{"id":3807,"date":"2015-03-11T21:14:47","date_gmt":"2015-03-12T01:14:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/?p=3807"},"modified":"2015-03-11T21:14:47","modified_gmt":"2015-03-12T01:14:47","slug":"book-review-a-dark-angel-by-hal-kowalski","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/book-review-a-dark-angel-by-hal-kowalski\/","title":{"rendered":"Book Review: A Dark Angel by Hal Kowalski"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/p>\n

A Dark Angel<\/a>\"\"\u00a0<\/em>by Hal Kowalski<\/p>\n

Amazon Digital Services, 2014<\/p>\n

ASIN: B00P392B0K<\/p>\n

Available: Kindle edition<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Kowalski presents us with a\u00a0first-rate\u00a0anti-hero, Silas Shivers: husband, father, businessman, and Hell\u2019s emissary\/assassin. Three years ago, Silas answered a too-good-to-be-true ad headlined \u201cCatch Lightning in a Bottle.\u201d Even after his prospective employer introduced himself as Lucifer, the Lord of Hell, Silas bound himself to a ten-year contract. In this world, the denizens of Hell\u00a0are not\u00a0humans who have gone astray. Lucifer\u2019s domain is \u201can everlasting prison for Abominations. Monsters. Demons.\u201d Silas\u2019s job is to hunt down and kill any monsters who escape from Hell, and his first mission is to find Molecc, the Boogeyman, a\u00a0pedophilic\u00a0predator who steals prepubescent children so that he can dine on their fear and their blood.<\/p>\n

The second story line involves Silas\u2019s agreement to investigate the supposed suicide of his neighbors\u2019 teenage son, Ian. The boy\u2019s mother doesn\u2019t believe that her son killed himself, and begs Silas to look into his case. Reluctantly, Silas agrees, even though he believes that the boy committed suicide.<\/p>\n

Silas tells his story in the first-person voice, which\u00a0Kowalski\u00a0handles with great finesse.\u00a0In fact, the strongest element in this novel is Silas\u2019s self-deprecatory, sardonic, sometimes weary voice as he stumbles through his search-and-kill Boogeyman mission, puts his assistant on Ian\u2019s case, and tries to keep his wife and family from finding out about his dark and devilish second job. The situation gets even more difficult when the beautiful, red-haired Jaelle\u2014another of Lucifer\u2019s assassins\u2014unexpectedly becomes his partner and seems to be making a play for him.<\/p>\n

The action alternates between the two story lines, with a third character appearing intermittently to add a fiery twist to the tale. The blood and gore don\u2019t start to flow heavily until the final chapters, but the suspense begins building up right from the beginning.<\/p>\n

There are a few areas of weakness, and they are mostly copy-proofing problems and one minor continuity error. In general,\u00a0these lapses did not interfere with my enjoyment of the book.\u00a0A few of the more violent scenes seemed to go on just a bit too long, but since this is<\/em> a horror novel, maybe I’m wrong about that.<\/p>\n

Silas’s unique voice is the key to the novel\u2019s overall strength. His just-get-it-done attitude and his darkly sarcastic humor are sometimes his only means of surviving some\u00a0horrific situations (plus a powerful antique knife and body armor from Hell).\u00a0Silas himself states the theme of the book:\u00a0\u201cAnyone is capable of hiding pieces of themselves they deem the outside world is not ready, or worthy of accepting.”\u00a0Recommended for all libraries.<\/p>\n

Contains: blood, gore, and violence<\/p>\n

Reviewed by Patricia O. Mathews<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Dark Angel\u00a0by Hal Kowalski Amazon Digital Services, 2014 ASIN: B00P392B0K Available: Kindle edition   Kowalski presents us with a\u00a0first-rate\u00a0anti-hero, Silas Shivers: husband, father, businessman, and Hell\u2019s emissary\/assassin. Three years ago, Silas answered a too-good-to-be-true ad headlined \u201cCatch Lightning in a Bottle.\u201d Even after his prospective employer introduced himself as Lucifer, the Lord of Hell,<\/p>\n

Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2447,129,8,2448,83,100,11,202],"class_list":["post-3807","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-a-dark-angel","tag-book-reviews","tag-collection-development","tag-hal-kowalski","tag-horror-fiction","tag-paranormal-fiction","tag-readers-advisory","tag-supernatural-fiction"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3807","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3807"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3807\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3814,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3807\/revisions\/3814"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3807"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3807"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3807"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}