Close To The Ground – Jeff Mariotte

After the good experience I had revisiting the Angel universe back in November, I decided to pick another one out of the unread drawer and head back to Los Angeles for another look at a season one era tale.  Sadly, I didn’t enjoy it as much as the previous entry, though it was still a pretty decent read.

The first season of Angel was kind of hit or miss, especially early in the season when Glenn Quinn’s Doyle was still alive.  The show didn’t really start to come together until after Quinn was replaced by Alexis Denisof and the later additions of J. August Richards and Amy Acker.  Having to set the novel before these changes puts author Jeff Mariotte at a slight disadvantage.  His previous work didn’t rely too heavily on having Doyle around.  The same can’t be said of this one, where Angel Investigations is hired to protect a young woman after Doyle has a vision about her as a mystic from Ireland looks to steal Angel’s lifeforce.  Meanwhile, in a subplot that never actually gets around to being tied in to the main goings on, Kate Lockley investigates a string of bank robberies.

While this didn’t live up to the last Angel book I read, that doesn’t mean it wasn’t a good story.  Mariotte certainly had a good read on the characters as they existed early in the show’s run.  The main threat, a sorcerer so hell bent on summoning a demon that he needs Angel’s life force in order to live long enough to complete the spell, was a little by the numbers, but that is to be somewhat expected after reading enough of these books.  Overall, I’m willing to go back for more, if I have more in the drawer.