‘Rage of Angels’ is a High-Stakes Game Where Redemption is the Ultimate Prize [REVIEW]

Jennifer Parker heads to the big city to practice law like her father. (Photo courtesy Canva)

An idealistic lawyer. An ambitious politician. An enigmatic kingpin. When three of the world’s biggest power players face off in a dangerous game of love, secrets, and greed, no one is safe. Who will come out on top? And who will pay the ultimate price for success? Find out in Sidney Sheldon’s dazzling bestseller, Rage of Angels. 

Grand Central

Jennifer Parker is a newly-minted attorney. She moves to the big city to chase her dream of practicing law and following in her father’s footsteps. But soon after she catches her big break with the district attorney’s office, her career goes down in flames before it even really gets off the ground. Not only is she now broke and alone, but she has quickly made a vicious enemy determined to ruin her forever. So she is left with two choices: pack it in and return to the small town she came from or press her luck and venture out on her own.

Not one to quit, Jennifer builds her practice from the bottom up and quickly proves her mettle, winning one case after another, outwitting many formidable attorneys along the way, including her former boss, D.A. Robert Di Silva. Soon she is the toast of the town, sought after by everyone from big money companies to the Hollywood elite. Despite her focus on her career, however, two men soon become a constant in her life: Adam Warner, the handsome lawyer being groomed to lead his country; and Michael Moretti, the Mafia’s dark angel who is as compelling as he is deadly. Both men will do anything to win Jennifer’s heart, no matter the cost.

From the halls of justice to back room Mafia dens, Rage of Angels is a high-stakes game played out on the world stage as it transports us from New York to Las Vegas, Monte Carlo to Singapore, where redemption is the ultimate prize. Sheldon maneuvers his characters like pawns on a chess board, each move strategic, raising the ante move by move until the story’s shattering, unforgettable conclusion.

Rage of Angels was first published in 1980. It has taken me 39 years to finally get around to this book, although I’ve been reading his books since I was a teenager. I will never forget the first time I picked up one of his stories. I’d been sent to detention in high school, and I knew I needed something to read to pass the time, so I snagged a copy of The Other Side of Midnight and devoured it in one sitting. Since then, I’ve consumed every book he’s written as soon as I could get my hands on it. But ever since his death in 2007, I’ve kept this volume on the shelf, reserving it like that last cookie in the cookie jar, needing one last Sheldon book to look forward to. Finally I could hold off no longer.

In 1983, Rage of Angels was adapted into a successful television mini-series starring Jaclyn Smith, Ken Howard, and Armand Assante. That production was then followed by a sequel, Rage of Angels: The Story Continues, in 1986, although the script was based solely on the characters from the original book, not on a subsequent Sheldon novel. But the characters are so vibrant and fascinating, the story so full of action and suspense, it is no wonder audiences couldn’t get enough of his work and why this novel, Rage of Angels, is revered as one of the author’s best. As Publisher’s Weekly said, “Sheldon comes up with new surprises on every page, sustaining the fast-moving plot that will doubtless keep his fans enthralled.”

Thus as I close Rage of Angels, I do so with both admiration for a storyteller at the top of his game and with the sorrow of knowing that there will never be another author quite like Sheldon. For me, he has been a silent mentor for my own writing, tutoring me every time I read one of his books, showing me how to hook a reader and keep him turning pages with bated breath. But he has also been the consummate entertainer, one who was daring and bold, charming and wicked, at once the prankster and always the magician. His legacy will not soon be forgotten.

Sidney Sheldon
(Photo by Roddy McDowall)

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

The late novelist and screenwriter Sidney Sheldon remains one of the world’s top bestselling authors, having sold more than 300 million copies of his books.

He is also the only writer to have won an Oscar, a Tony, and an Edgar. The Guinness Book of World Records heralds him as the most translated author in the world.

RAGE OF ANGELS
By Sidney Sheldon
496 pp. Grand Central. $9.99

Purchase Rage of Angels from one of these fine online retailers: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Books-A-Million, IndieBound, and Powell’s.