I had read the second book in the series and thought it was pretty funny. So I was excited when I saw this one come up and that the publisher had approved me.

While this one had it's moments, it wasn't as funny as the other one. It seemed to take a while to get going, but when it did, it really shot off like a bang. I love the oldest daughter. Tying up the criminals and even giving them therapy sessions. It was definitely a Keystone Kops madcap story the last half of the book. Rosie (aka CriCri) is quite the character just going along life minding her own business, well most of the time. She certainly has a knack for getting herself in trouble though.

If you like humor and, in this case, don't mind waiting a little for it to start, then you need to check this one out.

Thanks to AmazonCrossing for approving my request and to Net Galley for providing me with a free e-galley in exchange for an honest review.

“I have a strict policy. No magic, no monsters, no supernatural clients. Ever.”

So says Owl, ex-archaeologist and thief extraordinaire. Still trying to avoid the vampires that she managed to rile in a previous escapade, Owl is in no mood for a new job. However, she soon discovers that it’s really, really hard to say no to a dragon. It isn’t long before Owl is trying to navigate the tricky waters of supernatural politics while avoiding vampires, angry nagas, and a confusing romantic relationship. Without the help of her friends and allies, she’s all set to crash and burn.

I have such mixed feelings about this book. On the one hand, I loved the Indiana-Jones-With-Extra-Magic-On-The-Side vibe. I loved Owl’s vampire-killing cat, Captain. I loved Owl’s snarky, quip-filled narration:

“You know your sanity is in question when you find yourself in a two-way conversation with a cat.”

Charish put together a fun world, an entertaining story, and an intriguing villain, and I absolutely adored the ending--specifically, the last sentence of the book.

But certain aspects just drove me nuts. Like trying to enjoy a concert while the guy behind you is whistling “This is the song that never ends,” I found it really, really hard to concentrate on the fun parts.

First, I can’t buy the worldbuilding. The basic idea is that even though the clues of magic are everywhere, the world hasn’t caught on because the International Archaeology Association (IAA) has carefully hidden the truth from the world. How, you might ask? Well, apparently they’re a paramilitary organization with spies and influence everywhere and the ability to reach any archaeological crime scene before the police. Why are they hiding the truth from the world? Well, apparently No One Can Handle the Truth-- well, no-one other than the IAA, and the site guards who are trained to deal with the monsters, and the people funding the IAA, and the universities that the IAA is “strangling”, and the archaeology students, the antiquity experts, and whoever else is needed to provide logistics of all of that.

I don’t know about you, but in my experience, any secret kept by more than two or three people leaks pretty darned fast. Masquerade worlds usually function via society’s unwillingness to accept the strange, but in this case, (a) there’s actual hard archaeological evidence of the weirdness, and (b) somehow there’s a vast organisation whose entire purpose is hiding magic, which leaves me with (c) absolutely no idea why anyone would bother, other than plot convenience. Not even the conspiracy itself is consistent; for example, the postdoc Owl worked with“had been falsifying data to hide a supernatural mummy from our supervisor,” who must have been as well aware of it all as the archaeologists themselves.

The other thing that drove me up the wall was Owl herself. Where to begin? As one might expect of an archaeology thief, Owl is not a good person. However, she combines duplicitous bitchery with an absolutely staggering measure of self-righteousness.

Let’s start with her backstory, which Owl seems unable to keep straight. Owl sold her principles for a promise of funding and a cushy post, but since she was too stupid to get any guarantees, the university promptly reneged on its promises. For most of the book, Owl keeps harping on and on about how she left because“My conscience had gotten me thrown out of the university.”Uh, no. She sold her integrity--twice, by my count--and felt betrayed when she discovered it wasn’t as valuable as she had thought.

So much for her honesty. Let’s consider her good nature. When Owl helps out a fellow grad student in desperate straits, she not only feels entitled to some quid pro quo and when he refuses her request, she starts threatening him. When Owl is double-crossed by one of her victims, she feels hurt and betrayed, whining that

“Funny how when people’s lives are in ruins, they’re more than happy to associate with the likes of me. It’s after I fix everything that they suddenly recall I’m treacherous, unconscionable me. [...] No good deed goes unpunished.”

That’s not precisely accurate. They remember she’s a treacherous, vindictive creep when she starts blackmailing them and/or setting up her little revenge schemes.

