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Nightmare, with Angel Paperback – November 11, 2017

by Stephen Gallagher (Author)
3.5 3.5 out of 5 stars 17 ratings
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“A world class, first-rate novel” Elizabeth George

“A moving, shocking, compelling psychological drama with a mesmerising plot… impossible to put down and, once read, impossible to forget” Booklist

After rescuing Marianne Cadogan from an incoming tide on a lonely and forgotten part of Britain’s coast, ex-con Ryan O'Donnell is cornered into helping her escape a supposedly abusive father to reach the safe custody of her mother.

Too late, he finds himself compromised, the subject of a trans-European manhunt while he struggles to deliver the child and prove his motives pure. The deeper in he gets, the more trapped he will become

“A fast, smart, emotionally involving and authentically new thriller which confirms Stephen Gallagher’s particular fictional talent” John Williams, The Independent

“High marks for psychological terror” Daily Telegraph

“A powerful exploration of evil and redemption” Publishing News

“A taut, engrossing thriller that transcends genre to examine the fragile, contradictory balance between good and evil and finds a little of both in all of us” The Face

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Previous page
  1. Print length
    481 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publication date
    November 11, 2017
  4. Dimensions
    5.25 x 1.21 x 8 inches
  5. ISBN-10
    0995797390
  6. ISBN-13
    978-0995797390
  7. See all details
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The Amazon Book Review
The Amazon Book Review
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Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Stephen Gallagher is the author of fourteen novels including Valley of Lights, Down River, Rain, and Nightmare, With Angel. Recent TV work includes an award-winning Silent Witness and a stint on Stan Lee's Lucky Man; he's also written for Doctor Who, Murder Rooms, Rosemary & Thyme, and is the creator of Jerry Bruckheimer's science thriller series Eleventh Hour. A Stoker and World Fantasy Award nominee, winner of British Fantasy and International Horror Guild Awards for his short fiction, he's also the creator of a series of historical mysteries featuring Sebastian Becker, Special Investigator to the Lord Chancellor's Visitor in Lunacy.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ The Brooligan Press (November 11, 2017)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 481 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0995797390
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0995797390
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.2 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.25 x 1.21 x 8 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    3.5 3.5 out of 5 stars 17 ratings

About the author

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Stephen Gallagher

Stephen Gallagher

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Beginning his TV career with the BBC's DOCTOR WHO, Stephen Gallagher went on to establish himself as a writer and director of high-end miniseries and primetime episodic television. In his native England he's adapted and created hour-long and feature-length thrillers and crime dramas. In the US he was lead writer on NBC's CRUSOE, creator of CBS Television's ELEVENTH HOUR, and Co-Executive Producer on ABC's THE FORGOTTEN. His fourteen novels include DOWN RIVER, RAIN, VALLEY OF LIGHTS, and NIGHTMARE, WITH ANGEL. He's the creator of Sebastian Becker, Special Investigator to the Lord Chancellor's Visitor in Lunacy, in a series of novels beginning with THE KINGDOM OF BONES and THE BEDLAM DETECTIVE, continuing in THE AUTHENTIC WILLIAM JAMES.

Described by The Independent as "the finest British writer of bestselling popular fiction since le Carré ... Gallagher, like le Carré, is a novelist whose themes seem to reflect something of the essence of our times, and a novelist whose skill lies in embedding those themes in accessible plots." According to Arena magazine, "Gallagher has quietly become Britain's finest popular novelist, working a dark seam between horror and the psychological thriller.

The Daily Telegraph wrote, "Since Valley of Lights, he has been refining his own brand of psycho-thriller, with a discomforting knack of charting mental disintegration and a razor-sharp sense of place." Charles de Lint wrote in Mystery Scene magazine, "Gallagher is a master of abnormal psychology and he just gets better and better." Also in Mystery Scene David Mathew added, "never a writer to rest on his laurels, he has written good hard thrillers, some horror genre work (such as Valley of Lights), and a novel (Oktober) that might even qualify as a vague distortion of contemporary world fantasy... in places. You might go as far as to employ that overused phrase sui generis. He is, at any rate, one of the best writers of his generation."

Winner of British Fantasy and International Horror Guild awards.

Customer reviews

3.5 out of 5 stars
3.5 out of 5
17 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Daneen Petty
4.0 out of 5 stars My goodness, Publisher's Weekly was wrong...
Reviewed in the United States on June 20, 2009
I'm glad I don't rely on professional reviews. I read this book ages ago and kept it--I only vaguely remembered the outcome, vague enough that I enjoyed it just as much the second time around (perhaps the vague familiarity is what added to the creepiness and the inherent sad feeling as I lifted it off the book shelf). This is a marvelous book; less white-knuckle thriller, and more like a very mature, quite emotional Hitchcock. I am still so uncertain about my own feelings for his characters---this story can leave you feeling conflicted. I'm so glad I kept it for another read and am sure I will do it again in 10 years. I came in to find other books by this author. I think that there are writers and then there are storytellers--Stephen Gallagher manages to be both, a rare thing. I only withheld the 5th star because I always believe there's something even better out there! I'm an extremely picky, critical reader and can say that this is a book well worth finding, buying, and reading more than once.
3 people found this helpful
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Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars So well written.
Reviewed in the United States on September 26, 2014
Everything is not always as it seems. This book is phenomenal in its effort to portray a good guy.who is misjudged and no matter what he does the outcome is always the same. A sad and heartbreaking story.
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Harry
3.0 out of 5 stars Boring! Just stopped reading
Reviewed in the United States on September 25, 2014
Verified Purchase
Boring! Just stopped reading, did not bother to finish. Ratings on this ---- much to high!
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booknerdsbraindump
1.0 out of 5 stars So much book, so little story.
Reviewed in the United States on January 20, 2015
I think I need to stop reading “best of” lists. Last time I was jonesing for something really good to read, I started googling “psychological thrillers” to see if there were any great authors out there I was missing out on. Lo and behold, I found a huge list, hundreds of books that all looked really good, many by authors I had never tried. I narrowed it down to about 25 or so that looked like the most fun, and dove in. Nightmare, With Angel was my second one, and I am starting to think that the list writer never actually read the books they recommended.

