Facing a state investigation of criminal impropriety, Angel Soren and Delta Team of the police department’s WANT Bureau already have big enough problems. The last thing they need is someone taunting them into a deadly game of hide and seek. But the killer is determined to get them to play and starts sniping seemingly random targets. With each kill, a goading letter is sent to Delta Team’s sergeant, Michael Rivers. Forced into the game, Delta Team incurs the wrath of not only Homicide detectives, but other members of the WANT Bureau. There’s only one way to appease the ravaging beast of inflamed egos, and Angel knows the way to do it, no matter how wrong it may be. (Pages 301)
M-PG Rating Contains: Violence and adult situations
Reviews
If you want a little humor with your assassination, take a spin with Unhinged. Casey Mason brings back Angel Soren and Delta team, of the police department's WANT Bureau. Her job is to bring in or terminate felons on the lam for capital crimes. This story picks up after the first of the series, Unforgiven, with Angel in some hot water. But that only starts the story off interesting and takes it on a fast course through how Angel works through her problems. She doesn't attack them in the conventional way, but that's because her upbringing is a little different than the norm.
In this story, the execution of JOEs (Judicial Orders of Execution) area an aside note, but they bring to light a lot about the characters of the story. There's more of Delta team as a whole and introduction of other characters in the WANT Bureau, but the story is essentially Angel's and how she deals with the people around her. She has a solid concept of friendship and protects those to the very end. At the same time, she has a firm grip of what she considers right and wrong, but she's willing to walk the line between the two. She's not a flighty bimbo with a gun or keen fashion sense. She's a tomboy through and through and gutsy enough to have broken into a male-dominated world that doesn't welcome women easily as anything but damsels in distress. Angel is capable of putting any one of those thoughts to rest, but in this book, she realizes she might have to tap into other womanly wiles to get to the bottom of a deadly problem plaguing the Bureau...Thomas Hardy
As a follower of Casey Mason's Angel series, I was taken aback at the very beginning, discovering how the story opens. I never saw this coming and it set the stage for the rest of the book. Casey's taken Angel Soren, a gritty young woman who's job is to kill renegade criminals for the police department, to a new level. In this book, you'll see her skewed sense of right and wrong, as well as how her loyalty to her friends is parallel to none.
The story is set after the last book, Unforgiven, where we see the repercussions of what happened in the end. Angel's life isn't all a bed of roses, and she's bascially at her wits end in keeping it together. Even when it seens to resolve itself, there's always someone there to pull the rug out from under her--the worst being her mother. In the meantime, a new beau appears in her life, just adding more quandary than she needs at the time.
Casey's refreshing air of narrative is witty, down-to-earth, and comfortable. The book reads extremenly well, as told through the narrative of her main character, Angel. This is a rare treat, as we get to view the world through the eyes of a cold-hearted killer who has no compunction for the despicable scourge to society but everything for the downtrodden...N.T. Bolston
I'm a tough critic of books and even more so of women characters in male-dominated literature. Sounds sexists, but hell . . . you girls want to play in that arena, you better butch up and play by the rules.
With that said, Unhinged surprised me. I was given the book by a friend and went into it with some doubts, but I was pleasantly surprised to see this isn't what you girls call lipstick fiction. Angel Soren is a woman who isn't wholly comfortable being considered a girl by the people she surrounds herself with. Shouldn't surprise anyone, when those people are all State-paid killers whose job it is to hunt down and arrest or terminate escape felons. While a personal relationship spins in this book, Angel isn't part of a slut-fest like a lot of "gutsy gals" in modern literature are. She is, however, confident in her ego to go head to head against some of the most ruthless killers around--or even her colleagues. So, guys, don't be think you'll be lacking in kick-ass action and stuck in the powder room, checking make-up or accessorizing shoes to the dress.
The narrative style is quick, witty, and surprisingly comfortable for a Neanderthal male reader. Angel doesn't do much male bashing, but she does harbor animosity for the man who is the father of her child. But who isn't acrimonious with their ex, and it's only mentioned once or twice through the whole story. I feel Angel is a girl I could actually hang with without feeling like I was less of of a human being just being a member of the male gender.
I'll pick up Unforgiven to get to know Angel better, and I'll await the next book in the series, which I'm sure there's got to be, since there's so much of Mason's premise to spin this series into dozens of stories...Mike Kawling
ALL’S NOT WELL THAT ENDS WELL
Not everything appears as it seems when one adventures ends with the hero riding off into the sunset. It’s easy to forget that there’s paperwork to do, questions to answer, and bodies to account for. Sometimes the people overseeing all this aren’t so nice about it, either. Sometimes they’re downright irritating. Inevitably, those are the ones with the power to make life a living hell.
The rising rate of recidivism in society has prompted local law enforcement agencies to create WANT bureaus for the purpose of pursuing, apprehending, and putting down the most violent and vile criminals who refuse to comply with justice. These officers are highly trained and committed to do what the majority of society would rather not admit is necessary to put their world back in order. But there are times even an obliging society plays the hypocritical Monday morning quarterback.
Angel Soren is a WANT officer, a rare woman in a mostly male-dominated unit. She has the wherewithal to chamber a round, sight down a rifle, and pull the trigger on an unsuspecting criminal on the lam—if that’s what’s written in the judicial order of execution. Her ideology of crime and punishment is entrenched in the reality of seeing the suffering of victims day in and day out, and knowing that the old ways of bringing about justice just aren’t working anymore.
This is gritty, hard-hitting fiction, written by young writer, Casey Mason, whose first book of the Angel Soren series, Unforgiven, showed a new type of police officer geared specifically for executing warrants. In a voice spoken by the main character, the story picks up six months after the last ended, and all is not a bed of roses. In fact, Delta team finds themselves in a thorny patch, with the State investigating their previous exploits for criminal wrongdoings. Complicating that is the emergence of a psychotic sniper who wants to engage Delta team in a deadly game of cat and mouse. Despite being told to stay out of it, Angel and her team know the only way to stop the sniper is to play into his hands.
Whether readers pick up this book with a predisposition against capital punishment or an open mind, they are sure to have their beliefs taken on a roller coaster ride through betwixt and between. In the end, they may find themselves of a mindset they never thought themselves capable of and not wanting to disclose in public.
