From Goodreads: Why do bad things happen to good people? Simple. In the ancient war between the Angels of Light and Darkness, the Dark won. Now it is the job of an undercover force simply known as The Army to rectify that.

Using every tool available, The Army has worked to liberate our world from The Enemy for thousands of years, slowly and painfully lifting Mankind out of the dark. On the front of the great Conflict are the Angelkillers, veterans of the fight with centuries of experience.

Jonah Mason is an Angelkiller, and his cell is targeted as part of a plot to unseat a very powerful Minion of The Enemy. Mason and his troop are drawn into a battle that stretches from real-time to virtual reality and back. The Conflict is about to expand into cyberspace, and if Mason is unable to stop it, The Enemy will have gained dominion over yet another realm.

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Angelkiller is an interesting take on the battle between heaven and hell, a battle that has been morphing along with society for thousands of years.  And, as society evolves and moves forward, so do the tactics taken to fight The Enemy.  Jonah Mason, the main character throughout this novel, has been fighting the Darkness for far too long to remember, meeting with his newest cell group through online gaming.  This was a very interesting development within the story as it gives each member the anonymity and privacy they need to discuss their plans for action against the Darkness without leaving the comfort of their own home. 

I was originally interested in this novel because of this usage of cyberspace; I used to have friends really into gaming, and I wanted to see where Blalock was going with this concept.  It turns out the terminology is a little bit beyond me, I’m not a gamer and I don’t know very much about all the logistics of it, but I was able to follow Blalock fairly well as the story progressed, explaining how everything worked while adding suspense to the story, especially once these gaming sessions are compromised and not everyone is who they seem to be. 

Though the story jumped around a bit, Blalock does a good job bringing all the pieces of the puzzle together, referencing prior scenes and making them all fit together nicely.  Yet, I didn’t feel as connected to the characters within the story as I had hoped, and I think the anonymity of the story overall has a lot to do with that.  While I would have liked a lot more character development, I also don’t think it would have fit with the story, especially as the members of the cell are meant to give away as little information about themselves as possible.  Thus, I wasn’t attached to any specific characters, but I enjoyed them nonetheless.  I think readers especially interested in technology and the gaming world will really enjoy this story.  Three stars.

I received a copy of this novel from the author in exchange for an honest review.