[Happy Independence Day, for my American readers, and happy fourth of July, to everyone!]

Charles de Lint, one of my favorite authors (a review here), went through a spate of writing horror and dark fantasy (more like slightly fantastic horror) novels under a pen name (Samuel M. Key) in the late 80s/early 90s. This novel is one of them, along with Mulengro and From a Whisper to a Scream. I enjoyed the latter of those two quite a bit, despite the darkness of the story, so for a little light reading I picked up Angel of Darkness. Oh, not a good idea. Due to the graphic nature of this book, I’m cutting all plot discussion.

I don’t mean it was a bad book. I mean it seriously wasn’t light reading at all. The book starts with a scene in which a guy who runs a recording studio is waxing poetic about his recorded library of the sounds of people in pain, including his latest masterpiece, wherein he wired a teenage girl for sound and then proceeded to skin her alive. He used these sounds to create a piece of music, of sort, and when he played it – something weird happened. An angel, of sorts, appeared, and then killed the recording guy. Later on this angel goes on to kill most of the police officers who turned up at the scene. Jack, the PI who was to find the teenage girl (she was a runaway), his old (cop) partner Ned, and his sister Anna work to figure out what this angel is, what this world she takes her victims to is, and how to stop the deaths.

Mr. de Lint’s pet issue is child abuse and spousal abuse, tending towards females. Many of his stories feature adult survivors of child abuse, or formerly battered women. Yeah, he romanticizes them in their later lives somewhat (evidence shows that often people who were abused go on to be abusers, and his are usually waif-like artists) but it’s one of those recurring themes that readers of his grow to recognize. This book is no exception to including that theme. There is a character named Beth who was abused by her birth parents, abused by at least one set of foster parents, raped while in high school, and then married a frighteningly controlling, abusive man. I understand that there are people in the world like this – more than I’d like to think about – but she is not a happy character to read about in any way.

Anna and Ned have an interesting history – he’s a cop and she’s the sister of one, and despite the attraction, she’s not sure that she can stand to be a cop’s girlfriend/wife. It makes for some interesting tension, both romantic and in Ned’s job. I did like the views of the cops while they were on duty but not out in the field; they have cots in rooms on which they can crash. We also see several other cop/civilian relationships, and all of these are in contrast to Anna and Ned. Some are strong relationships, and others are not, but all add another dimension to what we see of Anna and Ned.

I liked Jack, I really did. Anna was a pretty strong character as well, and Ned was remarkably romantic, all things considered. Unfortunately, none of these three quite had a truly happy ending. If you’re looking for a book where Good triumphs over Evil and Everyone is Happy in the End, this is not that book. The best we can get, considering all the violence, blood, deaths, and pain is a ‘we’re going to be better, eventually’. The book really put me through the wringer, and while I’m certain that it was a good book (well-written, coherent, possessed of a logical plot), there was one event that happened (I won’t explain) for which I cannot forgive Mr. de Lint, despite my adoration of his work otherwise. I don’t know that I would recommend this novel to anyone, except perhaps a die-hard fan with a really strong stomach and a penchant for splattergore. If one has read From a Whisper to a Scream, it’s about ten orders of magnitude worse, in terms of violence and lack of hope. I don’t think I really need to mention that this is NOT a book for children, do I? No rating; I don’t feel competent to give one.