Blood of Angels
Michael Marshall
416p. Jove. $7.99
ISBN: 0515140082
(Sepyember 2005)
Michael Marshall's (AKA Michael Marshall Smith) "Straw Men" trilogy falls into
the thriller category, but the books are so dark and disturbing they might also
be considered as contemporary horror. There's also a weird, if not supernatural,
vast-conspiracy-against-all-humanity theory that spooks them up somewhat. The
third of three (following The Straw Men and Upright Man), Blood of Angels
features ex-CIA operative Ward Hopkins, his now-girlfriend FBI agent Nina Baynam
and, eventually, ex-Los Angeles police detective John Zandt. They are fighting
the murderous Straw Men, an ancient brotherhood that feels humanity went haywire
with civilization and sees killing as many members of it as possible as its
duty. One of its most effective operatives is Paul, a twin who Ward never knew
existed until his parents were murdered back in book one. At the end of book
two, Paul was safely ensconced in prison, but springing a federal prisoner is
nothing for the Straw Men. On the east coast, a deceptively mild-mannered
Florida tourist photographer is set on a shady mission by the man he thinks of
as the Forward Thinking Boy (Paul, of course). Across the country, So-Cal rich
kid drug-dealer Lee John Hudek is drawn into bigger and more deadly things than
supplying pills for his pointless peers. Ward and Nina's rural respite in the
Pacific Norwest comes to an end when Nina is pulled back into FBI work to
investigate a possible female serial killer in Virginia. The three story lines
are braided into a quick-burning fuse of a standalone novel that's nearly
impossible to stop reading. Marshall's fluid writing is several notches higher
than that of the average thriller and there's more than sheer entertainment
here, too. The novel is, to some extent, a meditation on the meaning of death
and, more obviously, cannot help but consider a world where organizations of
killers who delight in death and destruction are not fiction. The first of this
trilogy was praised by Stephen King as a "masterpiece"; this one may be even
better. (CFQ Vol. 37, Issue #8)
• • •
Note: The first two books of the series are The Straw Men (2002) and The Upright Man (2004)
(known as The Lonely Dead in the UK). As Michael Marshal Smith, the author's works include the
collection More Tomorrow and Other Stories (2003), and novels
One of Us (1998), Spares
(1996), and Only Forward (1995). In addition to the reviews of More Tomorrow and Other Stories
and Spares there is also an interview with Michael Marshall Smith on the DarkEcho site.