THE BOOK FAIR

Michael Hiebert

        DREAM

                  with

   LITTLE ANGELS

Review:

Canadian author, Michael Hiebert sets his first novel, “Dream with Little Angels”, in the fictitious town of Alvin, Alabama, in 1975.  A vicious murder of a little girl sets the town on edge.  Detective Leah Teal takes the case and is determined to find the killer.

Abraham Teal, Leah’s eleven year old son, steals the limelight in this Southern fiction, with nary a grammatically correct sentence although English is Abe’s native tongue.  Abe’s speech mimics that of his mother, and the townsfolk.  Abe and his friend Dewey, curious about and suspicious of a new neighbor, decide he is the culprit behind the murder. 

Along with the attempt to discover the killer of young Mary Ann Daily, Leah copes with old nightmares from the murder of Ruby Mae Vickers, twelve years before, whose killer she did not find.  Leah’s nightmares and guilt stem not only from not finding Mary Ann’s killer, but from promising the girl’s mother, she would.

When a second child goes missing, a Black girl, Tiffany Michelle Yates, Detective Leah Teal orders a curfew until the murderer is found.

Leah contends with her contrary daughter, Carry, who is almost fifteen, and has recently discovered an interest in boys.  Leah does not want Carry to end up as she did, seventeen and pregnant.

Abe, interested in his mother’s work, does some policing of his own with Dewey, and informs his mother of his findings when she arrests the wrong man.

 

Using the backdrop of the Southern U.S., the author focuses on guns and racism. 

Unlike the classic, American novel, “To Kill A Mockingbird”, “Dream with Little Angels”, lacks depth in characters and plot, and suffers from repetition.

The author lives in British Colombia, Canada.