Dark Angel

This might be my favorite Sandford novel for several years. I enjoy the Prey and the Letty novels, but this one felt different. It had the charm of the historic characters and successfully added Cartright, who works for the Agency-that-must-not-be-names, as well as a few others. I think the introduction of the Ladies Gun Club is brilliant. It brings a lot of possibilities to future novels.

The biggest question I have about the plot is the unknown reasoning for keeping the actual reason behind the hacker hunt a secret. When it came out, it wasn’t a giant revelation, more like, “Oh, of course, let’s do that.” The suspense built up around this just fell flat at the reveal.

Revolving the events around the beginning of the Ukraine invasion really sets this novel in time. I wonder how it will read in a few years. I guess it makes it easy to pinpoint these novels in time, and it’s not like Sandford hasn’t referenced current events in his novels before.

Finally, I have to mention my satisfaction with the final confrontation. It’s atypical for crime novel because while it has its share of heroic acts, it isn’t the all-guns blazing shootout we often see when the bad guys and the good guys finally meet.

This book is a fast read, and it’s hard to put down. If you like Sandford, you’ll like Dark Angel.