Devil's Business

First read: 2011
Re-read: June - July 2015

The plot: Jack has a bounty on his head and decides to get out of London for a while, at the same time Pete has been given an opportunity to work on a gruesome murder investigation in L.A. so they head over there together to help with the investigation. Meanwhile Jack is struggling with the change in his relationship with Pete.

This is the slowest book of the series so far for me. I actually put this down for over a month when I was half way though and read a couple of other novels before I came back to this. I think the main reason for this is that I didn't like the switch of locations in this novel.

One of the things I love about the Black London series is the British setting. Kittredge doesn't show more always get it quite right but I enjoy reading an urban fantasy series that is set in a world recognisable to me (at the beginning of Devil's Business Jack almost gets assassinated in a Sainsbury's!). Most urban fantasy series are set in America - a setting I am only familiar with through the medium of books, film and television, which makes it almost as fantastical as the actual fantasy - and by switching the action in this book to America it loses a lot of that uniqueness and makes it a more generic UF novel.

However the plot is still decent, Jack is still one of the best anti-heroes in urban fantasy, and Kittredge's writing is as descriptive and wonderful as ever:

"This Hell was a mass of corridors made of stone and iron, veiled in steam. Machines clanked from far below his feet, and noxious yellow smoke poured from crooked chimneys that bent in over the street like arthritic fingers." (pg 245)

Overall rating: 3.5/5 stars (rounded up to 4/5 stars) show less

London's gotten too hot to handle, what with all the Black practitioners out to make him very, very dead, so Jack and Pete head for Los Angeles to answer a request for assistance from an ex-cop turned private eye. Too late, they discover they've jumped from the frying pan into the fire - when Nergal escaped hell something else, something worse, got out with him, and it's waiting for them.... it has plans.

Gritty and rough around the edges, this isn't a series you'll like if you can't handle a few - okay, a lot - of four letter words, violence, blood, guts and gore. Jack's , thankfully, smarter than his vocabulary and surprisingly endearing despite his rough edges. Just wish we'd seen more of Pete in this one.

After releasing an old dangerous god, even though he captured him again, people have not been asking for Jack to work any cases or even want him around period. None of the magically inclined will forgive Jack and are hunting him. Jack's wondering where Morrigan, the maiden of death who marked him young, is at as he disobeyed her. Pete is a few months pregnant and now completely silent towards Jack. He figures she is shutting down with him slowly and will leave him soon to raise the kid away from this life style. But Jack is determined to protect Pete and the baby as long as she is around. So with all the threats in London Jack needs to take Pete and leave. Pete decides she is taking a case in Los Angeles, America. And Jack can't let her show more go alone, even though he doesn't like the sounds of it.

Jack seems to be different in this book ever so slightly. Even though his life style is not one for raising a child in and the dangerous magic all around him is deadly to a baby, he sounds as he wants the baby. I liked this growth in Jack. He's becoming a bigger person, and even though he thinks himself a dead-beat dad he wants to be more. Jack even makes a HUGE change in the end of the book. ;) Thanks to something...special... to him after Bone Gods. I really liked this.

I did feel like I missed a story here somewhere when it came to Pete. I couldn't really place her feelings. I know she's pregnant and that should explain a lot, but well... for me I felt she was more disconnected here and not as much in the story as Jack, our leading man. But the baby is a HUGE focus for both Pete and Jack, and they each want the baby to be safe and raised properly, which is another reason for her distancing.

We get to see Jack, and Pete, outside of their usually comfort zone of London. They are now in America for this story. Los Angeles of all places. Los Angeles has a special feel to it as well, which is an attraction for the magical type, the Black, and demons. I have to say we do make a trip to Hell with Jack as well. I enjoyed this different view this time around.

Oh the demons... Jack finds an alley in someone he never thought he would. And makes a few new enemies. Jack, of course, is not the most likable person, but seems to find trouble no matter where he is. Being the Crow-mage seems to attract them all like a beacon in the night.

Again such a dark urban fantasy read. This book is not full of rainbows, but more of hell and fighting. I feel as this book is taking us through a transition period, with Jack and even the new baby to be. There is more to come and that baby is going to have some serious issues, good and bad. I'm looking forward to seeing what is to come here. show less

3.5 stars review to follow.