Angels in the Gloom
Anne Perry
Ballantine, Sep 2005, $25.95, 352 pp.
ISBN: 0345456564

In March 1916 in the icy mud that separated the trenches, several British soldiers raided the nearby German forces; two failed to return with one dead, but the other Tucky Nann apparently is alive. Protestant chaplain Captain Joseph Reavley finds the badly injured Tucky andmoves him to bring him safely to his side. However, before he can make it, a shell exploded nearby sending Joseph into severe pain and immediately thereafter unconsciousness.

He awakens with a horrendous headache and other pain as Surgeon Cavan explains he has a broken arm, a badly injured leg and lost plenty of blood. He is sent to his Cambridgeshire hometown for surgery and recuperation. However, rest is not what Joseph will find as he soon becomes embroiled in trying to stop the diabolically clever plot of the Peacemaker to forge an Anglo-German Empire that would dominate the world for centuries.

ANGELS IN THE GLOOM is a fabulous historical thriller that is at its best on the not so quiet Western Front as readers taste the horrific conditions that the soldiers faced during the trench warfare. When the tale returns to idyllic Cambridgeshire and the London nightlife, it remains quite intriguing with the comparison between those at home enjoying nightclubs and those at the front or like dedicated Joseph recovering from war injuries. As the storyline twists into a murder mystery with a conspiratorial twist, the plot remains exciting and action-packed but loses some of its grittiness. Still Anne Perry provides a fine World War I tale with her latest Reavley caper.

Harriet Klausner