“How many images of angels had he seen in his life? They occupied a certain drawer in his mind, he realized. And what else lay in that drawer? But now, as he looked at the gilded illustrations, the living, battered body of the girl on his mattress was in his mind, the live gold wings. The texture of her feathers lingered on his fingertips...”
When literary and detective agent George Zacharias finds a fallen angel on a Cairo street, his first thought is profit. Zacharias and his sidekick, Tomo, hide the angel as they try to figure out who she is and where she came from. However, they soon find themselves pursued by sinister forces.
Terrified, the two hapless detectives flee with their catch, first to the city’s seedy underbelly, then into the desert, where they take refuge in a hidden monastery. There is no escape from their pursuer, however, for he is Lucien Yaldabaoth, the prince of darkness. As Zacharias slowly pieces together the angel’s story and uncovers Yaldabaoth’s nefarious purposes, he realizes there is more at stake than he had imagined.
“Written in a terse, noir style, the evocative mix of the mundane and the fabulous has a dreamlike quality. The story has a simple structure that works well, but the novel also has many layers of philosophy and religious mythology that give depth and provoke further reading. The author enriches the text with explorations of the qualities of humanity—desire, belief, curiosity, morality, freedom, friendship, and sacrifice—while keeping the story moving.” — Publisher’s Weekly
“With its engaging storyline and well-constructed characters, The Sins of Angels is a compelling, genre-bending novel... A captivating read for noir or mystery fans—especially if they enjoy an overlay of magic realism. Highly recommended for readers seeking a sometimes dark but always beautiful adventure.” — Huffington Post
“The Sins of Angels unveils a noir underworld of demons and detectives, operatives and angels, ancient texts and secret agendas. Keith Miller has a knack for getting the sacred and the infernal in the room together. When they all get to talking, the result is one hell of a story.” — Jedediah Berry, Hammett Prize–winning author of The Manual of Detection
“Keith Miller’s The Sins of Angels is a dark glimpse into where the fantastic blurs with the exotic, and the mysterious depths of the heavens are revealed. Miller takes your hand and leads you through narrow streets where nothing is as it seems, and there is little you can trust. A masterful fusion of literary modes and the mark of a great talent. Miller wields his pen like no one else.” — Simon Strantzas, Shirley Jackson Award–winning author of Burnt Black Suns
“A subtly complex and layered account of mysterious events involving two men, a fallen angel and the prince of darkness... The Sins of the Angels is one of the most compelling novels I’ve ever had the pleasure of reading.” — Risingshadow.net
“A quirky, mysterious, lovely and slightly dark detective novel.” — Amazon Vine
“Rilke once wrote, ‘Every angel is terrifying,’ and in Keith Miller’s novel The Sins of Angels, that line holds true. It’s a rare and amazing feat for a writer to balance the alchemical elements of the noir thriller with mysticism in a way that feels real and without any false panels or mirror tricks, but Miller is a true sorcerer, no parlor magician. This novel will hold you under a fantastic spell.” — Christopher Barzak, Shirley Jackson Award–winning author of Wonders of the Invisible World
