Description:

Bench Intelligence Specialist Garol Vogel is one of an elite few chartered by the Bench to uphold the rule of Law by any means he sees fit, to rewrite policy, assassinate corrupt officials, and topple planetary governments at his discretion.

His most treasured achievement was the amnesty he brokered for the Langsarik rebels. But someone is raiding depot stations in the Shawl of Rikavie around Port Charid, torturing and murdering with unprecedented savagery. Vogel knows the Langsariks are innocent, but who could be to blame, and how can he prevent a Judicial crime of horrific proportions?

Garol Vogel finds the answer on the wrong side of the Judicial order he’s served faithfully all his life, and once he sets foot on a path of subversion and sabotage there will be no going back for him, forever.

At the publisher's request, this title is sold without DRM (Digital Rights Management).

A chilling and engaging novel of false accusation and the power of personal responsibility.
-Booklist

The structure of Angel of Destruction is part mystery, part thriller. The reader knows early on who’s responsible for the raids…but the suspense comes from Vogel’s need to put the pieces together and uncover the real culprits in time to save the Langsariks. Matthews...has a gift for evoking empathy…[and] has a deft and subtle touch with political implications…Family loyalty, ethics against duty, secret conspiracies, politics, honour, characterization: Angel of Destruction hits so many of my narrative kinks it’s not even funny.
-Liz Bourke, columnist for Tor.com

From Booklist

The Langsariks, a culture of space-living mercantile raiders, have been brought to heel by the governing power known as the Judiciary. Confined to a single spaceport town and deprived of their fleet, the Langsariks have to serve eight years of probation before they can be truly free again. A series of brutal raids now leaves evidence of being planned and carried out by Langsariks officers. Garol Vogel, the Judiciary Bench investigative officer who organized the amnesty that allowed the Langsariks to honorably surrender, has to discover the truth about their involvement in the raids. Meanwhile, a narrative window into the mind of the true perpetrator reveals a thoroughgoing conspiracy to destroy the Langsariks. When a witness to one of the raids escapes to take sanctuary rather than bearing construed false witness about the Langsarik family he hopes to marry into, a religious organization, the Malcontent, must join forces with the Bench to prevent another bloody attack. A chilling and engaging novel of false accusation and the power of personal responsibility. Roberta Johnson
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