***
Possible spoiler alert — you might want to read book one before reading further.
***

It’s a little hard to *not* give away the ending of book one — the very existence of the second one strongly suggests that there is something to continue. So, yes, indeed, book one does not end in disaster.

Laurie is an enthusiastic, if perhaps naive, aide to a US senator whose position is threatened by investigations into passing on classified information to the Mossad, the Israelian secret service. From one moment to the next, her orderly life goes out of the window, and she soon finds herself as a target for assassination.

Angelique has been an assassin for Mossad for quite some time, and her name is whispered in awe and fear by those who have dealings in those circles. She has become tired of all the violence, but lets herself be talked into at least looking into a double assassination in Washington, D.C. Angelique rejects the assignment, however, perceiving that the intended victims are only being set up by political machinations.

But Angelique cannot forget Laurie’s face from the dossier, and neither can she shake off the disgust at the slaughtering of innocent peaople. She decides to meddle in an affair that she had wanted no part of.

High suspense factor, fast action, 3-D characters: all that makes for a very good reading, and I wonder why I hadn’t recommended the story before — in hindsight, perhaps because of a vague feeling of incompleteness (purely subjective), that D. J. Belt now, almost six years after giving us the story, has dispelled with ‘Angelique Book Two‘.

Six months after the ending of book one, Laurie and Angelique live together in Paris, France, where Angelique has her ‘Café Angel’. The avenging angel of the Mossad has retired for good, but her reputation lingers. Although no amount of money can buy Angelique’s services, having let Laurie into her heart makes her vulnerable. A band of mercenaries, desperate to fulfil a contract they themselves seem not to be able to honour, try to pressurise the former assassin into a suicidal mission by kidnapping Laurie.

I’m clamming up here — go read for yourselves. More suspense, more from two nice ladies (and a few other characters I’ve not mentioned here), an even tighter story line than book one — Yummy! Don’t forget to send D. J. Belt praise and thanks!

http://www.academyofbards.org/fanfic/d/djbelt_angelique.html