Angel In The House (Roy Angel S.) [Paperback]

Mike Ripley (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 29, 2007 | Series: Roy Angel S.

Streetwise hero Roy Angel, faced with parenthood and a move to the country, has to do the unthinkable - and get a job. To make sure he does this, his partner, fashion diva Amy May, buys him a share in Rudgard & Blugden Confidential Investigations, previously an all-female private detective agency. Angel's first client is a millionaire chemist trying to plug a leak of stolen botox - the "pretty poison" from his supposedly secure laboratory. While trying to solve an impossible crime, Angel is distracted by a vivacious redhead with a passion for Salsa dancing; a jovial Russian sailor besotted by old East German cars fit for the junkyard; an estate agent with a crush on Audrey Hepburn; some very strange goings-on in country houses; and a redundant KGB officer trying to retrain as a gangster! But that's not the main problem. Which brave soul is going to tell Angel's fearsome hippy mother that she's soon to be a grandmother?

Editorial Reviews

Review

'I never read Ripley on trains, planes or buses. He makes me laugh and it annoys other passengers' Minette Walters

About the Author

Mike Ripley is the author of a dozen previous novels in the 'Angel' series, which have twice won the Crime Writers' Last Laugh Award for comedy. He currently lives in East Anglia as a trained Archaeologist. His previous books include: Angel on the Inside, Angel Underground and Bootlegged Angel.

Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Allison & Busby LTD (January 29, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0749081376
• ISBN-13: 978-0749081379
• Product Dimensions: 7.1 x 5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,044,629 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Lovejoy-lite: perfectly acceptable and competent English lout-lit detective series, February 2, 2007

By 

L. E. Cantrell (Vancouver, British Columbia Canada) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Angel In The House (Roy Angel S.) (Paperback)

Author Mike Ripley seems to be a well-established in Britain. His publisher provides us with the following information: "Mike Ripley is the author of a dozen previous novels in the 'Angel' series, which have twice won the Crime Writers' Last Laugh Award [whatever THAT may be] for comedy. He was also a scriptwriter for the BBC's Lovejoy series and served as the Daily Telegraph's crime fiction critic to ten years."

The [London] Times calls him "England's funniest crime writer", a dubious distinction. Of rather more significance is the fact that such well-known figures as Minette Walters and Colin Dexter are willing to appear in print praising him.

Ripley is evidently big-time in England, but judging by the reviews he has accumulated here on Amazon--none as far as my not-at-all diligent search has disclosed--he has had no discernible impact on in the North American market. That's too bad, because this book, which I take to be representative of the series, is pretty good. Certainly, it's more worth a few hours of a reader's time than some more famous British exports.

The lead character of the "Angel" series is a man who possesses but does not rejoice in the name Fitzroy McLean Angel. Ripley's stint on the TV Lovejoy writing team is plainly evident because Angel is offered to us as a perpetually broke, unreliable, self-centered, unambitious, lazy, greedy lout--as Lovejoy-lite, in point of fact. Angel is also the son of a British life-peer (who would be paid the sum of £64 for each day he turns up at the House of Lords, not that he ever does), but Angel makes up for it by driving a "delicensed" taxicab around London--although in this book he is forced to switch to a Peugeot 64, "voted the Gay Car of the Year" by a French automobile association. (Angel is the kind of guy who is concerned about such things.) That is not even the worst that happens to Angel in the book, for he suffers the ultimate indignity: his wealthy, pregnant girlfriend insists that as a father-to-be, he ought to be employed. Reluctantly, oh, most reluctantly he accepts a job as a detective at an agency his woman has bought for that very purpose.

Angel the Lout is the series character. Fortunately for his readers, from time to time Ripley forgets that and Angel is allowed to surprise us with flashes of intrepidity, worldliness, even honor.

This particular adventure endured by the ever-reluctant Angel involves hijacked Botox, salsa dancing, peculiar economics in the international used car business, odd goings-on at unsold houses and the unusual uses to which sex shop underwear can be put.

All-in-all, this is an entertaining book in what I strongly suspect is an entertaining series. Give it a try. h