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rage of angels (sidney sheldon) review

Rage of Angels is a thriller novel written by Sidney Sheldon published in 1980. The novel revolves around a woman attorney named Jennifer Parker who becomes one of America’s most successful defense attorney. It is also the story of two men who lived in different worlds, whom Jennifer both loved and valued. The story gives insight into the legal profession and the operations of the Mafia. Upon reading this book, you will be put inside the different characters’ shoes, the storytelling lets you be a part or live their lives, and it makes you feel what they feel. The twist and turns will make you love this book and put you in an air of suspense that will leave you craving more and sitting on the edge of your seat.

The story begins with Jennifer, being a small-town lawyer’s daughter, spending her days in her father’s workplace and soon entering law school to be just like him. But before she could finish, her mother left them and not long after that her father passed away. Unexperienced and fresh from law school, Jennifer becomes an assistant district attorney under Robert Di Silva, who had been working on a case against the mafia prince Michael Moretti. His plans are foiled as Jennifer was deceived by one of Moretti’s men, handing her an envelope in Di Silva’s name to be given to the witness. She is framed for threatening a chief witness, fired, threatened with disbarment and is the reason why Michael Moretti walked free out of court that day.

After those humiliating events, she continued to strive to be a successful lawyer. She fell in love with Adam Warner, a young lawyer Di Silva arranged to investigate on her to persuade him that she is responsible for the mess that happened with Moretti’s case. Adam realized that she wasn’t guilty, and fell for her too, despite being a married man. With his help, Jennifer began to rise once again; meanwhile, this piqued Moretti’s interest and soon decided that he would like to make her the mafia’s lawyer.

Adam’s wife, asked for a divorce, but since Adam was running for the United States Senate, they decided it would be best if they waited after the election to avoid bad publicity. He realizes that his wife is pregnant and shortly after that he wins the election. Jennifer decided to end their affair, and soon discovers that she too is pregnant with his child. She gives birth and named him Joshua Adam Parker after his father. She hides the child and doesn’t tell anyone of his existence except for her assistant, Ken Bailey. Moretti constantly tries to start a friendship with Jennifer, but she denies every attempt. Until one night, when her son was kidnapped by a psychopathic criminal she was defending. In desperation to get him back, she phones Michael Moretti for help, and he did.

Moretti seduces her, and since she is greatly in his debt, Jennifer decides to sleep with him. Soon enough, she falls for him and gets sucked into the inner workings of the mafia, she had become their lawyer. Her son dies in a skiing accident, she was depressed and started to fully depend on Michael and the mafia. Not long after, they are being hunted down by Adam Warner, her ex-lover, and the government. Moretti lulls her into a trap, thinking she betrayed him and shoots her then dying in the hands of the FBI.

Adam, being incredibly charismatic and powerful, uses his position to save Jennifer Parker. She was alone now. She watches the television where Adam is with his family, as he is sworn in as President of the United States.

The first few chapters of the book are uninteresting and dull. They are lengthy and some readers might lose interest and stop reading the book. The story only becomes interesting after the twentieth chapter or so, it starts building up suspense and excitement. The rest of the story is wonderfully written, it’s thrilling and nail-biting, and will keep you guessing until the very end. Regardless of these things, some parts or chapters of the book were empty or lacking, descriptions are vague and character introductions were unexciting

The author’s representation of the world in the 1970’s was accurate. How he depicted the struggle of being a female lawyer in a time where men looked down on women, and just assumed all the positions. On how a woman has to do twice the work to get half the recognition a man receives.

Sheldon’s heroine is awfully inconsistent throughout the story, she goes from naïve to brave and courageous and fearless to a hopeless romantic, which makes her a weak main character, and makes you feel little to no sympathy on her behalf. But on the other hand, the rest of the characters are lovable and unforgettable, with strong personalities that separate them from one another, you can’t help but feel attached to them, despite them being the antagonist of the story. Though some lacked exposure and was forgotten about, I feel like that was for the better.

The ending was lackluster, it seemed the author was rushing to finish his story, and as a result I didn’t enjoy the ending. Everything was shortened into a few sentences that didn’t leave a huge impression on me. I would’ve preferred if the story ended on chapter 63, as it had a sense of finality to it and would surely make it more memorable, as Jennifer closed her eyes and was finally free of pain from the world.

