King of Angels might be compared to Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, substituting the turbulent 1960s with Lee’s depression-era setting and replacing Catholic-Jewish antagonism and homophobia for the race relations that drive To Kill a Mockingbird. Instead, I found a young voice telling a good old fashioned coming of age story mixed with a murder mystery that takes place in a unique setting period in recent history. The picture on the cover includes both hunky angels and a shirtless young stud in prayer, and the blurb below the picture promises that it is “a novel about the genesis of identity and belief.” The opening epigraph is a mystic quote from the ancient Popol Vuh, so I was primed to read a speculative or spiritual novel. The title, King of Angels (Belhue Press), has a pious ring to it. He has written a number of speculative fiction novels and even a time-travel novel about angels. Brass often writes about spirituality and sexuality in his fiction. There is much to be admired and enjoyed in Perry Brass’s latest novel but it’s slightly buried behind a misleading veneer.
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