Customer Reviews

Demolition Angel

5 star:		(44)
4 star:		(45)
3 star:		(18)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

Unfortunately, Elvis Cole is not in this novel. Instead we get a new character-former demolition expect and cop, who was so traumatized by the explosion three years ago that she can't exist without booze and pills. Give me a break. He goes on about this woman like she is some tough chick. R. Crais must have led a pretty sheltered life. Story itself is not bad if you don't pay attention to the struggles of the main character and don't count the number of pills she is popping.

I'm sorry but this book just didn't work for me. I do really enjoy fiction as long as it is credible. In the way that engineers sometimes call a report ffinal with two fs when it really is final, I have to describe this book as ffiction to show that it is "over the top" fiction and too far fetched to be enjoyable. There is no way you can relate to the hero of the story or indeed any other player.

The main characters are an expert from the LA bomb squad, our Demolition Angel, Carol Starkey, a weird psychotic bomb maniac, Mr. Red, and an ex-ATF (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and Explosives) agent, Jack Pell. Thanks to Google for helping me with ATF.

Carol is an alcoholic still carrying physical scars from a bomb explosion 3 years earlier and mental ones from the loss of her lover to the same bomb. Jack too was badly injured by another bomb explosion some years before. Carol slugs back the gin with a vengeance, on the job or off, to satisfy her addiction. She smokes heavily. Every chapter she devours Tagemets by the handful. Thanks again to Google - these are proprietary heartburn and antacid tablets not known in Australia.

Mr. Red is your ultimate weirdo, adopting multiple disguises, skin tones, spoken lingoes and travelling around the country like a ghost leaving only a trail of bombs and not necessarily innocent victims. He is skilled, insecure, evil and extremely dangerous.

Carol and Jack's paths cross early in the story and whilst Mr. Red is ever present and often closer to Carol & Jack than anyone would like to admit, his path inevitably crosses with theirs towards the end of the story.

The finale is much as anyone would expect - no surprises at all - so after a disappointing start there's a disappointing ending too. Unfortunately this is the first book I have read by Robert Crais who otherwise has a fine reputation and several best sellers to his credit. I can only assume that they were finer stories than "Demolition Angel" and I look forward to reviewing him more favourably in future.

This was the fifth Crais book I'd read. It's a departure from his Elvis Cole series. Overall, pretty good. The police procedural aspects are reasonably well done - he has a commendable disclaimer at the front indicating that this book won't tell you how to build or defuse a bomb. I'd just read three of Paul Bishop's Fey Croaker series, and the contrast between the female protagonists was not in this books' favor. OTOH, this book has a large number of characters, which makes it harder to develop as deep a sense of a protagonist's personality. So, an interesting change from the Elvis series, and a better than average read - recommended.

The books of Robert Crais are a revelation in series mystery/thrillers. Friends recommended his satirical, well-sketched detective, Elvis Cole to me some months ago. It took me a little while to speed through the eight novels that feature Cole and his mystery partner, Joe Pike, and I couldn't wait for more! Crais departed from his success with Cole to write two non-series novels in recent years. Each featured a different main character ("Demolition Angel" and "Hostage"). Many novelists fail in their attempts to develop beyond a one-dimensional character focus, because their fans won't let them. Following the path that Michael Connelly and Harlan Coben have set, Crais proves to be the master at proving that he can create multiple marvelous story lines. The two "nonseries" novels met with critical acclaim and quickly hit best seller status. Of the two, I much prefer "Demolition Angel".

Carol Starkey is the disenfranchised heroine of the book. Starkey is one of a rare breed of "bomb squad" cops who treat bombs like sophisticated puzzles. We join Starkey (now off the bomb squad) several years after her lover had died in a freak accident; a minor earthquake set off a bomb that Starkey and Sugar are trying to assess and defuse. Starkey died that day, as well, but they somehow revived her. She's not sure that was a good thing. Since the accident, Starkey's been a walking disaster area; subsisting on Tagamet, coffee and cigarettes, her failures at therapy and her unwillingness to form any meaningful relationships are destroying her energy, in the same way that liquor is destroying her career. Starkey is a drunk.

Another squad technician, Charles Riggio, is fatally blown up by an explosive device as the novel opens. The device bears the signature of madman bomber "Mr. Red". The reader is allowed to spend some time exploring the theory before being introduced to Mr. Red, himself. Complicating the search for the bomber, and toying with Starkey's emotions, is an ATF agent, Jack Pell, who's an expert on Mr. Red.

