Redemption [School & Library Binding]

Intertwined with Whitney's story is Angel's memory of Moira O'Braonain, who he first encountered in his Angelus the Vampire Pirate days (bet you didn't know that Angel used to swashbuckle a bit). While taking over a ship, Angelus and Darla run into Moira, a deadly fighter who Angel kills. And then has to kill several times over. Whitney and Moira are nearly identical, but it will take time for Angel to work out the connection, and people around Whitney keep dying unpleasantly.

Mel Odom does a great job on his first Angel novel, capturing not only Angel's character perfectly, but the interactions between Cordelia and Doyle as well. The make an interesting counter to what is building between Whitney and Angel. Despite being pure fantasy, Odom's style adds the touch of believability that is necessary if a reader is to stay interested.

This story comes from the short period of time when every Angel story seems to depend on undoing the vampire's actions during the Angelus period, where amends and redemption had a very specific meaning. Unfortunately, the constant flashbacks wear thin after a while. Redemption spends as much time in the past as it does in the present and, despite Odom's writing stills, I'm beginning to twitch every time I see Angelus in a frilly shirt.

The other problem that I had was with Doyle's character meeting up with a loan shark and a seer. Both of these characters were interesting to a point, and the scenes were well written, but they ultimately had nothing to do with the story. They could have been written out completely and the rest of the story would have remained the same. In fact, the loan shark storyline is completely left dangling. He forgives Doyle's loan as long as Doyle agrees to introduce him to Angel. Interesting, you might think. And then you would read the rest of the book wondering what business this loan shark would have with Angel. But you would never find out, because Odom never goes back to this subplot. It is just left dangling at the end. Very disappointing.

But getting past the occasional misplaced word or sentence and the subplot that goes nowhere, there was a lot of good in this book as well. For the most part the characters read like those in the show (which isn't always the case in tv tie-in novels)and the rest of the plot is pretty tight. The introductory scene hooks you right in, and for a while at least you are intrigued by the mystery woman who Angel had met and fought over a century ago and who is now not only still alive and well, but doesn't seem to recognize him.

I bought this book at a garage sale for a quarter. I got my money's worth. I don't know if I would feel the same if I had picked it up at cover price.