A review by canaanmerchant
Angelmaker by Nick Harkaway

5.0

Here is a book that tries to have it all and largely succeeds. It's a spy novel, crime caper, historical fiction, steam punk and dry humor british novel all in one. It's got characters and sets that would make Indiana Jones think that "this is all a bit much" and it is able to expose a number of weaknesses in how society/government is run today without being gloomy or heavy handed about it. This novel celebrates doing things the old school way but with a refreshing new voice. The con is that a think book with lots of plot points can lead to a dense web developing quickly and I would lose track over some characters and whether they had been introduced yet. Moreover, in Joe Spork's life he knows a lot of people and stays in the same social circles so characters that are new to the reader are incredibly familiar to Joe which confused me somewhat as to whether I had missed a section. Combine that with some hefty prose and I struggled a bit at the beginning to keep track of what was happening. But that is a minor complaint compared to one of the funner stories I've read lately.