Nightmare, With Angel (why does that comma in the title annoy me so much?) started to go down some interestingly dark paths, but consistently stopped short. I don’t generally seek out mystery/horror novels just to read drawn-out descriptions of murder or torture or whatever, but I think that if you’re going to introduce the elements of murder or some kind of sadism into a story, you should at least explain what happened. Especially if the book is over 600 pages.

The entire book can be summed up in just a few sentences. I’ll avoid spoilers (even though everything is pretty telegraphed). Ten-year-old Marianne lives with her father (Patrick) along the English coast. Patrick’s days are spent trying and mostly failing to build a business that will support them. He doesn’t care to spend too much time with his daughter, anyway. Marianne spends most of her non-school time exploring the beach with her dog Rudi.

One day, Marianne and Rudi are exploring a sandbar when the tide comes in, stranding them and putting their lives in jeopardy. The local junk-picker, Ryan, happens to wander by, and rescues them.

Ryan has A Secret Past, and so he tries to avoid Marianne, as he doesn’t want to be accused of anything. But when things finally come to an ugly head with Patrick, she persuades Ryan to help her find her mother in Germany. What follows is a long, drawn-out chase that takes place all over Germany. Jennifer, an English police officer trying to make her way up the ranks, and Patrick, who suddenly realizes that Marianne is pretty much all he has, both go to Germany and join the police there in the hunt.

There are some revelations, some interesting twists, but Stephen Gallagher just couldn’t commit. We learn that Marianne’s mother, Anneliese, was involved in some pretty twisted stuff, but we never really get into her head to see how she got from point A to point WTF. Apparently, Ryan was accused of murder, and spent quite a few years in an institution, but we never get his explanation of what transpired, and never know for sure if he was the killer. There’s also a human trafficking subplot that adds almost nothing to the story.

There’s little to no tension in the chase. Ryan keeps Marianne safe from all of the horrors that might befall a young girl on her own.

The characters were also just bad. Marianne is precocious almost to the point of absurdity. Not only is she able to dig through her father’s private papers to figure out where to start the search for her mother, she’s also able to out-think virtually every adult around her. She makes plans that are pretty meticulous, but when she has trouble meeting up with her mother, it never occurs to her to look for other relatives she remembers.

Her father, Patrick, is a first-class a-hole. The minute he finds out that his wife is involved in something that he doesn’t understand and can’t accept, he grabs Marianne from school and leaves the country with her. No trying to talk to his wife to find out what is going on exactly, if she was being coerced or forced in some way, no trying to get her away from these awful things. Nope, just take the kid, run, and proceed to neglect the kid for years on end. He nurtures his grudge far more carefully than his daughter.

I think we’re supposed to think that Ryan is some kind of saint who just really really wants to atone for his past mistakes, but he lets a ten year old talk him into running away to another country. He then spends weeks on the run with her - despite his frequent indications that he only has her best interests at heart. He’s resourceful enough to get information from seemingly impossible situations when the plot calls for it, but not enough to make sure they have a decent place to sleep or enough food.

Nightmare, With Angel seemed to be trying to be about a broken family that goes through a crisis and is able to heal itself, but all I could think when reading it was that all of these people would be much better off if they just stayed far, far away from each other.

The Nerd’s Rating: ONE HAPPY NEURON
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Paul
2.0 out of 5 stars Weak Ending
Reviewed in the United States on February 20, 2015
Verified Purchase
This was a very interesting tale, but the quality of the ending did not live up to the story. It left a lot of the subplots dangling.
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Andrew McCaffrey
4.0 out of 5 stars Plot, with character
Reviewed in the United States on November 7, 2004
In the hands of most authors, NIGHTMARE, WITH ANGEL would be an amusing distraction. But given that it comes from the pen (or keyboard, one assumes) of Stephen Gallagher, we must expect something a little bit better than that. And he certainly delivers on those expectations. NIGHTMARE is not just a tightly paced, exciting psychological thriller; it's also a fascinating character study.

Gallagher places as much importance on character and theme as he does upon plot and story. To be honest, I'm not sure which he did the best, because all of those aspects were well done. He creates a small number of extremely realistic characters and slowly reveals them to the reader at a thoughtful pace. The fact that he does this for characters of both genders, a child, and someone of questionable mental facilities is commendable. He manages to make all of these people seem real. And even though they are strongly defined, he can still have them perform surprises.

The plot is actually quite simple when you boil it down to a sentence: a young girl and a man run away from the child's father in an attempt to discover what happened to her mother. But Gallagher packs a lot of shocks along the way. It's straightforward but it isn't at all predictable.

I mentioned earlier being impressed by Gallagher's themes. This was the part of the story that will stick with me. He throws thoughts of redemption and forgiveness into his twist on good vs. evil. It's this sort of thoughtfulness that raises this book above its peers.

NIGHTMARE, WITH ANGEL is dark without being pessimistic, and absorbing without basing itself on gimmicks. This is a worthy thriller whose characters will appeal to readers who aren't crazy about this genre and whose plot will electrify those who are. Gallagher's prose will raise the hairs on your head, while also giving your brain something to chew on.
4 people found this helpful
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sue Patton
5.0 out of 5 stars Fast action
Reviewed in the United States on September 21, 2014
Unexpected adventures into several characters.. complex and never.a dull moment. The story is beautiful and so well written. A book I will reread and think about often.
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