Now let’s consider her skills. Throughout the book, there’s an assumption that Owl’s talents make her irreplaceable, but I’m not entirely sure what those talents actually are. Owl’s “train wreck” logistics, her tendency to mouth off to everyone she meets, and her inability to “plan her way out of a lit and unlocked chest” become a running gag throughout the book. According to one of her friends,

“You can’t help but do stupid things. It’s in your nature. It’s also what makes you the best at what you do.”

Which makes me think that her valuable skill must actually be for fucking up. Admittedly, she’s absolutely spectacular at that, as well as roping in others to take her knocks for her.

The book showed so much promise. I loved the writing style. I loved the ideas. I'm well aware that the issue is just me Taking It Too Seriously. I really, really regret that I couldn’t enjoy it to the full. I can still heartily recommend it to anyone of a more forgiving and tolerant disposition.

**Note: this review is of an uncorrected advanced reader copy. While the included quotes may not reflect the final phrasing, I believe they speak to the nature of the novel as a whole.**

~~I received this ebook through Netgalley from the publisher, Gallery, Threshold, Pocket Books, in exchange for my honest review.

Hmm. I was pretty sure I reviewed this, but my review has disappeared. In any case, I just finished a reread, so I guess I'll use my GR review as a base and stick it up again.

~~Review After Reread~~

Despite the etymology of his name, Felix "Fix" Castor feels anything but happy or lucky. In his altered world, in which the dead have risen and now pace the streets as zombies and ghosts, Castor's skills as an exorcist are at a premium. After a terrible accident in which he helped to bind a friend's soul to a demon, Castor is trying to take early retirement from the ghostbuster business. With money tight and fear on the rise, it's just not that easy for Castor to hang up his exorcism flute. To earn a bit of much-needed cash, he takes on one last exorcism. It seems simple--a ghost in a museum who has suddenly taken to violence--but as always seems to be the case, things are never as simple as they appear. Far too soon, Castor is drawn into a web of conspiracy and brutality, with a mob boss expressing a rather sinister interest in him, a demon ready to hunt him down, and a loup-garou after his blood. Worse still, Castor is forced to question his own beliefs about life, death, and the supernatural.

Mike Carey's The Devil You Know is a compelling read, a hardboiled detective story transposed into a gritty apocalyptic world. Castor is an engaging narrator and his wry, humorous voice is effective and appealing. Take his explanation for how he got into ghostbusting:

"But how many people do you know who actually get to choose what they do for a living? My careers teacher said I should go into hotel management, so exorcism it was."

As one might expect from the title, The Devil You Know is a very dark read, without as much of the genre-savvy absurdism that tends to characterize urban fantasy. There is humour, most of it decidedly British and involving references to Thatcher and Blue Peter, but at least in my first read, I was not once tempted to laugh out loud. However, this speaks more about the underlying darkness of the plot and Carey's ability to generate suspense. On my second read, I found quite a few passages hilarious. I especially love Castor's mixed metaphors such as:

"It wasn’t what I was expecting, but like I’ve always said, if life gives you lemmings, jump off a cliff."

Most urban fantasy pits the protagonist against supernatural evils, but this book is about man's inhumanity to man, leading to a much darker, more upsetting, and more introspective book. It also calls into question many of the basic assumptions of most urban fantasy worlds. For example, in most urban fantasy novels, because most of the villains faced in urban fantasy are nonhuman, removing them becomes a righteous act. It is taken for granted that vampires don't have souls so a stake through the heart isn't murder, that since souls are just residual carbon copies, a salt-and-burn operation at a graveside is just a guilt-free janitorial exercise, that the creature being hunted is a monster and removing a monster is a moral act. But in Felix Castor's case, the greatest monsters are the other people. Even loup-garou are people in some ways, since they are ghosts possessing animal bodies, and it is the human intelligence that makes them vicious. What happens to an exorcised ghost is unknown. Is he damning the souls of those dead, or releasing them to a better hereafter? That open question makes the tone of the novel very gritty and saturnine, but also creates a complex and compelling world.

