The Devil You Know & Vicious Circle
Posted on March 19, 2009 in Books
I’ve been a fan of Mike Carey’s writing for a few years now ever since I read his take on The Lightbringer in Vertigo’s Lucifer series and John Constantine in The Hellblazer series. So when I saw The Devil You Know sitting in a shelf at a local book store for under five quid I thought why not and picked it up.
Devil You Know is the first book in Carey’s series about Felix Castor. Castor is an London based exorcist who sort of reads like a less powerful version of John Constantine from Hellblazer. Castor is also less of a bastard when compared to Constantine but a bastard non the less. The first novel in the series tells a story where the world has shifted to a state where dead souls have started to return to the world of the living in increasing numbers as ghosts, zombies and loup-garous (human spirits who inhabit animal bodies and shape them to human form). This increase in souls staying on after death has brought out a number of exorcists determined on sending them on their way, wherever that may be, using methods unique to each exorcist.
Castor has been asked to rid an archive in London of a ghost which has been terrorizing the staff there. It seems like a straight forward job to begin with but of course there are numerous twists in the tale which I don’t want to spoil. As the book goes on Castor gets mixed up with criminals who traffic girls into London for prostitution and he gets hounded by a succubus (demon) that is determined to eat his body and soul.
After finishing the first book I quickly picked up the second one in the series, Vicious Circle. Vicious Circle takes place little over a year after the end of the first book. This time Castor is recruited for a peculiar kidnapping of the ghost of a young girl. But much like the first book nothing is as simple as it seems. The book soon spirals into a plot about the summoning of one of the most powerful demons of hell. The second book was more quickly paced than the first book and I got totally sucked into reading it and finished it in two sittings, I just couldn’t put the book down.
Mike Carey’s series on Felix Castor has quickly become one of my favorite series and I’ve already ordered the third and fourth book and pre ordered the fifth book which is coming in September. I really recommend people read these books.
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