Book Review - Angels Aware: Author involves herself in small-town crime

By: By Linda Brinson | JOURNAL BOOK PAGE EDITOR
Published: March 07, 2010

SECRETS OF EDEN. By Chris Bohjalian. Shaye Areheart Books. 370 pages. $25.

To call this fine novel a mystery would be like calling the Hallelujah Chorus a nice song.

There is a mystery in the conventional sense, one surrounding what at first appears to be the murder-suicide of a woman and her abusive husband in a small Vermont town. The woman had been baptized earlier on the day she was killed. The deaths leave their teenage daughter an orphan and many people in the church and the town traumatized. It would seem that things could hardly get worse -- until investigators begin to suspect that someone other than the couple was involved.

Then, as the story begins to unfold, uncertainties pile upon uncertainties. Stephen Drew is the minister who baptized Alice Hayward on the day of her death, the minister who had been counseling her as she dealt with her troubled marriage. Her violent death makes him feel that he is losing his faith and his vocation. His distress is understandable, but why does he feel so guilty? What was the nature of his relationship with Alice? Could he, should he have done more to encourage her to get out of a dangerous situation?

And why does Heather Laurent rush from New York City to Vermont to comfort the orphaned Katie Hayward? Heather is a literary phenomenon whose books about angels are all the rage. She believes in angels who walk among us and reveal themselves to people in need. Heather shows up at just the right moment to save Stephen from utter despair. They fall into what seems to be a mutually beneficial relationship. But the more Heather learns about Stephen, the Haywards and what might or might not have happened on that terrible night, the more uneasy she grows. Is Stephen, despite being a man of the cloth, not open to the ministrations of angels?

Heather begins to wonder if anything she believed about Stephen was true. And the reader wonders along with her, about Stephen and just about everyone and everything else that seemed clear when the story began.

Chris Bohjalian has written a gripping story that keeps the reader turning pages to find out what really happened that night at the Haywards' home -- and all that led up to the tragedy.

But there is so much more in this rich story. Bohjalian delves into the profound mysteries of human existence. What is faith? What is love? And who are really the angels among us?