ALL THOSE BROKEN ANGELS

When his childhood friend Melanie returns after being presumed dead for over a decade, Richard must uncover the truth behind a ghostly presence that haunts his every move.

This “shadow” threatens to turn Richard inside out. In an effort to exorcise himself, Richard and the newly returned Melanie follow the specter’s call and discover a mass grave with 14 skulls buried in the woods. The couple vow to find the spirit’s killer and bring her some peace. Salomon offers a clever premise here. Unfortunately, it is buried deep beneath clumsy visual poetry and angst-ridden prose. Richard and Melanie are suitably haunted by their traumatic past, but this mood overwhelms the novel and makes it difficult to cut through and really care about either of them. The clues doled out like breadcrumbs leading the pair toward the truth are far more interesting than the book’s climax, a finale that is confusingly staged and filled with awkward, last-minute exposition. In the end, the mystery isn’t really solved. Instead, the guilty parties just happen to cross paths with the protagonists and decide to show their true colors for no real reason.

The problem with this book isn’t the ideas, it’s the execution