Scarlet Angel by C.A. Wilke is the kind of story where one should hold on for dear life with little concern or notice for what transpires on the periphery. For the parts where it delivers the blistering, action-based pace that maintains unrestrained reader compulsion to keep turning pages, it works rather well. Overall, in spite of its demerits, I found this a compelling story I’m glad to have picked up.

Things launch with a bang. Our heroine finds herself in great peril. In an attack against her life, Scarlett comes face-to-face with a past she can either not recall or is too eager to forget. To avoid endangering her adoptive family, she goes on the run and into hiding with Neil, a master fighter and assassin who takes it upon himself to protect her, train her, and/or use her—we can’t quite tell, and that’s part of the intrigue, fun, and at times, confusion.

Here the story takes a breather to explore the relationship between Scarlett and Neil, which is at first acrimonious—she sees him as a captor more than a protector—then borderline abusive—Neil kicks and bruises her every which way possible during training—then romantic—the two of them fall into a dalliance over circumstances I won’t reveal, but which didn’t quite feel justified—and then finally are torn apart through Neil’s apparent duplicity, piled on through an unanticipated explosive event.

This portion of the story left me somewhat perplexed. First, I found the Neil-Scarlet relationship… awkward? That’s the best word I can offer here. I suppose awkwardness is part of it, but it rings unnatural and forced. I never really understood what, besides abuse, attracted Scarlet to Neil—and I find that thought disturbing. Second, for all the time we spend in this section of the story, where little happens other than Neil-Scarlet interactions, when I think I see the point (Scarlett’s mission is revealed), Neil disappears.

And he will stay that way for some time. We get a hint that he’s still around. We suspect that he will come back.

But for the next few chapters we find Scarlet on her own, fortuitously flush with a lot of fluid cash, forging alliances with hackers, and running afoul of gangsters which she soon dispatches. It’s almost as if the author suspects the Neil angle wasn’t gelling, sets it aside for a respite during which he gives us action to make amends. While I enjoyed this part of the story for the fast-paced happenings, I started asking a bothersome question.

What’s the point? More to the point, what about this story that makes me care at a deeper level? Oh, I want Scarlet to succeed, but her main vigilante-revenge driver doesn’t seem to have any redeeming value for others—in fact, she’s placing those that align themselves with her in greater danger. For added explanation, I reminded myself that she also wants to protect her adoptive family. Her quest to confront and extinguish the antagonist (Derrick) finds its fuel in that as well. But this driver often seemed a marginal, secondary consideration.

Without spoilage—not that I could do much—toward the end we get a hint at a greater cause, something Derrick is developing and a data cube associated with it. But Scarlett never really discovers in full what that is before the last page, and the revelation emerges far too late to supply a credible motivational driver.

Nonetheless, in the grand total, I found this an enjoyable read. Lucky for me, in spite of some frowning, I kept reading through a satisfying romp full of additional high octane action and unexpected twists. On that level, the story satisfies. Perhaps this is why and how the story should be read—for the pure action thrill of it. The author writes action sequences with a succinct yet rich descriptive flare that kept me reading and turning pages. He never pauses to over-explain, and except for that Neil-Scarlett section, the pace never wanes. The end experience provided me sufficient rationale for giving it a positive, if in places qualified, recommendation.

[Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars]