Darker Angels (Book Two of the The Black Sun's Daughter) Review

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(More customer reviews)***SPOILER WARNING***
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My inner curmudgeon nearly set _Darker Angels_ aside at about the halfway point. "I don't get this book!" said the curmudgeon. "The voodoo's all wrong. Legba isn't an evil serial killer! The good guys' plan doesn't quite add up, and is pretty unethical besides. And the interpersonal drama just ate the plot for lunch!"
"Sit down and shut up," said M.L.N. Hanover. "I'm telling a story here."
OK, so I've never met M.L.N. Hanover, and he didn't literally say that, but he might as well have. Because just as I was about to give up on _Darker Angels_, he threw in some twists that made me realize I was looking at it all wrong.
I must have been led astray by the extremely linear plot of _Unclean Spirits_. I was expecting this plot to be similar in structure, and so I wasn't asking the right questions. I shouldn't have been asking, "What did Hanover do wrong?" I should have been asking, "What might be going on within the plot to cause all these things to happen?" I think I also forgot that Jayné, despite being a narrator whose voice I really enjoy, is not a perfectly reliable narrator. She has biases and blind spots, and she doesn't understand everything she experiences. Jayné's preconceived notions got in the way of solving the mystery -- and so did mine.
_Darker Angels_ is much less linear than _Unclean Spirits_, and it's much better for it. The plot revolves around a voodoo spirit who manipulates its hosts into committing horrific murders. Jayné is hired by former FBI agent Karen Black, an acquaintance of her late uncle's, to help stop this spirit from killing a young girl. We visit New Orleans and see both the destruction left over from Katrina and the tenacity of its residents. The plot is full of great twists. Hanover yanked the rug out from under my feet at one point, and maybe I should have seen it coming, but I didn't. It's when the pieces start to fall into place that you realize just how carefully Hanover set them up.
I really enjoyed _Darker Angels_s and I think it's safe to say I'm hooked on The Black Sun's Daughter. Jayné continues to be a delight; she's no master strategist, but she has a lot of compassion, and she has more courage than she thinks she does. And to heck with the inner curmudgeon. By the end, this had become a "set the alarm early so you can read before work" kind of book, and I finished it with a smile on my face and maybe a few tears in my eyes.

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In the battle between good and evil, there's no such thing as a fair fight. When Jayné Heller's uncle Eric died, she inherited a fortune beyond all her expectations -- and a dangerous mission in a world she never knew existed. Reining in demons and supernatural foes is a formidable task, but thankfully Jayné has vast resources and loyal allies to rely on. She'll need both to tackle a bodyswitching serial killer who's taken up residence in New Orleans, a city rich in voodoo lore and dark magic. Working alongside Karen Black, a highly confident and enigmatic ex-FBI agent, Jayné races to track down the demon's next intended host. But the closer she gets, the more convinced she becomes that nothing in this beautiful, wounded city is exactly as it seems. When shocking secrets come to light, and jealousy and betrayal turn trusted friends into adversaries, Jayné will soon come face-to-face with an enemy that knows her all too well, and won't rest until it has destroyed everything she loves most....

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Darkness Becomes Her Review

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(More customer reviews)I enjoyed the read overall. There was a plot (sad that I have to say that, but so many YA paranormal books seem to lack them lately) and it moved right along. The paranormal world was well-drawn if based on all the same-old characters. I really liked the idea of a rebirth (post-hurricane destruction) New Orleans. The heroine was likeable and the secondary characters were interesting. I read the entire thing even though it definitely wasn't the best written book out there.
However, I did have a couple of real dislikes.
The profanity: The heroine is supposed to be a hard-edged, foster-child type teenage girl. She fights like Buffy the Vampire and solves her own problems rather than waiting for a hero. She also swears as part of her `edge.' Only it didn't work for me because she is also wishy-washy about making decisions (she changes her mind a lot), emotionally overwrought (passes out from over emotion kind of stuff), and falls in love so fast it makes her look stupid. And all this made her seem not hard-edged at all. So the profanity ended up being forced (like the author trying to prove how hard she was) rather than real.
The detached body parts: There really are real detached body parts in this book- it's got a Buffesque grotesquery to it. However, even better was the grammar. The best (worst?) was so funny that all my kids came running to see why I was laughing so hard. On page 178 the author intended to say that the heroine rolled her eyes after someone made a snarky comment. Then the heroine glanced over at some couples on a dance floor. However what the author put into print was, "My eyes rolled, falling onto the dancers..." (writing this made me laugh all over again).
The Big give away: The giant story has to do with the heroine's identity. Her deceased mother left her a message to `run' because someone is trying to catch/kill her. So she runs, gets chased, and tries to figure out what it going on. And the answer to why this is all happening is pretty unique (or at least I hadn't run into this exact scenario before). I would have liked this book a lot more if I'd been able to slowly unravel the mystery as the clues were dropped, etc. But the author RUINED it by putting a clue on page three that was so obvious that it explained everything and gave the entire mystery away. I don't know if she did it on purpose or not, but it totally spoiled the surprise.
The romance: By far the weakest part of the story. Within hours of meeting Mr. Perfect-but-Attractively-Grumpy, the heroine falls in love. It happened so fast it was boring. The romance scenes could have been cut/pasted from other books they were so unoriginal.
But even with all that, this wasn't the worst book I'd ever read. I probably won't read more in the series (is this a series? Probably), but for a quick read, it did its job.


