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Red Angel

Red Angel

List Price: $6.99
Your Price: $6.29
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Tense Disturbing Thriller
Review: A fitting sequel to Bad Karma from the same author (a pseudonym for horror author Douglas Clegg). You don't have to have read Bad Karma to read Red Angel -- they both stand independently, though they share a character. But Red Angel is a tense, disturbing, serial-killer thriller that makes you turn the pages so fast you'll have finished the book before you know it. Highly recommended, and definitely a real chiller.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: strong thriller
Review: After being attacked by an escaped mental patient in his own home who threatened his wife and children, Troy Campbell needed plenty of time to recuperate both physically and mentally. Now the psychiatric Technician and Supervisor of D ward at the maximum security hospital of Darden State is ready to tackle the six inmates of Program 28, Sexual Sadistic Predator Violent Sociopath Level seven. One of the worst of these offenders is Michael Scoleri, a man who has the looks of a choirboy but the heart of a monster.

Somehow, some way, Scoleri is getting messages from the Red Devil, a disorganized psychopath who is kidnapping young children, drugging them, than drowning them. Before he dumps their dead bodies he attaches bloody wings to their necks, fastened with a coat hanger. His latest victim is the son of Darden State psychiatrist Elise Conroy and she intends to use Scoleri to track down the Red Devil in defiance of all the rules with only the help of Troy Campbell.

Andrew Harper is the one of the best crime thriller writers of the decade just as Douglass Glegg, Harper's alter ego, is a master of horror. RED ANGEL is not for the faint of heart because there are some very gory and visually graphic scenes. The protagonist is a good and noble person who wants to know how a sociopath comes into being, a trait that causes him to become involved in dangerous situations. If this book is an example, Leisure's new line of thrillers will be a smashing success.

Harriet Klausner

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Good but too familiar
Review: Andrew Harper (Douglas Clegg's alter ego)returns with a not-inclusive sequel to BAD KARMA with RED ANGEL. The idea behind these books is to craft a fast-paced, character driven story that you can read in 2-3 sittings. And Harper demands that you stay with the story with enough twist and turns to dare you to try and quit reading. The he throws in enough character development to flesh out the main players all the while twisting your stomach with gut wrenching scenes of torture and murder! The plot is straight forward, the climax worthwhile and most importantly, the characters stay true throughout the novel...they don't have a revelation that is "smart" or "cute". This is lean prose by a master writer. I would recommend any of Douglas Clegg's books after you finish this one....the Clegg books are more richly woven tales but RED ANGEL is a showcase of a imaginative writer on top of his craft!

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: A Novel or Script?
Review: First, let me say that I am a huge Douglas Clegg fan. His books are both horrifying and beautiful, and his alter ego, Andrew Harper, is not such a bad writer himself. "Bad Karma", the first Trey Campbell story, was a bit thin on plot but huge on building-up-to-the-last-page suspense. The second, "Red Angel" is a bit different.

The latest thriller starts off reading like a script. The sentences are short and disjointed, sounding more like blue-print for a made-for-tv-movie than an actual novel. I must admit--and I apologize for this Doug--that I tried reading this book three times. When his new one, "Night Cage," hit shelves though recently, I decided to just sit down and plug through it. By the middle of the book, I couldn't put the darn thing down. I was hooked. The story is actually way cooler than "Bad Karma", the pace more nail-biting. In other words, if this was a four-part movie, I would be waiting everynight with the popcorn.

Doug Clegg is brilliant on how he creates characters and breaths life into them. You, as the reader, care for them, and watch with horror when the latest nightmare intrudes their lives. It seems to me that he just wanted (or needed) to release some pent up energy and write a book at a break=neck pace. This book read like it, and the writing itself could have been better. I defiantly think the author could have written a better book. Sometimes, even passion gets in the way of creativity.

In no way am I discouraged though. "Night Cage" is here, and I'm sure to find a better book then both "Bad Karma" and "Red Angel." Every Clegg work is a treasure in my library.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Tight suspense and enough gore to keep the this fan happy!
Review: I just finished reading Red Angel. It was one heckuva tight read! The pace is great and the action just keeps coming. This book also manages to hold the interest of the reader even when the weapon wielding killer isn't doing his worst. Some of the books that I've read involving the "criminally insane" get so into the psychological aspect of the crimes that the book loses some of its energy. Not so in Red Angel! Andrew Harper just lets the crazies be crazies and the blood flows freely from that point on. I loved this book - can't say enough good about it!

