Angel Down by Daniel Krus

Picture No Man’s Land. The mud, the smoke, the unbearable hush between shells. Now imagine something impossible lying there in the ruins. Not a wounded soldier. An angel.

From Daniel Kraus, the critically acclaimed author of the “crazily enjoyable” (The New York Times) Whalefall, comes an immersive, cinematic novel that fuses the horror of the Great War with something altogether otherworldly.

Private Cyril Bagger has survived the trenches through wit, nerve, and a talent for swindling his fellow soldiers. But when he and four other grunts are sent into the perilous dark to euthanize a fallen comrade, they find something else entirely: a celestial being, struck from the sky by artillery fire. It may hold the key to ending the war, but only if these desperate men can rise above their own jealousy, greed, and paranoia.

What follows is a polyphonic tale of survival, supernatural wonder, and moral reckoning, told in the kind of prose that pulls you in close and won’t let go.

This is a book made for a long, gray afternoon by the cove, when the sea air turns cold and the pages feel warm in your hands. Atmospheric. Unsettling. Impossible to put down.

If Whalefall proved Kraus could trap you somewhere you couldn’t escape, Angel Down does it again, this time amid the smoke and silence of the trenches.

Come browse, linger, and let us press this one into your hands. We have a feeling it’ll stay with you long after the final page.

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