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Angela's Back!
In A Prayer for Deliverance,
Christopher Chambers resumes where the
debut novel, Sympathy For the Devil, ended. FBI agent, Angela Bivens, is back in action
as an inspector called in to investigate the murders of prominent African American leaders. While her superiors think the
murders are the work of a well-known hate group, we find Angela dallying in the supernatural to solve
the murders and bring the true assassins to justice. Specifically, she is pulled
into a dark underworld of Zulu "magick" to substantiate her theories and enlists the help of a rookie sidekick (and Wicca
witch) to assist in the investigation. As in the first novel, she is both supported
and hindered by the FBI staff and must deal with the political powers of the agency and the bureaucracy of the Washington elite. To complicate
things further, she stumbles through a newfound romance while struggling to overcome the emotional scars from her last boyfriend,
a psychotic sociopath who was the evil perpetrator of her last case.
As one can imagine, this book is multi-dimensional
and filled with numerous plot twists and turns. There are so many characters
with ulterior motives that this
reviewer literally had to keep notes on who was who, their relationships to one another, and their relationships within the
FBI hierarchy.
This novel is extremely well written and very well researched as evidenced in
the passages about South African culture and politics. However, this reviewer
felt that at times the plot tangents obscured the essence of the mystery. In
an attempt to make this a well-rounded novel, the author repeatedly lost this reviewer in the minutia and the surreal, dreamlike
episodes that were scattered throughout the book. Angela Bivens,
earmarked as an FBI super sleuth, seemed bewildered and clueless at times which elongated the story and damaged her characterization
as an ingenious, diehard super agent. There were some segments in which she appeared
to be as much of a victim as the targets. Perhaps this was intentional, to show
her vulnerabilities, however it came off as Angela being the luckiest detective alive instead of one of the sharpest. Nonetheless,
this reviewer persevered to see how the novel would conclude was not disappointed. Overall,
this was a compelling mystery and proved to be entertaining.
The Nubian Circle Book Club rating for A Prayer for Deliverance is 4 out of 5 stars. We
welcome your comments and thoughts about this book review. Please e-mail us at:
NubianCircleClub@aol.com.
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