Lost Souls

The field of the psychological thriller is a distinctly busy one these days, but this is one of the best entries. Michael Collins is a writer of imagination and forcefulness, as he demonstrated in the Booker Prize-shortlisted The Keepers of Truth. The novel begins with a grim event: during the Halloween festivities in a small American town, the body of a young girl dressed in an angel's costume is found beneath some leaves. At first, it is assumed she has been killed in a hit-and-run incident. The narrator, who finds the body, is struggling with an unsatisfactory job and failings in his own life. As he becomes involved in the mystery of the child's death he begins to peel away the layers of deception and deceit that have become ingrained in the town. And slowly he discovers that the reason for the child's death may be even stranger than he has suspected. Collins renders the hothouse atmosphere of the small town with imagination and skill, and his characterization is idiosyncratic and convincing. If the solution to the mystery is not quite as inventive as the balanced and intriguing narrative has been leading us to believe, this is still an insightful and gripping novel. (Kirkus UK)