Angel’s Tip (2008) by Alafair Burke is a hard­cover mys­tery novel pub­lished by Harper.

Angel’s Tip is a smartly writ­ten mys­tery that fol­lows homi­cide detec­tive Ellie Hatcher with the NYPD. This is her sec­ond out­ing in this pur­ported series that started with last year’s, Dead Con­nec­tion (2007).

The Man­hat­tan night­club scene is served up as the hunt­ing ground for a socio­pathic ser­ial killer with a fetish. The perp seems to tar­get sin­gle women who are late night party-goers.

Chelsea Hart, a young col­lege stu­dent from Indi­ana, vis­its New York for spring break with two friends. The girls make one last stop at a pop­u­lar night­club, Pulse, before head­ing for the air­port in the morn­ing. How­ever, the girls become sep­a­rated when Chelsea refuses to leave the night­club. It’s late, she’s alone and enjoy­ing that one last drink of Angel’s Tip, before she wan­ders off alone at four in the morning.

Chelsea’s body is found early the next morn­ing by sev­eral jog­gers near a con­struc­tion site. She’s been stran­gled and her hair has been bru­tally cut. Among the crowd of early morn­ing run­ners is homi­cide detec­tive, Ellie Hatcher.

Ellie’s been with the homi­cide unit for one week when she is assigned the Chelsea Hart case. She and her new part­ner, J.J. Rogan had been doing mostly desk work while she’s sup­pos­edly “learn­ing the ropes” of her new job. Ellie is anx­ious to get this case and weasels her­self into this assignment.

After inves­ti­gat­ing, detect­ing, inter­view­ing and arrest­ing sus­pects, a griev­ing father’s tip to the police shifts the focus of the inves­ti­ga­tion. Instead of one ran­dom mur­der, there might be sev­eral that are tied together. Ellie starts to look into other cold case files that her pre­vi­ous part­ner, Flann McIl­roy, nick­named “McIl­mul­der” might have been look­ing into before his death. McIl­roy was a rene­gade cop who was mur­dered fol­low­ing the events of a unre­lated case.

A mys­tery, for me, is only as good as it’s vil­lain and the detec­tives who go after him/her. The vil­lain in here is method­i­cal and preda­tory. Read­ers are briefly given the villain’s POV and I see no other pur­pose for them other than to frighten peo­ple into being more cau­tious when out late and alone.

As for the lead char­ac­ter, Ellie Hatcher, I liked her and since this series is about her, that’s impor­tant. I also like that she is smart and can take care of her­self. Of course she has to deal with the pol­i­tics sur­round­ing her pro­mo­tion to the homi­cide unit after five years of being a cop. This upset a lot of the men detec­tives who felt she skipped ahead of the line, start­ing with her lieutenant.

Ellie also gar­nered a lot of pub­lic­ity with the death of her father, a cop who ded­i­cated his life to track­ing down a ser­ial killer in Wichita, Kansas. This sub­plot serves as an ongo­ing thread that is per­sonal for Ellie since she believes that her father’s death was not a suicide.

As for her love life, that part is inter­est­ing as well. Ellie’s been briefly dat­ing jour­nal­ist and aspir­ing writer, Peter Morse, who sur­rep­ti­tiously tries to gather info about her case to pub­lish with his paper. Their rela­tion­ship car­ries over from the first book. For me, Peter was a utter nui­sance and I was really glad to see that he would not be Ellie’s love interest.

The man who really sets her pulse rac­ing is Assis­tant Dis­trict Attor­ney, Max Dono­van. He’s work­ing with her and her part­ner on the Chelsea Hart case. The two have great chem­istry together and I enjoyed their frank con­ver­sa­tions. As Ellie says in not so many words, he seems to “get it.” This scene is one that I par­tic­u­larly liked where Ellie and Max are on a stake out in her apart­ment which leads to their first kiss.

“Don’t you have an apart­ment of your own that you need to get to? she said.

“I do in fact have an apart­ment, but I have absolutely no desire to go there right now. I’m stay­ing here until you kick me out.”

“I appre­ci­ate the sen­ti­ment, but I don’t need you to pro­tect me. Look, big gun,” she said, point­ing to the hol­ster she’d tossed on her kitchen counter.

“If you think I want to be here so I can pro­tect you, you have seri­ously over­es­ti­mated my man­li­ness. I’m a pencil-neck lawyer. You’re doing all the pro­tect­ing tonight.”

There are a few other note­wor­thy scenes to add to that one. Sec­ondary char­ac­ters, more than a few had a cou­ple of mem­o­rable scenes them­selves. While there weren’t very many scene stealer’s in here, every­body who had a role made an impres­sion and served a purpose.

Also, the pla­tonic rela­tion­ship between Ellie and her part­ner, J.J. Rogan is well devel­oped as well. Again, great chem­istry. I enjoyed the inter­play between the two of them and I love how each one has the other’s back. Their rela­tion­ship felt real and gen­uine. J.J. is black, has money (or out­side money) and can dress. He’s also a looker as well but he’s taken.

Alafair Burke can pen a good story and her writ­ing is very pol­ished. Her char­ac­ters felt real. She had a leg up in the writ­ing gene pool since her father is James Lee Burke (I need to read his books next).

As a for­mer deputy dis­trict attor­ney, the author brings a wealth of infor­ma­tion from that per­spec­tive to this story. There were a few instances where the tone of the story felt like a lec­ture but it drops quickly.

Another strength of this author is that she seems famil­iar with the pop cul­ture of our soci­ety. The author also has a good ear for how reg­u­lar peo­ple actu­ally talk. I felt like I was read­ing a book that was set in my own time period for once. I could do with­out the ser­ial killers thanks. How­ever, the vio­lence in here is not as graphic as say Chelsea Cain or Karin Slaugh­ter. How­ever, this prob­a­bly wouldn’t be a book I would read at night, home alone, with the lights out either.

Angel’s Tip gets a B+ from me because the book is very read­able, char­ac­ters were well fleshed out and the mys­tery, while solid, the dénoue­ment was a slight dis­ap­point­ment, hence the lower grade. I felt duped. While sus­pi­cion was heavy on just about every­body, I thought I knew who the vil­lain was but I was wrong. What’s worse, the vil­lain, after much build up, goes out with a whim­per (no pun intended).

Kudos to this author for not using the same for­mu­laic devices that befall most mys­ter­ies where the vil­lain gives the detec­tives his con­fes­sions before being shot to death. Plus, Ellie said she didn’t need sav­ing and guess what? She didn’t. I love follow-through. B+.

Angel’s Tip is avail­able in hard­cover now and Kin­dle ebook. Fic­tion­wise also has this title in ebook Note: The first book in this series is only avail­able as Kin­dle ebook or Mobipocket for­mat. Yes, Angel’s Tip can stand alone.