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Angels Burning

Review

Angels Burning

Tawni O’Dell has deservedly received critical and commercial recognition for her novels and shorter work, which, from a genre standpoint, have run the gamut from dramatic fiction to mystery and suspense. ANGELS BURNING, her latest book, is squarely in the latter category and is hopefully the first of a series. More on that in just a bit.

This is arguably O’Dell’s most complex and fully formed novel to date. While continuing to plumb the very deep well of western Pennsylvania for story inspiration, she combines elements of classic police procedural stories with family drama and secrets to create a work that is nothing more or less than an irresistible page-turner.

ANGELS BURNING is told in the first person, present tense by Dove Carnahan, a former Pennsylvania state trooper who, as the book opens, is the police chief of Buchanan, a tiny rural municipality that normally pawns off serious crimes to the state. The opening pages find Dove, 50 years old and chief of the six-unit Buchanan police department for 10 of those, at the scene of a horrific crime. The body of a teenage girl has been discovered in a fire sinkhole, which is all that is left of an abandoned coal mine just outside of the ghost town of Campbell’s Run. The partially burned corpse is wrapped in a comforter and manifests severe head injuries. As Dove notes with dark humor, the victim didn’t get there by herself. She is identified in short order as Camio Truly, the member of a local extended family with a reputation that runs from no-account to criminal.

"While continuing to plumb the very deep well of western Pennsylvania for story inspiration, [O'Dell] combines elements of classic police procedural stories with family drama and secrets to create a work that is nothing more or less than an irresistible page-turner."

A secondary plot is introduced almost immediately, with the sudden and unexpected appearance of an ex-con named Lucky, who is fresh out of the penitentiary after serving a 35-year jail sentence for the murder of Dove’s mother. Lucky is still protesting his innocence and maintaining that Carnahan and her younger sister, Neely, lied when they identified him as their mother’s killer. Dove warns Neely, who runs a dog rescue shelter in town, that Lucky is back in town, but another major shock occurs when Champ, the younger brother of the two women, shows up unannounced after two decades with Mason, his nine-year-old son --- the nephew they never knew they had --- in tow. Making matters worse, Champ vanishes the following day, leaving little explanation other than for a sack of money, ostensibly as de facto child support paid forward for Mason.

Does that sound intriguing? A mix of mystery and real-world problems? It is, very much so, particularly when Dove casts about looking for primary suspects in Camio’s murder case. There are signs that the unfortunate victim was making plans to rise above her upbringing by graduating from high school, pursuing a college career and more. What Dove slowly discovers is that there might have been a darker, more sinister side to her as well.

Dove investigates the victim’s boyfriend, of course, a popular high school athlete who comes from a family that is the epitome of well-to-do, and several members of the victim’s own family, who are most politely described as ne’er do well. The latter make it understandable why the unfortunate victim wanted to leave her world in Buchanan behind. Each member of Camio’s family, from the quietly dictatorial matriarch to her off-the-wall younger brother and scheming sister, are memorable for many reasons. The answer as to who killed Camio is hidden in the question of why she was killed. And everyone, it seemed, had a potential reason to do so.

The mystery will draw you into ANGELS BURNING, even if you figure it out/guess the whodunit part of this excellent novel long before you read the last page. That’s okay; O’Dell quietly tosses in a couple of ironic twists and turns that keep things rolling and much more than interesting throughout the book. She is not only a fine storyteller but also a fine craftsman. You’ll want to underline or mark a number of passages here and there that slip across the page with a subtleness that makes one stop and read them over again. And maybe again.

Oh, and remember about my hoping that ANGELS BURNING is the first of a series? Those characters, both primary and secondary, who make it to the end of the book are just too interesting to be consigned to literary limbo. More, please, from all of them --- particularly Dove Carnahan, who will break a number of middle-aged hearts, fictitious and otherwise.

Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub on January 8, 2016

Angels Burning
by Tawni O'Dell