Angel City

April 29, 2013
Steele’s sequel to 2012’s The Watchers does everything the middle of a trilogy should do, building on its predecessor and setting up the final volume with a brutal cliffhanger, while also remaining accessible to readers who missed the first book. After a brief prologue set in 13th-century Occitania depicting the Cathars’ last stand against the Crusaders, the action shifts to present-day Paris, where terrorists have seized a tourist boat on the Seine. The authorities, fearing the terrorists will explode a dirty bomb that could destroy the city center, send Jay Harper, who played a major role in The Watchers, to the rescue. Though Harper, as the reader soon learns, is no longer the man he once was, he gets on the trail of a Cathar treasure that resembles a sextant and that may herald the salvation of all humanity. Small doses of humor help ease this metaphysical thriller along. Agent: Georgina Capel, Capel & Land Ltd.

June 1, 2013
What if they gave an apocalypse and everybody came? Steele's sequel to The Watchers (2012), the middle volume in his Angelus Trilogy, is rather less neatly constructed than its predecessor. It opens with a tossed-off episode within the walls of Montsegur fortress, HQ of the Cathar uprising, the haunt of armor-clad fellows who talk less like John Cleese than Humphrey Bogart: "Can't blame them. The King offered safe passage to all who promise to become good little Frenchmen." The Cathars figure in the tale all the same for some neat little reliquary gadgetry that falls into the way of supercop Jay Harper. Readers of the inaugural volume will remember that Jay and high-ticket fille de joie Katherine Taylor only recently whispered sweet nothings to each other within earshot of Lausanne Cathedral while attempting to keep assorted demons and their earthly minions at bay. Katherine's now across the pond back home, but Jay's not far from her mind, especially since they're both under the aegis of the elite Swiss Guard, whose boss is given to growling at Jay such tendernesses as, "If you'd prefer me to remind you that you are not a creature of free will, then I'll be more than happy to do so." It's predestination, then, it seems, that sends a bateau full of bad guys down the Seine into the middle of Paris with a nuclear device and a threat to turn the City of Lights into a bonfire--an eventuality that, naturally, only Jay has the wherewithal to deal with. Does he succeed? Only the sewer rats beneath the city streets can say--and, oh, yes, a weird wraithlike chap named Astruc, and his boon companion, and all those Swiss Guards, and the terrorists, and Katherine, and.... If you read only one supernatural thriller with Albigensian overtones this year, this ought to be it.

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May 15, 2013
In The Watchers (2012), Steele introduced us to Katherine Taylor, a high-end escort, and Jay Harper, who awakens one day with no memory of his past life. Working security for the U.S. Olympic Committee, trying to find a missing athlete, Harper instead finds Katherine and then begins to remember things, things he has no idea how he could possibly know. This second novel picks up the characters' stories about three years after the end of The Watchers. Katherine is living in the U.S., quietly raising her son. Jay lives in France, still reeling from the mind-numbing discoveries he made in the previous book (including the revelation that he is apparently an angel). Does Jay have the spiritual strength to combat a new evil, one that could destroy the world? The first volume of a trilogy usually devotes substantial space to introducing characters, themes, story lines. Introductions completed, this second volume seriously ramps up the action: mysteries are explored but not yet fully explained, and the shocking final scenes are definitely intended to make us come back for the finale. Fans of The Watchers won't want to miss this one.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)