The overall feel of the novel is very noir hardboiled detective; we have the standard mob boss and femme fatale plot arcs and quite a reasonable mystery. At the same time, the perpetrator becomes pretty obvious about halfway through, and waiting for the naive Felix to catch up is frustrating. In Castor's world, it is humanity, not supernatural monsters, who are the root of all evil, leading to a plot that at times feels unrelentingly dark. Mike Carey also goes out of his way to castigate the Church as rigid and hypocritical. I'm no longer Christian--I misplaced my faith and it hasn't yet turned up in the lost and found--but even I was appalled at the vitriol applied to the religion. Castor has the jaded world-weariness of a true hardboiled detective, but unlike "protagonists" such as Richard Kadrey's James Stark, he has not caved into self-serving nihilism. Felix still believes in right and wrong and wants to do the right thing with an almost painful intensity. What makes this book such a dark and compelling read is that it is simply not always easy to figure out, in a complex and twisted world, exactly what constitutes the moral act.

Overall, The Devil You Know combines some of the best aspects of urban fantasy with the mood and structure of classic noir. Castor is an appealing narrator, a satisfyingly imperfect protagonist in a world of gritty greys. The book is an intriguing start to a great series. The Felix Castor books only get better from here.

~~Moved from GR~~

Cold Days (Dresden Files #13)

by Jim Butcher

Recommended to Carly by: 13 other books in the series

Recommended for: action-loving Dresdenites

Welp, the pun must be spoken: this book left me cold.

As regards this review:

• If you're new to The Dresden Files, don't start here. The first books are a little shaky, so if you're not a purist, I suggest trying Summer Knight or Dead Beat.
• If you've read the last 13 books and are trying to gauge this one, just go pick up the book. You know you're going to anyway.
• If you've already read this and are interested in other peoples' reactions, if you're a fan...well, I had some issues with this book. Please don't hurt me. One of the impressive aspects of the series is that it appeals to a very wide audience, and I'm apparently the lone voice cheering on Ghost Story, which pretty much predicts my reaction to this. If you're bored enough to read this, I suggest scrolling to the bottom instead--I have a compendium of currently unsolved mysteries and my favourite crackpot theories.

(So spoilerific for the previous books that it gets a pagebreak--but although it's freaking Spoiler City for the previous books in the series, it's Cold-Days-spoiler-free.)

~~Moved from GR~~

Ghost of a Chance (Ghost Finders #1)

by Simon R. Green

Sigh. I've now read at least one book in most of Simon R. Green's major series, and I think I'm going to give up. I find the concepts of his books tantalizing in general, and even though there's nothing I fundamentally dislike about his books, I'm just somehow the wrong audience type.

Ghost of A Chance is an urban-fantasy action adventure story--basically what you'd get if you mashed together Ghostbusters with James Bond.

HERE IS YOUR BOOK, SHOULD YOU CHOOSE TO ACCEPT IT.

THE TEAM:
The Leader: J.C. Chance. "The rising star of the Carnacki institute," as our narrator informs us, his codename is actually 007. Handsome, debonair, apparently charismatic, dresses in elegant suits, and wears sunglasses, even in a train station. Repeatedly refers to his team as "children" in a cheerfully patronising manner. Smiles constantly. The narration will repeatedly point out how special he is. Everything he ever does will turn out right, even if all of heaven and earth must interfere to make it so. Note the unsubtle initials. WWJD indeed.

The Smart Guy: Jack "Happy" Palmer, slobbish, short, balding, chubby, depressed, class-10 telepath. The ironically-nicknamed Happy is able to read the emotions of those around him and instigate and defend against psychic attacks, but is also a nervous wreck to the point of psychosis. He spends most of his time either high on various prescribed antipsychotics, antidepressants, and anti-anything-elses, or comedically sulking and depressed, or both. He gets to act as The Paranoid/Comedic Screamer whenever they encounter something frightening.

The Chick: Melody Chambers. The Narration introduces her as "the main brain and science geek", except that her tech is entirely useless throughout the entire plot, so she really functions as Edgy Female. There is really only one word that succinctly describes her (it rhymes with 'itch'), but I've been trying pretty hard not to write profanity in my reviews, so I can't use it. Pretty, fierce, nervous, emotional, sexualized, and bad-tempered. Jokes around her involve skirts, vibrators (how worse her temper is because hers is broken, urk), and how she can bed various other members of the team into happiness. Spends the rest of her time in pointless bickering with everyone she comes in contact with.

