A supernatural comic caper that reads like one of the late Donald Westlake’s Dortmunder novels sprinkled with some fairy...
A thief just out of prison is recruited to steal a powerful magical talisman.
Kadrey (Killing Pretty, 2015, etc.) takes a break from his popular Sandman Slim series to offer a stand-alone horror-comedy that pulls heavily from all manner of genres and throws in everything but the kitchen sink. The novel opens 4,000 years ago on an angel, Qaphsiel, who’s normally in charge of office supplies for the heavenly host but is on a quick mission to Earth when he loses the titular MacGuffin. Back in the present day, Charlie “Coop” Cooper is using his light-fingered talents and a talkative poltergeist to steal some documents when he’s busted by the LAPD’s Criminal Thaumaturgy squad. After a quick stint in the pokey, Coop hooks back up with his buddy Morty Ramsey, who’s been approached with a pricey breaking and entering job that could net them hundreds of thousands of dollars. An enigmatic client named Mr. Babylon wants to hire Coop to steal a family heirloom from a rival, but he has his doubts about Coop’s abilities. “I have something you don’t, Mr. Babylon,” Coop explains. “Another ability. A rare one. I’m immune to magic. Conjury, enchantments, fascinations, mesmerisms, mind reading, and ladies sawed in half. The whole bit.” From here, the book explodes into an overstuffed heist movie complete with a band of duplicitous cronies, two bickering agents from the government's Department of Peculiar Science, a hard-traveling murderer cut from the same cloth as Cormac McCarthy’s Anton Chigurh, and a pair of inept cults that are mostly around for comic relief. It’s all a bit much to take in, and Kadrey offers a lot of stylistic similarities to Gaiman and Pratchett’s superior Good Omens (2009). Nevertheless, there’s definitely an audience for this kind of madcap supernatural comedy, and it’s likely to find those readers pretty handily.
A supernatural comic caper that reads like one of the late Donald Westlake’s Dortmunder novels sprinkled with some fairy dust.Pub Date: April 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-06-238954-1
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Harper Voyager
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2016
An author to watch, Buehlman is now two for two in delivering eerie, offbeat novels with admirable literary skill.
Cormac McCarthy's The Road meets Chaucer's Canterbury Tales in this frightful medieval epic about an orphan girl with visionary powers in plague-devastated France.
The year is 1348. The conflict between France and England is nothing compared to the all-out war building between good angels and fallen ones for control of heaven (though a scene in which soldiers are massacred by a rainbow of arrows is pretty horrific). Among mortals, only the girl, Delphine, knows of the cataclysm to come. Angels speak to her, issuing warnings—and a command to run. A pack of thieves is about to carry her off and rape her when she is saved by a disgraced knight, Thomas, with whom she teams on a march across the parched landscape. Survivors desperate for food have made donkey a delicacy and don't mind eating human flesh. The few healthy people left lock themselves in, not wanting to risk contact with strangers, no matter how dire the strangers' needs. To venture out at night is suicidal: Horrific forces swirl about, ravaging living forms. Lethal black clouds, tentacled water creatures and assorted monsters are comfortable in the daylight hours as well. The knight and a third fellow journeyer, a priest, have difficulty believing Delphine's visions are real, but with oblivion lurking in every shadow, they don't have any choice but to trust her. The question becomes, can she trust herself? Buehlman, who drew upon his love of Fitzgerald and Hemingway in his acclaimed Southern horror novel, Those Across the River (2011), slips effortlessly into a different kind of literary sensibility, one that doesn't scrimp on earthy humor and lyrical writing in the face of unspeakable horrors. The power of suggestion is the author's strong suit, along with first-rate storytelling talent.
An author to watch, Buehlman is now two for two in delivering eerie, offbeat novels with admirable literary skill.Pub Date: Oct. 2, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-937007-86-7
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Ace/Berkley
Review Posted Online: Sept. 1, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2012
At Buckkeep in the Six Duchies, young Fitz, the bastard son of Prince Chivalry, is raised as a stablehand by old warrior Burrich. But when Chivalry dies without legitimate issue—murdered, it's rumored—Fitz, at the orders of King Shrewd, is brought into the palace and trained in the knightly and courtly arts. Meanwhile, secretly at night, he receives instruction from another bastard, Chade, in the assassin's craft. Now, King Shrewd's subjects are imperiled by the visits of the Red-Ship Raiders—formidable warriors who pillage the seacoasts and turn their human victims into vicious, destructive zombies. Since rehabilitating the zombies proves impossible, it's Fitz's task to go abroad covertly and kill them as quickly and humanely as possible. Shrewd orders that Fitz be taught the Skill—mental powers of telepathy and coercion possessed by all those of the royal line; his teacher is Galen, a sadistic ally of the popinjay Prince Regal, who hates Fitz all the more for his loyalty to Shrewd's other son, the stalwart soldier Verity. Galen brutalizes Fitz and, unknown to anyone, implants a mental block that prevents Fitz from using the Skill. Later, Shrewd decrees that, to cement an alliance, Verity shall wed the Princess Kettricken, heir to a remote yet rich mountain kingdom. Verity, occupied with Skillfully keeping the Red-Ship Raiders at bay, can't go to collect his bride, so Regal and Fitz are sent. Finally, Fitz must discover the depths of Regal's perfidy, recapture his true Skill, win Kettricken's heart for Verity, and help Verity defeat the Raiders. An intriguing, controlled, and remarkably assured debut, at once satisfyingly self-contained yet leaving plenty of scope for future extensions and embellishments.
Pub Date: April 17, 1995
ISBN: 0-553-37445-1
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Spectra/Bantam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1995
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