Mondays Book Talk - Call from an Angel

Written by MikeH

Call from an Angel by Guillame Musso 

“Call from an Angel” was recommended by a good friend of mine back in 2013, and it represented my first literary encounter with the French author Guillaume Musso. Born in 1974 in Antibes, Guillaume Musso has become one of France’s favourite authors. His novels blend intensity, suspense and love perfectly and have been translated into several languages. Musso began his career in writing as a student. At the age of 19 and fascinated by United States, he lived for a short period in New York and New Jersey where he stayed and worked with people from different cultural backgrounds. His fascination and passion for the U.S is clearly reflected in his work as most of his stories are related or take place in the country. 

After being in a car accident, Musso began to write a story about a child’s near death experience: “Afterwards”, published in January 2004. This incredible encounter with his readers was closely followed by the unmitigated success of his subsequent titles including, “Call from an Angel”, published in 2011.

The story starts in New York airport, where the two main characters, Madeline and Jonathan, literally run into each other, spilling their belongings on the floor. After a brief shouting match, they go their separate ways. They had never met before, and should never have met again however, as they hurried to collect their items, they switched mobile phones in error. When they realise their mistake, they were already more than 6,000 miles apart: she is a florist in Paris, and he owns a restaurant in San Francisco. It doesn’t take long before they give in to temptation and explore the contents of each other’s phones. An indiscretion on both their parts, but which leads to an unexpected revelation: their lives are linked by a secret that both thought would stay buried forever!

This is again another exciting thriller which is written in simple words full of common sense, which makes the reading experience very pleasant. One can actually sense how the story is full of passion and yes, all these factors pushed me to complete it in less than a week. I must confess that just like other readers, at the beginning, the title appeared to me somehow misleading; certainly “Call from an Angel” evokes a “love story” rather than a good thriller. 

From the first pages I was immersed in the story. Of course, it was very predictable that both characters would end up together at some point. Moving forward on the story, I realized how this so-called “romantic comedy” started to turn progressively into an addictive thriller. It is really remarkable how the story moves from one chapter to another at the right pace and the different twists and dramatic turns make it even more addictive. 

I really enjoyed reading this book despite the fact that the end is “implausible”. Musso was smart enough in his writing style that this story managed to hold my attention up to the very last page. Even today, the idea of building such a great story based on two people whose past is interweaved by two tiny mobile phones switched by mistake is simply ingenious. Whether you are a fan of Musso or not, I encourage you to read this thriller and get lost in a great read. 

Image: Supplied by the Author