Desert Angel

Price (The Interrogation of Gabriel James) delivers a visceral thriller that starts with the murder of 14-year-old Angel’s mother and ratchets up the tension from there. Angel finds her mother’s body and vows to escape Scotty, the latest in a line of abusive men her mother had been involved with. After Scotty’s failed attempt to burn her alive in his trailer, in the remote southwestern desert, Angel makes her way to a neighboring home, where she soon finds help in the form of Rita, a Head Start worker in a nearby town who takes in a reluctant Angel. The story doesn’t shy away from the horror of the violence Scotty inflicts, killing animals and those who help Angel, while she contemplates taking revenge on her mother’s murderer and worries about the repercussions of drawing Scotty closer to her newfound family. Price’s pacing is tight, aided by direct, clipped prose that underscores Scotty’s brutality and Angel’s fragile emotional state. Both the best and worst of humanity shine through in this gripping novel. Ages 12–up. (Oct.)