Adams died in the 1950s. When he was alive he was a
detective, not just a detective, but a poster child detective straight out of
film noir, every cliché faithfully followed. His afterlife was less than ideal,
having died with corruptive sins on his soul, he was banished to the Abstract
realms where the Enigma tested him over and over to try and give him a chance
to ascend and join the collective whole. It was better than the damned in the
pit, but even so Adams was becoming desperate as his ascension is stalled and
he risks dissolving into shadow.
But the powers that be have a task for him. The son of a
Pit Lord has been killed on Earth – not just killed, but his soul has gone
missing as well. The Pit Lords don’t trust the usual enforcement arm of the
Process, the Enforcers, to investigate the death – so the task falls to Adams.
Only he only has a day to do it in. And he’s 60 years out of date.
Not only does he have to get up to date quickly and delve
into the very depths of the Hollywood sex trade, it also becomes apparent that
the conspiracy is far deeper than he imagined, going up to the very top of the
Process and an actual civil war between the entities that control the Process
may be on the cards – if the Process itself and the very structure of the afterlife
isn’t irrevocably changed. And, on a personal note, it’s a plot that comes
round to touch his own afterlife, and that of his loved ones.
It’s a wonderful game of who to trust, find the red
herring and see what the true plot behind this death – or deaths as the body
count rises – truly is.
This book is genuinely unique – and that’s a rare thing
in the genre where so many books seem completely formulaic.
The world, with the different echelons of celestials each with their own remits, is not something I’ve seen before. Even the method of the process with the different factions fighting and sniping at each other, is fascinating. I love the rivalry between the pit lords and the enforcers and the really real sense of conflict and tension brewing between them all. I also like that we have a lot of world hinted at – with an original goddess and a nod to the mind set of the absent leader of the council.
And the world is challenged, even the nature of torturing the souls in the pit progresses from “they get what they deserved” to a realisation of how many of them were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.
It’s also good to see a genuine detective novel. Not a “I’m
going to be a nuisance until someone tries to kill me” investigation that we
see so often. Not even a “I’m going to use my woo-woo to find the answers.” But
a good old film noir detective slog, following leads, chasing down clues,
following up even the slightest piece of evidence all the while with forces working
against you. I love his stubborn refusal to follow the advice of the people
trying to manipulate him and I love how he bounces off Jenn – his erstwhile
assistant who works so well into his story, especially at bringing him up to
date.
And the story is elegantly written. It’s full of classic
red herrings that all turn round to be connected legitimately to the story –
even to the actual main plot. It has a completely unpredictable ending, with
many real characters and twists that follow twists that follow twists. It’s
Noir at its finest, it’s a detective story that truly involves detection and it’s
an action story that keeps hold of its mystery and its puzzles. The
conspiracies are completely beyond what I imagined first picking this book up
and it was a book I genuinely wanted to keep reading to find the answers.
The pacing is excellent, with enough action to keep it
exciting without swamping the actual investigation, enough world building to
keep it interesting without drowning us in exposition and enough character
development to add realness but without overwhelming us with flashbacks. It was
really well balanced and a fun read.
Our protagonist is a 1950s detective right out of film
noir. Which means we get that full cheesy
monologue. All women are “dames.” Men are “cats” or “birds” (which is a
new one to me). And I cringed – because if someone’s going out of the way to
make a 1950s authentic character and include a lot of minorities, well that’s
messy.
But it generally wasn’t. We, shockingly, DIDN’T have a
femme fatale. We didn’t have those extremely long, over-dramatic descriptions
of just how hot a woman was and while he repeatedly tries to protect and
shelter Jenn, she also continually ignores and refuses his attempts which he
accepts ruefully.
Similarly, while he expresses surprise about, for
example, a Black president, he doesn’t express disapproval, disgust or anything
negative – he is surprised at the changes, not disapproving of them. He uses
language like “colored” and “Mexican” but is corrected and told to say “Latino”
and he adjusts his language accordingly (which, sadly, is more than you can say
for a lot of people today). I was very pleasantly surprised
There are a lot of GBLT people in this book – a huge
number in fact. And we have a lot of negative and some positive and a lot of
complicated.
Firstly, the vast majority of them were evil in some way
– corrupt, dealers, murderers, pimps and more. Most of them were also heavily
involved in sex work. Now, to be fair on the book, nearly everyone in the book
is corrupt and evil in some way and, also, nearly everyone in the book was
involved in sex work. But… nearly all of them were GBLT. In fact, I think there
was one person involved in the corrupt, prostituting, underground porn business
who wasn’t GBLT – are there no straight, cis people doing porn or being sex
workers? It’s one thing to inclusively ensure there are plenty of GBLT people
in sex-work, especially since discrimination, homelessness and poverty means
GBLT people are over-represented in sex-work, and another thing to virtually
imply that GBLT people completely own, control and dominate sex-work of all
kinds.
We also have the problem with his language. 1950s
detective who speaks like a clichéd film noir star meets the GBLT community.
Uh-huh. But it’s not just him –not only is he not corrected but there’s a
massive amount of the same language going on around him. Trans,
non-genderbinary people and crossdressers are frequently confused. Any and all gay men will, at some point, have
the word “effeminate” applied to them. And we had a completely unnecessary
lesbian cult leader who uses it to get her jollies with young women.
I’m impressed to see trans people in a book and
gender-fluid people, especially so many of them. And there was a wonderful,
detailed and developed description of one character’s identity that didn’t fit
simple binary norms. And it does address issues such as parental rejection and
prejudice – but there’s very little challenge of the prejudice and there’s a
huge amount of misgendering going on, again, with very little challenge or
correction.
I really really wanted to praise this book for the huge
number of GBLT characters – because it is extremely rare to find. And there was
good there, there was certainly good. But there was also a large amount of
cringe-worthy as well. It’s a shame because I really wanted to unreservedly
praise the inclusion, but I could not.
Outside of inclusion (and it did have more GBLT people
than I’ve seen in any other book I’ve read, it’s just a shame what those
representations were) it was a fun read, a fascinating read, an exciting read
and an intriguing read – definitely worth reading.
Note: A copy of this book was provided by the Author