We also have a Distressed Damsel, Dark Chick, and The Brute but more details are a little spoilery, and, if I'm honest, I'm really bored with writing this, so I'll leave it to you to discover them. In terms of the villains, let it simply be noted that (1) a pink catsuit is involved, (2) the only POC is described as having a heart darker than her skin (kill me now), and (3) they are notable for their tendency to eat ghosts and (literally) torture kitties in a really horrifically disturbing and graphic manner, just to avoid any semblance of moral complexity. They're also comic relief. I had trouble putting those two facts together.

THEIR MISSION:
Something has taken over the Underground. Commuters have been whisked away by ghost trains and terrible things have bubbled up from the deeps. Most of the commuters who could be salvaged are now sectionable. The Team's task: stop whatever is doing it, all the while avoiding the rival team from the Crawley Institute.

THE DOSSIER:
I think my major issue is that Green's books tend to be very much about characters, yet the characters are extremely static. Action certainly happens, but it tends not to be enfolded in a tight plot. Things just happen and characters react (statically) to them. As a mystery reader, I can't really cope with the former; I am still irritated by not having a clear understanding of what on earth was going on. Since characters are really why I read, I also can't deal with the latter. I think the books would function well as movies; it's been over a decade since I saw it, but the character dynamics really do remind me of Ghostbusters. The comedic dialogue is constant and never-ending, and while the characters' circumstances will change, including one case of ridiculously superficial InstaLove, their personalities remain entirely static. To enjoy this book, you need to go in realizing that Our Hero is already The Hero. You can watch him gain power and confidence, but he already has all of the skills and experiences to succeed.

Another issue I had with this book in particular was the sheer extreme of Tell rather than Show. Every single character emotion and reaction is provided by our narrator. Sometimes it's helpful; when one of the characters undergoes InstaLove with a female he has seen for less than a minute and who has spoken about three words to him, I actually appreciated the narrator explaining that he had discovered "True love for the first time," because there is no way I would have guessed that on my own. Other times, it's less than helpful, especially since the narrator often paraphrases what the characters just said out loud a few sentences before, or facts that are so mind-numbingly obvious that they are better left unsaid. I also have trouble judging Green as a pure humour writer; his descriptions of various ghostly atrocities are graphic and disturbing and he also tends to try to drop into Earnest Adventure Story Mode. Take an example (names removed to protect the innocent from spoilers.)

"If [he] persisted in his attempt to rescue [her]...he would die. And his soul would be trapped on the hell train forever....[he] knew that, as surely and certainly as he knew anything, and didn't give a damn. It might be true, or it might not; you couldn't trust anything on a hell train. But even if someone he trusted had told him he was doomed, and damned, he would have gone on anyway. Because [she] needed him. So he thrust his face into the bitter cold wind, and stamped his frozen feet, and forced himself down the length of the car, one hard step at a time. Forcing himself on, against everything the train could throw at him. Because in the end that's what love is. To go on, despite everything, driven by hope and faith alone."

or

"She flew down the car towards him....[he] walked in glory down the car to meet her. They came together in the middle, and the whole of the car was full of their love, a force so powerful it seemed to beat on the air like great wings. [He] reached out to her, and she put out her hands to take his; and his fingers passed right through hers. Because he was alive, and she was dead, he was flesh and blood and she was just a ghost; and because there were some things even the Light could not change.... “We can never touch,” said [..]. “But we have
each other.” “You say the sweetest things,” said [..]"

Whether or not you find that touching and sentimental or ludicrous, glutinous, purple prose depends on your level of cynicism.

For all that, I think the book could be fun if you go into it with your comedy/adventure-movie mentality firmly in place. Even I found myself chuckling at certain well-placed one-liners such as, "Confidence is fun. Sanity is better". The constant character quipping is reasonably well-done, the interactions between the team and its antagonists are entertaining, and the storytelling is fast-paced. I've never been into superheroes, but I think the dynamic here is very similar; if you like those, this may be a good match. So if you are looking for a pure and light ghostly adventure, this may well be worth a look.


IF YOU CHOOSE TO READ THIS BOOK, THIS REVIEWER DISAVOWS ALL RESPONSIBILITY.

THIS REVIEW WILL SELF-DESTRUCT IN APPROXIMATELY 2e17 SECONDS.*
GOOD LUCK.

*Approximate time until our sun turns into a red giant.