Approximately 30 years after Altered Carbon, Takeshi Kovacs is now serving in Carrera's Wedge, a mercenary organization that joins a war on a distant planet, Sanction IV, fighting against an anti-corporate-government rebel group.

Mysteriously, it appears that the original team chose to die in space rather than inside the breathable air of the spaceship.

Kovacs realises that Tanya Wardani sabotaged the first archaeological team after discovering that they wanted to use the Martian ship as a weapon.

Kovacs trades the rights to the Martian ship for safe passage out of the solar system for the surviving members of his team.

In contrast to the first novel, in which Kovacs was attempting to fight for human value, Greenland finds that "truth and justice ... are rarely the ethos, or the issue" in Broken Angels.

[1] Publishers Weekly wrote that the novel succeeded despite a formulaic structure, calling it a "superior, satisfying cyberpunk noir adventure".

[2] Kirkus Reviews wrote that the novel was a good expansion of the worldbuilding which began in the first novel, praising it as "a thrilling cyberpunk actioner" while stating that it occasionally overdid its world-weary tone.