It's Starkey's case. Solving it will cause her to relive the most horrible day of her life. Many of the leads she turns up are false, and it seems that even Pell wants her to take the easy way out in solving a series of explosions that are devastating the landscape. The powerful story of how Carol Starkey breaks through the pain to follow her instincts without losing her life, will haunt you for days, once the tale is finished.

An excellent introduction to Crais that will make you want to get involved with Elvis Cole, as well!

One of his best, and that's saying a lot!

Three years ago Carol Starkey, a top-notch bomb squad technician came back from the dead. Her partner and lover
died. Since then she has been burying her survivor's guilt with alcohol and Tagamet. While assigned to LAPD's Criminal
Conspiracy section, Carols lands a case in which a seemingly easy bomb to diffuse kills another technician. She soon finds
herself investigating a series of bombings in which the bombs were deliberately designed to kill the technicians.

Robert Crais has written a fast pace novel with twists and turns that will keep you turning the pages until you are done. He
has successfully created a complex multi-dimensional wounded character in Carol Starkey while at the same time immersing
you in the authentic world of bomb making and the dangerous world of the bomb technicians.

This is the first book I have read by Robert Crais and I now have a new author to add to my To Be Found (TBF) and To
Be Read (TBR) piles. I highly recommend this book. Review by: Lillian Porter

'Demolition Angel' is a real treat. The author delves into the world of bomb disposal experts and the scary individuals who develop such bombs for kicks ("bombers without a cause"). As with his better known "L.A. Requiem", Robert Crais writes in a tight yet fast-reading style which simply makes the pages fly by.

In our story we have a police heroine who leads the charge in finding a serial bomber ('Mr Red'). The story has *plausible* twists and turns, with an unexpected and thrilling ending. And the author has seemingly done a fine job researching this bizarre world of bombers and bomb disposal experts; I found it educational.

However 'Demolition Angel' isn't perfect. Robert Crais is a great storyteller, but he isn't a great writer. His characterizations are somewhat shallow, and he expends no effort in giving the reader the *feeling* of the setting. It is as if he wrote the book in haste. But these are mere quibbles.

Bottom line: terrific (and frightening) story. Job well done.

I like Robert Crais. I'm one of many. People often have, at least I do, ambivalent feelings about our favorite writers exploring uncharted territory. For example here, with Elvis Cole and Joe Pike, on the one hand we enjoy the dialogue, courage, integrity and overall, the prose of Cole & Pike. We even go to the peculiar step of stating 'which Cole' we like more, the early Cole or the later Cole, or in which novel he's 'more Cole.'

But the end result of our attentiveness to Elvis and Joe is predictable. Eventually we'll tire of Cole, or like Spenser, Cole will continue to take on the bad guys while taking metamusil and geritol, both pumping iron . . . and taking it.

So we want our favorite authors to explore different characters so we don't know so much about them, so that there still are surprises, and so that we don't get too used to them.

In Demolition Angel (great title, Bob), Robert Crais does an exceptional job with Carol Starkey and Jack Pell, using their physical trauma to represent their emotional limitations as well. They want so much to be together and although we're hooked on the pursuit of evil and the drama of the chase, we hook into their characters as well. Kudos to him. And besides, a darn good read, too. I don't know if we'll see Carol again. But I'd like to.

You can rate a book up to 6 stars when:

1) No matter where you are: a stadium, at work, at the movies, etc. and the only thing that is in your head is the book that you are reading at that moment.

2) Everything that is written in the book is or could be real.

3) In the book you always read the story, it never goes out with a second story that has nothing to do with the main story.

4) Everybody could read the book no matter the age.

5) It has some jokes that distracts you from the story.

6) You will recommend the book to everyone.

This book has all of these points.

This was a great book. I had not read any Robert Crais books prior to reading Demolition Angel. I liked the book well enough to explore other books by Crais and am in the process of reading them now. Great book all the way through.

Carol Starkey is a bomb squad technician who is now working with L.A.P.D.'s criminal conspiracy section. Formerly she was an active member of the demolition squad but barely escaped with her life after an horrific explosion which killed her lover and left her badly mutilated,both physically and mentally.
She exists mainly on alcohol,cigarettes and Targemet and is barely holding herself together,even with the help of psychiatrists. When a serial bomber kills one of her former workmates, she is thrust back into the spotlight and is teamed with an out of town bomb expert,Jack Pell.While this is an exciting 100 mph race to track down the killer, Carol is a difficult heroine to empathise with and I'll remain ambivalent about her as a regular in Crais books until she cleans up her act a bit.Her standards of personal hygiene are dubious to say the least and for someone who doesn't shower regularly and who wears the same clothes repeatedly---not to mention the non-eaters, smokers breath and hair which must reek of cigarette smoke, she'd be enough to knock over a brown dog at 20 paces !!!