Wednesday, August 5, 2015

Killing Pretty - Richard Kadrey

Killing Pretty
Richard Kadrey
Harper Voyager, Jul 28 2015, $25.99
ISBN 9780062373106

At the video store where he works Nephilim James “Sandman Slim” Stark ironically prays for a purebred human case like following a cheating spouse after some of his more recent encounters with Old Gods and a fragment of a God, and a gig as Lucifer.  Many of the survivors of his inquiries want him dead after partaking in the immense pleasure of an eternity of torturing him.  Slim also struggles with the physically changed Candy who insists she is Chihiro.

His P.I. boss Julie Sola prefers using the Los Angeles-based private investigator’s special talent as a hybrid human-angel on special inquiries.  Someone with extraordinary skills dumps Death inside the body of a mortal before removing the human host’s heart; leaving the man and Death dead.  Now no one dies; so Sola assigns Stark to find and capture Death’s killer with a prayer that this culprit can return order (meaning death to the human masses) to the universe.

The seventh Sandman Slim irreverent amusing urban fantasy (see The Getaway God, Kill City Blues and Devil Said Bang) is a much less perilous affair (for Slim) than usual as this time the existence of the universe is not at stake though order on a Malthus level is.  Fast-paced as always, Stark and his allies (once again very loose definition as he believes the word team contains the letter I since he does not play well with others) hunt for a predator in this low-key entry.


Harriet Klausner

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