Angels In The Architecture, Spinning In Infinity

Some books, like some people, just click with you. Such was the case with Jon Steele’s debut, THE WATCHERS, which was in my not-always-humble opinion one of the best novels of 2011. To wit:

“Reads like ‘Paradise Lost’ by way of John Connolly, although Steele, formerly a war reporter, brings hard-edged modernity to this timeless tale as he roots his depiction of evil in the contemporary world. Clever, stylish and epic in scale, it’s a tremendously satisfying debut.” -- Irish Times

  The sequel, and the second in what is now ‘the Angelus Trilogy’, is ANGEL CITY (Bantam). Quoth the blurb elves:

Jay Harper, one of the last ‘angels’ on Planet Earth, is hunting down the half-breeds and goons who infected Paradise with evil. Intercepting a plot to turn half of Paris into a dead zone, Harper ends up on the wrong side of the law and finds himself a wanted man. That doesn’t stop his commander, Inspector Gobet of the Swiss Police, from sending him back to Paris on a recon mission ... a mission that uncovers a truth buried in the Book of Enoch.
  Katherine Taylor and her two year old son Max are living in a small town in the American Northwest. It’s a quiet life. She runs a candle shop and spends her afternoons drinking herbal teas, imagining a crooked little man in the belfry of Lausanne Cathedral, a man who believed Lausanne was a hideout for lost angels. And there was someone else, someone she can’t quite remember ... as if he was there, and not there at the same time.
  A man with a disfigured face emerges from the shadows. His name is Astruc, he’s obsessed with the immortal souls of men. Like a voice crying in the wilderness, he warns the time of The Prophecy is at hand ... a prophecy that calls for the sacrifice of the child born of light …

  My advice, for what it’s worth, is to read THE WATCHERS sometime in the next month or so, and then dive straight into ANGEL CITY. If it’s a rollicking good read you’re after, you won’t be disappointed.