Written by Mike Carey
Published by Orbit
RRP £6.99 UK
Mike Carey’s first published novel might not win the Booker prize nor does it push any boundaries with its originality, but it is an entertaining read with an engaging and even romantic hero. While the book has, perhaps unsurprisingly, a supernatural theme, it is not a horror story. Instead it is a fairly straightforward blend of Raymond Chandler style private eye and the seedy, magical underworld of DC Comics John Constantine; a character which Mike Carey spent several years writing about.
The protagonist, Felix Castor tells the tale in the first person. This gives the reader access to the intimate thoughts and impressions of the hero, but perhaps more importantly it allows Carey to adopt a very genial and conversational style. As a consequence, the book is immensely readable and this is perhaps its greatest strength. Its weakness is that Felix Castor is just a little bit too familiar. The mix of private eye and freelance exorcist is an amusing one, but the setting, a London with ghosts, demons and were creatures, is too much like Hellblazer.
None the less Felix Castor is an engaging character. He is haunted by the past. A previous ‘case’ which turned sour resulted in an old friend, Rafi, being driven mad and permanently possessed. Interestingly Rafi’s possessor also acts a little like a ‘snitch’, providing hints at the threats which lie ahead. The other main supporting character, Pen, is an old flame and Felix lives in a rented room in her house. There is the potential for complexity in this relationship which is never fully explored, though at one point , where he describes Pen as unattractive because she is in her 30’s, we get a hint that Felix is not an entirely honest narrator. He also has a wicked sense of humour, a strong sense of right and wrong and an eye for the ladies. The fact that he cannot escape his own ghosts is a nice counterpoint with the suggestion that he is good at getting rid of other people’s.
The story opens with a short expositional narrative, providing the reader with setting and background. It explains that sometime around the run up to the millennium the dead started to return and other supernatural creatures began to appear in numbers that impinged on every day life. This paved the way for the seedy profession of the private Exorcist and this leads in to a ‘pen picture’ of Felix Castor that helps to fix him in the readers mind.
While there are a few supporting characters, the focus is clearly on Castor and as a consequence the others are not as well developed as one might hope. At worst they are little more than ciphers. The villain is all bad and the workers at the archive are fairly stereotypical. Even when some of their secrets are revealed these seem grafted on rather than evolving naturally out of our knowledge of them in the story. Only his friend Pen is given more depth than the story strictly requires and this suggests that she will return in subsequent volumes.
The main part of the tale centres on a haunting at the Bonnington Archive, a government document repository, where Castor is called in to exorcise a ghost which has harmed one of the archivists, but things are more complicated than they appear. As the story plays out, events unfold in logical but occasionally surprising ways. There are a few twists and turns along the way and the occasional blind alley, but all of the plot threads are tied up neatly providing a solid and satisfying read. The pacing of the book is pretty gentle, particularly during the first hundred pages or so as the scene is set and the characters are introduced, but it picks up towards the end and it succeeds in becoming something of a page turner during the denouement.
The mood is reminiscent of Buffy the Vampire Slayer or perhaps more appropriately like Angel. There is a little sex, a great deal of suspense and overt supernatural elements but there is never any real sense of horror.
The writing is not flawless, for example, the wrap up of the main storyline is explained in a long expositional monologue and there is a feeling that more could be made from the background. None the less, by the end, the reader is left wanting to know a little bit more about Felix Castor and the final scene in particular sets up an interesting premise for a sequel.
Mike Carey celebrated the release of his first novel in early April. At the launch he was embarrassed by his editor and Mike was able to announce that Castor has been optioned for TV by Bentley Productions (Midsomer Murders, Ultimate Force). More information on the launch with other photos can be seen at Mike’s website www.mikecarey.net.
John Davidson Despite working in IT for the last 20 years and collecting comics for even longer, he is married, has two young daughters and lives in Scotland. Ideally he spends his spare time reading and watching movies, but this is curtailed by the calls of child-rearing and part-time study, not to mention the 'call of the internet'.