Angel In The House
First Published: 2005
Published By: Allison and Busby Ltd
Angel Number: 14
Personal Favourite: 15
Quotable Quote: "You expect me to lease?" she drawled..."No, Mister Bond, I expect you to buy..."
The Backstory
Angel's partner has bought a share in R & B Confidential Investigations, a previously all-female private detective agency, and Angel is forced to become respectable and get a proper job. Still, a private investigator is better than nothing.
Angel's first case is dealing with the 'leak' of Botox from a Cambridge laboratory, an area where the broody Amy would quite like to live.
Angel has too many distractions: a good looking redhead, a trip to Paris, a group of Russians ostensibly selling old cars and salsa.
He also has the headache of his father selfishly having a stroke and needing 24 hour care, and just who is going to tell Bethany she's about to become a granny?
The Webmaster's Take
Botox. There is somewhat of an obsession with it: either by those getting it done or the observers trying to suss out whether they have got it done. For those where time has moved bits of them too far south, Botox is the magical formula that promises to make you look thirty even when you're eighty.
A couple of months after I moved from the wilds of South West London to the, erm, wilds of North Wales, Angel In The House was released so it was really quite apt, considering that Angel and May are also moving away from their den of luxury in Hampstead to another den of luxury in Cambridge.
Now, those that do read my reviews on Amazon know that my relationship with House isn't the best, those that don't have probably figured out that as there are 15 books, number 15 on the list is erm, low. Also, my opinion is not universally shared, judging by the feedback on the review and from elsewhere on the net. But I have an inkling they have read very few other Angel books, and fairly obviously from some sources, the only Angel book they've read.
I came to this conclusion about my attitude towards it: I was expecting too much of it. Having read all but three of the series, I was champing at the bit at the thought of a brand spanking new Angel. Everything else that I moaned about in the review, to quote from The Fabulous Baker Boys, is parsley, inconsequential and meaningless if you like the book, and the plot is rather clever.
But I have come to a decision. House is going to get equal treatment to the rest, and I'm not going to spoil it by whinging. Besides, I do like the book, just not as much as the others.
There is a mini homage in here to a non Angel book, Double Take, which was probably something Roy overheard in a pub anyway, insofar as the story is followed through, at least at the British end.
Okay - so the book is a one joke pony really, although it does have a sub plot which I love, featuring a character who has come from the same gene pool as "Tigger" O'Neill, although this one is probably someone who Marcus Moore of Lights, Camera, Angel would describe as double parking on the wrong side of sexuality street. And we get a new character who features in the following two novels. The sub plot is a little transparent...<thwack>...okay, okay, no more criticism, the plot and Angel's investigation into the incidents occurring at properties which have spent a suspiciously long time on the market, is classic stuff. Ah, conscience clear.
The book also involves a bit of "water sports" - and if that isn't enough to at least get you curious, you clearly need to stay in more.
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