The Calling

Characters are likeable, but I didn't like the premise of the book. Just a bit too weird for me.

This book is really creepy! Why are all these people willing to die? Is the person responsible for the deaths a miracle worker of some sort or an angel of death? Or is this person absolutely one of the sickest serial killers out there. This book is not for the squeamish. The main characters are well developed and very believable. Would make a great movie. Lori A. Meyers

This is a fine novel in the rather British manner - after all, the author (whoever he/she is) is Canadian and it takes place IN Canada. Having been disapointed in three of Elizabeth George's veddy British mysteries (she's from Warren, Ohio and can fool every Brit I've recommended her TO), I'm happy with this delicious murder and its cast of characters - even the dead ones. My only caveat is my disapointment in not being able to find books of equal enjoyment by the same author who writes under his/her own name. Ah, well, eventually he - or she - will come out of hiding. I suspect this is a writer I haven't yet read - and heaven knows that at my age I've read hundreds. I very much appreciate finding books that have no vampires... just for instance. I've taken to re-reading Taylor Caldwell and Morris West and John O'Hara... and more recently, James Carroll (at least, he's alive).

It got me from the first chapter. I was really impressed with her skills as a writer. It was not perfect, it lost a little steam in the middle and it got intense toward the end. The main character was interesting and the murderer.The minor characters were good too. overall , i enjoyed the book and I hope to read her next one, given she uses the same name and not her real name.

Gillian Flynn's squib on the back of this book says it's an "unplug-the-phone, skip-all-meals, ignore-your-bedtime thriller" -- and she is absolutely right! Last Sunday, I ignored my household chores, stayed inside all day and didn't go to bed until finishing this book. I wish I knew who the real author is, though, because I would read their entire oeuvre!

I finished this book this afternoon and said to someone on Readerville that I haven't been this creeped out by a book since I read a mystery called The Lodger when I was a young teen. The main character in The Calling, Hazel Micallef, is a 61-year old Detective Inspector in a small town in Canada. She lives with her mother, has two grown daughters and an ex-husband and fights her back pain and her loneliness, but doesn't, until this book opens, have much occasion to fight serious crime. Until one of her town's citizens is murdered...and Micallef and her small team realize that the killer has killed 15 times before...and that he isn't done yet. The killer is a big ole bag of creepy...and Hazel and her crew are all appealing and interesting. There's a big hoo-haa about this book because Inger Ash Wolfe is a pseudonym...there's lots of speculation as to who she really is. (The main money seems to be on it being Michael Redhill.) I have to say, I don't care who he or she is...I just want more books from this pen. It's a really great read.