Angels In Arms
First Published: 1991
Published By: The Crime Club
Angel Number: 4
Personal Favourite: 9
Quotable Quote: "This is the Fashion Police" I said in her ear, "you are under arrest."
The Backstory
Francis "Werewolf" Dromey is in deep trouble: so who's he gonna call? Naturally, Angel cannot refuse a request from an old friend, even if it does involve going back on the road with a bad, but very loud, rock band and negotiate with an old acquaintance who is bankrolling the tour; arrange transportation of some very naughty substances at the risk of life and limb, and then face the bad guys.
Time to call in the cavalry...thousands of them.
The Webmaster's Take
I once saw a fascinating documentary on bees. Even if you are scared of these little kamikaze pilots, please read on. The bees in Tibet have an awesome enemy - the giant hornet which is as big as your hand and one is enough to give you nightmares. Now, because wasps, hornets etc are lazy species of insects, they like to nick honey made by those oh so hard working honey bee, and they don't care about casualties. The monks in Tibet that keep the European honey bee (more commercial type of honey) can find their entire colonies wiped out by the gruesome yellow and black killer with wings. The wild honey bee, though has an awesome strategy. They pile on top of any intruders, and rest there until literally roasting them to death.
Puts your fear into perspective a bit, doesn't it?
However, I wouldn't mess with the real killer honey bee in this tale, a sorta mixture of Annie Oakley and Calamity Jane. And she probably wouldn't have any problem in roasting you to death either.
Arms was the 3rd book in the series I had read, so, was the first I had read with him being single, carefree and...broke. Well, he wasn't quite broke at the time (I find out why, much later, with Angel Hunt) but he was at the end, which leads us neatly into Angel City.
Now, of course, I didn't know this at the time, but part of the focus of the Angel series was to set it in an historical context, or at least, pick up on one or two top stories of the day. Arms sort of moves away from this, and is just plain, well, farce. But I hate the word farce; it sounds like everything that is bad, corny and uncool. But the novel is the opposite of um, all three.
This was also my first introduction to Francis "Werewolf" Dromey, his true character comes out in Angel Touch, in this one he is really just an excuse for Fitzroy to get involved; and a very good one, after all, Werewolf keeps him stocked up with everything that is illegal and bad for the brain.
And then of course, the very bad but the very loud rock band Astral Reich, you know, the one that Mike likes to wind up his readership with as to the level of their success. Or maybe he's just forgotten. I don't really care, but it makes for some excellent lines in later books.
So we come to the dangerous Lulu Luger, though why Angel is scared of her is beyond me. I mean, who would be scared of a 6 foot female yank who can shoot and ride better than any man and has a hug like a mechanical vice? Anyway - apparently Lulu is based on someone in real life (most characters are, human imagination isn't that vivid - if they aren't based on real life they are usually really dull - noticed that?) - so that's OK then, we can now sleep worse at nights.
But of course, an Angel book wouldn't be complete without one extra element of stress and that's the Siamese/Springsteen hybrids that he's been lumbered with, as the black psychopath couldn't keep his hormones in check. Cue...aaaaahh. So he has to find homes for them, if Springsteen (or Fenella) will let him.
Actually the whole book, if it could be summed up, is LOUD. Very loud. Get the earplugs.
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