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A Prayer for Deliverance: An Angela Bivens Thriller
 
 
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A Prayer for Deliverance: An Angela Bivens Thriller [Hardcover]

Christopher Chambers (Author)
4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)


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Book Description

February 25, 2003
Never try to outrun your past . . .

Tough-minded FBI special agent Angela Bivens is just beginning to put her life back together. Still reeling from the bloody showdown where she took the lives of two serial killers, one of whom was her lover, Angela is hell-bent on facing the future. She’s enjoying the perks of a well-deserved promotion, as well as getting to know her new boyfriend on a romantic camping trip. All that changes when the FBI interrupts her relaxing getaway and puts her on a complicated high-profile case.

Inside a secluded Chesapeake bed-and-breakfast, Dr. Leslie Collins, a prominent African-American obstetrician, has been found dead and mutilated. His white mistress, a Clinton White House advisor, was also dead in their bed, apparently from a poisonous snakebite. And no one at the inn heard or saw a thing. Angela can’t help but be shaken to the core—Dr. Collins was a family friend, and now it’s up to her to apprehend the killer.
Angela’s superiors at the Bureau suspect a shadowy white supremacy group that has been terrorizing abortion clinics and liberal leaders, but such tidy motives are soon discredited as other influential Black men from the worlds of business, politics, and religion start to share the doctor’s gruesome fate. Angela’s quest for justice deepens when she discovers the unlikely connections that link the men to one another, and to Antoine Jones, a convicted murderer on death row. Angela’s investigation also uncovers disturbing evidence that these murders are bound to a world of spells and ancient prophecies rooted in South African witchcraft, and of age-old vendettas being played out in a very modern D.C.

In this compelling, action-packed sequel to the riveting debut Sympathy for the Devil, Christopher Chambers captivates his readers with an unpredictable plot that pits this strong and savvy female protagonist against a cast of formidable foes—both human and supernatural. His innovative blend of images from traditional African mysticism and the vivid landscape of our nation’s capital breathes new life into the suspense thriller genre. Fans of Walter Mosley, Thomas Harris, and Patricia Cornwell will all love this remarkably spellbinding page-turner.

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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Angela Bivens, the young African-American FBI agent who debuted in Chambers's Sympathy for the Devil (2001), plunges into a messy melange of terrorism, ritual murder, political intrigue, sex and revenge. Unfortunately, the recipe makes less for a savory dish than for an unappetizing alphabet stew of agencies, departments, titles and fiefdoms on the one hand, and a hodgepodge of South African and Zulu history, folklore, "magick" and witchcraft on the other. The supporting cast is pure soap opera, while even our heroine seems a disturbingly unstable blend of personality traits. In sum, this is a book that might easily be made into a modern blaxploitation flick, but is also one unlikely to attract a wide readership.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From the Inside Flap

Never try to outrun your past . . .

Tough-minded FBI special agent Angela Bivens is just beginning to put her life back together. Still reeling from the bloody showdown where she took the lives of two serial killers, one of whom was her lover, Angela is hell-bent on facing the future. She?s enjoying the perks of a well-deserved promotion, as well as getting to know her new boyfriend on a romantic camping trip. All that changes when the FBI interrupts her relaxing getaway and puts her on a complicated high-profile case.

Inside a secluded Chesapeake bed-and-breakfast, Dr. Leslie Collins, a prominent African-American obstetrician, has been found dead and mutilated. His white mistress, a Clinton White House advisor, was also dead in their bed, apparently from a poisonous snakebite. And no one at the inn heard or saw a thing. Angela can?t help but be shaken to the core?Dr. Collins was a family friend, and now it?s up to her to apprehend the killer.
Angela?s superiors at the Bureau suspect a shadowy white supremacy group that has been terrorizing abortion clinics and liberal leaders, but such tidy motives are soon discredited as other influential Black men from the worlds of business, politics, and religion start to share the doctor?s gruesome fate. Angela?s quest for justice deepens when she discovers the unlikely connections that link the men to one another, and to Antoine Jones, a convicted murderer on death row. Angela?s investigation also uncovers disturbing evidence that these murders are bound to a world of spells and ancient prophecies rooted in South African witchcraft, and of age-old vendettas being played out in a very modern D.C.

In this compelling, action-packed sequel to the riveting debut Sympathy for the Devil, Christopher Chambers captivates his readers with an unpredictable plot that pits this strong and savvy female protagonist against a cast of formidable foes?both human and supernatural. His innovative blend of images from traditional African mysticism and the vivid landscape of our nation?s capital breathes new life into the suspense thriller genre. Fans of Walter Mosley, Thomas Harris, and Patricia Cornwell will all love this remarkably spellbinding page-turner.

