Product Description
Felix Castor is a freelance exorcist, and London is his stamping ground. It may seem like a good ghostbuster can charge what he likes and enjoy a hell of a lifestyle–but there’s a risk: Sooner or later he’s going to take on a spirit that’s too strong for him. While trying to back out of this ill-conceived career, Castor accepts a seemingly simple ghost-hunting case at a museum in the shadowy heart of London–just to pay the bills, you understand. But what should have been a perfectly straightforward exorcism is rapidly turning into the Who Can Kill Castor First Show, with demons and ghosts all keen to claim the big prize. That’s OK: Castor knows how to deal with the dead. It’s the living who piss him off…
- Kasia S. @ 5:07 pm
This was an entertaining read, a detective story that involved solving something other than your usual crimes; this time the supernatural is involved and who better to battle it than Felix Castor, a freelance exorcist with musical talent.
Witty, charming and intelligent, he maps out the grid of the ghosts he’s getting rid by playing music on his tin whistle, but this time something else is going on, for once Felix starts to care about why the ghost is haunting the Bonnington Archive, a posh literary mecca of manuscripts and forgotten memories. Instead of wanting to get rid of the pesky hooded lady in white he realizes that something fishy is going on in the seemingly civilized and proper world of art and treasures and some people have crossed moral lines resulting in a haunting. Felix has other things to worry about, a big guy named Scrub who forces him to take on other projects, a mysterious succubus summoned from hell to get rid of him – someone doesn’t want him to solve the enigma – and a brothel pimp who wants him to work on his side. Suffocated by negative sources he must solve the mystery of the mute ghost while under the watchful eyes of Alice, the lady in charge who seems to run the Archive while sleeping with the boss.
I liked the set up; the archives – quite an interesting place since I love libraries and various other paper storage places. It echoed of slight creepiness at night when Felix would sneak in to do his work, while seemingly alone he bumped into some things that kept threatening his life. This book was a fun read, although not too deep it still kept me interested enough to finish it in record time and the ending has quite interesting, I didn’t make the connections until they were shown to me, so that’s good, surprises are always welcome in my world of reading. I also liked that it left some threads running, I can only conclude that this story line will continue but with different clues and a new crime.
- Kasia S.
Autumn Star Kindelspire @ 6:46 pm
I am a big fan of Mike Carey, admittedly. I love Lucifer and HellBlazer, both comic books written by Mr. Carey. It excited me to see a comic book writer writing a novel, because I always hope it will shed more public light on what amazing writers are in the comic world right now. (There have been some great cross overs, such as Neil Gaiman, but we can always use one more.)
Anyway, when I first picked up The Devil You Know and read the jacket, I thought perhaps this would be a soft-boiled version of John Constantine. I was wrong.
Felix Castor is close to Constantine, no argument there. They share an attitude that is grim and at the same time blackly humorous. They’re both working in the trade of the spirit world, and they both have friends with chips on the shoulder, chips pointed at them. However, “Fix” has no place for magic in his exorcisms, and does his best to be an atheist. Constantine’s bread and butter is magic, and he knows too well that there is a heaven and a hell.
The Devil You Know is a witty mystery with delightfully dark characters. I read it in a day, sucked into the story as sure as if Fix was playing the whistle into my ear. I loved it, I loved each character, I loved guessing at the next plot twist, and being pleasantly surprised when I was right, and more pleased when I was wrong.
I’d recommend this book to anyone who enjoys a good ghost story, a good murder mystery, or just good writing, great characters, and a twisting storyline.
TJ @ 8:25 pm
I just finished the book 10 minutes ago. Mike Carey hit on every cliche of the hard-boiled detective genre. And I mean that as the highest possible compliment. All the best hard-boiled detective stories are ultimately about the murder victim, and a flawed champion seeking to lay his or her troubled ghost to rest by exposing the culprit. (For the record, I’m aware of how pompous that last sentence was. I’ve got a few beers in me. Give me a freakin break.) Carey adds a new layer with the supernatural element, making the victim’s ghost a real rather than a metaphorical presence. The casting of an actual succubus in the femme fatale role was a nice touch, too. And no matter how outlandish the story became, Carey’s feel for realistic settings and characters kept the whole thing grounded. It was gritty, disturbing, funny and surprisingly tender. At the end, Carey seemed to be laying the groundwork for a continuing series. I hope I’m right, because I’d like to read more.
Steven Diamond @ 9:34 pm
No spoilers.
THE DEVIL YOU KNOW, by Mike Carey, is an Urban Fantasy that you will most likely find shelved in the horror section of your local bookstore. It is about an exorcist, Felix Castor, who is looking to get out of the game, but predictably takes one last job. That job is a haunting of a museum in London. Obviously, things go to hell in a hand-basket. Quite literally actually. Demons and all that.
I understand that this isn’t a new formula. Felix is pretty downtrodden, and he’s poor, and he can be a tad snarky at times. Sound familiar? I’m pretty sure I see Simon R. Green and Jim Butcher jumping up and down waving their arms in the back of the class. Yeah. The formula won’t be a big surprise.
Luckily for you and I, the writing and the tone were what set this novel apart. Carey’s novel is decidedly grimmer with less comedic content. You know what? This is a good thing. The PoV is an EXORCIST for heaven’s sake (Hehe, that wasn’t even intentional!). This novel just FEELS different than the typical Urban Fantasy you see today. And boys and girls, it feels good.
It a sense, it feels like Carey took the Harry Dresden character from Butcher’s novels and hardened the edges a bit. Felix Castor is a borderline alcoholic. He’s more violent. He cracks jokes less often. He’s made a ton more irreparable mistakes (some explained in detail, with others left for the sequels). And those mistakes have had serious consequences. The character is darker. I love it.
Now that isn’t to say there aren’t problems. Carey’s transitions can be pretty poor. Sometimes I would start a new chapter, and be completely unsure what was going on for several pages. More than once I was checking to see if pages had been ripped out of my copy of the novel. Seriously, come on man. It happened enough times to be a nuisance. And a lot of these odd transitions were seemingly random scenes whose only purpose was to give the PoV a “brilliant idea” later on. If the museum exorcism was his last job, then why does Castor take other jobs at the same time (well, apart from the heavy-handed foreshadowing they give)? Also, there is a lot of standing around. You’d think with a demon chasing you (The demon was well done. A mark better than the Butcher incarnation of the same type of demon), there’d be more…well, chasing.
Problems aside, there is a lot going right in this novel, and the sequels have made it onto my lengthy list of “books that have me excited to read.” There is a much more serious tone in this novel, and of course the question left for the readers at the end, “Where to the recipients of exorcism go?” THE DEVIL YOU KNOW is quite a fun and easy read, and you should definitely go pick up the paperback of it.
Recommended Age: 17 and up. Lots of prostitution references and showings, not to mention the idea of exorcism isn’t for the young. Also, see the info below as well.
Language: Yessir. Some of the characters are particularly foul-mouthed.
Violence: Yeah, especially at the end. Some may consider it disturbing.
Sex: Our PoV is in a strip club for half the novel. And he is chased by a succubus. Who catches him. Yeah, there is some sex in this novel.
Daniel A. Scott @ 11:09 pm
Maybe I don’t give comic books enough credit or Carey is extremely gifted, but this book was like nothing I’d ever read before. He talks about stuff I hadn’t read anywhere else and provides a leading character that I felt like I’d known all my life. He writes with such a unique perspective and original plot that the whole time I was sort of blown away. Above all that he didn’t try intertwine lots of theology and religion in the plot, he kept it as neutral as possible and added a comical flair to top it off.