I used my flight back to London this past Wednesday to finally finish off reading Mike Carey’s third Felix Castor novel, Dead Men’s Boots. As I’ve mentioned in my post about the previous books in the series; 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 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.

In Dead Men’s Boots, Castor is asked by the widow of a fellow exorcist for help dealing with legal issues following said exorcist’s passing. For some strange reason the exorcist had changed his will just a few days before his death and his widow believes it’s related to his last case. Castor starts looking at the exorcist’s case but at the same time he is stuck in a legal battle over the well-being of his friend, Rafi, who is possessed by a demon. All this is then topped when Castor gets dragged into the investigation of a brutal murder in King’s Cross that bears an uncanny resemblance to the killing style of an American serial killer from the 60s. Somehow like in the previous Felix Castor books all these things connect on some level and before you know he’s knee deep in an decade old conspiracy with only the help of his friends the succubus Juliet and the paranoid zombie Nicky Heath.

In this third novel we get some hints as to the reason why the dead are coming back as ghost, zombie and loup-garous along with emergence of demons roaming the earth. Unfortunately the hints are small and nothing concrete is given so you are left to wonder on your own for now (but Mike Carey noted on his blog that Thicker Than Water, the next novel in the series has more answers). Dead Men’s Boots offers a further development of the characters in the series in some interesting ways, especially Juliet the succubus who is now living in a lesbian relationship with Sue a former nun.

Those that haven’t read anything from the series yet should definitely give it a chance. I’m going to start reading Thicker Then Water the forth novel in the series tonight :)

Related posts from the blog:

• I Sell The Dead
• Land of the Dead
• The Evil Dead Trilogy
• Shaun of the Dead
• UGG Boots