Book reviews by Mobilism's Book Review team
Feb 25th, 2015, 12:18 am
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TITLE: Angels of the Deep
AUTHOR: Kirby Crow
GENRE: Dark Fantasy | LGBT
PUBLISHED: April 11 2009, first edition
RATING: ★★★★★
PURCHASE LINKS: revised edition, January 2015 Amazon, Kobo
MOBILISM LINK: Read

Description: Becket Merriday is on the trail of a killer who is murdering beautiful young men in the small town of Irenic. One clue is found with each mangled body: the arcane symbol of a snake twined around a burning tree. It's the same symbol Beck has worn on a charm since he was a child.

Beck is a skeptic, but when he begins experiencing terrifying visions of the distant past, he is forced to confront his lack of belief and investigate the murders from an occult angle. What he discovers is an ancient race of immortal creatures hunted by an incredibly powerful adversary: the angel Mastema. Soon, Beck and his partner, Sean Logan, find themselves at the center of a deadly supernatural war.

Review: This book was a surprise. The Synopsis promised an average read of supernatural angel and demon fiction with a measure of suspense mystery thrown in, ideal to waste some free time cozily curled up in my armchair. Well, that wasn’t it. I quickly became engrossed and couldn’t stop reading until I finished the book, almost regretting it the next morning as I woke up all bleary eyed and weary to the sound of my ‘waking-the-dead’ alarm clock…

Angels of the Deep is a well-researched dark fantasy novel, involving creatures known as the Nephilim, demi-gods born in the earliest ages of the Jewish god Yaweh, a race described in the Apocrypha, children of Azazel and other fallen angels. Crow mixes them with an unique perception of Fate and Mother Nature in an urban setting.

First contact with Becket Merriday is as a seven year old boy, an abandoned child raised in the folds of the Wystan Parish in Virginia. He sits in the parish garden, waiting for the sunset, for the dusk to set in. A ritual he follows with religious precision since he deeply believes that the dusk brings salvation - only it never comes. Deep down he senses he is different from any of the other people he knows, not that those are many given his enclosed upbringing. To say, Beck is lonely, suspicious in nature and bone-deep scared might be an understatement.

Beck’s world evolves around books of monsters, saints and demons, prayers, and a disturbing distorted perception of love...
“Where is that child?” Father Calvert murmured as he moved aside the pale, smooth lace of the Battenberg curtain with a fingertip, letting the cool touch of its softness slide over his knuckles. Beck was already an hour late. His lips pursed in amusement. Beck was always running off somewhere, elusive and quick as a little lizard, always drawing attention to himself.

“Beck?” he called softly, creeping around the tall bookcase, the air so still he could hear his own heartbeat in his ears. “Are you hiding, angel? I’ve got something for you.” He looked down and saw a small, dark head bowed over a book, and two childish legs drawn up to a thin chest that shivered and heaved. Beck held the book clasped to him like a shield, arms crossed over its cover. Calvert knelt and gently pried the book away from Beck’s grasp, who reacted by drawing up into an even smaller ball. Calvert set the book aside and carded his fingers through the black silk of Beck’s hair, sighing deeply when his penis twitched at the contact. He felt his member grow stiff and poke at the restraining fabric of his briefs, and he scooted closer. “Sweet angel,” he crooned.
Father Calvert doesn’t get to molest the child - this time. Very quickly is clear that Beck has an angel watching over him, or something like an angel. Beck knows her as Claire, an old woman giving him a protection amulet, and he only meets her once.

Years later Becket has left behind the traumas of his childhood, or so he thinks. We meet him again on the verge of a divorce, too familiar with tequila, living alone with his seven belongings up in Irenic, New York. A runaway from overly distressing serial murder cases in his time as FBI profiler. Irenic is quiet, all the excitements are a few speeding tickets and some drunkards at the local pub. But one morning Beck gets a call from his partner Sean - a gruesome murder of a teenaged boy shakes his careful constructed world of denial.

