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Summary and Reviews of Demolition Angel by Robert Crais

Demolition Angel by Robert Crais

Demolition Angel

by Robert Crais
  • Critics' Consensus:
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  • First Published:
  • May 1, 2000, 384 pages
  • Paperback:
  • Jul 2001, 384 pages
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About This Book

Book Summary

When a seemingly innocuous bomb call turns into a devastating murder scene, Carol embarks on an investigation that reveals intentions far more disturbing than one-shot acts of anarchy.

With the most unforgettable female lead character since Clarice Starling, Demolition Angel is a blistering stand-alone thriller from the freshest bestselling voice in crime fiction.

Carol Starkey is struggling to pick up the pieces of her former life as L.A.'s finest bomb squad technician. Fueled with liberal doses of alcohol and Tagamet, she's doing time as a Detective-2 with LAPD's Criminal Conspiracy Section. Three years have passed since the event that haunts her--a detonation that killed her partner and lover, David "Sugar" Boudreaux. Fragments from the same explosion sliced through Starkey's protective Kevlar, scarred her beyond repair, and left her outside looking in at the life she left behind. Now she can't bear her reflection in the mirror, and hasn't been with another man since Sugar left her bed the morning they rolled out to the bomb site.

When a seemingly innocuous bomb call turns into a devastating murder scene, Carol catches the case and embarks on an investigation of a series of explosions that reveal intentions far more disturbing than one-shot acts of anarchy. The bombs are designed expressly to kill bomb technicians, and as the one tech who survived the deadliest of blasts, Carol is in for the most intense fight of her life.

Against the dazzling and lonely backdrop of contemporary Los Angeles, Robert Crais has crafted a work of ingenious depth of character, matched with a transcendent narrative velocity. Demolition Angel is sure to take its place among the finest thrillers of the modern age.



"Tell me about the thumb. I know what you told me on the phone, but tell me everything now." Starkey inhaled half an inch of cigarette, then flicked ash on the floor, not bothering with the ashtray. She did that every time she was annoyed with being here, which was always.

"Please use the ashtray, Carol."

"I missed."

"You didn't miss."

Detective-2 Carol Starkey took another deep pull on the cigarette, then crushed it out. When she first started seeing this therapist, Dana Williams wouldn't let her smoke during session. That was three years and four therapists ago. In the time Starkey was working her way through the second and third therapists, Dana had gone back to the smokes herself, and now didn't mind. Sometimes they both smoked and the goddamned room clouded up like the Imperial Valley capped by an inversion layer. Starkey shrugged.

"No, I guess I didn't miss. I'm just pissed off, is all. It's been three years, and here I am back where I ...

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Reviews

Media Reviews

USA Today - Carol Memmott
Demolition Angel's contemporary edginess is crafted around Crais' exploration of Internet bomb sites. He builds as story that's fascinating and frighteningly believable.

Library Journal
Fast paced, authentic, well written, and combining suspense and police procedural, this tale features a tough heroine who should win a whole new audience for Crais.

Publisher's Weekly
Crais deserves further garlands for this stand-alone crime novel.

Reader Reviews

Anonymous

I loved this book! The book tells a lot about the bomb squad in LA: how bombs are defused, how they're made (though the author changed some details...Thank God! So no one could make a bomb from just reading the book). It also explore the politics ...   Read More
hassan hosseinpour

I found this book very intersesting. It is an obcessive read. I strongly recommend it.
Rich

I have never been much of a reader but I got this book as a gift and one night being bored, picked it up and started reading it. Well, I read it during breaks, at red lights, while I was cooking... you get the idea. Yes, just as with any story there ...   Read More
Yeshar Hosseinpour

This book is very boring at the beginning but it becomes interesting in the end

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Read-Alikes

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