Close to the Ground (Angel)

Really interesting story. Loved seeing a side of "Angel" that I'm not use to. Recommend to all, especially fans of the show.

I just finished reading "Close to the Ground" and I must say that so far, it is my favorite. It started out as a magician named Mortractus tried to bring back Balor, the one-eyed giant, from another dimension. But he was aging with every spell that he performed and was looking for a way to live forever. Which was what brought him to LA. Meanwhile, Angel had troubles of his own: what with having to be a bodyguard to the daughter of a big movie company, whom he thought was spoiled and only helped her because Doyle had a vision. I really liked the book because even though Angel was not around Kate, the writer still had a story for Detective Lockley and her and Angel seldom crossed paths until close to the end. The best part was right after that when the whole story took a quick turn and Angel finally figured out how to save the girl from Doyle's vision. This is a great book and I think that anyone who's an Angel fan should pick this one up.

This book matches and surpasses most of the big bestselling mainstream suspense thrillers. It is not just for the fans of the tv show about the vampire detective. If it had been relaesed as a hardcover with a different character's name, it would be a bestselling hardcover. SHAKEDOWN, and HOLLYWOOD NOIR are particularly great other volumes in this series. If you like James Patterson, Tom Savage, Jonathan Kellerman, Jefferson Swycaffer, Joe L. Hensley, Tami Hoag, Wilson Tucker, John Sandford, David Wiltse (or not) add this to your pile to be read.

A powerful Irish magician travels to LA where he hopes to raise the dreaded giant Balor and rule the world. A Hollywood studio head struggles to keep his job. Kate tries to track down a gang of bank robbers who have killed three people. Doyle has a brain splitting vision of a young girl in trouble. These plots are all part of a puzzle framed by fear, greed, anger and regret. And when the pieces are all fit together a new image of Angel appears more human than we have seen him before except perhaps with Buffy. Trapped by strong magics Angel must face the ultimate death. The story moves at a fast past. The pages are heavy with demons and villians. The fastbacks are kept to a single sad incident. Hollywood and the Otherworld blend surprisingly well together. This is an excellent addition to the Angel series. Even if a reader has never watched the TV shows they can enjoy this book

Angel's newest job is pretty unusual for him - he's been hired as a bodyguard for seventeen-year-old Karinna Willits, the spoiled, bratty daughter of a Hollywood studio head. Angel can't really figure out why Doyle had a vision of Karinna in trouble - she doesn't appear to be in any sort of supernatural danger. But he figures he'll stick with guarding Karinna and keep an eye out for trouble. He doesn't expect to be abducted by an ailing sorceror who thinks by killing Angel he can trasfer Angel's immortality to himself and live forever. Angel knows this all corrects to Karinna SOMEHOW, but he just can't figure out how. The connection, revealed in the end, totally shocked me, but I won't say what it is, since it would spoil the whole thing. I didn't get why the whole subplot about bank robbers was in there, but that's revealed at the end as well. Talk about a plot twist! On a side note, I really liked the brief part about Cordelia working for a short time as a tour guide. That brought a nice bit of humor to a mostly dark story (although the darkness fits the mood of the show). The ending was sad (but again I won't reveal what happens). I highly reccomend this to fans of Angel, both the show and the books. One thing I noticed: although the Angel books are classified as young adult books, they're much darker in nature then the Buffy young adult books. They're as dark as the adult Buffy books, in fact.