Book Title: Better Angels
Author: Arturo Cabrera, also known as Artie Cabrera
Publication Date: May 6, 2024
Available On: Amazon as an eBook
Indie Athenaeum Rating: 5 out of 5 Stars
It’s Christmas time in 1974 and Eddie Riggs is having a hard day. Or rather, the body of Eddie Riggs is having a hard day and someone new is now inhabiting Eddie’s body. That someone just died in a hellish battle during the Vietnam War and now has a new role to play in the world. He’s now working for God as a part of the Service. Along for the ride is a talking cockroach named Randy, who is his guide sent by God.
Randy fills Eddie in about the rules for his new job: hunting down Deuce Durango, the crime kingpin of Times Square. To accomplish this task, he needs to pound the pavement and track down some leads. Demons, crime lords, corrupt cops, ghosts, supernatural enforcers, and more are terrorizing New York City from the shadows.
With Randy’s help, Eddie does his best to acclimate to his new role as an agent in God’s service and a destroyer of evil while meeting the strangest denizens of New York City’s underworld. Durango’s identity is shrouded in mystery and Eddie must track him down one clue at a time. But what he uncovers could have consequences not just for him but the entire city! Will Eddie solve the problem and save the day to prevent a disaster of apocalyptic proportions before it’s too late?
The plot moves at a very fast pace as Eddie and Randy travel to different areas of New York City to try to uncover Durango’s identity. From a trash landfill to Staten Island to the high-rise buildings of Manhattan to the slums, their journey leads them to many different places. They encounter people and demonic creatures who can speak the darkword, which can influence others to do dark deeds.
They also encounter evil amulets, talking dogs, talking horses, headless concubines, possessed humans, a perpetually burning man, and demons hiding in plain sight. This also includes run-ins with the Russian mob, Chinatown’s sinister forces, and otherworldly creatures caught up in the complicated web of this twisty story. And who is this mysterious woman named Barbara and what is her agenda?
Entangled within this plot are the stories of two other people we meet. The first is Harry Clint, a Sergeant with his squad in the Vietnam jungle in 1973, trying to escape enemy forces while managing a running firefight. As they’re killed or injured one by one, they struggle to survive in enemy territory. They also must face something otherworldly hiding in the depths of the bogs they are traveling through.
There’s also the town of Wolf’s Hyde in Mexico, 1933. As Sheriff Wheeler tries to keep his town safe, townspeople are suffering because dark forces keep the rain, and the town’s ability to survive, at bay. Given an ultimatum by someone called “The Seeker”, the sheriff refuses to acquiesce to him.
What do these two people have in common and what is their connection to the main story in New York City, 1974? How they connect to the main story has surprising relevance and is one of the many pleasures to be found in the storytelling here.
Do you know that final part of the roller coaster? Lots of ups and downs and twists and turns where you think the thrills are never going to end and you’re just reveling the crazy ride, no matter what it does and where it goes? And when the roller-coater finally jerks to a stop, you just savor the moment, your jaw is agape, and you just utter “wow” in amazement at the ride you just took.
This finale is just like that: never-ending thrills where all the plot points culminate and come together, characters from other parts of the story return, other characters die, and you realize what an unforgettable ride it was.
Our two main characters are Eddie and Randy. Eddie has a complicated past and the new person inhabiting Eddie’s body doesn’t know anything about it. As someone living in a halfway house, he slowly pieces together Eddie’s past, his problems with his family, and his drug use history. He’s also trying to figure out his relationship with Eddie’s ex-girlfriend Diane, who’s too good to him. She has her own troubles she is trying to cope with.
Eddie demonstrates a lot of character growth over the course of the story, realizing what he lost when he took this job, and trying to learn the role of a vigilante doing God’s work. It’s a job with a big learning curve and sometimes, Eddie makes some costly mistakes while doing it. But he always demonstrates valor and courage in trying to do the right thing, no matter how difficult that might be. He’s too stubborn to give up on his job, so he has that going for him as well.
He’s also fighting off the loneliness of being one man in the enormity of evil-infested New York City. Coping with the regrets of his life as well as those of the drug-addicted body he is inhabiting, he’s grappling with a lot of emotional turmoil. It doesn’t help that his supposed best friend Jimmy is a drug dealer and trying to lure him astray while Eddie is trying to do good deeds.
It’s a good thing that Eddie has Randy as his mentor and guide. This talking cockroach tells him his role, what he needs to do, and where to go. His role starts as a guide for Eddie and where he needs to go to try gathering clues. During their misadventures, Randy fills Eddie in on the life of a cockroach and someone who has a history of helping multiple people on many missions from God over the years.
Randy aspires higher than his current station as God’s guide. He tries to keep Eddie in the dark about the past life of the body he’s currently inhabiting while keeping him on task. But over the course of the story, his role evolves from being a mentor into that of being a friend. Their banter back and forth is one of the many highlights here and brings some humor into a story filled with darkness infesting every evil corner.
Each of the characters we meet in this story is multi-layered, has some history behind them, and in some cases, very tragic pasts. Not all of them make it through this story alive though. There was one death that was absolutely crushing and made me very sad when it happened. That is a testament to the power of the author’s narrative and his close attention to the development of his characters.
There’s a unique ambiance to the underworld of New York City in the 1970’s and the author just captures it perfectly. From the hellish jungles of Vietnam to the Old West and through the mean streets of New York City, the author’s imagination knows no bounds.
I have read all the previous novels and short stories by him before. As a result, I know every time I pick up something written by him that I’m in for something offbeat, wildly different, deftly plotted, and deeply immersive, bursting with creative energy and lots of surprising revelations.
Take the time to savor this story as you read it, as it moves at a very quick pace. It enveloped me in its nihilistic darkness and demonstrated how the unlikely duo of an angelic vigilante and a talking cockroach can try to bring some hope into it.
All of this while on a highly difficult mission from God to save humanity from its basest instincts and purest evils. I would welcome more adventures set in this universe if the author chooses to do so, as this was a gritty, unconventional, and riveting novel I very much enjoyed.
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Previous Indie Athenaeum book reviews about anthologies and stories published by Artie Cabrera include “Citadel,” “I’m Not Dead – The Journals of Charles Dudley,” “Chronicle Worlds: B-Movie,” “Gravity City: Flesh and Blood“, “The Legends of Boone Ridge” and “Once Upon a Time in Gravity City“.
Previous Indie Athenaeum book reviews about stories published by Artie Cabrera and co-written with CJ Valin include “Thieves of Destiny – Gravity City, Book 1” and “Sleepwalkers – Gravity City, Book 2.”
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