Angel Baby

March 18, 2013
The rambling plot of Lange’s second crime novel will remind many of the work of Elmore Leonard. Desperate to escape her life as the caged mistress of violent Mexican drug lord Rolando, Luz plans carefully and waits for her moment. Preparation and ruthlessness let her vanish with a backpack full of money, leaving the corpses of two of Rolando’s faithful employees in her wake. By the time Luz is missed, she has arranged to be ferried into the U.S. by Malone, a self-destructive drunk. Enraged, Rolando has “El Apache” retrieved from a Mexican prison and orders the reluctant criminal to use his American citizenship to follow Luz to the States and drag her back to Rolando. As an extra incentive, Rolando makes it clear that El Apache’s wife and child will pay the price for failure. More polished than his first novel, This Wicked World, Lange’s follow-up marks him as a crime novelist to watch. Agent: Henry Dunow, Dunow, Carlson & Lerner Literary Agency.

Starred review from March 1, 2013
A rising star in neonoir, Lange follows up his 2009 novel, This Wicked World, with a sharply calibrated and affecting tale about a young Mexican beauty who will do anything to reclaim the baby daughter she left in Los Angeles. The woman, Luz, survived a hard upbringing in Tijuana only to fall under the control of an abusive Mexican drug lord, Rolando, aka "El Principe." After going to great lengths to convince him she is devoted to him, she sneaks off with a pile of his money, killing two of his household staff with his gun. She hires Malone, an American who makes a living smuggling Mexicans across the border, to drive her to California. They are quickly pursued by Jeronimo, a one-time LA gang member whom Rolando springs from a Tijuana prison to bring back Luz, and Thacker, a corrupt U.S. Border Patrol agent. Jeronimo, a reformed soul whose wife and daughter are being held by Rolando until he returns with Luz, strikes an uneasy alliance with the slovenly, unreformed Thacker: He'll get Luz, and the border cop will get the money. Malone, who is haunted by memories of seeing his own little girl run over by a car, becomes committed to Luz. The twisting plot thickens when Rolando orders Jeronimo to bring back Luz's child as well. Unlike most such stories, this book is driven not by greed or revenge but by parenthood, and Lange doesn't subscribe to the usual moral checks and balances. In all other ways, however, he embraces classic noir in all its violence, bleakness and dark humor. He makes readers care about his flawed characters and appreciate the odds that were stacked against them by the circumstances of their upbringing. A film waiting to happen, this book boasts memorable characters, evocative settings and a suspenseful plot.

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April 1, 2013
Luz's plan to escape her husband, Tijuana's brutal narco boss, and rejoin her daughter, who is hidden with relatives in L.A., seems flawless right up to the moment Luz is caught with her hands in the safe and frantically shoots her way out the door. Within hours, she's hired Malone, a surfer gone to seed (and nursing a tragic past), to smuggle her across the border. Luz's husband quickly sets reluctant enforcer Jeronimo on her trail, holding his family hostage as motivation. When Jeronimo foils a crooked Border Patrol agent's robbery of Luz's stolen cash, he and the agent, Thacker, form an uneasy partnership whose unraveling kicks the story into its groove. The story line is certainly familiar, but it's wrapped in enticing layers. Lange pits Luz and Malone against Jeronimo and Thacker, each pair with one soul desperate to save what they love and one self-destructing from the knowledge they've destroyed it. Hope and regret tangle at each turn, and Lange's tours through Tijuana and SoCal evoke a gritty grace. For readers who have already plowed through all the available Don Winslow.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)