I would give the book a four and a half out of five for an impressively devised plot with twists that will astonish you. Though not all pages are worth reading, the overall story is beautifully thrilling and will reel you in even more every chapter. Truly one of the best thriller novels out there.

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Critique Paper: RAGE OF ANGELS by Sidney Sheldon

Rage of Angels is a thriller novel written by Sidney Sheldon, a novelist and a screenwriter best known for his best-selling romantic suspense novels. The book was published under William Morrow and Company in the 1980s.

The story revolves around Jennifer Parker as she takes on New York as a new attorney. Her first day as an Assistant District Attorney under Robert Di Silva, who was on his way to putting Michael Moretti, the rumoured second-in-line of the most powerful Mafia Family in America, behind bars, was, to say the least, horrific. 

She was not only late for her oath-taking, but she was also able to jeopardize Di Silva’s case against Moretti —through Moretti’s doing—and her whole career in the process, less than twenty-four hours after being sworn-in. And the District Attorney was set to destroy her.

As her world crashed right before her eyes, she found what little hope in her to continue what was left of her career and found herself in a small office with Ken Bailey, a private detective, and Otto Wenzel.

One day, Adam Warner, also a lawyer and a US Senator prospect, was tasked to find evidence against Jennifer Parker that will strengthen Di Silva’s disbarment case against her but Adam immediately realised that Jennifer was innocent and moved to drop the case. It wasn’t long before Adam fell in love with Jennifer despite him being married. Mary Beth, Adam’s wife, asked for a divorce after confronting Adam with knowledge about his affair with Jennifer but shortly after, she tricked Adam into sleeping with her and thus impregnating her.

After Adam’s win in the Senate, Jennifer decided to cut her ties with him and start her life anew, with her son, Joshua Adam Parker. Only her good friend Ken Bailey knew about the existence of her son. 

Meanwhile, little does she know that Michael Moretti, the man who destroyed her career, was closely following her as a criminal lawyer and has set his eyes on her. He has made many attempts into wooing her to work for him but she continually rebuffed all his offers. Until one day, Joshua was kidnapped by one of Jennifer’s clients and had no choice but to turn to Moretti for help. He then took advantage of her dire situation and not long after that, she was working for him and the Family.

Ken Bailey disapproved of Jennifer’s growing involvement in the Mafia and left afterwards due to Jennifer’s continuous disregard of his warnings. Jennifer continued her work for the Family despite the hurt of Ken’s leaving and was slowly overshadowing Thomas Colfax, the Family’s consigliere, as Michael took over after Antonio Granelli, his father-in-law and former Boss, died. And as Jennifer shone in the Family, Colfax was quickly becoming an annoyance to Michael and thus to him deciding to get rid of Colfax. Meanwhile, Jennifer went to Acapulco with her son, Joshua, and his nanny Mrs. Mackey for a convention for lawyers. They were all having a great time until Jennifer saw Adam there and inevitably, they fell into each other’s arms once again. But before leaving Mexico, Joshua hit his head as he was water skiing which made Jennifer worry. But after consulting with a doctor there, she was put at rest as she was assured that there was nothing to worry about.

A few days after their arrival in America, Joshua fell unconscious and was later diagnosed with a subdural hematoma which caused his death. Jennifer was devastated and stayed in her son’s room for five straight days without food nor water and would’ve stayed and died there if Michael Moretti had not dragged her out of her self-induced hell.

Meanwhile in Washington D.C., Thomas Colfax, whom Nick Vito failed to kill, was telling everything he knew about the organized crime families in America to none other than Adam Warner, the Senator that the people are grooming to become the next president of the United States.

The Family’s ‘businesses’ were all shut down and one-by-one, people involved were hunted down, including Parker and Moretti. But before the government had their claws around Jennifer’s neck completely, she was bailed out by Moretti and was tricked into telephoning Di Silva into telling him that Adam was to be assassinated, ‘proving’ Moretti’s hunch that Parker had betrayed him with Warner.

Jennifer arrived at Michael’s house and was beaten before FBI agents barged in and shot Michael, but not before he shot her first.