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Dr. Mary's Monkey: How the Unsolved Murder of a Doctor, a Secret Laboratory in New Orleans and Cancer-Causing Monkey Viruses are Linked to Lee Harvey ... Assassination and Emerging Global Epidemics Review

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(More customer reviews)This is the best kept secret of the last 60 years with more subplots and surprise situations (with no endings in sight). Haslam is a very modest and humble man calling for what should be an obvious formal investigation into many issues still unresolved. He claims he's NOT the investigation, but his exposure is enough that if one reads the work entirely with an open mind, they will understand why 60 Minute TV Magazine Producers call this the "story of the century." Haslam introduces us to an unsolved murder of one of the leading cancer researchers of the last 75 years, Mary Sherman. Her autopsy was sealed for around 30 years, and Haslams explanation of how she died makes far more sence than the official police report written under questionable police procedure. Most importantly, Haslam introduces us to the dark side of the Polio Vaccine and the complications it went through during it's development and the lasting problems we are now struggling with because of it -- the SV-40 VIRUS. It's all over your interest, but ask your doctor or a med school faculty doctor about the SV-40 Virus, and you'll learn, they know nothing about it. Their education and training has been so carefully compartmentalized and they know nothing of these issues, but they are all over the internet if you choose to look. Haslam teaches us about many doctors who lost their careers trying to blow the whistle on these issues.
In short the polio vaccine made from monkey kidneys carried the SV-40 virus which remains dormant inside baby boomers who received the polio vaccine until the immune system is weakened to the point where the SV-40 Virus can transform into one of the major cancer's: lung, breast, soft tissue, bone cancer, etc. In the early 50's 22,000 new cases of polio was called an epidemic, and Ed Haslam now ask, how come around a million new cases of cancer each year is NOT being called a cancer epidemic? I think it's a fair question.
Hopefully, you will read Haslam's work and get your family, friends and associates to read it. Main stream media had a chance to share this with us in 2000 when 60 Minutes had spent more time and money on this story than any other segment of the TV Magazine's history according to their producer, but the network producers would not permit the program to air. Hmmm? Don't you want to know why? Read DR MARY's MONKEY, and you'll begain to have your eyes openened. Edward T. Haslam and Judyth Vary Baker are modern American heros, and only until you have read their works will you even begin to understand why I hold them in such high esteem. Only until you read their works can you begain to understand the price they have paid, the risk they bear; so you and I can learn the truth and demand something be done about it for us, our children, and our children's children to the nth generation.

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The 1964 murder of a nationally known cancer researcher sets the stage for this gripping exposé of medical professionals enmeshed in covert government operations over the course of three decades. Following a trail of police records, FBI files, cancer statistics, and medical journals, this revealing book presents evidence of a web of medical secret-keeping that began with the handling of evidence in the JFK assassination and continued apace, sweeping doctors into coverups of cancer outbreaks, contaminated polio vaccine, the arrival of the AIDS virus, and biological weapon research using infected monkeys.

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Every Dead Thing Review

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(More customer reviews)Despite a strong start, I quickly found myself getting bored with Connolly's attempt to create a world of characters that he could build a book series upon. The story starts with our hero attempting to find the murderer of his wife and child, but meanders far and wide before getting back on track in the final 50 pages. Despite my waning interest, the characters of Bird, Louis, Angel, and the mysterious, grisly psychopath "Travelling Man" kept me going until the satisfying, edge-of-my-seat ending. Uneven, but I will give connolly's next book a look. The guy has raw talent.

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