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Dead Men’s Boots by Mike Carey

An exorcist seeks to find out why a peer committed suicide. In a world where possession, demons, werewolves and exorcists are common, death has a new meaning.

I liked Felix Castro. He is a character you can identify with as far as his guilt of past actions and his desire to right wrongs he may have perpetrated. Fix is an exorcist with a highly developed conscience. He exercises his exorcist talents by sending ghosts beyond. His talents are strong but limited. I liked that he wasn’t just a two dimensional comic book character. I don’t read a great deal of the supernatural fiction so some of the terms and characters could have been better defined for the novice reader. There was plenty of action and the story certainly held my interest. There were subplots within the main plot and Carey did an excellent job wrapping up all of the loose ends and creating a seamless story.

I recommend the 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! ( )

I quite enjoyed this book. But it's not the first book in the series, and if I hadn't been busy with school work, I would have gotten the others from the library and read those first. But despite it not being the first in the series, it was very easy to get into, and things were explained enough that I got it all fairly quickly. As for the book itself, Carey is very descriptive, and in fact, has problem the best description of a knee to a man's happy place I've ever read. "... I sidestepped it and kicked him in the crotch. He folded in on his pain, his universe shrinking to a few cubic inches of intimate agony" (73). As morbid as it may be, I couldn't help but snicker a little at that line.

The story itself has a very interesting premise - in the not-too-distant past, ghosts started rising in numbers people would never have guessed, and people with the exorcist gene, such as Castor, have their work cut out for them. As I said, Felix Castor is a very Harry Dresden-esque character, and he's someone you can connect with. And if not.. well, you want to know what trouble he gets into, and how he manages to get himself out of it, if he does. I loved the beginning hook, definitely caught my attention! "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..." (1).

As for an official raiting, I would give this a FOUR out of FIVE. I liked it, I do recommend it, and I plan to find the other books in the series and give them a read as well.

For more on this book, and reviews of others, visit my blog
www.glowsnoveladdiction.blogspot.com

Mike Carey’s Dead Men’s Boots is the third book featuring Felix Castor aka Fix to his close friends. He’s a man who specializes in spiritual services. Felix lives in modern day London in an alternate universe. The dead have come back to life. Those who return as a visual echo of their living personages are ghosts. Some return to their dead bodies and become zombies. Zombie bodies are still decaying but it’s their force of will that keeps them moving. Rarer are the dead that invade an animal body. They are called werewolves or loup-garous. These dead have the hardest time holding onto their humanity.

The Breath of Life movement wants the dead to have rights. One of Felix’s acquaintances is Nick, a paranoid zombie data geek (paranoid and data geek are character traits he had while alive), who could have returned from the dead to absolutely nothing since he had siblings as next of kin. Nick hid his money so well in multiple foreign accounts that when he returned to his body he was able to live a lifestyle that would slow the decay process.

The Catholic Anathemata believe the apocalypse is coming and everyone should begin to arm themselves. As time has passed, Felix has noticed more than just the dead are returning. Demons have shown up and supernatural things not encountered before. For example, how can an American serial killer who has been dead for several decades start killing in London? It’s one of the questions put forth in this novel.

This is the first Felix Castor book I’ve read but I don’t feel this hindered my enjoyment. It’s equal parts detective novel and urban fantasy with a dash of thriller. Felix is not a lovable character who obviously has flaws. He is loyal, although he won’t admit it, and exceptional at his job. Felix is a man who wrestles with the moral dilemmas of his job but exorcising ghosts is part of his nature.

Carey is best known for his work with comics. He’s been nominated for several Eisner Awards (the comics equivalent to the Oscar). Writing comics and novels can be difficult as they are exercising different writing muscles. Carey scores a hit with this book.

Full review available at http://www.amberstults.com/?p=1843 ( )