And then, Jennifer was back in a small office at Kelso, watching the television as Adam Warner was being sworn in as the 40th President of the United States of America.

Now, let me just say how depressing a read this book was for the sole reason that nothing seemed to be in the main character’s favor. Multiple of times I had to put my phone down and just close my eyes because reading it was too much, and not because it was terribly written, no. My putting of the phone down because of all the emotions going on is a good thing because the author succeeded in letting his readers feel what his characters were feeling; he was able to let his readers sympathize with his characters. 

And speaking of his characters, his characters actions were understandable in a sense where there was justification as to why they did what they did. But I felt that some characters lacked a bit of depth to their individual parts for the story. An example would be Ken Bailey.

Ken Bailey is such an underappreciated character and his background would’ve added so much more to the plot and storyline if it were just given more attention. His wife killed herself because she saw him in bed with a young blond? Jennifer seeing him with a young blond on a seemingly random day? Ken being in love with Jennifer? Ken subtlety offering Jennifer to be a father figure to her son? I.WANT.MORE. 

There are so many questions surrounding Ken Bailey and so little that we can actually answer. I mean, just imagine if he admitted his feelings for Jennifer sooner and then they ended up together. Wouldn’t you think that they would’ve avoided so much pain? And then he showed up in Chapter 63 again when Jennifer was in the hospital! I mean, c’mon! The guy deserved better.

And speaking of deserving better: Joshua Adam Parker. That little boy deserved everything the world has to offer. It would’ve been nice to see him grow up as a man. Would he also be a lawyer like his parents? Or would he rather be a baseball player? We will never know. But I think that his death was necessary for the progress of the story in a sense that I think it was when Michael saw Jennifer close to death did he realize he was truly in love with her. Plus, I couldn’t begin to fathom what all of the chaos that ensued would do to a seven-year-old child.

Now we have Adam Warner. Adam was too busy trying to please everyone else around him that when he realised what he truly desired, it was too late. He married Mary Beth because he felt sorry for her, he ran for Senator because his father was one and Mary Beth would’ve liked living in D.C. And I couldn’t help but feel sorry for him and what he and Jennifer could’ve had if, for once in his life, he chose himself.

And then we move to Michael Moretti. I think that Michael fell in love with Jennifer in a true and honest way but he was simply unable to show it like how normal people do. And despite popular belief that Michael shot Jennifer because he wanted to kill her out of spite, I honestly think that he shot her because he didn’t want her to suffer. I don’t know how to explain it but his line: “and Michael did not know which was the greater agony, her death or his” on page 366 just felt like a sacrifice.

And of course we couldn’t forget about our main heroine: Jennifer Parker. Jennifer Parker was portrayed as an intelligent and independent woman who seemed to not need anyone to be contented with herself. She is strong-willed and despite being dealt with a difficult hand, she strived and persevered. And raising a child alone is never an easy feat but she did a very good job of raising Joshua; let us not deny her that fact. The only fault I saw with her character was that with all her intelligence and independence, she couldn’t control herself with men. At first she did a splendid job of rejecting men who she knew were not good for her but after she met Adam? All her principles and morals just seemed to go out of the window.

I know, I get it. They were in love. And despite my strong belief that they would have ended up with each other if not for everything else (a.k.a. Mary Beth) — 

— I still think that her dalliances with Adam should not have been strong enough to make her forget of how she had sworn to never become like her mother.

And then Michael Moretti, the very man who lit the torch that set her career into ashes, came into the picture.

If you were a sane person who knew how to think straight, you wouldn’t have fallen for Michael’s tricks. But see, Jennifer wasn’t thinking straight nor was she totally sane when Michael took advantage of her situation, which I understood. But what I didn’t understand was how she let men make her into the very person she vowed she’d never be: a mistress. For a woman depicted with having unparalleled wit and strength, she let men tear hear apart and ruin what was supposed to be a good life for her. And although it was a shame to see such genius come to an end like what happened to her, I think she deserved it and it would’ve been a mercy if Sidney Sheldon had just let her die.

But despite all of that, I think Jennifer Parker’s story ended in a poetic way. How she ended up where she started. Back at Kelso with a sign outside her office reading:

Jennifer Parker Attorney at Law

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