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candlestick's review
adventurous
dark
funny
fast-paced
4.75
This is dark, fast paced and a little bonkers – and funny in a sometimes wince-making way. Definitely some swearing, violence and horror elements plus some nudity. There are demons, ghosts, witches, a passionate, dedicated, grim, extreme exorcist who hates all who traffic with demons especially witches and demon traders, plus some really awful humans who just had no excuse at all for showing demons how to be inventively nasty.
Paul Moore, the central character, starts out just a bit pleased with himself. He has a good living with his occult shop and his fancy business brokering short term, safe deals with demons. He has his own ethics and makes sure he provides a good service and gives the customer what they really want with no side effects, but he is not living on a moral high ground.
Then new forces in town try to take out the demon traders in one clever move. Some survive, some don't. Paul sets about investigating who it is and why they are doing this. Along the way he works out that he isn't quite as detached as he thought, and there are some people he cares about and will rescue and he doesn't want his home town trashed either.
There are mad chase scenes, some really inventive magic, fun and varied secondary characters and the sort of nastiness that gets under your skin. All this is set in an English market town, called Barrowhurst, with far more than its fair share of occult events.
I think this series would appeal to people who like Mary Gentle's Grunts, Jim Butcher's noir Dresden Files – though it is not a classic PI story, perhaps Simon R Green's Nightside and Mike Carey's Felix Castor books and there is an element of Harry Harrison's The Stainless Steel Rat in the inventiveness of the main character for getting himself out of trouble (and into more trouble) and the madly dangerous witch Paul Moore really fancies has a bit in common with Angelina in The Stainless Steel Rat for being a committed psychopath and also strangely appealing.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Confinement, Cursing, and Violence
Minor: Eating disorder
kittyg's review
3.0
*This is one of the #SPFBO titles for 2019 which I am reading as a judge*
I have to start this review by saying that this book has issues for me, and yet, I did read to the end so that's why it's on 3*s. Overall, I liked it, but the whole way through I also had lots of issues with really not liking the main character and it's a first-person story which means if you don't like the main character the rest of the book is a bit of a struggle.
In this story we follow Paul Moore who is a dark arts demon deal broker (quite a catch job title!). He's a master in the local area, and he's one of a few longstanding dealers around. However, his day job is not exactly ordinary and he's often in tricky situations.
Paul is a pretty 'regular' guy on most fronts, his job is just the way he makes a living and the supernatural is fairly routine work to him. He's also fairly unfazed by the majority of semi-nude and ladies who seem to surround him and gorgeous witches who target him. In fact, Paul frequently thinks more about getting into bed with these ladies than he does about the task at hand or the mortal peril. See, this bit was the 'problem' I had with the story.
The demons and the witches in this book were the reason I kept reading, becuase I think this is a rare case where the plot is interesting enough to keep me reading despite the fairly crappy attitude and outlook of the main character. I really think that had the plot been slower or there been less magic I would have had to give up on this, because not a single character did I connect with for the whole book, but the magic is cool.
The story focuses on a drug-like demon substance that seems to be planted in Paul's shop along with all the other local demon brokers. Someone is targeting them and trying to cause a stir, and it seems like there's probably a lot more going on than first appears. (There definitely is).
I definitely think if you're the sort of reader who enjoys stories like Dresden files and crime/noir mixed with fantasy and dark magic you may well like this book more than I did, and if you connect with the main character too then it's probably a better read. Personally I couldn't give it more than 3*s for the reasons I have already said but overall I enjoyed the plot a lot.
I have to start this review by saying that this book has issues for me, and yet, I did read to the end so that's why it's on 3*s. Overall, I liked it, but the whole way through I also had lots of issues with really not liking the main character and it's a first-person story which means if you don't like the main character the rest of the book is a bit of a struggle.
In this story we follow Paul Moore who is a dark arts demon deal broker (quite a catch job title!). He's a master in the local area, and he's one of a few longstanding dealers around. However, his day job is not exactly ordinary and he's often in tricky situations.
Paul is a pretty 'regular' guy on most fronts, his job is just the way he makes a living and the supernatural is fairly routine work to him. He's also fairly unfazed by the majority of semi-nude and ladies who seem to surround him and gorgeous witches who target him. In fact, Paul frequently thinks more about getting into bed with these ladies than he does about the task at hand or the mortal peril. See, this bit was the 'problem' I had with the story.
The demons and the witches in this book were the reason I kept reading, becuase I think this is a rare case where the plot is interesting enough to keep me reading despite the fairly crappy attitude and outlook of the main character. I really think that had the plot been slower or there been less magic I would have had to give up on this, because not a single character did I connect with for the whole book, but the magic is cool.
The story focuses on a drug-like demon substance that seems to be planted in Paul's shop along with all the other local demon brokers. Someone is targeting them and trying to cause a stir, and it seems like there's probably a lot more going on than first appears. (There definitely is).
I definitely think if you're the sort of reader who enjoys stories like Dresden files and crime/noir mixed with fantasy and dark magic you may well like this book more than I did, and if you connect with the main character too then it's probably a better read. Personally I couldn't give it more than 3*s for the reasons I have already said but overall I enjoyed the plot a lot.
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