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The Devil You Know
by Mike Carey
(Orbit, £6.99, 470 pages, paperback, published April 2006.)
Review by Christopher Teague
 Felix
Castor is a freelance exorcist, though we first meet him working as
a children's entertainer. Hardly the most auspicious of starts, yet
it does illustrate just how much of an anti-hero Castor is - a bit of
a bastard, to be quite blunt.
Mike Carey is not a new writer, but this is his debut novel; he has
been writing comics for many years, the most famous being Hellblazer
and Lucifer. Even if I didn't know this, I would still hazard
a guess that the prose was penned by a comics writer: a breathless pace,
with an eye for visual effect and stirring action set-pieces.
To summarise the plot would spoil the book a little, but suffice to
say the sardonic Castor is called upon to exorcise a spirit that haunts
the archives of the British Library; within this we delve into the seedy
underbelly of London, away from the tourists, a world populated by Eastern
European people-smugglers, brothel-keepers and - as we find out - where
the dead have risen from the grave, to the point where they actually
have rights.
This is not a work of literature, and like many a modern book it is
a tad too long, but the reader's journey is an immensely enjoyable one,
with a varied mix of secondary characters that are in the main stereotypes
whose only purpose is to help the story along, but Castor is, as you
would expect, a fully-rounded three dimensional creation; a guy you
wouldn't particulary want to know, yet he would be a good friend to
have.
Orbit is marketing this book as "horror" which is highly
commendable in today's publishing climate, but don't expect a Stephen
King or James Herbert - it's more of a crime story with elements of
the supernatural, and I for one am looking forward to reading further
instalments of Felix Castor, including The Vicious Circle which
is sitting on my to read pile as I write.
Elsewhere in infinity plus:
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