Red Angel – C.R. Daems

Red Angel - the first of a five-book (so far?) series, is charming and lightweight.

RA was the first book I read by Daems. I subsequently read a number of others, and most of them adhere to the same template: The protagonist is young, (often from a deprived background), female (with a tendency to be attacked - literally - by men who don’t take her seriously), and always right. She usually has extraordinary powers. She achieves her aims despite the resistance and obtuseness and malice of the men around her.

Anna is orphaned as a young child when her parents catch a deadly and incurable disease. She catches it too, but is ‘adopted’ by a snake whose venom keeps the virus at bay (and non-contagious). The snake is also helpful - warning her when something is wrong, warning her when she should be paying attention, biting people when it would be helpful to do.

I did read all five books, and the latter four are variants of the first: There is a clever conspiracy. Only Anna realizes that it’s a conspiracy. She follows the evidence. Bad guys, alarmed, make repeated and unsuccessful (or there would have been fewer sequels) assassination attempts. People who ought to be good guys are jealous or sexist or prejudiced and try to torpedo her. (There is a tendency in these books for those people to use career-limiting tactics, like attacking her in front of witnesses.) Eventually she succeeds and is promoted - to a position where her youth will trigger more career-limiting attacks. Perhaps there won’t be a Red Angel #6, because she’s run out of potential promotions.

The science fiction aspect of the book/s is perfunctory. It would take very little adjustment to move most of Daems’s books to 21st-century Earth. There are space ships and laser rays, but little else has changed after more than five hundred years.

An enjoyable read. It won’t make you think.