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Minority Report
Review: Looks like I'm the minority opinion on this book. Yes, the book is a quick read, but that has more to do with the large print and 75 chapters in a 358 page book that make it closer to a 240 page adult fiction novel with a higher line count per page and fewer chapters creating blank space. For this book, less results in less. The plot is a familiar one. A psychopath is kidnapping and murdering children. A psychopath in a mental institution is somehow connected, and holds the information needed to find and stop the other before he kills his next victim. Trying to prevent the next murder, are several police characters, and two employees at the mental institution, one previously attacked by a different psychopath, and the other the mother of the next victim. There are many similarities between this novel and Silence of the Lambs, but in every respect this novel compares unfavorably. The characterizations are not that good to begin with, but the small page count combined with a larger cast of characters than needed doesn't help. Too many pages are devoted to characters that just don't add that much to the story. The book also spends a lot of time on exposition and then basically tosses it to accomodate the plot. There are numerous pages devoted to the safeguards in the mental institution, especially regarding the six most dangerous inmates, but when one of the doctors needs to get an inmate out, it's done with ridiculous ease. There are many things in the story regarding the connection between the two psychopaths that are never explained and the ending has a fairly high huh factor. Even Hannibal, the disappointing sequel to Silence of the Lambs, is miles ahead of this one.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Fast-moving page-turner
Review: RED ANGEL is a suspenseful page-turner that you won't be able to put down once you start it. The central mystery will keep you guessing until the end, and the carefully drawn characters will engender your sympathy. The book is well-researched, with a fascinating look into an institution for extremely insane criminals. As usual, Harper/Clegg takes you into the minds of the characters--both the sane and the insane--and as usual, this inner tour is just as tortuous as the mountain roads traveled by the characters. You will get a good look into the face of evil. Just hope it doesn't look back.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Fast-paced thriller by Andrew Harper!
Review: Red Angel is one scary unputdownable page-turning thrill ride from the opening page right until the very last sentence.

When murder victims begin showing up in the San Bernardino Valley with bird's wings tied around their neck, a new killer is out hunting.

The press calls him the Red Angel because of his handiwork, but Trey Campbell, of the Darden State Hospital for the Criminally Insane, knows that this is a sociopathic mind that has been bent and twisted in too many places. And now, when a new victim is taken, and there's only 24 hours left to catch the killer, Trey turns to the one person he should not:

Another killer appears, this one looks like a choirboy and has murdered too many women to count. This one is known as Abraxas, and believes he is God.

This one is in some kind of telepathic communication with the Red Angel, and it is the only hope for the mother of the child who has been kidnapped.

Talk about your rollercoaster rides! Andrew Harper sure is one of the best writers of crime thrillers I've read. The police procedural and forensics aspects of this novel rival some of the best, and the heart of the story is the Darden State Hospital for the Criminally Insane, one of the most unsettling settings for a story of murder and mayhem I have happened across.

Got to go find Harper's first novel, Bad Karma, now.

Other favorites: Patricia Cornwell, Thomas Harris, Greg Iles, Dennis Lehane.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Angel of Death
Review: Red Angel
by
Andrew Harper

Program 28, Ward D., Darden State Hospital for Criminal Justice, the Thrill- Kill row as it is called, houses the most dangerous psychopaths incarcerated on the West Coast. But in the Inland Empire area of Southern California around San Pascal, Redlands and Riverside, a killer, known as the Red Angel, continues to elude the authorities, striking again and again in broad daylight, preying upon the most innocent of victims, young children.

In Ward D., one of the patients, Michael Scoleri, who calls himself Abraxas, the true God, claims to be in telepathic communication with the killer. When the young son of a forensic psychiatrist at Darden State becomes the Red Angel's latest victim, Scoleri offers to help authorities for a price. With time running out, the decision must be made whether to wait and hope the killer is captured in time, or to trust Scoleri, a brutal murderer and rapist, to lead them to the Red Angel.

Andrew Harper, the bestselling author of BAD KARMA, knows our worst nightmares, and he aims straight for the heart. Building layer upon layer of tension, Harper calls upon his extensive knowledge of investigative and forensic procedure to bring characters to life in this fast-paced thriller. Readers are mesmerized as a seemingly invisible monster invades quiet communities, kidnapping children and sacrificing them to his own god. Intense and terrifying, RED ANGEL is dark suspense at its best.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Chiller
Review: Tery has to find the killer before he kills his next child. But does trey have to use psychopath to catchone? Find out in this wonderful, fasted paced book. It gets you hooked and you wont beable to put it down. So pick up RED ANGEL!!!


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