"Angel Time" by Anne Rice

The story begins slow, creating a bit of a dilemma for the reader anticipating that immediate hook.  There is a deliberate attempt to establish the main character, rather than drive the reader into the thrust of the story.  When the Catholicism of that character is included, it can come across as preachy – to the reader who has not read Anne Rice’s prior book, her spiritual biography, where she relays the story of the Catholicism in which she grew up.  However, I would give the book a look simply on the basis of Anne Rice's ability to tell a story.

I have yet to read any of the woman's prior vampire tales, so I can only base such an assertion upon what I see here, her two 'Christ the Lord' books, and her spiritual autobiography, "Called Out of Darkness".  In those instances, she creates compelling characters, draws vivid settings, and propels them through troubling circumstances which resolve conflict and produce a stronger character at each book's end.  

Here, while Toby O'Dare is a compelling characters, with a sympathetic story one can feel, there exits an absence of definition to sharply offer a picture of who this individual is.  For example, she paints him as an assassin.  In my mind, this defines him as the agent of some organized crime boss who uses him as an agent of his wrath, i.e. snuffing out other crime bosses as one might envision the gangsters of the 1930s.  

Not so the case.  Toby O'Dare works as an assassin for the government - most likely the CIA, though such is never specified.  This incongruity blurs the defining of his characters, which lessons the drama of his conversion.

Therefore, due to this absence with the conflict going on within the main character, I see this not as a tale to keep one up into the middle hours of the night turning page after page.  Such, I did not see, as the goal.  What the story offers instead is an intriguing study of 13th century English life, how the prejudices of those days (while seeming petty and absurd from a 21^st century perspective) were serious matter with dangerous consequences, and how those same prejudices can surface in a 21^st century form.  Explicitly, this is never declared in the pages; but reading the theme, along with the plot, one can begin to see the realities of redemption at work. 

The prejudice faced by the Jewish people of the era Toby O'Dare travels back in time to resolve, that aspect of the story is fascinating.  However, as he is not defined as precisely as he probably should have been, his ability to resolve the trouble - the question of what special talents does he possess to solve this arise.  And the question still remains - why him?