Thicker Than Water is the fourth novel in Mike Carey‘s Felix Castor series (See my thoughts on the earlier books here and here). Before I go on to talk about the book itself I just want to point out that although he series started off really good and has only kept on going better and better which is remarkable. I read the fourth book in three sittings, it was that good, I just couldn’t put it down.

Thicker Than Water starts off with Felix Castor and “friends” pulling of a rescue of Castor‘s friend Rafi who is possessed by a demon and is suppose to be moved to a hospital to be experimented on by people that don‘t much care about human life. They manage to save Rafi and hide him away so the police might not find him.

As Castor is spending time being paranoid about the police or someone else trailing him in order to find Rafi he gets sucked into the investigation of a brutal attack where the victim has written F. Castor with his own blood before passing out. From this Castor goes on to investigate why this person would take it on himself to make his last act being to write Castor’s name. Castor discovers that the victim is a old acquaintance of his from his childhood who was as far away from being his friend as one could get. When Castor moves on to further investigate the acquaintance’s residence he discovers that something horrible is going on in the neighbourhood and that there are other victims around.

The book is incredibly fast paced and you‘ll be at the edge of your seat reading aggressively to find out what happens next. I was hoping that this book would give the reader more information about why the dead soul‘s and demons are coming out of hell as mentions of a “Great Project” were made in Dead Men‘s Boots but unfortunately the subject is not mentioned in this book. Instead we get a small inside into the origin of demons which basically makes your eyes pop. Also the previous novels made up a self contained story but this one ends in a full scale cliff hanger which made me shout out „Damn you Mike Carey for making me wait for the next novel!“ after finishing the last line.

If you read only four novels this decade make it the Castor series. I can‘t recommend it enough!

Related posts from the blog:

• The Naming Of The Beasts
• The Devil You Know & Vicious Circle
• Dead Men’s Boots