and the climax felt rushed and disjointed.

Not all books are good candidates for audiobook, especially if you struggle with mind drifting. If that describes you, you might want to consider the print version of The Angel Maker. Print would allow you to go back and re-read bits of the back story when you need it, catch important details, and hopefully follow along with the twists. The Angel Maker felt a little lackluster to me at this moment in time, but I wouldn’t be opposed to going back someday and reading the print version.

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️

I can't believe I'm saying this, but this is my first book by this author. It definitely will not be my last.

This one had many POVs and timlines that overlapped and weaved. It could have been confusing, but it wasn't!

We have two sets of siblings. Katie and Chris Shaw who were living pefectly normal lives until ... when teen Katie heads off with her boyfriend and leaves Chris to walk home along. He is the victim of a horrific, brutal attack by a stranger and she never forgives herself. Alan and Edward were raised by a religious fanatic serial killer who believes fate is everyone's destiny.

Detective Laurence Page and his partner in the meantime is investigating a strange death of a professor that is linked to Chris Shaw.

You realize early on that somehow they storylines will connect. We follow along with the detective work. There are many twists and turns and the suspense is high!

This is one of those books that has you hanging on the edge of your seat to see how it ends. I could not put it down. I'd love a chat with this author - his mind is twisted!

Many thanks to Netgalley and Macmillan Audio for an ALC of this, as well as BookishFirst for a paperback copy!