Exclusive interview with author Kate Rhodes and a review of her latest Alice Quentin crime novel
Rating: Three Stars
By Gabrielle Pantera
“The serial killer in A Killing Of Angels believes that all bankers are worthless, and the world would be a purer place without them,” says author Kate Rhodes. “Many people feel that bankers get paid a ridiculously high wage for the work they do, so I decided to let that idea spiral out of control. What if someone grew so angry about bankers’ crazy bonuses that started killing the city’s top financiers?”
This is the second book by Kate Rhodes featuring psychologist Dr. Alice Quentin, who grudgingly helps the police solve murders. Alice is fantastic at work, but her personal life is a mess. Rhodes uses the city of London as one of the characters. A few more twists and turns in the plot with some questions left unanswered might have added a bit more suspense. You don’t have to read the first book to read this one.
In A Killing of Angels, police investigator Don Burns needs Quentin’s help with a new case. This time, a banker’s death looks like a suicide, but in his pocket are a picture of an angel and a handful of white feathers. There’s a killer loose in the financial district killing off people related to Angel Bank. Quentin doesn’t want to get involved, but owes Burns a favor. Quentin’s cold fish mother and her brother (who’s always on drugs) flit in and out of her life.
Rhodes interviewed many successful bankers during her research for A Killing Of Angels. “They were helpful and surprisingly candid,” says Rhodes. “But, none of them would let me acknowledge them in my book. Banking continues to be a closed and secretive world, where honesty is often actively discouraged.”
“My writing career has followed quite an unusual trajectory, so a lot of weird and wonderful things have happened after each of my books,” says Rhodes. She first wrote two poetry collections. Then her husband dared her to try a crime novel. “I’ve always adored crime fiction, so it seemed like a great challenge,” says Rhodes. “For me the loveliest thing to happen is that I’ve been asked to write four more books in the Alice Quentin series, which was a marvelous confidence boost.”
“My most enjoyable prize was a Hawthornden Fellowship,” says Rhodes. “It allowed me to live in a Scottish castle for free for an entire month. Bliss! The castle was more than slightly spooky, but it was so remote that I could immerse myself in my writing every day without hearing a sound, apart from birdsong and wind whistling down the glen.”
Rhodes first novel was Crossbones Yard, a story about sex workers being targeted by a serial killer. Rhodes is completing writing her fourth crime novel, River Of Souls which she has “just sent…..to my agent, and I’m having a few weeks break before launching into the fifth novel in my series,” says Rhodes. “I get twitchy on days when there’s no writing to do, so my spare time is being spent brushing up some short stories which will be published in anthologies this year. Short stories make a great change of pace after completing a novel.”
Rhodes lives in Cambridge with her husband, Dave Pescod, a short story writer and filmmaker. She has three stepsons who are all musicians. She was born in Greenwich in south London. For more information, visit her website at: www.katerhodes.org
A Killing Of Angels Alice Quentin Series (Book 2) by Kate Rhodes. Hardback, 336 pages, Publisher: Minotaur Books (February 25, 2014). Language: English ISBN-13: 978-1250014313 $19.25 available for pre order.
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