3 1/4 - 3 1/2 stars

The Angel connects to The Widow through characters Abigail Browning and Bob O'Reilly. There is no need to have read the previous book, although it does explain the relationships between some of the characters.

Keira Sullivan, Bob O'Reilly's niece, is on her way to Ireland to research an old Irish tale told by an old neighbor of her uncle and mother. The night before she is to leave, a man mysteriously drowns in less than 2 feet of water. It appears accidental, but to Detective Abigail Browning, it is suspicious.

Keira makes her way to Ireland and finds herself in a bit of trouble. Her uncles makes some calls and Simon Cahill travels to save the damsel in distress.

A mystery begins to unfold of how all these seemingly unrelated incidents fit together. Is it Irish magic, the devil, or something else?

I found this book far more appealing than The Widow. I liked Keira and Simon along with Bob. The family dynamic was interesting. I still didn't find myself liking Abigail. She is just a bleak character with no depth. She played a large part in this book and those were my least favorite parts.

As for the romance part of the book, it was light. The main part of the story is the mystery and the romance barely mixes into it. I would have liked to have gotten deeper into the dynamic of the romantic relationship.

I can't say this was an excellent book, but it was good. Neggers doesn't develop her characters enough, but this one had a bit more development than The Widow. ( )

Loved it! ( )

The Angel by Carla Neggers is the latest in a loosely connected series of romantic suspense novels, which I would venture to say are mostly twisty murder mysteries and very little romance. Themes of The Angel revolve around the existence of evil, deliberate mischief and an elusive Celtic stone angel. This is a story of good and evil, love and anguish knotted together with secrets and lies.

Detective Abigail Browning from The Widow is a main character in the story. The other main character is Keira Sullivan, a folklorist who tells stories and paints the mythical...and finds a man mysteriously drowned in a few inches of water in a public garden near where her art opening is in Boston. Abigail and Keira's uncle Detective Bob O'Reilly investigate the death of the man, Victor Sarakis. Keira has rented a cottage in Ireland for six weeks and has promised her friend Patsy McCarthy to delve more into her tale of three Irish brothers, a stone angel and the summer solstice while in Ireland. During her investigation of a ruined stone cottage she thinks she sees the stone angel but is then trapped among its collapse. Not hearing from his niece at the planned time Detective O'Reilly becomes concerned and calls upon FBI agent and FastRescue volunteer Simon Cahill to investigate. Simon rescues Keira and they return to Boston only to discover the gruesome murder of Patsy McCarthy.

Carla Neggers expands upon the eccentricities of each character. They all have secrets and reasons for withholding those secrets. There is the perplexing fable of the stone angel and three brothers...which was used as a major plot element but did not make much sense to me as the discovery of the stone angel was too simplistic, its disappearances and re-appearances too convenient. The book does convey a sense of hidden meanings and supernatural events but then most were given explanations. The Angel ends with many plot lines and questions unanswered, paving the way for the next book in the series called The Mist featuring Will Davenport and Lizzie Rush released in hardcover June 30, 2009.

My Rating: 3.5

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A pleasant enough combination of suspense, romance, mystery combined with a dash of the supernatural. A page turner that fizzled a bit at the end for me. ( )