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A review by paulabrandon
Death Angel by Linda Howard
1.0
And why did I decide it was a good idea to read another Linda Howard book?
Drea Rousseau is the play-thing of drug lord Rafael Salinas. As payment for a job well done, he hands her over to his assassin-for-hire, Simon Cross (his name isn't revealed until the end, with absolutely no reason to do so), as Simon wants a little rumpy-pumpy with Drea. Despite the shockingly murky questions around consent involved, Drea loves having sex with Simon and perhaps is even in love with him!
This book was pretty sick-making from the get-go.
Drea is absolutely furious with Rafael for giving in to Simon's demand and handing her over. I guess Simon is forgiven for demanding sex (i.e. rape) because the sex was really good or something? Yuck, yuck, yuck! Anyhoo, Drea decides to rip off Rafael to the tune of two million dollars and run off to start a new life for herself. When Rafael finds out what she's done, he's furious, too! He hires Simon to kill Drea.
But Simon feels something for Drea, too! She's smart and feisty! Can he really kill her? He follows her around, and when she sees him, Drea is certain he means to carry out a hit. There's a car chase, and Drea crashes her car, gets impaled on a tree...and DIES! But she winds up in heaven, where she meets her now-just-mentioned son, who was stillborn when Drea was just fifteen. He and a tribunal of angels decide the time isn't right for Drea, and send her back to Earth for a second chance.
Yes, you read that right!
Drea is grateful for her second chance and is determined to live her life doing good so that she deserves the gift the angels gave her. She's also been blessed with fortune-telling style abilities, and uses that for good, too. As for Simon, he discovers Drea is still alive, and spends most of the time stalking her creepily rather than, say, picking up the phone. (He knows her number, for goodness sake!)
Drea wants to do good with her two million buckeroonies, maybe give it to charity. She also wants to bring down Rafael, because he's a bad, bad man! When Drea and Simon finally reunite and declare their love, he isn't thrilled about Drea wanting to use herself as bait to catch Rafael. But that's okay! Simon does the job for her in the space of a couple of pages so that she never has to worry about Rafael again.
This was awful. What I've outlined above may sound entertaining in its ridiculousness, but it's really not! That simple plot is padded out with endless introspection, and hardly any dialogue to show why Drea and Simon are so hot for each other. Like I said in a review of another book by Linda Howard, Shadow Woman, the author is simply throwing words at a page to reach her required word count before handing it over to her publisher. I swear she made this up as she went along! I'm flummoxed as to how any editor could trawl through this and declare, "Folks, we have a winner here!" But nobody ever went broke underestimating the taste of the general public, eh?
If there really is a Good Place, I hope dreck like this can't be found there!
Drea Rousseau is the play-thing of drug lord Rafael Salinas. As payment for a job well done, he hands her over to his assassin-for-hire, Simon Cross (his name isn't revealed until the end, with absolutely no reason to do so), as Simon wants a little rumpy-pumpy with Drea. Despite the shockingly murky questions around consent involved, Drea loves having sex with Simon and perhaps is even in love with him!
This book was pretty sick-making from the get-go.
Drea is absolutely furious with Rafael for giving in to Simon's demand and handing her over. I guess Simon is forgiven for demanding sex (i.e. rape) because the sex was really good or something? Yuck, yuck, yuck! Anyhoo, Drea decides to rip off Rafael to the tune of two million dollars and run off to start a new life for herself. When Rafael finds out what she's done, he's furious, too! He hires Simon to kill Drea.
But Simon feels something for Drea, too! She's smart and feisty! Can he really kill her? He follows her around, and when she sees him, Drea is certain he means to carry out a hit. There's a car chase, and Drea crashes her car, gets impaled on a tree...and DIES! But she winds up in heaven, where she meets her now-just-mentioned son, who was stillborn when Drea was just fifteen. He and a tribunal of angels decide the time isn't right for Drea, and send her back to Earth for a second chance.
Yes, you read that right!
Drea is grateful for her second chance and is determined to live her life doing good so that she deserves the gift the angels gave her. She's also been blessed with fortune-telling style abilities, and uses that for good, too. As for Simon, he discovers Drea is still alive, and spends most of the time stalking her creepily rather than, say, picking up the phone. (He knows her number, for goodness sake!)
Drea wants to do good with her two million buckeroonies, maybe give it to charity. She also wants to bring down Rafael, because he's a bad, bad man! When Drea and Simon finally reunite and declare their love, he isn't thrilled about Drea wanting to use herself as bait to catch Rafael. But that's okay! Simon does the job for her in the space of a couple of pages so that she never has to worry about Rafael again.
This was awful. What I've outlined above may sound entertaining in its ridiculousness, but it's really not! That simple plot is padded out with endless introspection, and hardly any dialogue to show why Drea and Simon are so hot for each other. Like I said in a review of another book by Linda Howard, Shadow Woman, the author is simply throwing words at a page to reach her required word count before handing it over to her publisher. I swear she made this up as she went along! I'm flummoxed as to how any editor could trawl through this and declare, "Folks, we have a winner here!" But nobody ever went broke underestimating the taste of the general public, eh?
If there really is a Good Place, I hope dreck like this can't be found there!