Angel Thieves

March 25, 2019
The Texas Buffalo Bayou is both an evocative character and setting in this atmospheric novel about an angel thief searching for redemption. Cade doesn’t enjoy helping his father steal stone angels from graveyards, but it helps to ease financial burdens for the kind, elderly antiques dealer who took in Cade and his father when Cade was an infant. Still, stealing doesn’t seem right to Cade, and he wonders what Soleil, his religious new crush, would think if she found out. Cade wants to do “something good” to make up for his sins, and he finds that opportunity in Zorra, an abused ocelot left to die in her cage. The vivid bayou setting serves as the connecting force as Appelt (The True Blue Scouts of Sugar Man Swamp) intertwines the present-day story of Cade and Zorra with a historic tale involving a former slave and the angel monument that guides her and her daughters to safety. Using short vignettes and multiple viewpoints (including that of the bayou) that can make the novel feel overfilled, the author shows the best and worst sides of humanity and underscores the powerful force of the bayou, which both holds and erases secrets. Ages 14–up.