Book Review: Angel Down

This year, I have been keeping track of what I read; and as a slow reader, I'm pleased to see that I've averaged a book a month. Whether I enjoyed it or not, I've posted a blurb and brief review. Today, as we wrap up 2025, it's the WWI supernatural horror story Angel Down by Daniel Kraus.

Private Cyril Bagger has managed to survive the unspeakable horrors of the Great War through his wits and deception. But his instincts are put to the test when he and four other grunts are given a deadly mission: venture into the perilous No Man’s Land to euthanize a wounded comrade. What they find, however, is not a man in need of mercy but a fallen angel, seemingly struck down by artillery fire. This celestial being may hold the key to ending the brutal conflict, but only if the soldiers can suppress their individual desires and work together. As jealousy, greed, and paranoia take hold, the group is torn apart by their inner demons, threatening to turn their angelic encounter into a descent into hell.

Drawing from Faust, Dante's Inferno, and the "one-take" epic 1917, Kraus weaves a war novel unlike any other. In many ways, it's more stream-of-conscious prose poetry than standard fiction; the entire book is one run-on sentence broken into manageable chunks—but what a well-written sentence it is. The descriptions and characterization are top-notch, granting the reader a visceral experience on every page. Nightmarish violence, gore, and filth abound in the trenches, yet they're nothing compared to the inner turmoil these characters go through, and Bagger's anti-heroic first-person narrative is as compelling as it gets. Has he found an angel? A demon? If war is a hell of our own making, then who are we to demand supernatural intervention? One star deducted for the convoluted ending, but otherwise, a solid 4 out of 5. Definitely a favorite read of the year.