At this point I thought I’d figured it all out: a traumatized cop hunts a (admittedly supernatural) serial killer on the loose, and is in the process of divorcing his wife Catherine. A hint of homoerotic feelings for his partner Sean who seems to reciprocate. Sexual tension teases me in various subtle, not so subtle and even in outright violent ways throughout the book. A classic, right? But no, not all is as it seems.

I followed Beck and the small lead to the victim’s supposed address in Irenic, a non-existent address as far as Beck is concerned. To his surprise he finds an old estate and he’s puzzled. An achingly beautiful young man opens the door, the resemblance to the murder victim astonishing. This is when Becket is sucked in to a world of demi-gods (Nephilim) and angels at war - a war raging since thousands of years, hidden from the eye of mortals. A world way out of his comfort zone. He has forsaken any beliefs, Beck’s an anarchist. He thinks himself crazy, delusional on top of his inner conflict he’s fighting ever since he discovered his inability to feel love, compassion, empathy. The reason why he insists on a divorce, thinking that his wife is better off without him, to her abysmal dismay. A closet sociopath made by early childhood abuse and a homosexual in denial on top of that?

I didn’t get far with my amateurish psychology. Becket’s all but that. Kirby Crow makes that clear early on. Becket’s his own enemy, but there is also the serial killer who seems to have targeted Beck. Author Crow alternates between Beck’s point of view and the killer’s who is actually a psychopath, if you could call an ancient Angel of Revenge that. A dark angel dedicated to Yaweh, following every command, hunting down every Nephilim alive, playing with them like a cat would with a mouse. Mastema is his name and only once he actually had fallen in love, thousands of years ago. Love aimed at a human woman. Then he murdered her in Yaweh’s name, a god even today is worshiped and I can’t shake my revulsion at a god who seems to place himself above everything and everyone, demanding the most cruel of all sacrifices: Mastema’s woman - not that all this is unusual for a god but Crow’s Yaweh is a jealous god. None of his angels are allowed to love each other or a human more than him. The very reason why some of them are the fallen angels, the outcasts, the ones today are called demons. That’s how it seems but what is really behind this unrelenting, merciless Yaweh?

Perhaps this one ancient, profound truth seeping through every chapter, revealed in these exact words in both English and Latin: Darkness never dies. Caligo numquam perit.

Without darkness there is no light, without light there is no darkness. Conscious beings aren’t able to perceive a certain feeling if not for its opposite. All one can do is to decide which side one’s on. Side with the light? With the darkness? What sacrifices are coming along with one or the other decision? What’s Beck’s decision? What is he ready to sacrifice?

Kirby Crow manages to draw a fascinating ancient biblical world, revealed in flashbacks, and deeply conflicted characters born both in ancient and modern times. They try to work through betrayal, neglection, fear and pain, in a way that even cruel antagonist Mastema earned my empathy if troubled. And maybe that’s just it: nothing is just black or white. Nothing is easy and whatever one decides, there are consequences. Always. Infallible. And sometimes, circumstances do not allow any choices at all. Just the one thing left to do, and hopefully, it’s the right thing.
Feb 25th, 2015, 12:18 am
Feb 25th, 2015, 8:44 am
I've picked this one up a dozen times and never managed to stick with it... Your review makes me think it might be time for another try, though!
Feb 25th, 2015, 8:44 am
Mar 24th, 2016, 9:41 pm
I remember reading it some years ago and loving it. From what seems to be your standard traumatized cop meets another cop it evolves into a story on a cosmic scale and it manages to make that transition not jarring. I remember being impressed that a story so much on the dark side it managed to pull off a non-cheesy happy ending.
Mar 24th, 2016, 9:41 pm
Apr 28th, 2016, 3:59 pm
great review! it sounds fascinating but also maybe too intense for me? i will think about adding it to my to-read list!
Apr 28th, 2016, 3:59 pm

currently reading: station eleven by emily st john mandel
May 2nd, 2016, 4:27 pm
Awesome review! It looks like a great book, will be adding it to my TBR list.
May 2nd, 2016, 4:27 pm
Jul 26th, 2016, 12:03 pm
I have to ask : LGBT?
Jul 26th, 2016, 12:03 pm