Review of Concrete Angel by Patricia Abbott (Polis Books, 2015)

Eve Moran has a pathological need to take things without paying for them, then to hoard her collection.  Her target is usually cheap trinkets, knick-knacks and clothes – things that people will either not miss or won’t care about if they disappear.  From an early age, she relies on her own charisma, lies, and the efforts of others to evade serious punishment.  Nevertheless, she spends time in an institution to cure her of her compulsions and serves a little jail time.  Her daughter, Christine, learns that the way to her mother’s affection is to help her in her schemes, scams and swindles.  However, as she grows older she comes to resent her mother’s manipulative nature and eventually starts to resist when it’s clear that Eve is using her young son in one of her crimes.

Concrete Angel is marketed as ‘domestic suspense’ and that seems an apt label.  The story follows the life of Eve Moran, a compulsive petty thief and hoarder, from her adolescence in the 1950s to middle age, and her various trials and tribulations in and around Philadelphia.  In particular, it focuses on her strained relationship with her family, her husband and various lovers, and her daughter, Christine.  The latter slowly transforms from willing pawn and accomplice to resentful teenager, the change starting after she takes the rap for a murder her mother committed.  When Eve starts to use her young son in her crimes, Christine decides it’s time to try and end her mother’s behaviour.  The novel then is a relatively unusual for a crime novel given its extended timeline and its detailed character study.  Over the course of the story one really gets to know Eve and her family and their unfolding relationships.  The tale has plenty of drama, with an endless stream of crimes and scams, from shoplifting to murder.  Abbott, however, rather centring the plot on them, makes these a part of the everyday theatre of Eve and Christine’s lives.  The only bit that didn’t ring quite true to me was the ending, which felt a little underplayed.  Overall, an interesting tale told in an engaging voice.

Lazy Sunday Service

Back in February I posted about Patti Abbott's forthcoming book Concrete Angel, which was due to be published by Exhibit A (an imprint of Angry Robot).  Since then Angry Robot have canned Exhibit A, pulling out of crime fiction publishing, leaving Patti and a string of other authors high and dry.  Thankfully, Patti's book has been picked up by Polis Books, who have just revealed the cover (right) and below is the cover blurb.  I'm looking forward to this one being published.

Eve Moran has always wanted “things” and has proven both inventive and tenacious in getting and keeping them. Eve lies, steals, cheats, swindles, and finally commits murder, paying little heed to the cost of her actions on those who love her. Her daughter, Christine, compelled by love, dependency, and circumstance, is caught up in her mother’s deceptions, unwilling to accept the viciousness that runs in her mother's blood. Eve’s powers of seduction are hard to resist for those who come in contact with her toxic allure. It’s only when Christine’s three-year old brother, Ryan begins to prove useful to her mother, and she sees a pattern repeating itself, that Christine finds the courage and means to bring an end to Eve’s tyranny.

My posts this week
Review of A Spy Among Friends by Ben Macintrye
Dublin Dashboard
Before the school run

Concrete Angel, Patti Abbott

I received an email yesterday announcing that Patti Abbott's debut novel is to be published by Exhibit A (an imprint of Angry Robot Books), the blurb for which is below.  Wonderful, I thought, Patti's a brilliant writer - as anyone who reads her short stories knows.  Then I read the last line of the blurb - 'will be with you in Winter 2015'.  Oh man, that sounds like a hell of a long wait.  Talk about a teaser email.  Can't it be winter 2014?  That seems reasonable.  Doesn't it, you good folk at Exhibit A?  Anyway, if you've not read any of Patti's work and can't wait that long, you could try her novella through interlinked stories that I reviewed just before Christmas, Home Invasion.
   
Concrete Angel

Eve Moran has always wanted “things” and has proven both inventive and tenacious in both getting and keeping them – she lies, steals, cheats and swindles, paying little heed to the cost of her actions on those who love her.

When Eve kills a man she picks up in a shoe repair shop, she persuades her twelve year-old daughter, Christine, to confess to the crime. The girl, compelled by love, dependency and circumstance, is caught up in her mother’s deceptions and find herself drawn to her new role. It’s only when Christine’s three year-old brother, Ryan, is drawn into her mother’s deceptions, that she finds the courage and means to bring an end to Eve’s tyranny.

Set in 1970s Philadelphia and packaged to match, Concrete Angel pits a vindictive and manipulative mother against a daughter with just enough of her mother’s immorality to fight back.

With extraordinary vivid central characters, Concrete Angel is a powerful psychological mystery about a woman who always gets what she wants...this remarkable debut novel will be with you in Winter 2015.