Product Details

  • Hardcover: 352 pages
  • Publisher: Crown; 1 edition (February 25, 2003)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0609608509
  • ISBN-13: 978-0609608500
  • Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.4 x 1.1 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
  • Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,608,299 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Professor Christopher Chambers is a Lecturer in Journalism and Media Studies at Georgetown University. His innovative courses include titles such as "The Decline of the Public Intellectual & the Rise of the Pundit in Modern Journalism," and "Expeditions, Executions & Exposes: Establishing a sense of Place and Personality in Travel, Crime Writing and Investigative Reporting." He has lectured on issues in communications, culture & the media and race across the United States for organizations such as Black Entertainment Television (BET), the National Association of Black Journalists, and Princeton University. He writes for theRoot.com, Uptown Life magazine and the City Paper (Washington).
He is a bestselling author whose works include the Angela Bivens(R) series of FBI crime novels for Random House, the recent illustrated superhero anthology The Darker Mask with Walter Mosley, the upcoming graphic novel Gangsterland about Harlem and mobster "Lucky" Luciano in the 1930s, and the much anticipated historical novel Yella Pasty's Boys, a study on slavery and War of 1812. Professor Chambers is a former U.S. Justice Department attorney, and a graduate of Princeton University. His current project for Georgetown is a biography of Father Patrick Healy, titled A Canticle for Eliza: The Memoir of Patrick Healy, Slave.

Professor Chambers is a Washington D.C. native and grew up in D.C., Brooklyn, N.Y. Baltimore, Maryland.


 

Customer Reviews

8 Reviews
5 star:
 (4)
4 star:
 (1)
3 star:
 (2)
2 star:
 (1)
1 star:    (0)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
4.0 out of 5 stars (8 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Angela's Back!, May 14, 2003
By 
This review is from: A Prayer for Deliverance: An Angela Bivens Thriller (Hardcover)
In A Prayer for Deliverance, Christopher Chambers resumes where the debut novel, Sympathy For the Devil, ended. FBI agent, Angela Bivens, is back in action as an inspector called in to investigate the murders of prominent African American leaders. While her superiors think the murders are the work of a well-known hate group, we find Angela dallying in the supernatural to solve the murders and bring the true assassins to justice. Specifically, she is pulled into a dark underworld of Zulu "magick" to substantiate her theories and enlists the help of a rookie sidekick (and Wicca witch) to assist in the investigation. As in the first novel, she is both supported and hindered by the FBI staff and must deal with the political powers of the agency and the bureaucracy of the Washington elite. To complicate things further, she stumbles through a newfound romance while struggling to overcome the emotional scars from her last boyfriend, a psychotic sociopath who was the evil perpetrator of her last case.

As one can imagine, this book is multi-dimensional and filled with numerous plot twists and turns. There are so many characters with ulterior motives that this reviewer literally had to keep notes on who was who, their relationships to one another, and their relationships within the FBI hierarchy.

This novel is extremely well written and very well researched as evidenced in the passages about South African culture and politics. However, this reviewer felt that at times the plot tangents obscured the essence of the mystery. In an attempt to make this a well-rounded novel, the author repeatedly lost this reviewer in the minutia and the surreal, dreamlike episodes that were scattered throughout the book. Angela Bivens, earmarked as an FBI super sleuth, seemed bewildered and clueless at times which elongated the story and damaged her characterization as an ingenious, diehard super agent. There were some segments in which she appeared to be as much of a victim as the targets. Perhaps this was intentional, to show her vulnerabilities, however it came off as Angela being the luckiest detective alive instead of one of the sharpest. Nonetheless, this reviewer persevered to see how the novel would conclude and was not disappointed. Overall, this was a compelling mystery and proved to be entertaining.

Phyllis
APOOO BookClub, Nubian Circle Book Club

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3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A fan who loves this!!!, March 3, 2003
By 
This review is from: A Prayer for Deliverance: An Angela Bivens Thriller (Hardcover)
Whew! I liked Sympathy--it was a decent first mystery-thriller that seemed to follow the Thomas Harris Silence of the Lambs and Red Dragon formula, and I read that the author's mentor was Harris. It was hard to follow some of the African American slang of the teenage victims, but it was a very intelligent and well-crafted, vivid read. In Deliverance, THIS GUY PULLS OUT ALL THE STOPS! From the beginning (where we find out Agent Bivens's TERRIBLE decision) to the very end on 9-11, he throws the kitche sink at you, but hey, you take and you LOVE Getting hit with it! So many levels to this book. I don't give 5 stars usually, but, as a former law enforcement officer, I give him the stars just for the testicular fortitude to craft something that mixes Stephen King with Tom Clancy with E. Lynn Harris, and pulling it off, and with a female protagonist who has some serious issues to overcome.

If the third one is about 9-11, keep this guy from revealing any of the plot to bin laden. JBS

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2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars Give it time, April 6, 2003
This review is from: A Prayer for Deliverance: An Angela Bivens Thriller (Hardcover)
After reading the first Angela Bivens book I had high hopes for this one. For the most part the book works but there is just too much in it. The story goes off in so many directions it's like looking at a pot of spaghetti thrown against the wall. The heroine is essentially Cleopatra Jones with serious emotional issues and some of the stuff she does makes not a lick of sense but if you give this book time you'll find a pretty good read for a rainy afternoon.
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Inside This Book (learn more)
First Sentence:
A SCULPTOR ONCE CALLED HIM MICHAEL, named for an archangel in service to the sculptor of mankind. Read the first page
Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
bone seer, fetish room, night fetish, murder the lies, prayer for deliverance
Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Antoine Jones, Bryce King, Victor Styles, Amesha Spentas, Deputy Director, Ama Simba, South Africa, Alfred Whiting, Inspector Bivens, White House, Brian Buford, Arianne Shipley, Secret Service, Sweet Pea, Angela Bivens, Blue Heron, Les Collins, Senator Buford, Attorney General, Shaka Seven, Trey Williams, African American, Agent White, Bishop Davidson, Carl Davidson
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