Fix unlocks a mystery around a long-running institution of gangsters securing their immortality through carefully organized, diabolic means. Meanwhile, Jenna James is close to getting her hands on Raffi/Asmodeus. ( )

Not really working for me as a series. The demons are too powerful to be so easily controlled and the ghosts aren't interesting enough a plot device to keep it all moving. Felix is slightly too much on the depressed and self-destructive side of noir to garner much empathy.

He's hired more or less as he takes pity on a former colleague's widow. She believe her husband was possessed at the time he murdered a gay prostitute, and then committed suicide. Felix knows it would have to be an exceptionally powerful ghost to do such a thing the living spirit normally being utterly dominant. Juliet barely shows up as the two sort of investigate a bit, but most of the clues get given to them. Juliet's sudden radical feminism doesn't' really match her prior actions and lack of understanding of human motivations. ( )

On an urban fantasy/mystery level, this was as fun as the last two. Creepy ghosts and great fight scenes and the edge-of-the-seat question of how Castor’s going to win, plus a great noir voice, good humour, and a series arc I still need to know the resolution for. It was just want I needed at the time I read it. Two thumbs up. However…

It’s been a few years at least since I read one of the Castor books and clearly my eyes have been opened in the meantime. Carey’s … not great … when it comes to his female characters. They’re all given different personalities and are clearly living lives away from Castor (and neither put up with his shit or particularly want to sleep with him), but at the same time, nearly every female intro includes Castor’s assessment of their looks, a mention of how they’d slept or nearly slept together in the past, or both. Plus there’s the case of Juliet, the reformed succubus who’s still deathly attractive to every man and who is the center of “walk into a flagpole” type jokes and comments at every turn, and the hit-woman’s backstory isn’t all that enlightened either. Sigh.

Still liked the book over all and will still be reading the others, but will I buy them? Probably not, and they’ve gone from “good series” to “guilty pleasure” now.

Warnings: Gore and graphic violence; mention of more of the same; mentions of rape and extreme sexual violence; the thing with Juliet; “it’s okay, the abuse made her do it.”

6/10 (would be a 7 except for the female character stuff) ( )

I think this novel deserves a good long run and a mighty jump... the waters might be cold, but it's like Fix says about death. You get used to it real damn quick.

This world of mystery continues along its deep mystery roots, including such near caricatures of women that it nearly passes through to the other side, as if through death, to become something utterly strange and familiar. Femme Fatale? Try Femme Demonic, and you'll be on solid, unconsecrated grounds and wishing you'd paid just a little more attention to what your mother tried to tell you about 'dem women.

I'm not just talking about Juliet. I'm talking about all undead women forced into poltergeist holding patterns of serial murder.

(But don't assume you'll really guess the un-beating heart of this locked-room mystery. Things tend to shift and slide as in all good mysteries, but it can get awfully complicated when you throw in immortal demons feeding on lusts or rarified murders, zombies being brutally mistreated by uncaring main characters, or plain old sympathies for the devil. Welcome to the jungle.)

I have to admit I like this one better than the previous two volumes. There's enough twists and turns and eventual reconnecting threats and threads to make anyone's head swim, but it's the cold heart of Fix that ties everything back together in the end.

Is Fix really that likeable?

Jury is still out on that one. He borders a lot more closely to being an anti-hero than two-books would have you believe. It's easy to assume, since he is pretty passionate about helping the downtrodden dead, that he might be able to give a shit for any of the living.

Frankly, I'm not really sure about that. He gets along all right and enters into all types of social contracts readily enough, but like I said, his heart's really not in it.

It's probably pretty fortunate that he's not an overpowered UF protagonist.

He might then have the power potential and the heart to murder the world. (Am I the only one to think this? lol, maybe... but I just can't bring myself to TRUST him.)

Still, a fine and entertaining read! ( )

Started to read and realized that I'd already read it but apparently never reviewed it. In any case pretty good. ( )