REDEMPTION

The second book in a series about the heavy legacy of an old golden cross.

This sequel to Redemption: Angel Ascending(2021) resumes the story of Ronan James Cassidy, who shares the author’s name, and a haunted figure named David Michael Sonneman. The story starts with the 1977 road-trip adventures of two other young men named Jimmy and Matthew, who are driving north from Myrtle Beach, South Carolina; they arrive, bedraggled, at a bar in the Fell’s Point neighborhood of Baltimore, where they quickly get involved in a brawl. As the narrative broadens out, the later story of David and Ronan, and the ancient golden cross that links their destinies, comes to the fore and is deepened. In the previous volume, David began to learn the centuries-old secrets of his bloodline, and over the course of this present volume, he, his sister, Nadiel, and Ronan encounter more revelations. The narrative expands to include many secondary characters, including, most notably, the wealthy, “miserable curmudgeon” Clay Calhoun, of whom David was a protégé and whose machinations play a pivotal role in some of this sequel’s action. And as in the previous novel, characters raise some deep philosophical and religious questions along the way, as when one character asks Daniel, “Why do the guilty so irksomely cling to the false presumption of human mercy at the very moment their guilt is to be so prosecuted in accordance with terms so judiciously and so clearly ordained by mutual and willing accord?”

The main weakness of the second volume in Cassidy’s series is that it’s very much a second volume and will only appeal to readers who’ve read the first. This is signaled by the fact that it starts with Book III and Chapter 21, titled “Denouement” (an off-putting way for a book of more than 600 pages to begin), and also by the first sentence, which reads, in part: “it was…readily apparent to the reader of said notations and musings that some of the most pertinent details surrounding the event of their hurried getaway had been omitted per the author’s discretion.” These exemplify how Cassidy makes no attempt to orient new readers to the series, as this long novel is not merely a direct sequel, but, in many ways, an appendix to its predecessor. As in the first book, the prose is often quite wooden; there are numerous malapropisms (“pretty well worse for ware”) and awkward phrases (“the two had reached the end of the line for this rodeo”) along with unnatural dialogue. The book will likely appeal to readers who enjoyed the first volume in the series, and the author loads the story with issues of cosmic and spiritual significance that fans of the works of Dan Brown or Carlos Castaneda may appreciate. However, without believable characters to anchor the proceedings, that broader story feels rather rote and academic in the end.

A lengthy, flawed sequel about a complicated spiritual quest that requires deep familiarity with the first installment.