When an avenging angel, determined to destroy all the fallen angels hiding on earth at any cost, begins to devastate San Francisco, two police detectives attempt to stop an epidemic of strange fires and wonder how to stop the unearthly being. Reprint.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Although touted by its publisher as a "metaphysical thriller," this 1993 novel from Britisher Kilworth, who in 1994 was nominated for a World Fantasy Award for his collection Hogfoot Right and Bird Hands, turns out be a run-of-the-mill police procedural pumped up with stale speculations on good and evil. Imagine the surprise of San Francisco police detectives Dave Peters and Danny Spitz when they discover that the pyromaniac torching people and places with an awesomely lethal "white fire" is a rogue angel who hunts comparatively benign "demons," or angels who fell to Earth with Lucifer. While the two cops struggle to reconcile this reversal of good guy/bad guy roles with their own religious convictions, and to make sense of the divine's grievous toll on human life (including Dave's wife and child), the rampaging angel ponders his corruption by his earthly sojourn. These crises of faith provide a more varied texture than found in most serial-killer stories, but Kilworth subordinates their development to cataloguing the personality quirks of his characters and to throwing out red herrings galore. A subplot in which Dave's new girlfriend decides that she must die, in order to warn Heaven of the rogue angel's rampage, falls flat. Dave and Danny's final showdown with the angel is satisfyingly spectacular, but it also crystallizes the novel's problems by offering a paradigmatic example of how Kilworth, stymied for answers to theological questions, will fill the gap with a good shootout (May) FYI: Archangel, the sequel to Angel, was published in England in 1994 but has yet to reach our shores.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Booklist
In San Francisco, a six-month rash of unexplained arsons confounds the police. Detectives Dave Peters and Danny Spitz--the D & D team--are assigned to the fire-chasing patrol. They become personally involved when Dave's wife and son die in a department-store fire, one of many triggered by an almond-scented, revenge-seeking angel, who has come to earth as a demon hunter, a search-and-destroy army of one determined to annihilate fallen angels. Destroying this prey is its only purpose; that these flash-fire blasts also kill innocent humans and destroy buildings is of no concern. Vanessa Vangellen, a theology teacher who punishes herself for childhood sexual abuse by extinguishing lit cigarettes on her forearms, provides needed insight on angels. Ghastly hallucinations and the torching of their precinct house fail to scare off the two detectives who must, above all else, stop the rogue angel's fiery rampage. The line between good and evil becomes blurred in this twisted tale of fire and angels. Jennifer Henderson
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Characterization and pace,
By A Customer
This review is from: Angel (Paperback)
This is a terrific novel. It explores so many avenues. But what makes it so good are the characters and the pacing. There's a great deal of humour here too, for a supernatural thiller, which helps to keep the tension. I don't understand the comments about San Francisco. This is an imaginary San Francisco, just as Ed McBain's 'New York' is imaginary. Surely the only people who would care are those who actually live there or know it well, which is a tiny fraction of world readers? This is a great 'story': that's what fiction is all about.
1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Angel Rocked,
By A Customer
This review is from: Angel (Hardcover)
Tis book was a none stop roller-coaster. I couldn't put it down
1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
interesting, but weak - too much like a B movie plot,
By A Customer
This review is from: Angel (Hardcover)
Among other weaknesses, it was clear that the author didn't know San Francisco very well. That should have been a warning! Too many cliches, not enough depth at all- this could have been a rich disturbing story, instead it was one dimensional and rather juvenile. Dissapointing
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