Thief of Souls

Although there was a delay in receiving the book, as compared with others I've ordered recently, it arrived in good condition and within the alloted time.

An admirer of Ann Benson's meticulously researched work, I became hooked on Thief of Souls from the very first page, which is unusual for me. The plot shifts rapidly between two parallel stories, each of which traverses rocky ethical, legal, and moral terrain. The heroines are two intensely humanistic women whose lives vary greatly, but who share the characteristic of willingness to sacrifice self-interest for the greater good of the communities in which they work and live. It is difficult to decide which story is the more compelling, and at the end of each chapter, I had to wrench my interest away from the one conflict in order to focus again on the other. In this "all about me" era, it is refreshing and heartening to immerse oneself in a tale of selflessness, dogged determination, and devotion to the good of others

This book is hard to classify. It's not strictly speaking a historical, nor is it a solid contemporary. Instead, it's a wonderful mix of both. If you like books that make you think a little, you'll like THIEF OF SOULS.Like THE PLAGUE TALES, THIEF OF SOULS is set in both the past and present, centering on two strong, determined women working hard to solve their own current-day mysteries of missing children.The different voice Benson uses in her past and present scenes is smoothly transitioned so the reader is never left wondering where s/he is. The foreshadowing is a little heavy-handed, however Benson makes you really care for her characters and the outcome to each story.If you've read THE PLAGUE TALES and THE BURNING ROAD (which I did), I strongly suggest adding THIEF OF SOULS to your Ann Benson collection. You won't be disappointed.

Detective Lany Dunbar and Abbess Guillemette le Drappiere are sisters in both time and crime. Though they are separated by some 600 years of history, each is in pursuit of an abductor and murderer of children. Similiar to her earlier novels, "The Plague Tales" and its sequel, "The Burning Road", Ann Benson weaves two stories, one set in modern times and one in the 1400s. Though this novel doesn't contain a physical link, such as the piece of cloth that ties the two stories together in "The Plague Tales", there are enough nuances and references to keep any detective of historical fiction going. While Lany's perpetrator is fictional, what makes Guillemette's quest even more eerie is that she pursues an actual person, the infamous Gilles de Rais, upon whom Bluebeard is based. De Rais' debauchery is especially unnerving because it is based upon true accounts. How many ghouls would save the heads of over 300 children just to determine who was the prettiest? Ugh! While the collection of the skulls of dead children is a key in the case against de Rais, a collection of footwear plays a part in Lany's investigation. "They eat small children there" is a reference to de Rais' castle but it is also a movie title in Lany Dunbars 21st century Los Angeles. In her pursuit of the serial abductor, Lany uses a text book that references de Rais.We, as readers, cannot help but root for these strong willed women, both of whom must fight for everything they can in order to succeed in their endeavors in a male dominated society, in Guillemette's case, and in a male dominated profession in Lany's case. Both must deal with the arrogance of their respective abductors and both must find the emerging pattern in their respective investigations.Ms. Benson throws in some historical plums just for the interest. The actual childhood nurse of de Rais was named Guillemette La Drappiere and some of the 21st century detectives are named for real police detectives. But, still, it is the villains who warrant our attention. The thief in each case here not only steals souls but steals lives as well. And, when each seeks absolution and feels that it is at hand, each thief, as Ann Benson so beautifully puts it, will be as far from absolution as he would ever be in his life and yet more in need of it than ever before. Five stars indeed.

In 1440 Nantes, the abbess Guillemette le Drappiere, assistant and companion to Bishop of Nantes, learns that a child has gone missing. After talking to the mother of the abducted child, she starts an investigation and discovers that many similar children have vanished over the years. Guillemette and the bishop slowly come to the conclusion that the boy she nursed, the powerful Baron Gilles de Rais, is the guilty party but he is untouchable until he commits a crime of unspeakable horror against a churchman.Over five and a half centuries later in Los Angles, Lany Dunbar is working on a case study eerily similar to the one that Guillemette investigated. Several young males, almost feminine in looks, have been abducted and their bodies never found. Each victim visited a certain popular exhibit at the La Brea Tar pits, leading Lany to the conclusion that the perpetrator is somebody connected to the exhibit who is very wealthy and has time to play out his or her fantasies. She intends to unearth and arrest this person even though the culprit knows that Lany is on the prowl.Crime and depravity doesn't change very much over the centuries as the actions of the villains in THIEF OF SOULS prove. In both cases, a very strong woman in a position of power brings down a seemingly untouchable person. This is a long juicy novel that takes place ten years after Joan of Arc won the battle of Orleans as well as in the present. The crimes show that the more things change the more things remain the same.Harriet Klausner