Review: Death Angel by Linda Howard

Death Angel is Linda Howard’s latest romantic suspense novel. I enjoyed this book and would recommend it to readers who enjoy Linda Howard’s books or who like romantic suspense. Linda Howard is one of my favorite authors and I own most of her books. She writes exciting, emotional books with interesting characters. This is one of her darker books, but I like the fact that she takes chances and creates unusual characters.

Drea learned at an early age she could manipulate men with her good looks and sexy body. She uses sex to get the things she wants–security and riches. She had an unhappy childhood and wanted never to be poor again. The first part of the book deals with Drea’s life with Salinas who is a drug running thug and her escape from him. Even though I knew she chose the life she’s leading and that it was ultimately self-destructive Drea was a likable character. She did what she felt she had to to survive.

When the book opens she has been Salinas’ mistress for two years and from the beginning she pretends to be dumber than she is. She realizes her act as the dumb blonde makes her appear nonthreatening and harmless. Salinas believes her portrayal as a shallow, self-absorbed young woman interested only in shopping and her looks. He isn’t as careful as he would be with someone smarter. Thus she eventually learns his bank account password even though she isn’t planning to use it. She knows her relationship with Salinas is temporary and she prepares for the day she will leave. For example, she has the jewelry he gives her copied and she puts the real jewelry into a safe deposit box–in case he won’t let her take the jewelry with her.

When it was time to leave she had planned to leave with only the things Salinas had given her, but everything changes the day Salinas lets an assassin have her for sex. She is emotionally devastated by this–especially when the assassin treats her like a person and Salinas whom she has lived with for two years treats her like an object and a whore. The assassin manages to touch her emotions–something which hasn’t happened to her since she was a teenager. However, after an afternoon of marathon sex the assassin leaves her even though she asks him to take her with him. According to him, once was enough. Thus, she is betrayed by both the assassin and Salinas. The next day she leaves Salinas and takes over $2 million dollars from him.

Drea learns it’s not so easy to actually get away with that much money. She transferred the money from Salinas’ bank account to her own account, but actually getting her hands on the cash is another matter! Banks don’t keep that much cash on-hand and she discovers even $15,000 is a lot of cash to carry around. The biggest problem though is that bank transactions create records and reports to the IRS. This part of the book was amusing as she tries to solve one problem only to have two more pop up.

Salinas is enraged Drea was able to fool him and steal money from him and he wants the assassin to kill Drea. The assassin is able to track the bank transactions and catches up with her, but he admires her ingenuity and intelligence and hasn’t decided whether to kill her or not. The book takes an unexpected turn at this point and the rest of the book is quite different from the first part of the book.

This is Drea’s story. She looks into herself during the course of this book and discovers she doesn’t like what she sees. She has always taken the easier way out. Now she must remake herself and grow and change. She discovers money isn’t the important thing in life. I enjoyed the journey she takes and the changes she makes to recreate herself.

We don’t get to know the male lead very well in this book. That went along with his character and didn’t bother me. What we do find out about him shows his strength of character and his ability to grow and change, too, as he realizes how much he loves Drea. His love for Drea is the single most important thing defining him.

Death Angel is not without flaws, but it’s an interesting, unusual book and I recommend it. There is a paranormal aspect to this book and some reviews I’ve read didn’t like that, but that didn’t bother me even though I don’t normally like paranormal mixed with my romance! I have given it a B+.