Death Angel: A Novel

With the exception of Cry No More, the last few LH books have been clunkers. This is an off beat story, off beat protagonists, a little unbelievable at a crucial part, but Linda Howard carried it off.

The Heroine was flawed but gutsy. Very interesting to see her metamorphosis from high class Ho to a woman of her own. Simon was another scary hero (see Cry No More) but it worked for me.

Enjoyed this story and glad I bought the book. Whoever does the covers on LH books is amazing. Worth the read.

Being a Linda Howard fan, I couldn't wait for this book to arrive from Amazon. The 1 word I can use to describe this book is DISAPPOINTING. I don't want to give too much of the story away so I won't go too much into the details but I just have to say that I'm surprised that some people gave it such high ratings. I understand this book is about redeeming love but some of what happens in this book is just not believable. The book's synopsis made the story sound much more interesting but yet more than 3/4 of the way through the book, she still hadn't gotten with the FBI. It felt like the author decided to just throw all of it together at the end.

I am a big Linda Howard fan. However, some of her books I like more than others. While I don't like this one as much as some of her other stories like "Dream Man", it is still a good story. This book is pretty interesting, with a "hero" and "heroine" that are not your usual romance characters. If you like your romance with some unusual twists, you'll like this book.

As a result of her gangster sugar daddy's latest deal with an assassin, Drea's life changes forever. In lieu of money, Rafael gives her, for the space of one afternoon, to a hitman he wants to keep happy. At first, she is angry at being such a pawn, but that is a magical afternoon and sets in motion plans she has made over the span of years. Though Drea played dumb, she was really brilliant and after being with a man who at least pretended to cherish her for a short time, she has to make her escape. Had she not taken over two million dollars along, Rafael might have let her go, but for that kind of change, she finds herself on the run and terrified. The man who inspired the change is among those hired to eliminate her, but instead, he turns into her greatest ally, after he kills her, that is.

**** Possibly this is her best book since Mr. Perfect. Drea's story draws you in immediately and steadily increases in intensity from there on out. It's one you can't put down once it really gets going so compelling are the characters and situations. I could have easily read it another hundred pages had it been longer, and probably still wanted to know more. ****

Reviewed by Amanda Killgore

I have read several Linda Howard books before, so when I stumbled upon this book in the library, I decided to check it out. While it's not perfect, it is a very interesting read.

Andrea Rausseau is a whore. She is a drug lord's mistress, playing the dumb blond. Simon is a hitman. When Simon sees Andrea, she captures his interest, because he directly sees her intelligence, and knows that she is playing Salinas like a string. He is impressed by her act, and attracted to her, so he wants to have her one time. Salinas sells her to the assassin. I will say that that first sex scene left me uncomfortable, but as the scene continued it became better as we understood the characters better.

The experience leaves both protagonists shaken up, but especially Andrea. She realizes just how low she has sunk, by selling herself to the likes of Salinas. So she steals his money in revenge and runs away from him. Salinas calls on the assassin and asks him to take her out. Now Simon didn't give his answer to Salinas, but he did pursue Andrea.

The two things that stopped me from rating this higher were the fact that Simon was the one who caused Andrea's car-wreck, because he had pursued her so she sped up. It would have been much better if Simon didn't have any hand in it. Second, Andrea's death experience didn't make any sense (it would've made much more sense if those details had been left out, or written differently). Also more insight should have been given about Simon we barely know anything about him.

On the other hand, I thought that Simon's last name being "Cross" was a powerful touch in reference to redemption. Those two unlikable characters did need a miracle to bring them back from the precipice of destruction. And that's exactly what they got. The author was clever in that, for most of this book we are watching these two characters reform. We never really see them in their worst, for example we never see Andrea sexually with Salinas, we only learn about her past through several back-story paragraphs, and the same goes for Simon although to a much lesser extent about his past. So it was easier to care for them.

If you want to read a book about two people falling in love, this is not it, as the two characters are already connected to each other from the beginning; although they only acknowledge it towards the end. This book is about two very lost people, without hope or faith, finding their way to redemption, as they start reforming and leaving their old ways. They also spend a good while apart in this book.

For Andrea, she got a job as a waitress then donated all the stolen money to charity, and then she returned to New York putting her life in danger in order to help the FBI get Salinas. For Simon, he stopped taking jobs ever since Andrea's miracle, and appointed himself her bodyguard, watching over his miracle for months from afar not wanting to frighten her. And he wouldn't have revealed himself to her, had she not spotted him later. In the end, he was willing to risk getting caught, even sacrifice his soul in order to protect Andrea.

The story was slow in several parts. And the language tended to be a little too much for me in a few parts. However, all in all, this was an interesting read, that had me riveted from beginning to end. I felt for those characters as they acknowledged that the road ahead of them was still long, to make up for their past sins and to gain that redemption that they are fighting to attain.