"Gory but good"
As a teenager, Lydia Strong learned how to live up to
her surname following the murder of her mother by a serial
killer. The homicide shaped her personal and professional
lives. She molded herself into a non-caring person so that
she would never hurt again. Professionally she became a
successful true crime writer who depends on her intuition
to learn the truth. Fifteen years later, Lydia is in Santa Fe where three
people with no real ties to anyone recently vanished. She
and the cops disagree as her instincts scream sly serial
killer while Police Chief Simon Morrow insists just a trio
of losers escaping from their mundane lonely lives. Lydia
persuades private eye Jeffrey Mark to help her prove she is
right. Jeffrey would do anything for Lydia, who he
unrequitedly has loved since he met her when he was a FBI
agent investigating her mother's murder. Soon corpses
appear and Simon reluctantly begins to believe in Lydia's
intuition that dangerously takes the trio to the Church of
the Holy Name for a final confrontation with evil. ANGEL FIRE is a police procedural tale with an ESP-like
private investigative twist to the plot. The lead trio
makes an interesting team as a strange yet engaging
relational triangle forms. The story line is gory and all
over the place losing at times sight of the prime theme,
but those readers who enjoy a bloodstained tale with
likable protagonists will find Lisa Miscione's debut novel
to be heaven sent. Harriet Klausner
Reviewed by PNR Group Member
Posted January 18, 2002
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Memories of her mother's murder plague a reclusive true
crime writer on the trail of a serial killer in Angel Fire.
Haunted by her past, Lydia Strong has lived her life driven
to understand the twisted minds of murderers -- and to
bring them to justice. Now thirty years old, she is a best
selling true crime writer and an investigative consultant
whose instincts never lie. In Angel Fire, a taut, dark
thriller by debut novelist Lisa Miscione, Lydia has
retreated to her isolated home in Santa Fe, New Mexico,
where she hopes for a reprieve from the criminals that
populate her life... and the demons that plague her.
But when three people turn up missing, Lydia can't ignore
the feeling that there is a sinister force at work behind
their disappearances. And when the local police won't
cooperate, she calls her longtime friend and mentor,
private investigator Jeffrey Mark, to New Mexico. Together
they start investigating -- because they believe there's a
serial killer on the loose in Santa Fe. But it isn't until
the killer draws Lydia into his twisted game that the real
hunt begins.
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