Of Love and Evil-Anne Rice

Of Love and Evil
Anne Rice
Knopf, Nov 30 2010, $24.95
ISBN: 9781400043545

Malchiah the angel takes former government assassin Toby O'Dare with him on the latter’s second case to right historical wrongs (see Angel Time). This time he is sent back to the era of Pope Leo X in the Holy City of Rome. There he is find out what led to an angry dybbuk spirit haunting modern day Manhattan.

Apparently in the realm of the Medici, a Jew has been accused of devilish witchcraft and murder by poison. He investigates the homicide and the accusations, which to a killing peer like Toby smells so Medici. At the same his mind wanders back to the recent revelation that he sired a son whom he just met in New York. The simple case turns darker and uglier as Toby finds himself in danger from diabolical adversaries back in fifteenth century Rome and twenty-first century Manhattan.

The second Songs of Seraphim is a terrific Christian historical metaphysical thriller. Toby is a stronger protagonist than when he worked the Angel Time case as the audience learns somewhat of his mortal past. Fast-paced in both eras, Of Love and Evil shows Anne Rice at her best as she effortlessly guides readers back and forth between the six-centuries ago past, Roby’s human period, and modern day New York in an entertaining tale.

Harriet Klausner