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Brianna Beaufort starts out trying to get a cookie thief off the hook, but winds up working an altogether older case entirely, for an already dead client. Brianna Beaufort, known to most people as Bree, is a lawyer with an office nobody but the dead can find. Her assistants are angels: Ron is very neat and fastidious, Petru is Russian and not so tidy. This can present problems at the office. Most of her paying customers are referrals, as is the presenting case in ANGEL'S ADVOCATE. Bree's Aunt Cissy has a friend from bridge club, Carrie Alice. Carrie Alice's daughter Lindsey was arrested for stealing over a hundred dollars from a Girl Scout selling cookies at the mall. Aunt Cissy offers Bree's services to Carrie Alice, who takes her up on the offer. Lindsey is an obnoxious little brat, spoiled and snotty and all like that, with the obvious implication that there is something wrong with life at home. And, of course, there is. Bree's real client ends up being Probert Chandler, Lindsey's father, who supposedly ran himself into a tree during a rainstorm. He tells Bree that he didn't kill himself and he wants her to prove it to the Powers That Be so his stay in Hell is slightly less onerous. Both clients prove difficult for Bree, in very different ways. ANGEL'S ADVOCATE is very well written. The characters are delightful, even the nasty ones, in the sense that they become very real to the reader very quickly. Stanton can give the reader a sense of the relationships in a few words here and there, not in great chunks of exposition. Stanton's descriptions of Savannah and environs are also skilful. In terms of plot, Stanton has no trouble leading the reader all over the back of beyond with clues and misdirections, yet the path from the end back to the beginning is clear enough when it comes time to look back in wonder. ANGEL'S ADVOCATE is the second in the Beaufort & Company series; DEFENDING ANGELS was the first and with any luck, number three is in the pipeline. For those readers who are interested, Stanton also writes as Claudia Bishop.
Reviewed by P.J. Coldren, December 2008
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