Family of Angels (Angel Series # 7)

In his latest hair-raising adventure, streetwise chancer Fitzroy Maclean Angel has to cope with an even more daunting problem than usual: his own family. His exploits this time involve the mystery of a missing brother, a family of East End gangsters, hijacked tankers of diesel fuel, stolen beer kegs, sex on the Eurostar and an outrageous Common Market drugs deal. At the end of it all, Angel might just have to make the ultimate sacrifice …

This edition includes the bonus Angel short story ‘Smeltdown’.

‘Three cheers for an exemplary hero who has never made an excuse and left. Ripley on rich and ribald form.’ – Philip Oakes, Literary Review

‘Angel’s one-liners are frequent and funny, but there is an acute observer of modern mores beneath the endearing roguishness.’ – Marcel Berlins, The Times

‘I never read Ripley on trains, planes or buses. He makes me laugh, and it annoys the other passengers.’ – Minette Walters

‘Ripley’s Angel novels are as witty as they are deftly plotted … boisterous and inventive.’ – Philip Kerr

‘What Ripley does to comedy is criminal, and what he does to crime fiction is hilarious.’ – Andrew Vachss

Another of Telos Publishing’s reissues of celebrated British author Mike Ripley’s series of comic crime novels featuring Fitzroy Maclean Angel.

272pp. A5-format paperback novel.
ISBN 978-1-84583-069-4
Published 31 May 2012 (Out of Print)

296pp. B-format paperback novel.
ISBN 978-1-84583-172-1
Published 22 January 2021

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Mike Ripley is the author of 19 novels, including the award-winning Angel series of comedy thrillers, a dozen short stories and the non-fiction memoir Surviving A Stroke. He was a scriptwriter on the BBC series Lovejoy and the crime fiction critic for the Daily Telegraph and the Birmingham Post, reviewing more than 950 novels over 18 years. In the 1990s he was the co-editor, with Maxim Jakubowski, of the three Fresh Blood anthologies, showcasing new crime-writing talent such as Ian Rankin, Lee Child, Ken Bruen and Denise Mina. He has appeared at many literary festivals and conventions, developed a creative crime writing course for Cambridge University and devised and produced ‘An Audience With …’ stage shows for Colin Dexter and Minette Walters.

After a 25-year career in journalism and public relations, latterly for The Brewers’ Society, he became an archaeologist specialising in Romano-British sites in East Anglia until he suffered a stroke at the age of 50. He sat on the government’s Stroke Strategy Committee and currently supports both the Stroke Association and the Blood Pressure Association.

He writes the monthly column Getting Away With Murder for Shots Magazine, is part of the obituary writing team at the Guardian, and is the series editor for the imprints Top Notch Thrillers and Ostara Crime. Working with the Margery Allingham Society, he completed the novel left unfinished on the death of Youngman Carter in 1969, which was published in 2014 as Mr Campion’s Farewell. A second ‘continuation’ to feature Allingham’s famous detective, Mr Campion’s Fox, is published in 2015.