The Angel Maker by Alex North

The cover art for The Angel Maker, a novel by author Alex North

Alex North’s The Angel Maker weaves together multiple timelines and perspectives surrounding a series of violent events that ripple across decades. At the center is Katie Shaw, whose life was shaped by a brutal attack on her brother years earlier. When new crimes begin to surface—crimes that seem eerily connected to that past trauma—Katie is drawn into a labyrinth of philosophical questions, mysterious figures, and unsettling theories about fate, violence, and the nature of evil. The novel aims to blend psychological suspense with metaphysical intrigue, building toward a revelation that ties its many threads together.

I gave this novel two stars because, despite being a fan of Alex North, this one simply didn’t land for me. I found the pacing slow and the narrative difficult to follow, with so many shifting pieces that the tension never quite took hold. There are twists, but they didn’t carry the suspense or the eerie atmosphere I loved in The Shadows. Instead of feeling pulled deeper into the mystery, I often felt like I was trying to catch up, waiting for the story to click into place in a way it never fully did.

By the end, I was left with the sense that the questions posed early on—big, intriguing ones—weren’t truly answered or resolved. The novel is ambitious, and North’s writing is as polished as ever, but the emotional and narrative payoff just wasn’t there for me. Overall, The Angel Maker was a miss, especially compared to the creep-factor and momentum I’ve come to expect from his work.

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