Kill All Angels by Robert Brockway 

Genre: Horror – Urban Fantasy

Series: The Vicious Circuit #3

Publisher: Tor Books (December 21, 2017)

Author Information: Website | Twitter 

Length: 288 pages

My Rating: 4 stars

Kill All Angels is the concluding volume of Robert Brockway’s humorous, punk rock horror series The Vicious Circuit.  If you’ve read the first two installments you definitely know each of them build upon one another (which means I recommend reading The Unnoticeables and The Empty Ones before picking this one up) and prepare you for the unique reading experience this final book serves up.

Continuing the past/present intertwining story lines from the first two volumes, Carey and Randall are now in Los Angeles during the early 1980s punk scene.  Soon, these two are pulled into more “Empty Ones” drama .  This time it is in Chinatown where a young Chinese girl turns out to be one of these beings.  Horrific, sarcastic mayhem follows, of course.

Meanwhile, in 2013, Kaitlyn and companions are heading back toward Los Angles at the direction of her visions.  Kaitlyn’s growing powers resulting in her feeling that she might be able to kill all the “angels” once and for all if she can only find the right one.  And where else should one look for angels except in the City of Angels.

At its core, The Vicious Circuit’s premise is a simple one: punk rock infused horror.  And this installment does just that, not afraid to mix gore and dark humor into nearly every scene, even as it highlights the punk rock culture of decades ago.  This blending of all these diverse elements producing a unique setting where Robert Brockway is able to continue the character arcs of Carey, Randall, and Kaitlyn.  Each of these people dealing with the unique problem of Empty Ones and Angels in their own way.  And to add another wrinkle, the author even spends time introducing and developing the person of one of the actual bad guys, tricking readers into understanding and empathizing with them before then showing them in all their brutal, maniacal horror.

Usually, this is the point in my review where I list any criticisms or problems I have with a novel, but I don’t really feel the need to so with Kill All Angels.  After two books, I went into this read understanding exactly what I would be getting from the author and this story, and it delivered just that.  So no criticisms.

Gritty.  Gory.  Humorous.  Immersed in punk rock influences.  All these descriptions help paint a mental picture of the kind of story Kill All Angels and The Vicious Circuit delivers. New readers should definitely begin their journey with book one of the trilogy however.  As for frequent readers, this is exactly the nice conclusion to the trilogy that they have waited for, because this horror story rocks!

I received this book from the publisher in exchange for a fair and honest review. I’d like to thank them for allowing me to receive this review copy and inform everyone that the review you have read is my opinion alone.

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