 Another Lost Angel
Hardcover: 292 pages
Publisher: Five Star (ME)
May 3, 2006
ISBN: 1594144133
Chicago Police Detective Linny Nomar is a very good bad cop. Or a very bad good cop.
He can't seem to make up his mind, these days.
In service to the Chicago Outfit for the past several years, Nomar is paid to look the other way when certain crimes are committed. Numbed by personal tragedies, he is apathetic to his fate and does as he's told, without anger or question.
Until the day that he's inexplicably transferred to a special task force that was put together to solve a string of serial killings involving teen-aged boys. Nomar can't understand why he, of all cops, would be transferred or who would make such an order.
Until he gets the call from his Mob handlers.
The directive has come down. Nomar is to steer the case away from the truth, then when the time comes, frame the Outfit's hand-picked man for the slayings.
Suddenly, he is riddled with doubt.
Perhaps it's the camaraderie he feels from his teammates. Or maybe it's the intense relationship he falls into with Detective Julie McCallister, another member of the task force.
Whatever the reason, he knows he can no longer blindly follow orders. Even though it will most likely mean his job, his freedom and quite probably his life, he knows he must betray the Outfit and find out what's really going on.
Who killed all these boys and why is Chicago's most prominent crime family involved?
The journey to discovery is costly, as Nomar finds that the entire power structure of the city of Chicago is wrapped around a most hideous truth.
It's a fight for redemption as Nomar struggles to regain the soul he has given away and save an innocent man from a certain death.
More about Another Lost Angel
"Lyrical prose, unforgettable characters, and a searing plot make Steve Mandel's debut novel read like the work of a master. This story of a bent Chicago cop seeking redemption-by turns gritty and touching-captures you from the first page. Mandel has arrived and the world of crime fiction is the better for it!"
Libby Hellmann
author of A Shot to Die For
"...a riff on the themes of corruption, redemption and loss, as Chicago as the blues or deep dish pizza ... Mandel drops his protagonist in boiling water, then turns up the burner. His stunning prose insures this amazing debut novel, will stay with you long after you've turned the last page."
Michael Allen Dymmoch
author of The Fall
"Linny makes ANOTHER LOST ANGEL an interesting police procedural….the story line is action packed… readers will root for Linny to find his way back to life and to remain what he has once again become, a dedicated police officer."
-- Harriet Klausner
Amazon.com Top Reviewer
"An impressive debut. Although the clichéd "Hollywood" climax, in which the bad guy holds the gun, explains all, and gloats, is a plot device that I usually rage against, in "Another Lost Angel" it actually works, because (one): Mandel makes it necessary and believable, and (two): …well, you'll just have to read the book. Linny is one of the most sympathetically flawed heroes I have met in quite some time, and I couldn't help but to cheer him along, hoping against hope for a happy ending. The actual ending is far more inspired and realistic then anything I could have imagined; it simply blew me away."
-- Gary Shulze
Crimespree Magazine
Upcoming Projects:
Steve is currently editing his novel Blood In, Blood Out, in addition to writing his next novel, I Am Your God, You Are My Gun. He is also working on projects he hopes to sell to DC and Marvel Comics.
|
|
