What Angel Wakes

What Angel Wakes, by Michael E. Drake describes the mystery of how the most sought-after papers in the English-speaking world land in the hands of a part-time deputy sheriff in mythical Prairie County, Illinois.

Jane Brown Davis, a single mother in Prairie County, provides for herself and her eight-year-old son as a secretary for the local school in the mornings and as a deputy sheriff in the afternoons. Jane's life is plain enough.

But when her aged aunt is murdered, the sheriff and Illinois State Police soon give up on the investigation. Working on her own and learning as she goes, Jane searches determinedly for links in the mystery. What she finds leads her to an antiquities expert in Chicago and a genealogist in Terre Haute.

In a constant fight with the lethargic, politically motivated sheriff, Jane teams with Ray Turner, the genealogist, for a trip to Virginia to learn more about another homicide that bears remarkable similarities to the murder of Jane's aunt. In Richmond, Jane, using her God-given common sense and intuitive hunches, finds the priceless documents. The trip also sparks her love for the steady, reliable Ray Turner.

Trailing the priceless papers that have fallen into the hands of Jane Brown Davis, Morton Wilkes soon begins his insidious stalk of the deputy from Illinois. Wilkes is smart and mean. He intends to have the papers no matter what. So Jane Brown Davis is forced into a deadly spar with the unrelenting, deadly Morton Wilkes.

Closely drawn, colorful characters populate this story. Michael Drake narrates the tale with straight forward, no nonsense prose taking the reading from a mundane beginning to an astonishing middle to the the terrifying end in a lean 208 pages.

You're going to love Jane Brown Davis!