ANGEL DOWN by Daniel Kraus – Review

I received this book for free from the Publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Angel Down by Daniel Kraus
Published by Atria Books on July 29 2025
Genres: Adult, Historical fantasy, Horror
Pages: 304
Format: ARC
Source: Publisher
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The nitty-gritty: Powerful, visceral and immersive, Angel Down explores war and angels, life and death, desires and miracles, in a surprising format that echoes the chaos of war.

“and Goodspeed’s theory has a logic Bagger can’t quip aside, for if you were to forge new kinds of weapons, and those weapons flew farther and sailed higher than anything before them, it stood to reason the payloads might strike beings hovering at altitudes that, prior to the Great War, had been secure, and that one of these beings might be a goddamned angel,”

After being blown away by Daniel Kraus’s last book, Whalefall, I was so curious to see what he would write next. Angel Down blew me away too, but it’s a much different beast. Kraus has taken some big risks with this book, and I can tell you it’s not going to work for everyone. First, there’s the format, which is almost a stream of consciousness style narrative with the entire story told in only one sentence. His writing style has more of a literary flair and mostly focuses on the internal dialog of the main character, and because of the setting—France during WWI—there’s a frantic edge that made this a rather exhausting reading experience, to be honest. This is a tough read, full of excruciating emotion and very graphic depictions of life in the trenches during wartime, and yet it’s both cleverly written and full of very dark humor. I suspect you will either love it or hate it, and luckily I fell on the side of “love,” especially when it comes to Kraus’s amazing writing skills and his ability to convey emotion through his characters and their experiences.

The plot itself is rather simple and takes place over the course of only a day or two. Private First Class Cyril Bagger signed up to serve in the war after seeing a poster of Uncle Sam, who looked suspiciously like his late father, Bishop Bernard Bagger. Now he’s fighting along side the Butcher Birds of the 43rd, although he’s mostly been relegated to burying the dead, which keeps him out of harm’s way. One day, a loud shriek pierces the normal sounds of war, a neverending sound of someone in pain. Major General Reis assigns Bagger and four others to investigate and “take care of him,” thinking the shrieker is a dying soldier who needs to be put out of his misery. But when they eventually arrive at the source of the horrible sound, they’re shocked to find not a man, but a woman tangled up in barb wire.

Giving off a bright light and sporting an actual halo, they decide that the woman must be an angel, and they decide to save her. And so begins a terrible journey, as the five men—Bagger, Arno, Popkin, Goodspeed and Veck—struggle through the war-torn landscape to safety. Each man, though, has different ideas about what the angel’s presence means and what they can gain from her, and so their journey back to General Reis is one fraught with danger.

Kraus’s story isn’t really about the angel at all, but instead is an intimate character study of Bagger and the other characters. Bagger is a conman who brings his grifting skills with him to France, giving him an edge when it comes to observing other people’s body language, and there are several times during the story, life or death moments, when these skills save his life. Kraus meticulously inserts personal bits of Bagger’s history into his story that are carried throughout, for example he has brought his dead father’s red leather Bible with him, not for spiritual comfort, but because it’s the only thing tying him to home. The Bible pops up over and over in surprising ways and becomes an emotional touchstone for Bagger. There’s also a wonderful element involving the book The Son of Tarzan that Kraus cleverly threads throughout his story. Bagger has a battered, mud-stained copy that he reads to Arno (a boy of only fourteen who can’t read), and I loved the way these passages show Arno’s innocence and the tender father/son relationship between them.

Kraus immerses the reader in the horrors of war and doesn’t pull any punches describing injuries from howitzers and mortar shells in excruciating detail (blood, viscera and body parts) as well as the horrible conditions of foot soldiers—lack of food, and mud-, urine- and feces-filled trenches. I loved the contrast of the angel, who appears to Bagger wearing an immaculate red dress and a blue cape, porcelain skin free of mud, and a dreamy, sleepy expression on her face. At first the angel is a figure of innocence in the midst of so much pain, although she changes into something else later in the book, as the author explores various versions of the angel in literature, art and the Bible.

There is a lot I haven’t mentioned and won’t, so you can experience it for yourself. But I will say you’ll never think about the game Rock Paper Scissors in the same way after reading this book…

I loved the way the angel’s story plays out in the end. Is she there to save humanity and end the war? Or is her purpose much darker? The last chapters have a surreal quality and don’t necessarily answer all the questions, due to some confusing and very weird scenes, but at that point I was willing to go wherever Kraus took me. Angel Down isn’t an easy book to read, but it’s an experience I won’t soon forget.

Big thanks to the publisher for providing a review copy. Above quote was taken from an uncorrected proof and may differ in the final version of the book.