BY HOLLY CUTHBERT

 

JUSTICE, retribution and murder all play a part in the death and afterlife of Brek Abigail Cutler in J.P. Kimmel’s A Trial of Fallen Angels.

In her life Brek was a successful laywer, loving wife and mother but one day she wakes up at a railway station and realises that she’s dead. She can’t remember the final day of her life and tries to piece it together through the tales of others and how she came to this place.

While this book is held together loosely through this plot it is essentially a series of tales of people’s lives. Brek must act as lawyer to souls after their death to present the case of their life to God to decide their fate for the rest of eternity. She experiences their lives as if they were her own and so stories are told that become intertwined as the book continues.

This is not the fast paced thriller it claims to be but a sobering look at the nature of human justice and how retribution and revenge is carried out in the world of the living.

J.P. Kimmel, himself a lawyer, puts forward some convincing and interesting arguments during the book and his writing certainly opens up debates in the reader’s own mind but the constant questioning can be a bit wearing on a reader hoping for an easy read.

Thought provoking but at times a little slow, a variable book with some sections being far more engaging than others.

 

This book was published by Penguin and is available to buy for £7.99. It can also be borrowed from The Hive as well as other Worcestershire libraries. Click here to check availability and check it out.