Angel Touch
First Published: 1989
Published By: Collins
Angel Number: 2
Personal Favourite: 14
Quotable Quote: She gave me a look that would have withered a clump of nettles at 50 feet.
The Backstory
Angel comes to the aid of his very sexy neighbour, a financial analyst, who has been accused of insider dealing in the City.
Whilst coping with the fact that he is expected to come into work every day he discovers that alongside power lunches and personal vendettas, insider dealing is not the only illegal activity going on in the Exchange.
And when a very suspicious car accident puts Salome in hospital and leaves one of her colleagues dead, it's time to gather the cavalry and get the paint ball gun out.
The Webmaster's Take
When I was an ickle kid, the Big Bang was what started the universe. In the late eighties, it was the concept that was meant to revolutionise the Stock Exchange, but was actually the sound of another computer terminal being chucked out from the twenty fourth floor until coming to an abrupt halt on someone's Mercedes. Gravity does that.
It's the trouble when too many people have too much knowledge about too many companies. It just takes one to get cold feet for the whole lot to come crashing down around their ears. Pet Shop Boys called it S-H-O-P-P-I-N-G - and no, that ain't an acronym, though you could probably make up a few. I particularly like the line: "Our gain, is your loss, that's the price you pay". And Actually (no that's the name of the album) was one of the top five CDs in a yuppie's Bob. The top one, I think, was Dire Strait's Brothers In Arms, but I can't remember any of the others.
I remember this period of the eighties being pretty volatile and unstable, the in joke seemed to be a connection between Maggie T and BSE, and after the better bands started to run out of ideas (or talent) the music descended into new depths of tackiness with some really dreadful fake soul. It made you wish that Kelly Marie would make a comeback. Yes, regardless of the shoulder pads.
All this waffle is really to avoid talking about why Touch is 14th. I could simply not talk about it, as I've said before, the first three, were, before Angel's Share, the last books to be read by me, but it's a foolish excuse when Share is so high.
Deep breath. Touch hasn't aged as well as the others. Although, at the time of writing, the technology and attitude was up to date, technology moved on within months of the book being published and most people in the City decided that they would quite like to see their 30th birthday instead of succumbing to an early death by stress. Exhale.
But. If you set aside that communication transfer is done mostly by encrypted e-mail nowadays, that paint-balling has disappeared into the naff hole it should never have crawled out from and most brokers' drug of choice nowadays is caffeine (although the others are probably not far behind), Touch really is an excellent snapshot of what life was like in the city before we started worrying (or, more like, others worried for us, as we are so naive) about the Euro's performance against the Yen. Oh - and it's funny.
The vision I have of an extremely hairy man running around the woods with a paintball gun, kicking serious bottom against a bunch of men who are young, but they will learn, is the one of the most enduring. No, not Angel, but Werewolf, who really hasn't been developed as well as even some other minor characters. Shame.
The first strike against the bad guy is predictable, what else would it be with a story based at the Stock Exchange? The last strike against the bad guy is one of the most original I've read, and this is where we get to see Angel's soft side (because he fancies the 'teddy' off his beautiful, but married, neighbour), and maybe more of his avenging side as he shows just what he will go through for OADFs. (Read the book. No I'm not being subliminal. If that was the case I'd have it as a watermark).
So why is it 14th? Don't want to talk about it. Next.
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