Desert Angel

Despite its outrageous plot, wooden characters and predictable ending this slickly written thriller still manages to remain compulsively readable. Set in border country between America and Mexico, its heroine 14-year-old Angel is on the run from Scotty, the no-good low-life who has just murdered her mother and then does his best to kill her too. Offered respite by a network of saint-like Mexican immigrants, she knows that Scotty will never give up the chase to get rid of the one witness who could yet send him to jail. Angel’s increasingly paranoid fears prove to be totally justified, and others get sucked into her tragedy as Scotty gradually hones in on her current whereabouts. Not great writing but certainly very effective, this yarn also offers some insights into drug smuggling, pistol firing and, by contrast, the work that Head Start still does with deprived children where Angel helps out in between running away from her mortal enemy.