1.5 starsPlot
When Detective Charlie Parker agrees to helps an old friend search for his beloved cousin, he soon finds himself entwined with strange rumours of fallen angels, a mysterious cult called the Believers, and the peculiar Brightwell, who will stop at nothing to fulfil the wishes of his master…
If Connolly’s subsequent novel, The Book of Lost Things, is a gloriously old fashioned tapestry of magic and unexpected charm, then The Black Angel can only be described as a dull strand of thread with fraying ends.
What starts out as a decent plot soon descends into chaos as the storyline is lost beneath layer upon layer of history and background information. Each chapter introduces at least twenty new characters - half of which killed as quickly as they come in, rendering their existence completely useless - along with a pointless in depth description of their past, until you find yourself drowning in a sea of names. Even those with a memory worthy of the Mensa will struggle to remember each and every person who features in this macabre tale.
This dark and depressing novel possesses none of the allure of other more gripping thrillers, and when you finally reach the “grand” finale of this dense story and all the double crossers are revealed, you find you don’t particularly care, and instead start to wonder whether it was really worth the week you spent reading it. The overly complex plot will leave you frustrated and unsatisfied, which is a shame, because the antagonist has a lot of potential.
All in all, a disappointing read.
