Review: DEAD MEN'S BOOTS by Mike Carey

Thanks to Miriam from Hachette for sending me this great book!

The third in a paranormal thriller series, Dead Men’s Boots was absolutely great! I had to say that before writing the summary – that’s how much I enjoyed it.

Felix Caster is a professional exorcist. And not just any old exorcist but one who uses music as a way to send departed but lost and often angry souls on to wherever it is they should go after dying. This is a unique method of exorcism to me but then I’ve not read too many paranormal thrillers involving exorcists. (Are there a lot?)

At the beginning of the story Felix is attending the funeral of a colleague when he is approached by the grieving widow with a plea for help. Would Felix deal with an aggressive attorney who is obligated to carry out the departed’s wishes even though his wife insists he wasn’t in his right mind when he made those wishes known? Felix feels reluctantly obligated. From here the story just gets better and better. The reader is taken on an underworld joyride and the action never stops. The writing is good too and captured me from the very first paragraph:

I don’t do funerals all that often, and when I do, I prefer to be either falling-down drunk or dosed up on some herbal fuzz-bomb like salvinorin to the point where I start to lose feeling from the feet on up, like a kind of rising damp of the central nervous system. Today I was as sober as a judge, and that was only the start of it. The cemetery was freezing cold-cold enough to chill me even through the Russian-army greatcoat I was wearing (I never fought, but poor bloody infantry is a state of mind). The sun was still locked up for winter, a gusty west wind was stopping itself sharp on my face, and guilt was working its slow way through my mind like a weighted cheese wire through a block of ice.

The only negative thing I can say is that I didn’t have the opportunity to read the first two in the series! When I realized how much I liked the story I checked my local big box store for The Devil You Know and Vicious Circle and they don’t even have them available to order! What?! And apparently there are now five books in the series. Given that the books are published in England it may be that they are harder to get in North America. In any case my search will go on because this series is worth it!